City of Bellingham

All Bellingham residents deserve safe and secure housing. Yet, as housing and rental costs soar, wages have not kept up and the city’s vacancy rate remains extremely low. As a result, 57% of Bellingham renters are cost-burdened, according to an American Community Survey. Working families and renters bear the greatest burden in the housing affordability crisis. Evictions and forced relocations pose both an economic difficulty for individuals and families as well as a public health concern with COVID transmission remaining a problem.

Initiative 1 would require landlords to provide written notice 90 days before a no-cause eviction and/or a rent increase of more than 5%. Further, the measure would require landlords to shoulder some of the cost of rental relocation in the cases of rent increases above 8% and/or evictions without cause. These policies will go a long way towards balancing the power between renters and landlords, and they will help reduce the financial and public health consequences of housing instability in Bellingham.

The initiative is supported by a number of local progressive organizations and elected officials. Vote to approve City of Bellingham Initiative No. 2021-01 to expand tenant rights and mitigate the city’s housing affordability crisis.

Police facial recognition technology has long been a controversial issue. Facial recognition tools in the hands of law enforcement have been proven to lead to the disproportionate policing of people of color. Moreover, the constitutionality of predictive policing has been questioned for its potential violation of the protections against unreasonable searches.

Initiative 2 gives Bellingham residents the opportunity to join more than half a dozen other cities in banning the use of police technology that may endanger civil rights and liberties. If approved by voters, the initiative would comprehensively prohibit the city from using facial recognition and predictive policing technology, as well as its associated data, information, and/or evidence.

This ballot measure would help to keep law enforcement accountable and protect the rights of Bellingham residents. Vote to approve the city’s Initiative No. 2021-02.

Throughout the pandemic, frontline workers have risked their health and safety to earn the minimum wage while the companies they work for boasted record profits. The country’s economic downturn disproportionately hurt hourly wage workers and low-income families. Through both the public health crisis and its economic fallout, it has become clear that workers’ rights need to be strengthened across the country.

Initiative 4 in Bellingham provides protections for the city’s hourly wage and gig workers. If approved, it will require hazard pay at the rate of $4 per hour during states of emergency, require employers to give good faith estimates of weekly hours at the hiring stage, and necessitate compensation for schedule changes without sufficient notice. All the policies within the measure bring the relationship between employer and employee into better balance in Bellingham.

Vote to approve City of Bellingham Initiative 4.