Farmworkers return to the Capitol for the 11th Annual Farmworker Tribunal: La Lucha Sigue! The Struggle Continues! / Press Release

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Photo by Edgar Franks – Image download available at https://drive.google.com/file/d/1TI5VI1Z0vlMXxBhZMG0pvqL8NbxfrEtI/view?usp=drivesdk

January 17, 2024 Press Release, Community to Community Development and Families Unidas por la Justia

OLYMPIA, WASHINGTON- 

Media Contacts: Edgar Franks – edgar.franx@gmail.com   (360) 972-5412 

Rosalinda Guillen   rosalindag@foodjustice.org  (360) 381-0293

Liz Darrow – Jan 23rd on site in Olympia (360) 220-9065

Farmworkers are essential to our food system. Yet they are still the poorest in the state. Just four years ago during the pandemic they were declared essential; while farmworkers kept food on the table for you during that crisis their wages did not go up.  

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Tuesday meeting focus will be suspension of Bellingham’s first advisory board on immigration / Noisy Waters Northwest

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Video Capture of the opening slide in the City of Bellingham’s Immigration Advisory Board November 7, 2022 presentation to the City Council’s Committee of the Whole on a proposed Immigrant Resource Center

January 13, 2024 Dena Jensen

Just after the New Year, on January 2, 2024, during the Bellingham City Council’s reorganization meeting, where Council Members take on their committee, board, and commission assignments, the Council took the unusual step of holding their first public discussion of a completed draft ordinance to suspend the City of Bellingham’s Immigration Advisory Board (IAB). There was no option provided for open public comment at this meeting, and a translator, having only been sought out related to a request for one, was not available. The discussion that day was for information only, with potential to revisit the ordinance on January 29.

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Bellingham City Council offers no dignity to current Immigration Advisory Board: rough notes from 1/2/24 meeting / Noisy Waters Northwest

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January 2, 2024 Dena Jensen

During about 30-35 minutes of January 2, 2024 discussion by Bellingham City Council Members of an ordinance to suspend the City’s Immigration Advisory Board, virtually not one positive thing was said about the current IAB – many of whose members are immigrants – or its volume of work over the last four years. New Council Member Jace Cotton did say he’d like to see the current board continue to meet. 

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City of Bellingham’s Immigration Advisory Board needs your support! / Noisy Waters Northwest

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Click the graphic text to access the January 2, 2024 Bellingham City Council regular meeting agenda


December 30, 2023 Dena Jensen

Remember when Whatcom County officials suddenly shut down the Homeless Strategies Workgroup? The threat of a similar action now looms over the IAB. 

Please bear witness to the Bellingham City Council Meeting this coming Tuesday, January 2, 2024 at 3:00 p.m. where Council Members will be discussing the draft of an ordinance “Suspending All Future Meetings of the Immigration Advisory Board (IAB) and Its Subcommittees Until City Council Adopts an Ordinance Rescinding the Suspension.” 

Here is a link to the agenda: https://meetings.cob.org/Meetings/ViewMeeting?id=3121&doctype=1

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Whatcom jail campaign season is over, but what will be its legacy? / Letter to the Incarceration Prevention and Reduction Task Force

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Click the image of the Wikipedia webpage on Dog whistle (politics) to access the information on the Wikipedia website

November 11, 2023 Dena Jensen

Below is the email I sent to the Whatcom County Incarceration Prevention and Reduction Task Force today:

Sent: Saturday, November 11, 2023, 12:06:47 PM PST

Subject: Whatcom jail campaign season is over but what will be its legacy?

Dear Incarceration Prevention and Reduction Task Force:

It seems apparent that a majority of voters have agreed to an increase in sales tax to fund a new Whatcom County Jail and the other projects noted in the ordinance for the tax associated with Proposition 2023-4. Now that Election Day has passed, I wanted to make sure you were aware of an action the YES! Safe Jail, Healthy Outcomes Political Action Committee took near the end of their campaign to support the sales tax. 

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People of under-represented communities and their advocates continue in struggle for services over jail / Noisy Waters Northwest

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Click the image containing pages from “No New Jail in Whatcom County” to access the complete September 2023 online zine.

October 28, 2023 Dena Jensen

It’s closing in on a year ago since Whatcom County’s Justice Project evaluated their needs assessment process according to a toolkit provided by the Local and Regional Government Alliance on Race and Equity.

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Whatcom County is falling behind in providing winter sheltering options / Letter to the Whatcom County Council

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Click the screenshot to access 2023 Winter sheltering information on the Whatcom County website

October 26, 2023 Dena Jensen

Sent: Thursday, October 26, 2023, 05:00:11 PM PDT

Subject: We are behind in supplying capacity with our emergency shelter options for this cold weather season

Dear Whatcom County Council:

I am glad for your new Facebook page and saw your post today regarding the Severe Weather Shelter that Whatcom County will be operating.  I am also grateful for the hard work of Whatcom County Health and Community Services to help provide some safety for people who have no other options but to live outside this winter. It is encouraging that Whatcom County has transcended the misguided 2021 recommendation for the County to *not* operate sheltering options after that year.

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Whatcom jail locks up more unserved BIPOC people: Vote no on a 2023 tax for an unplanned new jail / Noisy Waters Northwest

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Click the screenshot of a section on page 14 of the 2023 Whatcom County Justice Project Needs Assessment to access the information in the full document.

October 18, 2023 Dena Jensen

[Editors Note: I submitted this commentary to Cascadia Daily News two weeks ago on October 4, 2023, after they had published a three-week string of guest commentaries praising the 2023 ballot measure sales tax to build a new Whatcom County jail. After 2 more weeks of pro-jail-tax commentaries and finally, two jail-tax related ones today, one for it and one that opposed the tax, I noticed on the two published this morning there was an editor’s note on both, saying CDN would not be publishing any more guest commentaries about the jail tax, “with most relevant issues seemingly covered.” So here’s mine right back here in my own publication with issues related to the tax that seem relevant to me.]

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Satpal Sidhu responds to PDC Complaint regarding 2023 ballot measure to fund Whatcom jail / Noisy Waters Northwest

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October 13, 2023 Dena Jensen

A little further down in this post I am going to include images, links, and text related to the Public Disclosure complaint I filed against Whatcom County Executive Satpal Sidhu on September 25, 2023, citing a potential violation of RCW 42.17A.555, for supporting or opposing a ballot proposition during a public meeting.

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