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. 

 

This government has been afraid of the COB staff for as long as I've lived here. The staff are basically a mafia paid with our tax dollars. Anyone that stands up to them does not last in office for very long. Just look at what is going on with fiber. We have an existing network that was described as robust by the former public works director. If allowed Open Access to it my volunteer group would be hooking up low-income individuals and communities to it right now for free. Open Access is the system that Mount Vernon uses for its public fiber by the way. But instead we got this. https://www.nwcitizen.com/entry/using-public-records-act-to-hide-information/
Hell, the libraries even refused free external WAPs (wireless access points) because they were worried about pissing off the establishment. These free, we were going to donate them, $300 a piece WAPs would have provided extended access to the COB public fiber via the library, and hopefully park, sites but the directors are just too afraid of Public Works and the IT Department to ruffle any feathers. 
Your issue is an extension of a problem I noticed years ago. The COB council only allows 3 minutes for public commentary. Citizens cannot extend a speakers time like they can in the county and you can't really even hold anyone accountable when you speak. They hate us and don't want to hear from us, but it must be what we want because we keep reelecting the same losers. Even if you're an expert you aren't allowed to speak in most "special" meetings. Who demanded this? Mostly the staff like the public works director and our mayor and council don't want to hear from us either, so they comply. 
A council member should NOT be allowed to make a decision that effects the public without an explanation. Yet they do it all of the time. They meet with private fiber providers and big telecom all of the time, go their their corporate broadband parties (described to me as hooker and blow parties by people that have attended) and then deny us access to the resources we've already paid for. The council is corrupt, the mayor is afraid to stand up to them and they are all afraid to stand up to the staff because politicians that do don't last long in office here. In  short, they have all forgotten that they work for us and we are way past due for holding them accountable. They are also impossibly lazy and generally dumb.
As and aside, Burnside's plan won't work. Is it better than our current situation? Sure, but any plan with variables in it will be manipulated by the power elite to keep housing prices high. It's what they want. There are no Republicans or Democrats. There are wealthy special interests that own our government and work against the public interest. That's where we're at. It's oligarchy and fascism.
Oh, and one other note to "pick you up." They mayor and council appointed a 30 year public works veteran that was good friends with the last 2 directors they had to fire for corruption. The new director plans on doing things in exactly the same way as the last two. We need to stop letting the major parties dictate who we get to elect. They're all a disgrace.
They show us all of the time that they hate the poor. Which is most of us now in this economy. And they do next to nothing to bring down the cost of necessities or give us the infrastructure we need for next generation jobs because they don't care about us. Let's write in candidates instead of letting the major parties dictate what dirtbags will be on the ballot next.   

 

Thanks for the comment. Many of my questions were focused on readiness tests that should be being conducted at least annually. The fact that there was no ready response, and that we still are waiting on one, highlights the problem of having critical systems tied to privately owned infrastructure.