City Council - Special Meeting

City of Bellingham City Council Special Meeting: Public Comment Session Minutes December 20, 2021, 7:00 PM Mayor Seth Fleetwood Contact: (360) 778-8200, ccmail@cob.org Council Members Hannah Stone, Gene Knutson, Daniel Hammill, www.cob.org/council Pinky Vargas, Lisa Anderson, Michael Lilliquist and All meetings are held in the City Hall Council Chambers at Hollie Huthman 210 Lottie Street, Bellingham, WA, unless otherwise noted. Call to Order Council President Stone opened the Public Comment Session at 7:00 PM. Roll Call Present: Council President Hannah Stone, First Ward Council Member Hollie Huthman, At-Large Mayor’s Office, Janice Keller Announcement of Upcoming Public Hearings There were no upcoming Public Hearings reported. Bellingham City Council meets all requirements of the State of Washington Open Meetings Act. The 2022 City Council Reorganization meeting will occur at 1:00 PM on January 03, 2022 and may be accessed via Zoom at: https://cob.org/cczoom (Meeting ID: 933 2687 3296 Passcode: 9) The Swearing-In Ceremony for Hollie Huthman, Skip Williams, Michael Lilliquist, and Kristina Martens will occur at 7:00 PM on January 03, 2022 and may be accessed via Zoom at: https://cob.org/cczoom (Meeting ID: 919 5742 8832 Passcode: 9) Public Comment Session There was a minimum of 21 people in attendance at the Public Comment Session. Attendees who wished to address the Council were given 3 minutes to share their comments. A total of 14 attendees elected to speak publicly. Included below is a list of speakers and a summary of the topic(s) addressed during their comment periods: City Council Special Meeting Minutes Page 1 December 20, 2021  1. Dena Jensen – land acknowledgment, community needs resources to be spent on action to provide shelter for everyone, sweeps are not synonymous with shelter, community members are not allowed to stay after the clean-up, community members are not asking the government to turn a blind eye but rather to extend offers for services and shelter, plea for expert help from the health department, stop the sweeps. 2. Barbara (LOLA) Hudson – speaking on behalf of the Riveters Collective regarding the Police Chief selection process, public engagement was minimal during the last process and the engagement was only offered in English, recommended improvements to the process include: 1) Providing an interactive forum where the public can ask the final candidates questions. 2) Sharing the cover letters and resumes for each final candidate. 3) Sharing the complaints or reprimands on record for each final candidate. 4) Broadly publicizing information about the final candidates and next steps, including specific dates, of the hiring process on the Engage Bellingham webpage and multiple social media platforms, requirements for future police chief should include: 1) Have a demonstrated record of engaging with communities to identify problems, supported by data, and implementing solutions that produce meaningful results for the community. 2) Take measures to demilitarize the police force. 3) Improve transparency in police data, reporting, and accountability to the public. 4) Take actions that build trust with immigrant, indigenous, unhoused, and other marginalized communities. 5) Publicly commit to eliminating white supremacy and systemic racism within the department and community. 6) Have personnel record free of reprimands or complaints, even if unsustained. 3. Joy Gilfilen – has been engaged in research about how to move out of the crisis of bullying and toward civic healing, Camp 210 was shut down with police action that caused PTSD – Compound Civic Domestic Violence, accurate minutes are needed for public comment sessions, room for error without recording or direct transcription, homelessness is not a local problem, need Emergency Management System to support role of Whatcom County, failure system, there is funding available but the community needs a couple million dollars to provide emergency shelter. Council President provided brief response to acknowledge possible inaccuracies in the minutes due to the difficulty of taking notes in real time without a recording to refer to. 4. Misty Flowers – issues are not being fully addressed in the report-out provided during regular council meeting, concern regarding the divisiveness in the community, discrimination is perpetuated by believed fear of the other, “anti-vaxxer” and “conspiracy theorist” are demeaning City Council Special Meeting Minutes Page 2 December 20, 2021  labels, comparisons with the holocaust and perpetrators of genocide, starts with thinking that you are better than someone else, we don’t know what is best for someone else’s child’s needs, standing up for everyone’s rights, quote “The simple step of a courageous individual is not to take part in the lie.” 5. Dr. Richard Tran – wonder if things are getting through, use of a scorecard is dehumanizing, then the full comments are not addressed and are not part of the public record, the full council is not present, better option is to reopen council chambers, shared story about a community member who is unhoused who entered the clinic and what to do to feel safe. Council President provided brief response regarding the difference between the Public Comment Report provided during Regular Council Meetings and the Minutes that are available on the City Council Meetings website. 