Welcome to Noisy Waters Northwest! Many facts, figures, stories, and perspectives are, sadly, often unheralded in Whatcom County, Washington. Click on the title of items on our story board for a refreshing splash of information that won’t be held back. There is a search page to search all information on this blog site. All posts note their categories of commentary or news related content. Continue reading
Public safety should mean safety at work too / Noisy Waters Northwest
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.
Continue readingStill no movement from Bellingham toward dignity for Immigration Advisory Board members / Noisy Waters Northwest
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.
Continue readingThat’s not a fact: one recital in the ordinance to suspend Bellingham’s Immigration Advisory Board / Noisy Waters Northwest
March 22, 2024 Dena Jensen
We have passed the second month now that community members, who have been serving on Bellingham’s Immigration Advisory Board, have not been allowed to meet to continue their work to request and analyze data to determine compliance with the Keep Washington Working Act, along with facilitating community involvement and discussions on regional immigration issues.
Continue readingIntroduction – An imposition of indignity: the tale and trail of Bellingham’s immigration board suspension ordinance / Noisy Waters Northwest
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.
Continue readingAsk Bellingham officials to adopt the ordinance proposed by the Immigration Advisory Board / Noisy Waters Northwest
February 10, 2024 Dena Jensen
The Bellingham City Council will take its final vote on whether to approve an ordinance to suspend the Immigration Advisory Board at their 7:00 p.m. regular meeting on Monday, February 12, 2024. The vote is scheduled to be the Council’s final item of business that night before open session Public Comment and Adjournment. Here is a link to the agenda: https://meetings.cob.org/Meetings/ViewMeeting?id=3124&doctype=1
Since the vote has not yet been taken, however, we still have a chance to weigh in and take a David-worthy shot at the Goliath of City determination to sideline work on critical immigration issues. The suspension likely will be at least for a period beyond the six month estimate for a first report from the City administration on how post-suspension interactions about the fate of the IAB are going.
Whatcom task force on incarceration explores needs for expanding diversion and recovery services / Noisy Waters Northwest
January 19, 2024 Dena Jensen
I’m through the first hour of listening to the 1/16/24 Behavioral Health Subcommittee meeting of the Whatcom County Incarceration and Prevention Taskforce. In the earlier part of the meeting, the committee was discussing various programs and practices to impact the unusually high number of folks in our jails right now who are not being assessed and treated in a timely manner that allows them to be mentally competent to stand trial. In other words these are folks who likely need to be taking medications in order to accurately understand and withstand a court proceeding in which they are charged with offenses.
Continue readingFarmworkers return to the Capitol for the 11th Annual Farmworker Tribunal: La Lucha Sigue! The Struggle Continues! / Press Release
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.
Continue readingTuesday meeting focus will be suspension of Bellingham’s first advisory board on immigration / Noisy Waters Northwest
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.
Continue readingCity Council stopped engaging with public on Engage Bellingham / Noisy Waters Northwest
January 10, 2024 Dena Jensen
Here’s a little update on part of the January 8, 2023 Bellingham City Council Committee of the Whole meeting related to a couple community areas of interest.
Old and New Business (for which topics are not shown on the agenda ahead of time) took up most of the hour-long meeting. This was where the first 3 items on the Consent Agenda for the evening were pulled out for further discussion by Council Member Stone, including the one about a contract for a Bellingham Police Departement Drug and Crime Prevention Officer that is housed within the Bellingham Housing Authority.
Continue readingBellingham City Council offers no dignity to current Immigration Advisory Board: rough notes from 1/2/24 meeting / Noisy Waters Northwest
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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