Amy Nelson

Community Voices: “Restoring public confidence in elections is a concern for every one of us, regardless of party.”

The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in shifting hours and sales, to comply with shifting state-ordered public health mandates to keep businesses and their customers safe from the virus. But not every business complies.

For over a century, hydroelectricity has provided the Pacific Northwest with clean energy. Can we meet the challenge of living better electrically with greener energy?

The one thousand unique and fragile acres of the San Juan Islands National Monument wait for a plan to outline the next 20 years of protection and recreation.

An effort to steer future development at Whatcom County’s primary industrial center away from fossil fuels while providing regulatory certainty is inching closer to completion with the help of an unlikely partnership between environment and industry interests.

Local dailies in Northwest Washington are turning into ghosts — ghost newspapers, existing in name but no longer having the staff or the commitment to cover local and regional news. The trend is part of a national crisis that’s been accelerating at warp speed since 1990.

The Padilla Bay Freshwater Tributary Fecal Coliform Total Maximal Daily Load (TMDL) Report is due to be submitted by Ecology to the Environmental Protection Agency at the end of 2020 and lists fecal coliform bacteria sources and strategies for cleanup.

Soon-to-be-realized funding reductions from the City of Bellingham, combined with the economic hardships of pandemic restrictions, have had a profoundly negative effect on the local arts community.

Whatcom County farmers say they view water rights adjudication as an existential threat to their future, in their long-term battle to maintain farming as part of the local economy and culture.

Hospice of the Northwest serves about 190 patients a day in San Juan, Skagit, Snohomish and Island counties. With a possible sale of the local nonprofit to a national for-profit, community members are worried about the potential impact on services.

When the COVID-19 pandemic emerged, responsibilities of the Port of Bellingham Board of Commissioners changed, to focus on keeping local businesses afloat through the economic downturn.

Salish Current, a startup local news nonprofit organized to provide more local journalism in Whatcom, San Juan and Skagit counties is participating in a national giving campaign that runs through December. The site’s mission is to provide information needed in order to make informed choices about civic life and to strengthen democracy.

Paramilitary organizations are illegal in Washington and many other states. But laws meant to stop the formation of ad hoc armies are archaic and vague, so much so that police and prosecutors who have recently had the opportunity to use them describe them as unenforceable.

The complex issue of religious freedom as it relates to the gathering of believers during our pandemic times has been in the news these past months as certain religious groups reject the State’s role in limiting events to certain numbers and locations.

After 54 years in operation, the Intalco smelter near Ferndale this summer stopped producing aluminum, put hundreds out of work and sent shockwaves through the community. The pain cut deep but may point a way to cleaner, more competitive heavy industry.

As a reporter for Salish Current, I reached out to WA3%’s website in September, looking to speak with a Whatcom County chapter member. I wanted to know who these members were in our community, how they had come to believe what they believe and how they see themselves.