Editor,
Having spent knowledgeable lifetime concerned in public points and coverage, I retired in my hometown of Bellingham in 2015. On the time a measure was on the poll calling for brand new taxes to pay for a brand new county jail. Coincidentally I visited the previous St. Luke’s hospital, the place I had been born, a several-story constructing with two safe flooring put aside for these with psychological well being and drug issues. It had two giant, vacant parking heaps adjoining to it. Would possibly this be a web site for a brand new county jail? I requested a metropolis official about it however received a clean stare.
The jail was rejected by voters that 12 months and once more two years later. Now it’s on the poll once more however with out dependable price estimates or a design. Because it occurs I additionally spend time in a central Arizona metropolis; a conservative, law-and-order place, the place voters lately have financed new metropolis and county jails the place the earlier jails had been a lot newer than the current county jail right here.
Is the brand new jail proposal responding to a real want for modernization? Or does it mirror a basic change in opinion local weather in mild of homelessness, drug use and road crime which has not existed in prior years? I’ve not personally seen the current nation jail inside. Is it now extra harmful and inadequate than when it was constructed 40 years in the past? We’ve been supplied no info main us to consider that it’s. Nor, as talked about, have we seen dependable price estimates or a design plan.
New jails are being constructed due to basic public unease about public security. However are new jails the reply to that? I’ll vote no in November on the jail proposal. County officers then ought to have a look at want, price, siting proposals, and an architect’s design for the proposed facility. The place to start out earlier than mandating new taxes for a brand new jail.
Ted Van Dyk
Bellingham
Editor,
As I learn the article on the proposed jail (CDN, Aug. 6, 2023) I used to be reminded of the outdated adage: A multifunctional software will carry out no perform adequately.
The brand new jail is meant to supply for violent criminals, non-violent criminals, the mentally unwell, and the drug afflicted. It could possibly’t be executed.
I consider most voters can be keen to pay taxes to construct a facility that may lock up violent criminals till they are often sentenced to jail. (Jail and jail should not synonymous.) Likewise, most voters can be keen to have a jail to accommodate nonviolent criminals for the quick time period. However I don’t suppose {that a} jail must also be a psychological well being facility or a drug rehab middle.
If the voters resolve that we additionally want a tax-funded psychological well being facility, let’s construct one. In the event that they resolve we want a tax-funded drug rehab middle, let’s construct a type of. It should be acknowledged, although, that the personnel wanted to run all these different varieties of amenities require very different coaching. It’s ludicrous to suppose that one individual can deal with all varieties of issues.
Likewise, our police officers shouldn’t must be both psychiatrists or drug counselors. Once they arrest somebody, that individual needs to be delivered to some form of central triage middle so a dedication may very well be made as to the place they actually belong.
Up to now the “planning” for the brand new no matter it’s has been a catastrophe. Many questions have been requested; none have been answered. Till they’re, nothing concerning the “jail” needs to be on the poll.
Ira Penn
Bellingham
Editor,
Cascadia Day by day Information regularly performs host to letters endorsing numerous candidates for workplace all through Bellingham and larger Whatcom County. After seeing the first outcomes of the Blaine Faculty Board election, I’m hoping one of many greater than 1,000 voters who solid a poll for Tana Perkins Reneau can be keen to retroactively write an endorsement letter in help of their candidate for the advantage of CDN’s readership. [Reneau, a former teacher, pleaded not guilty to felony charges of child rape, abuse and incest at a June hearing.]
As a type of readers, maybe I’m lacking some perspective that would function a studying alternative past what this paper has already written in regards to the candidate in different contexts.
Helpful particulars would come with why the voter valued this candidacy, and the way they hoped Ms. Reneau’s management would profit the youngsters of Blaine when the accusations towards her appear to point there had been little profit to her involvement along with her personal youngsters.
Chris Resor
Vancouver, WA
Editor,
Kudos to [Cascadia Daily News reporter] Ralph Schwartz for his collection on the jail. It was well-written and clearly well-researched. The scope of each the issues and the potential options is larger than I beforehand understood. Thanks for opening my eyes slightly wider.
Invoice Dowe
Bellingham
Editor,
Has the Washington Division of Ecology forgotten its mission? On the identical time that Ecology declared a drought in Whatcom County, the division largely ignored a blatant theft of water by a farmer who illegally irrigated 40 acres for 2 years. Though being provided “technical help a number of occasions, and being issued a cease-and-desist order,” the farmer continued to irrigate.
Given this outrageous violation of state water regulation, Ecology fined the farmer $12,000, equal to about $120/acre-foot. This puny tremendous doesn’t even cowl the possible market value of water in Whatcom County and positively not the worth of water. And it isn’t a lot of a tremendous, extra a modest price of doing enterprise.
If Whatcom water provides had been plentiful, salmon had been thriving, and Orca had been nicely fed, this Ecology motion would possibly make sense. However given the realities of local weather change and its antagonistic results on our native water sources, Ecology’s measly tremendous is an insult to law-abiding residents and the setting.
Eric Hirst
Bellingham
Editor,
One remark in regards to the present-day Republican get together, regionally and nationally, can’t be repeated or emphasised sufficient. That’s their whole lack of disgrace at their main candidate’s habits or at finest their unwillingness to name out these of their get together who search to erase lots of of years of progress within the pursuit of a extra excellent union. Additional, simply calling them out shouldn’t be sufficient, they have to be unelected and lots of by no means allowed to run for workplace once more.
This weak-kneed strategy to saying they don’t agree with the likes of Trump and his swarm of vermin, after which once they get within the privateness of the voting act, vote for him and his consummately both addled or downright evil ilk, does no honor to our nation’s historical past or that of the GOP.
