Editor,
We don’t need the city suing the owner of the Walmart encampment, we need housing-first solutions to this crisis. The efforts of the City of Bellingham and private developers have been taking to displace unhoused people from the Walmart encampment are unnecessary.
There is only one genuine issue here: Folks in this encampment and in encampments around the city do not have permanent housing, something we all need. This failure is squarely on the shoulders of the City of Bellingham and the state and federal governments for not providing for our people, it’s not the fault of unhoused people.
Cascadia’s May 30 article about the city’s lawsuit against the owner of the land on which the encampment lies misses the point. The court will not solve anything by deciding if the city can have free reign to “abate” and sweep the camp.
We know that sweeps don’t work. Sweeps just push our unhoused neighbors somewhere else and into a worse situation than they had before. And, the services that might be offered to our neighbors won’t get them what they really need: housing. If you had a house and some stability in life, you could get a job, you could get treatment. We should give people housing because no one deserves to be cast aside and forced to suffer; it would even humanely clear the Walmart encampment.
Gabe Wong
Bellingham
Editor,
Perry Eskridge and Fred Likkel (CDN, June 11, 2024) are correct that the just-initiated Nooksack adjudication of water rights will not, by itself, solve our water supply/demand problems. I disagree with their assertion that its primary outcome would be conversion of farmland to suburban development; that could occur only if county zoning allowed it.
To me, the key value of adjudication is the motivation for water-right holders to negotiate and collaboratively develop solutions. These solutions should improve water-use efficiency across all sectors (especially agriculture, which is by far the largest summertime water use), store winter water for summer use, and increase supply. The local water establishment has conducted several studies of supply and storage options but has never studied efficiency. Improving efficiency is likely the cheapest and most cost-effective way to address these problems.
I urge the Lummi Nation and Nooksack Indian Tribe to negotiate with farmers and other water users to identify and implement projects that reduce our supply/demand imbalance. The adverse effects of climate change, especially lower summer streamflows, add urgency to this task. The only way to restore salmon runs and provide enough water for farms and people is to (1) conserve water; (2) store water, primarily using natural systems; and (3) increase supplies.
Eric Hirst
Bellingham
Editor,
Efficiency is generally good. Bump stocks are now legal again. Mass murder is now more efficient!
Mark Hendershott
Bellingham
Editor,
Experiencing racism up close and personal is traumatic for anyone, let alone a group of 12-year-olds on a Bellingham field trip. We would expect no less from our educators that they would make available trauma-informed counseling to any students or staff who witnessed or are affected by this incident.
However, Bellingham School Superintendent Greg Baker’s letter to the community including a web link to the “Bellingham Promise,” and another link to resources for parents on how to have difficult conversations with their kids falls far short of a meaningful long-term response. This is where the Racial Equity Commission comes in.
The commission could convene a community conversation about how our kids talk about race and racism in their classrooms. How do our students share their thoughts and feelings about this complex subject affecting how they will show up as adults in their civic lives? How do our public school faculty meet their students where they are after this incident? Do school curricula equip them to do so?
Secondly, the commission can review whether school systems have clear protocols for responding to racist incidents, including steps for investigation, communication and support for all affected parties within school settings.
Whatcom County Council empowered a Racial Equity Commission to serve as a community forum on issues and concerns of racial equity. The commission can now take action to transform this tragedy into an opportunity for shared learning, and systemic change.
Alan Friedlob
Birch Bay
Editor,
Growing up here, I rode my 1962 cruiser bike until I got my first 10-speed in the early ’70s. Mostly to play with those Fairhaven College, bicycle-riding, pot smoking “hippies” having FUN. Before the no-funs got to de-fun our unsafe FUN … for our own good. But then that’s a different ‘70s Pixy Pond, Teddy Bare beach story.
Bike riding back in the day was about using side streets, alleys and main streets only when necessary. Then the old rail lines began to open up and we could avoid cars altogether, as we learned in college 50 years ago. Back when the Hub Bike Shop was still on State Street, new bike lanes appeared on both Forest and State. I’d sit at the Hub watching bicyclists riding to and from the Southside on the Interurban trail and wondered how the new bike lanes were doing. One rider in both bike “lames” for every 100 bikes on the trail? Then bike-lames appeared on steep inclines nobody with a clue would ever use, given the easy workarounds so close around. But for our government, the Earth is flat, like their flat maps, paperwork and “thinking” they’re clearly too busy caring about to care about? Bike lames for lame brains, by lame brains, is lame-brained. Maybe somebody needs a brain chip … to model your Holistic Brain Mapping of Synergy? (NeuroFutures 2018)
John C. Ruth
Bellingham
Editor,
A hearty thank you for the Diverted articles. What a useful and timely contribution to our understanding of recycling and the issues involved. It should be standard reading for the public.
Leaf Schumann
Deming
Editor,
Kudos to Curt Wolters and his thoughtful assessment of the Palestinian-Israeli dilemma (CDN, June 12, 2024). I agree with his appraisal; I hope this isn’t just confirmation bias. However, he really pretty much captures the whole thing: a desperate group, the Jews, are inserted by the British into what they believe to be the ancestral Jewish homeland. Unfortunately, the Palestinians have been occupying that same land for thousands of years as their ancestral homeland. The fact that the Old Testament asserts Jewish claim to the land is of no consequence as it is hardly authoritative. It seems so simple … and so difficult … to simply create a two-state solution at this point.
Leaf Schumann
Deming
Letters to the Editor are published online Wednesdays; a selection is published in print Fridays. Send to letters@cascadiadaily.com by 10 a.m. Tuesdays. Rules: Maximum 250 words, be civil, have a point and make it clearly. Preference is given to letters about local subjects. CDN reserves the right to reject letters or edit for length, clarity, grammar and style, or removal of personal attacks or offensive content. Letters must include an address/phone number to verify the writer's identity (not for publication).
