Commentary: November public engagement session falls short of answering community concerns.
Ed.: The essays, analyses and opinions presented as Community Voices express the perspectives of their authors on topics of interest and importance to the community, and are not intended to reflect perspectives on behalf of Salish Current.
We are Whatcom County residents who attended the Nov. 20, 2025, Public Engagement Session on the Justice Project in Ferndale. We have a lot of different ideas about how the county could move forward on these issues but are unanimously convinced more than ever that this proposed jail is the wrong path for our community’s future.
To begin, it should be understood that this event was not designed to receive public input but rather was an attempt by vested interests to propagandize on behalf of the project design that benefits them the most. The format was like a science fair with a series of separate tables, and it’s worth reviewing some of what we witnessed at each of them.
At the Site station, Jason from RMC Architects explained that the chosen site is “squishy,” in need of a great deal of engineering to mitigate flood risk that will disturb wetlands and is essentially across the street from where Trump’s ICE plots raids on our neighbors. We were disappointed to hear that the lifespan of this facility is only projected to be about as long as it will take to pay off the bonds we’ll take out to build it. Perhaps most disturbingly, the architect admitted there were Indigenous archaeological artifacts on the site but had not consulted with local tribes on whether those potentially sacred sites should be left alone.
At the Jail Facility station, like the Site station, there were no opportunities to record public input. However, there was an employee from the Whatcom County Jail there who made troubling claims like “we presume someone booked into the jail has committed a crime,” in contrast to the presumption of innocence that underlies the legal system in other parts of the United States.
At the What’s in Your Jar? station, we had the opportunity to fill jars with stones that represented different aspects of the Justice Project that we could invest in. The activity asked us to consider the trade-offs involved when funds are limited. What this station made most clear is that, given the current budgetary environment, every jail bed that gets built will take resources directly away from the health, safety and wellbeing of the residents of Whatcom County.
Our most heartening experiences occurred at the Behavioral Health Center station, where we heard a viable plan to build an out-of-custody facility much cheaper than a jail that could keep a substantial portion of people currently in the system out of it. The concern that rose again and again here was that some county leaders want to invest in such a facility only after spending several times more on the mega jail in the floodplain.
Many of us did take advantage of the opportunity to talk directly to elected officials at this event, and we appreciate those who made themselves available. We’ll repeat our message for you in case we haven’t been clear: the La Bounty Road jail has never been an acceptable plan, and it’s not too late to save the county’s future by taking the Justice Project in a different direction. Investing in renovations, diversion and out-of-custody services will preclude the need for a costly new facility.
We remain concerned that the planners of this jail have no ideas on how to reduce the racial inequalities that persist in the current system. We are also worried about how the county will pay for this facility and the new costs it will create given declining sales tax revenues, increased costs due to inflation and limited space for expansion in the county’s operating budget.
Lastly, we’d like to encourage the planners of the next public engagement session to not station a dozen armed and uniformed police officers inside the room if you hope to welcome a broad segment of our community.
Until elected officials start to listen, we’ll keep asking them to give us a new plan consistent with our values on environmentalism, racial justice and evolving past the era of mass incarceration. Then this county can start building things of which we can truly be proud.
— Written by: Whatcom Peace and Justice Center, February 2026:
Josh Cerretti, Aline Prata, Isabel Roubicek, Harmony DeVaney, Sonja Lerner, Kaia Gilje and Megan McAllister
Also read in Salish Current:
• “How big should Whatcom County’s new jail be? Part 2,” Feb. 11, 2026
• “How big should Whatcom County’s new jail be? Part 1,” Feb. 10, 2026
• “Whatcom’s LEAD program offers lifeline, faces limits,” Aug. 7, 2025
• “New Whatcom County jail could face decreased funding,” May 27, 2025
• “Jail, behavioral health, community policing challenge new sheriff,” May 16, 2024
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