June 1, 2023 Dena Jensen
Here’s some information relevant to funding for recommended actions related to behavioral health services and facilities, among other things, in the draft Justice Project Implementation Plan. (Link to the draft plan: https://www.whatcomcounty.us/…/Implementation-Plan… ) Whatcom County’s Incarceration Prevention and Reduction Task Force is seeking feedback from community members about the draft implementation plan, now through June 11, 2023.
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May 1, 2023 Dena Jensen
Over the next few months, our community will have a more intensive opportunity to review and speak out about the process (and outcome of that process) by which Whatcom County Council has come to accept recommendations, and potentially propose funding, for a new jail along with mental and behavioral health services related to incarceration and reducing and preventing incarceration.
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March 8, 2023 Dena Jensen
In this blog post, folks can find the meeting minutes for all of Whatcom County Council’s 2022 Committee of the Whole meetings that can be browsed or searched for information of interest related to that committee’s proceedings. This is the second group of government agency committee meeting minutes I have assembled, having previously put together posts with minutes of one year of Bellingham City Council Committee of the Whole meetings, along with a couple years of regular council meetings for Whatcom County and City of Bellingham.
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March 6, 2023 Dena Jensen
In this post – which will be a work in progress during the course of this year – you’ll find the content of the Whatcom County Council regular meeting minutes that have been approved so far for 2023, here in one place. This allows folks to search on things like key words, topics, dates, public hearings, and people’s names. For each meeting date, a link is also provided near the top of that edition of minutes to access the agenda and media associated with that particular meeting.
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March 6, 2023 Dena Jensen
On February 21, 2021 Whatcom County Council voted 7-0 to approve a resolution accepting the the Justice Project Needs Assessment Report. The report includes many recommendations developed during the Stakeholder Advisory Committee needs assessment process, including one to “build a new jail.” The County will now be moving forward with an implementation plan. The resolution states that part of the plan will be efforts to hear our input.
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February 16, 2023 Dena Jensen
Time to call on Whatcom County Council Members to be proactive in making sheltering a priority. Contact info is at the bottom of this post.
With forecasted lows in the 20s starting to show up for next week this time, it’s all the more relevant to consider the on-the-fly severe weather shelter update that Whatcom County Health Department’s Community Health and Services Manager Ann Beck gave to Whatcom County Council’s 2/7/23 Finance and Administrative Services Committee which I’m including in this post.
Continue readingJanuary 26, 2023 Dena Jensen
Two years worth of Whatcom County Council searchable meeting minutes (2021 and 2022) are now available here on Noisy Waters Northwest. This post continues to build on a project of assembling local government meeting minutes into year-long batches that can be searched for material like terms or actions of the members of the body that is meeting.
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January 22, 2023 Dena Jensen
This post continues to build on a project of assembling local government meeting minutes into year-long batches that can be searched for material like terms or actions of the members of the body that is meeting.
This election year there are lots of Whatcom County and municipal positions to be filled. So it seems like a good time to make the resources we have to observe existing government officials’ positions and actions more easily accessible and effectively useful, when possible.
December 5, 2022 Dena Jensen
In this post is an email I sent last night regarding tomorrow’s 12/6/22 Whatcom County Council Committee of the Whole meeting. The COW agenda says Council will be discussing general meeting rules. It is left to community members who have some experience on where to find more details, to learn that apparently this discussion is to be solely focused on limiting our time to speak at their meetings. It would have taken very few extra words to say that on the agenda. Here is the link to the memo for the meeting: https://whatcom.legistar.com/View.ashx?M=F&ID=11493559&GUID=01A69383-70BC-41D5-A732-01A369E4CD18
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November 27, 2022 Dena Jensen
Sent: Sunday, November 27, 2022, 07:30:34 PM PST
Subject: Update on previous email related to information and activation for accessible severe weather sheltering
Dear Whatcom County Health Department, Whatcom County Council, and Whatcom County Executive Sidhu:
Below my signature line, I am including a copy of the email I sent you earlier today regarding information on the County website and various social media pages related to severe weather shelters being available.
I wanted to write again on a related matter having to do with the recording on the night by night shelter hotline, at 360-788-7983.
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