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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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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Whatcom County’s 2023 pro-jail PAC lets their inaccurate allegations stand/ Noisy Waters Northwest

September 28, 2023 Dena Jensen

We can try, right? And keep trying. Because even when we fail, we learn.

If elected officials and those leading the charge in the political campaign to promote funds to prioritize building a new jail – and in a few years a few new services don’t make amends for inaccuracies in media assertions that can marginalize and discredit, not only people they have worked with on the Justice Project, but an array of voices promoting an end to injustice against themselves and/or their communities, then we discover a bad sign, on top of others, regarding at least some of those pro-new-jail political action committee (PAC) members and the project they are pushing. It helps offer another confirmation to our sense that there is some bad faith in the mix, and to an increasing degree.

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Injustice in Whatcom County: the push to marginalize continues / Noisy Waters Northwest

September 17, 2023 Dena Jensen

It’s unfortunate and disappointing that ballot measure sales tax proponents Peter Frazier and Stephen Gockley are making some misleading and inaccurate assertions such as the ones below from sections of their September 15, 2023 guest commentary, “Voters can have both: a safe jail and more treatment,” in Cascadia Daily News:  

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