The Editor:
Wondering why the Blaine Harbor Music Festival evening performances are not showcased at the Blaine Harbor music shell?
The weather is beautiful in July, sunsets are late, the surrounding berm ideal for picnic suppers. Seems like the perfect venue!
Diana Warner
Blaine
The Editor:
The Riveters Collective Justice System Committee believes that everyone deserves a safe community, regardless of where they live, the color of their skin or their income. We can have that without excessive punishment, excessive policing, our rights rolled back or fear mongering.
Recently passed state laws reforming police standards and drug policy work. Fewer Washingtonians lose their lives to police violence or get cycled through the criminal legal system over substance use. These are causes for celebration, not a return to failed policies.
Decades of research show tough-on-crime approaches fail to keep people safe and further criminalize communities. Our current punitive traffic enforcement methods impact people of color and low-income families the hardest, hitting many with financial burden for low-risk issues. None of this improves safety on the roads, the real issue.
Traffic Safety for All (HB 1513) creates a grant program to help drivers address vehicle equipment problems and prevents officers from making stops for low-level issues, such as broken taillights or expired tabs. The bill will lead to fewer interactions between the public and law enforcement, which disproportionately impact people of color, who, more often than white drivers, are stopped and subjected to traffic fees.
Low-risk traffic stops are ineffective at preventing traffic accidents or fighting crime, and have escalated to violent encounters that put drivers and law enforcement at high risk of injury or death. Expired tabs aren’t the cause of deadly traffic accidents. Time wasted enforcing them has public safety consequences and places people in a poverty trap.
HB 1513, the Traffic Safety for All bill, offers drivers a path toward addressing car repairs in a way that doesn’t cause financial burden or trap them in the criminal legal system.
We endorse passage of HB 1513 to support equity and public safety.
Krystal Rodriguez, Riveters Collective Justice System Committee chair
Bellingham
The Editor:
Our county’s public health advisory board fiasco (The Northern Light, February 9-15, 2023) could possibly have been avoided if our health board was not solely comprised of elected Whatcom County Council members.
Our Whatcom County Health Department Board should be more representative of our community – politicians (unless they have experience in the medical/health field) do not have the expertise to be the sole arbiters to oversee matters related to public health.
We need some health board members who are not elected officials. We need medical professionals including an epidemiologist, medical ethicists, community health workers, public health workers with master’s degrees and higher or the equivalent in public health, hospital employees, physicians, registered nurses, dentists and others with health care knowledge.
Additionally, the board should include consumers of public health who have self-identified as having faced significant health inequities with public health programs. Because Whatcom County includes tribal lands, the board of health should include a tribal representative selected by the American Indian Health Commission.
According to RCW 70.05.030, “A local board of health comprised solely of elected officials may retain this composition if the local health jurisdiction had a public health advisory committee or board with its own bylaws established on January 1, 2021.”
However, other Washington counties have reconfigured their health boards recently to make them more diverse and stronger than they’ve ever been. Whatcom County should do the same.
Health and Community Services director Erika Lautenbach and Whatcom County executive Satpal Sidhu, who was instrumental in her hiring, should take the lead on reconfiguring our health board to be in line with what other Washington state counties have done – represent core values of excellence, participation, respect, leadership, science and innovation.
Sheri Lambert
Laurel
Comments
No comments on this item Please log in to comment by clicking here