These four Bellingham ballot measures qualify for the November election
Four Bellingham initiatives are headed for the Nov. 2 ballot, but City Council members and the city’s legal staff think that the measures won’t survive a court challenge if voters approve them.
Measures brought forward by a coalition of local groups called People First Bellingham are seeking renter protections, limits on police technology, city neutrality on labor issues and security for hourly wage workers.
Whatcom County Auditor Diana Bradrick said that each measure met the required minimum of signatures from 6,188 registered Bellingham voters.
People First Bellingham volunteer Sage Jones told The Bellingham Herald it was “rewarding” to make the ballot in less than three months amid pandemic restrictions.
“Our coalition of volunteers had thousands of meaningful conversations about the future of our community,” Jones said in an email.
“The initiatives spoke to deep needs in and visions for our community and mobilized many people to join the campaign,” she said. “The success of the campaign shows that bold renter protections, making material demands for racial justice instead of symbolic gestures, supporting the right to unionize, and improving the conditions of hourly workers’ are profoundly popular in our city. Everyone sees Bellingham gentrifying, and these initiatives galvanized our community to take bold actions for people over profit.”
People First Bellingham raised nearly $16,000 and spent more than $10,000 on its petition drive, according to reports filed with the state Public Disclosure Commission
At its evening meeting Monday, July 12, the Bellingham City Council voted 4-0-1 to place the measures on the Nov. 2 general election ballot.
Councilman Michael Lilliquist abstained from voting, and council members Pinky Vargas and Dan Hammill were absent.
According to law, council members could enact the measures into law, offer competing ballot measures, or place the measures on the ballot.
All four measures were discussed in a Committee of the Whole session earlier July 12.
Several council members said they found merit in many of the issues that the ballot initiatives address, but some council members and city officials said the initiatives are doomed to fail in court, even if they succeed at the ballot box.
“I see validity in components of these,” said Councilwoman Lisa Anderson. “I think there are issues in the writing and some of the legality.”
Lilliquist said the measures are flawed and legally dubious, and the city would be forced to defend the measures in court if they pass and are challenged.
He wanted to offer competing ballot measures, but said there wasn’t time to craft legislation.
“There are bits and pieces of these ordinances that I could really support,” Lilliquist said.
But a lawsuit would “put the city in the position of defending something that is legally indefensible,” he said.
Jones disagreed with the council’s assessment of the initiatives.
“The initiatives are not ‘fatally flawed.’ Most of the language for the initiatives was either borrowed from existing municipal legislation in Washington or in other states with compatible state regulations,” Jones said.
“The initiatives will be on the ballot because the community that council represents deeply cares about these issues and followed the democratic process available to them to participate in creating local legislation. Unfortunately, the overall response from council was to denigrate the initiatives rather than find ways to lift up and strengthen them,” she said.
Some 6,188 signatures were required for each of the four measures, Whatcom County Auditor Diana Bradrick said.
Jones said 9,594 signatures were collected for Initiative 1; 9,094 signatures were collected for Initiative 2; 8,975 signatures were collected for Initiative 3; and 9,033 signatures were collected for Initiative 4.
People First Bellingham’s four measures are written as city ordinances, each addressing a different topic:
▪ 2021-01 — Renter Relocation Assistance: Requires 90 days written notice for a no-cause eviction or if a tenant’s rent will rise more than 5%. It also requires landlords to provide relocation assistance for “no-cause” evictions or rent increases of more than 8%.
▪ 2021-02 — Ordinance Restricting the Use of Advanced Police Technologies: Prohibits the city from buying, contracting for, or using facial recognition technology, prohibits predictive policing technology, prohibits the police from keeping unlawfully acquired data.
▪ 2021-03 — Neutrality in Labor Campaigns: Prohibits anyone who receives city funds from using those funds to discourage unionization efforts, provides for private enforcement actions, and other labor protections.
▪ 2021-04 — Fair Treatment for Hourly Wage Employees: Ensures “adequate compensation” for hourly wage and gig workers — especially those working in grocery, food service, health care, education, child care and retail stores open to the public — during the rest of the COVID-19 pandemic and during future states of emergency. It also includes provisions for $4 an hour premium pay and predictable work schedules.
People First Bellingham is a coalition of partners including Jobs With Justice, Imagine No Kages, Whatcom Democratic Socialists of America, the Whatcom Human Rights Task Force and the Whatcom Peace and Justice Center.
They raised some $15,400, according to reports filed with the state Public Disclosure Commission.