And in what twisted life, faith, or world view does making progress as a nation, or being enlightened and woke up to the false historical past and poor excuses for behaving as fascists and fools, in some way turn into a pursuit worthy of criticizing?
Obfuscations, denial, self-delusion, cluelessness, or obliviousness, don’t do Republican views any method of justice…and solely emphasize how far astray from their very own principals and integrity they’ve strayed.
Although in my life I’ve typically disagreed with a lot of their stances and conclusions, I keep in mind a time once they at the least behaved as adults and other people of mind and compassion. Please deliver that again and stop all this nonsense that strives to show us into one thing we aren’t, nor have ever been.
Michael Waite
Sedro-Woolley
Editor,
An article about proposed modifications to the Skagit agritourism code (CDN, Aug. 2, 2023) raised a nagging crimson flag for me, and so I’m passing it alongside to my a lot beloved and deeply appreciated Cascadia Day by day Information. The article stories on the battle generated by a proposed code change, however fails to say something substantive in regards to the underlying difficulty. One aspect claims that with out the modifications, “Agriculture in Skagit County, as we all know it, will likely be gone ceaselessly.” One other says the modifications “…would devastate the native financial system.”
I cherish the native farms and worth the native financial system, however I haven’t received a clue, primarily based on the article, what downside the code modifications are meant to unravel. Apparently, it has one thing to do with how farm buildings are used, however is it a public well being concern? A taxation difficulty? Unfair enterprise practices? An insensitivity to the gender id of cows? I suppose it’s all the time information when individuals are combating, however let’s additionally attempt to discover room for what they’re combating about.
Scott Miller
Bellingham
Editor,
I loved seeing an article in CDN about biking. I used to be considerably disenchanted it was written partially from the “you possibly can drive after which park right here to experience your bike” perspective. I and lots of are attempting to encourage people to experience for errands, get locations for leisure such because the fitness center, yoga, seeing pals, regardless of the case could also be. That is to lower the variety of automobiles on the highway, improve the standard of life (ah, contemporary air and never in battle mode in a automotive), and basic well being.
In the event you’re ever on the lookout for a function concept, I might suggest speaking to Whatcom County Good Journeys, the Stroll and Roll residents group, Whatcom County Bike/Pedestrian Advisory Committee, and possibly Bellingham Greenways. I believe it will be worthwhile to attempt to inform readers about biking as a mode of transportation. In spite of everything, many CDN readers reside inside a few miles of a number of the trails that had been talked about within the present story and actually needn’t drive to experience their bikes.
Good Journeys provides a number of free lessons, reminiscent of Assured Metropolis Biking 1 and a pair of, Teen Lifetime journey class and bike upkeep. They provide ride-a-longs to present folks suggestions. They provide telephone consultations. They are going to come to locations of employment and colleges to present group lessons. They have been round for about 12 years and are funded by the Metropolis of Bellingham, Whatcom Council of Governments, and state and nationwide funding and grants. A very good contact is Michelle Grandy.
Stroll and Roll is new, spearheaded by a number of devoted people making an attempt to broaden lively transportation by way of training, tremendous simple, enjoyable no-pressure group rides (Thursday Sluggish Rolls) and infrastructure. They’re actively serving to to information town’s lively transportation grasp plans. A very good contact is Laura Weiss or Robin Thomas.
The county’s bike/pedestrian advisory committee (of which I am a member) is just like Stroll and Roll in that we search to enhance bikeability and walkability exterior of town limits by way of infrastructure and training. We advise the county on initiatives and suggestions. We’ve a precedence record of initiatives and are engaged on county-wide route maps. Good contacts are the co-chairs: Sonja Max and Stephen Zylstra.
Pete Sharp
Bellingham
Editor,
Have you ever had sufficient?
Are you mad as hell … and never going to take it anymore?
Do you endure from protracted PTSD (Psychopathic Trump Stress Dysfunction)?
Has the rancorous cacophony, drowning out fundamental civility and affordable and rational discourse, stuffed you with a profound sense of despair?
Then this can be a direct and pressing enchantment to you, my fellow women and men of goodwill to summon the Higher Angels of our nature.
Our job: to mobilize the center to vote … to protect and shield our democratic beliefs.
That quiescent, typically silent, 40 p.c center demographic, straddling the 2 polar extremes, open to affordable, civil debate on a shared set of information and truths.
We’re at an inflection level in America … on the crossroads of the survival of democracy and by extension, the planet, racing towards the precipice of the Seventh Mass Extinction of civilization.
Can we select the sunshine of hope, civility and inclusivity over the darkness of divisiveness, cynicism, violence, and anarchy?
Can we resolve our variations by way of chilly civil debate…or violent scorching civil struggle?
However the historical past of social justice evokes that the unusual braveness of frequent, however not abnormal people … identical to your self, reminds us to always remember the sage phrases of anthropologist Margaret Mead:
“By no means doubt {that a} small group of considerate, dedicated residents can change the world; certainly, it is the one factor that ever has.”
Michael Kominsky
Bellingham
Letters to the Editor are revealed on-line Wednesdays and a range is revealed in print Fridays. Ship Letters to the Editor to letters@cascadiadaily.com, due Tuesdays at 10 a.m. Guidelines: Most 250 phrases, have some extent and make it clearly. CDN reserves the fitting to edit letters for size, readability, grammar and elegance, and private assaults or offensive content material. Letters needs to be submitted with an deal with/telephone quantity to confirm the author’s id (not for publication).
