August 16, 2017 Wendy Harris Action
The [Whatcom] county staff and council are not including the proper legal standard for CAO [Critical Areas Ordinance] protection. We must protect critical areas and the ecosystems in which they are located against a net loss of ecological function and value. Instead, the county limits review to critical areas to the development site, and maybe a short distance beyond (I am not sure if this has been changed.)
Tell the county to follow the law. Continue reading
August 2, 2017 Dena Jensen
On Saturday July 22, 2017 Community to Community Development posted a live-feed of their Family Forum for Community Safety that was held that evening at the Bellingham Public Library.
Near the end of the event, the facilitator, Rosalinda Guillen of Community to Community Devolopment, explained why she was being direct and public with this discussion. She said that people are concerned about the federal government finding ways to impose immigration regulations and to make the county sheriff comply with immigration enforcement. Whatcom County Sheriff Bill Elfo responded, indicating that federal officials had already tried to exert pressure and impose regulations, but that his sheriff’s office had said no and that they would continue to say no to federal mandates. Continue reading
The proposition to create an advisory ballot measure to be voted on in November to seek citizen input on eminent domain being used by oil pipeline companies did not pass at the Tuesday, July 25, County Council Meeting. Council Members Browne, Weimer, and Brenner abstained and Council Member Mann was absent, so the motion failed. Thank you to all who spoke to and wrote in to the County Council about this topic. Continue reading
Click the text graphic to read the full proposed resolution on the Whatcom County website.
PUBLIC HEARING NEXT TUESDAY BEFORE COUNTY COUNCIL ON WHETHER THIS SHOULD GO ON BALLOT.
HASN’T THE THE FOSSIL FUEL INDUSTRY ENDANGERED PUBLIC HEALTH AND SAFETY ENOUGH ALREADY? TELL COUNCIL WE DO NOT NEED OR WANT CHERRY POINT EXPANSION, MORE PIPELINES, MORE TRAINS AND MORE SHIPS. Continue reading
On Monday, July 10, The Vera Institute presented its preliminary data findings on the Whatcom County justice system at a special meeting of the Incarceration Prevention and Reduction Task Force (IPRTF). It took months for the Vera Institute to obtain the necessary data on the County Jail population in 2016, but the results confirmed stunning racial disparities in the jailed population, as well as a sizable pre-trial population that could be significantly reduced with the use of evidence-based methods of incarceration prevention. Continue reading
June 8, 2017 Dena Jensen
At the Public Hearing at next week’s County Council Meeting on Tuesday June 13 at 7 p.m. (rally at 6:00 beforehand), it seems our comments on jail bed numbers (the number of people we envision being incarcerated in our county in the future) need to be based on all the best statistical data we have in our private-citizen hands that supports that we now have all the tools at our disposal, and will continue to have more, that will allow a reduction in the number of people we are incarcerating and that we are ready to begin a new age that abandons our failed justice system. Continue reading
May 3, 2017 Sandy Robson
Copied and pasted below, and shown in attached screenshot photos, are my recent email communications with County Planning and Development Services Assistant Director Mark Personius, about the Resolution (2017-019) that County Council approved on April 18, 2017, requesting the state legislature to amend the Growth Management Act, relating to the Washington Supreme Court decision on the Hirst et al. case. My initial curiosity regarding the origin of the resolution was borne out of my having listened to part of the audio recording of the April 18, Council Natural Resources Committee meeting, during which Council members seemed to be unaware of who proposed the resolution. Continue reading
April 28, 2017 Dena Jensen
Below is a letter I sent to Whatcom County Council Member Barbara Brenner regarding a statement she made at the April 18, 2017 Whatcom County Council Meeting related to a Department of Ecology report on exempt wells. The Council was voting that night on interim amendments to the Whatcom County Comprehensive plan pertaining to the Hirst decision. Continue reading
April 15, 2016 Dena Jensen
Dear Whatcom County Council:
I am sending this email for you to earnestly consider during your review of the Cherry Point Amendments to Whatcom County’s Comprehensive Plan and the Critical Areas Ordinance. The information below is why it is critical that expanded vessel shipping going anywhere out of Cherry Point is, at this time particularly, unacceptable. Thus, this is another reason it is critical that the County include the study in the Cherry Point Amendments that will help the County find legal ways to limit the export of unrefined fossil fuels, above current levels, out of Cherry Point. Continue reading
Click the graphic above to view the full April 5, 2017 Memorandum from Gary Davis, Whatcom County Senior Planner, “Impervious Surface and Animal Husbandry Proposals”
April 9, 2017 Wendy Harris
While the county continues to seek state legislative fixes to the Hirst decision, and at all costs avoid its obligation to actually plan, the county is still under a court imposed obligation to come into compliance with the GMA, and protect rural water quality and quantity. (Yes, somehow with all the hysterical theatrics that surrounds this decision, it is easy to forget that it is, after all, a GMA compliance case). Continue reading
noisy waters northwest 
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