The nationwide average for vacant or abandoned properties is 10.5% which Bellingham meets. So the basis for solving this crisis is for these structures to be turned into housing wherever possible. However, this has to be paired with a zero-tolerance policy for drug use while occupied. And of course, then the non-profits could do the work they want to do and offer assistance to people on a path to recovery. All of this is very doable. So why don't we do it?

Well, there are many reasons but the main reason is that our government is run by predatory real-estate tycoons. They don't want 10.5% of structures to suddenly be turned into affordable housing and bring down housing prices for their average slaves, I meant citizens and renters. They rely on the artificially inflated market they created. So does our government who uses this same system to overtax us via property taxes. This is the real reason you see no progress. When even the pretend liberal Democrats give us candidates that kick senior citizens out on the streets so they can open a fancy hotel, see City Council Member and slum-lord Dan Hammill, then it's obvious that there are simply too many conflicts of interest inside of the major parties and in our government to really take this problem head on. Time to vote for a third party. The major parties profit too much off of the status quo to ever address this issue or allow our government to.

Another odd issue is the raging sense of entitlement I've noticed here that a large portion of the population oozes out of every pore. Even fentanyl addicts seem to believe they are entitled to their "lifestyle" in Bellingham and that the workers, even the ones donating to charities that help them, are the losers who don't get it. But our elected officials seem to think that workers are losers too and make our lives as hard as they can. So I guess treating workers like shit is just the thing to do in Bellingham. Addicts, slum-lords and elected officials alike can get together at rallies and demand that we squeeze more blood out of the stone of the working class.  

Well, it's complex.
To your point, yes the fact that we spend more on our military than the next 9 countries combined, accounting for 1/8th of our annual budget, is alarming. Especially when a lot of our money and weapons are going to back genocide and holy wars. We should be putting American first, especially American Infrastructure, American Workers, Education and other domestic issues first. 
However, our biggest issue with communications goes back to the lack of a proper Dig Once Policy which the other developed countries, and many other American cities, all have a version of. I've written about this extensively before. Note: Dig Once saves 90% of the cost of installation. 
Still, the wireless part is compelex because.
1. You need lots of very affordable, high-quality, fiber on the ground for it to work correctly.
2. The telecoms really are only interested in doing high performance wireless where there are large population centers. So the idea that wireless, or satellite, will provide affordable high-performance service is a myth. Prices will remain high with low performance anywhere where there isn't enough fiber and once you have the fiber wireless largely stops making sense in comparison, or at least as a replacement. It can't replace fiber. It depends on it. Satellite too.  

I wrote an entire article about how catastrophic electing Andrew Redding would be here.

https://www.nwcitizen.com/entry/who-is-the-real-andrew-reding/

I am not voting for Ken Bell. Bell almost single handedly ruined the prospect of having a true Open Access network, like the City of Mount Vernon has, at the Port. He loves lining the pockets of corporations and helping those that can already help themselves. In fairness though, I can't tell what the hell Carly's plans are. She has nothing to say about broadband and few specifics on anything else. Still, better than Ken who will continue to line the pockets of big telecom and other special interests at our expense.

"There's a reason you separate military and the police. One fights the enemies of the state, the other serves and protects the people. When the military becomes both, then the enemies of the state tend to become the people". Admiral Adama 

I am currently having a wonderful time visiting friends in "war-ravaged" Portland. The protests here are much larger than our Reichsfuhrer is reporting and very peaceful. In general the only people using force are the ICE police themselves who are overreacting and looking for any reason to harm citizens. So yes, they're thugs.

Does Portland have problems? Yes, just like Bellingham, Portland has allowed a small number of people to control the necessities of life and rob their population blind. Are there drug addicted losers here that are dangerous? Yes, but that is something the police can, and should, deal with without the need to involve the military. Are some areas run down and in need of repair? Yes, just like Bellingham the city should purchase the many privately owned abandoned and vacant buildings here and come up with a plan to turn them into public housing. They should NOT pay top dollar for these run down structures. Is Portland "war-ravaged"? No, that is a lie right out of "The Dictator's Handbook." You can get a copy at the library to read. Is Portland's "Democrat" city council useless just like ours? Generally yes. They should be replaced with progressive candidates that are not influenced by the corrupt Corporate Democratic party. Just like us.

