Governance

A law to make state education funding more equitable has had the opposite effect in the San Juan Islands. While San Juan property owners are paying more in state education taxes, less funding is going towards local schools.

In Bellingham, some local racial justice advocacy groups transitioned their demands from over the summer to budget season, looking for tangible proof that their representatives heard their calls for change over the last six months.

While we as citizens may chafe at what seems like an inordinately slow process, this waiting period offers an opportunity to reflect on the brilliance of our elections system.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Born in New York City, Tony Ayer moved to St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands, at age eight. After going to school in the States, he returned to St. Croix where he spent 75 years. Nnow 83 years old, this weekend, for the first time in his life, he cast his ballot in the U.S. Presidential election.