June 19, 2024 Dena Jensen
“Things are trying to suppress it, right?” That was a remark made by a Bellingham City Council Member to the City’s Immigration Advisory Board members back in 2021. The context and specific timing will be made clear later in this post, but the question evokes an atmosphere of oppression that too many members of marginalized communities dwell within.
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It’s been awhile since we’ve seen significant action from Whatcom County Council toward activating more resources to increase County-managed homeless sheltering capacity. Although some strides had been made by Whatcom County government in activating their own emergency severe weather shelter in 2023/2024, the impact of that critical effort was dwarfed by the increase in people who found themselves living outside when the rain, snow, ice, and winds struck during that time.
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April 20, 2024
Hopefully none of us will ever become numb to instances where government officials, business owners, or any other kinds of organization leadership minimize harassment of employees in the workplace, and/or try to conceal that harassment. The victims of the harassment pay a heavy price that can plague them in numerous ways for years and perhaps for life.
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March 27, 2024 Dena Jensen
During her Mayor’s Report at the March 11, 2024 Bellingham City Council meeting, Bellingham Mayor Kim Lund had announced that at the next City Council meeting the Administration was going to bring forward a Boards and Commissions Expectations document “to establish clear expectations about the important work that these groups do.” At Bellingham’s City Council meeting this week on March 25, that did not happen.
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February 23, 2024 Dena Jensen
[This introduction was corrected with information on March 20, 2024. The corrected section is noted below within the relevant section of the introduction to this series. It is placed in brackets, in italics, with the date that the correction was made.]
It took less than one minute at the end of the Bellingham City Council’s February 12, 2024 regular meeting for Council Members’ final consideration of an ordinance to suspend the City’s Immigration Advisory Board. The ordinance was approved 6-1, with recently elected, first-term City Council Member Jace Cotton casting the only dissenting vote.
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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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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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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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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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noisy waters northwest 
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