Thanks John. While it's refershing that Anderson has stated the perfectly obvious, she also presided over the same big telecom rep. filled Broadband Advisory Group that the others did. She sat by while WAVE executive Melissa Miller almost single handedly wrote our "city's broadband plan" in favor of big telecom and more. She sat by while the cost of housing and other daily necessities became unaffordable for most Bellinghammers and still doubled down on protecting special interests. Like her Republican and Corporate Democrat friends she likes to help those that can already help themselves first. 
So, yes I'm sure the Corporate Democrats will try to run her out of town. It's what they always do to anyone that disagrees with them like any fascist organization. The will most likely put Andrew Redding, our own "Floria Man," on the case as I wrote about here. https://www.nwcitizen.com/entry/who-is-the-real-andrew-reding/
Andrew's owners in the Shewmake cartel will make sure his efforts are well funded. 
Still, it's hard to feel too bad for her as I watched her, and the entire council, and 3 mayors at this point, happily preside over the decline of our city to maintain the status quo. The Democratic party is beyond repair. Time for a Progressive party to replace them. Like the Green Party.
Note: Andrew Redding and Michael Lilliquist are NOT progressives, just like all of the other members of the Whatcom Democrats. They have proven this in their actions many times. They just say things like that to gain power, then tow the party line for special interests. You know, the usual good old boy/girl crap we always see around here. But hey, at least she's finally pointing to where the rolling dumpster fire known as the Whatcom Democrats currently is on the map. It's here, in Whatcom County.
To Scott's point, the only time the Dems. metion a "Code of Conduct" is to attack their political rivals when they're protecting special interests. They don't have one because they're not capable of conducting themselves in an honorable fashion and they don't really care about any of us. It's just a platform for virtue signaling and the smokescreens that come right before they thrown the average citizen under the bus. You can rest assured that if they put one into place it will be used only to protect the biggest dirtbags in the party and keep them from being held accountable. What they really use it for is an anti-free speech, anti-accountablity, mechanism so no one can ever question them like the fascists they have proven themselves to be over the years. But hey, both parties are pretty fascist now so at least they're matching their opponents in something. As one of my friends puts it, we have two parties in Whatcom County:
1. The Super Pro-Business Anti-Worker Anti-Family Party
2. The Super Bat Shit Crazy Pro-Business Anti-Worker Anti-Family Party
Let's all get ready to pretend like we have a choice this election season again.
So maybe it will make Lisa feel a bit better to know that it doesn't matter anyway. The Dems. never intend to give us any real progress and neither do the Republicans. It's all about maintaining the Status Quo. Just ask Jason Call or Bernie Sanders.      

As I wrote about here https://www.nwcitizen.com/entry/who-is-the-real-andrew-reding/ Andrew Redding is a total anti-worker, anti-family disaster. He is truly our "Florida Man." IN fact, other prominent members of the Democratic party have voiced their concerns to me about how mentally unstable and unhealthy he is. The only thing I've ever seen him use his self-proclaimed "public policy expertise" for is to screw over working families.

However, Michael Lilliquist was also heavily involved in presiding over a Broadband Advisory Group filled with big telecom reps. He then, like all of the worthless council memebers and mayor, sat by while WAVE executive Melissa Miller almost single handedly penned our city's "broadband plan" in favor of big telecom and against the wishes of the citizens. The majority of citizens indicated that they wanted a public option. Michael and his anti-worker friends on the council simply ignored them.

So here we are again with the illusion of choice the Dems. always give us. We have another, as South Park puts it, Giant Douce vs. Turd Sandwich election. Still, since Redding is a dangerous pathological liar, I guess we should all hold our noses and chomp down on the Turd Sandwich known as Michael Lilliquist for a few more years. I am so sick of pretending like the parties give us real choice in this town. They don't. The truth is that no one currently sitting on city council deserves to be re-elected but somehow the Democrats produced an even worse candidate in Redding. So take a big bite everyone, it'll be another era of no progress for the other 90% of us to benefit the top 10%. Brought to you by the Corporate Democrats. Remember, you can always write in a more ethical candidate instead of voting for these fake establishment choices that both have a track record of screwing us over.  