6. Lauren – writer, pharmaceutical companies provide medical misinformation that doesn’t match the narrative from health providers, writing has been fact-checked and censored online, see https://themodelhealthshow.com/maskfacts/, call to repeal the mask mandate, Emergency Use Authorized (EUA) pursuant to 21 U.S. Code §360bbb community members can refuse face coverings required by the governor’s mandate, exemptions should be protected. 7. Ken Domorod – public comment problems started back when the council decided to use YouTube as platform for archive storage, the public comment sessions are not working, community members are not speaking because the sessions are not on record with the full council and are no longer part of city business, no quorum of council members because these sessions are not city meetings, city business is conducted separately, it is time to reopen council chambers, we need to see each other and interact with each other as people and not just electronic faces, best wishes for a happy holiday. Council President provided brief response to address question regarding reason for limitation of three council members at Public Comment Sessions. Question from Joy Gilfilen regarding opportunity for dialogue with Council members. Council President confirmed the 3-minute limit for public comments. 8. Natalie Chavez (on the line with Nancy Bergman) – spoke in opposition to last commenter’s comments shared at the November 29th public comment session, the speaker had thanked council members for the City Council Special Meeting Minutes Page 3 December 20, 2021  vaccine mandate and spoke of a 3-year-old on a ventilator at the hospital because they contracted COVID from an unmasked and unvaccinated individual, speaker attempted to promulgate fear, spoke with ER nurse and confirmed that there was no such child on a ventilator and a child in that condition would have been transported to Seattle Children’s Hospital, referenced the types of symptoms being seen at the hospital. 9. Nancy Bergman – no teens or young adults have dies in Whatcom County and yet there is great pressure for children to get an experimental COVID vaccine, big pharma has legal liability immunity, unlawful to enforce a vaccine mandate for employment, referenced loss of workers due to the mandate: healthcare workers, DOL, state troopers, Ferndale bus drivers, 27 COB employees, workers seen as a threat to the community but they have already had COVID and have therefore acquired natural immunity. 10. Jean Purcell (on the line with Nancy Bergman) – they say that Omicron variant will result in a record number of deaths for the unvaccinated but transmission is taking place among those who are fully vaccinated, NFL has postponed games due to outbreaks even though the league is nearly 100% vaccinated, NBA announced that it will also postpone games, vaccine does not prevent infection or transmission, if vaccines don’t stop the spread how an vaccines stop the spread, how many boosters are you willing to take, please think. 11. Enoch Mann – there is no test to verify that the virus exists, the PCR test cannot determine or verify the presence of a virus, why can’t the council see the truth: demoralization, destabilization, and crisis, communists are trying to put us in a state of crisis like with BLM and antifa, don’t fall for the fear and propaganda, stay defiant and stay peaceful, Go Brandon. 12. Hannah Ordos – 45-year resident of Whatcom County, concern around the vaccine mandate and vaccine passports, reservations regarding the pressure on children in the schools and pressure for kids to be vaccinated, make decisions about what is best for children’s health but then are excluded from participation, cannot go to restaurants in Bellingham without a vaccine passport, quote from Amy Hockenberry (Vaccine Planning Lead, Whatcom County Health Department) and concern regarding the compromises state is willing to take to increase vaccinations. 13. Cynthia Thompson (Let’sGoBrandon) – works at 3 different ERs and concurs with Natalie in that an incubated 3-year-old would not be cared for here, Governor Inslee called the unvaccinated “domestic terrorists”, hospitals are in dire need of healthcare workers, the situation is a fraud, think, there are therapeutics that work, think, your science is not accurate, more and more people are waking up and not wearing their masks and encouraging others to do the same. City Council Special Meeting Minutes Page 4 December 20, 2021  Technical Difficulties: Temporary Disconnection and Immediate Reconnection. 14. Heather Dalberg – we are not all in the same pandemic, we don’t all see the same things, working with Bellingham students and WWU students, involved in massive outreach to those in our community who are unsheltered, collecting donations, hot food, cash, etc. but there is a need for more volunteers on Thursday, it’s cold and people have been dispersed, #1 goal is that no one will freeze to death and they will know that they are loved. Ken Domorod expressed condolences for Senator Doug Ericksen’s family, friends, and colleagues after his untimely passing. Council President also expressed condolences for family members, friends and colleagues of Doug Ericksen. Adjournment There being no further comments, the session adjourned at 8:03 PM. Next public comment session will be held on Monday, December 27, 2021. City Council Special Meeting Minutes Page 5 December 20, 2021