"Is it lack of interest or no interest," The husband of a local elected officisl said to me once in a zoom meeting. He was referring to the attitude in Bellingham in general. For example, I am usually pointing out how CDN is a mouthpiece for the Establishment Democrats, and they are, but recently Ron Judd wrote an article about our catastrophically broken schools that I thought was great. In the article he wonders why the people and parents in Bellingham aren't storming schoolboard meetings and demanding new administrators. 

The article focuses on the mishandling of a sexual harassment case at BPS by high level admins. However, I am personally aware of two cases where problem students who should have been expelled years ago assaulted teachers.

In case 1 the student threw a desk at a teacher and then punched her in the stomach. The teacher was told by admin, "The student stays... it's part of your job to put up with this now." The decree was given by their principal but ultimately came from Greg Baker. The district then started looking for any reason to fire the teacher. The union protected them, but I am 100% sure that if the teacher returns to teaching the district will immediately find some reason to fire her shortly after. BPS writes their contract in such a way that they can fire her for sharpening a pencil improperly.

In case 2 a substitute had their contract recinded after quitting a job where a student hit them, bled on them, ran away from school often and more for weeks. The sub said, "I will sub in another situation but not this one anymore." The district said, "if you're not willing to be abused then we don't want you." By the way substitutes can't join the union so they can be let go for any reason. They have no rights and no benefits. By the way this student had been doing so for 7 years and had gone through 8 subs. The district, instead of holding the family accountable, just shits all over their teachers instead. You know, the usual.

I sadly can go on. But I'll stop here and say it blows my mind that with all of this going on parents of the problem students never get involved unless it's to help admin abuse teachers. Teachers have become the unwilling scapegoats of a failing society run by adult children.

Still, all of this is part of the status quo too. For example, Kim Lund needs things to stay the same so that her "Bellingham Schools Foundation" can remain funded. The parties are running candidates linked to that organization as if it's a good thing and a reason to vote for them. But the org has as much interest in protecting the current admin as the administration itself.

So the action here is what it's always been. To replace our "leaders" with people that are not linked to the major parties. 

Also, when the Bellingham schools say a student has achieved something, thanks to them, it's almost always a lie. For example, the Mathletes that won awards recently were mostly trained by their parents and homeschooled. The students that won awards for playing musical instruments study with some of the best private teachers in the country. The schools have great teachers but lost their academic focus a long time ago, and shackled their teachers to appease abusive parents a long time ago too, but agsin the parents of problem students here seem to be fine with that and are allowed to run the show. And the community as a whole does not seem to care enough to do anything about it. The better students have already gone to private schools. Apparently this is part of Bellingham's great social plan. But I suspect it's just that many have a lack of interest in fixing anything because they're adult children who can't be bothered with raising functional adults since they aren't ones themselves. A nationwide problem.

Thanks Lisa... I do keep an eye on the homelessness issue too. There are many vacant or abandoned properties that could be used as public housing...

As far as Ziply and Quantum (aka CenturyLink) goes we've load tested them and they perform only a bit better than Comcast. It is not real infrastructure. Why? Because we have a duopoly on backhaul that all runs through a privately owned facility on C-Street. Including our emergency services communications equipment.

Ziply quoted me $125K to run fiber to my home, WAVE/Astound $35K for a fiber backed Coax run (aka the same tech Comcast uses) then $900 a month for pretend Gigabit dark pretend-fiber lease. It's all smoke and mirrors. Real infrastructure needs Dig Once. We can all thank Andrew Redding for sabotaging that...

Also, CenturyLink (aka Quantum) says in their agreement with the COB that they never want to become the incumbent provider. Period. Meaning they never want to really compete with Comcast. So the problem has not, and will not, be taken care of by big telecom. They're just lying and buying time, like they always do and our government presents them as real options when they know they are not.