Letters, week of March 18, 2025: Canadian betrayal, train horns, halfway houses

Editor,

I am 13 years old, and I often hear kids my age say that they cannot wait to grow up. I don’t like that idea because I feel like our age can potentially have the most impact on life. Children are treated less because they are younger than adults — and I know you’re going to say that adults are more responsible, and yes that may be true, but that does not mean children deserve less power. It just simply means adults may deserve more. 

Age doesn’t matter as much as we are taught to assume. You could be on this earth for 50 years and have learned nothing, which means it really is unimportant how old you are. What you know is what really matters. Children are often excluded from conversations or important topics because adults think we cannot handle it, but the problem is that we “children” need to be brought into these conversations so we can learn and understand our world better. 

People often will say “they are just a kid, they probably didn’t know” or “they didn’t know any better.” Well, I say, “teach them.” Instead of pointing out what we don’t know, try, and teach us something new.

Adults need to stop dismissing children and our abilities because we are capable of way more than you know. We are the future; the world is in our hands and if we don’t do something fast, the earth will be gone. The generations before us helped shape the world we live in today, and it’s our job to put things back the way they belong.

Sincerely yours,  

Harper McElroy

7th grader, Fairhaven Middle School

Editor,

We have quite happily lived in the South Hill area for 11 years, knowing when we bought where the railroad tracks were and that there would be round-the-clock train horns. We adjusted to the noise of the train horns and even learned to sleep through them at night.

We are giddy with joy now that our home is in the newly created quiet zone (CDN, March 25, 2025).

Thank you to the City of Bellingham and to the Port of Bellingham for working with the railroad to bring this quality of life improvement about.

In appreciation,

Sue and Mike Smith

Bellingham

Editor,

What most Americans don’t realize is that the Trump Administration’s sudden, illegal, and likely unconstitutional closing of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) will have significant negative repercussions in our domestic economy, including the state of Washington.

Most USAID’s worldwide programs and projects are implemented by American contractors and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) with requisite skills and expertise in education, public health, food and agriculture, environment, science and technology, democratic governance, and public sector management. Like the thousands of the agency’s American professional staff, they pay income taxes in the U.S., and employ thousands of fellow Americans, both here and overseas, who also pay taxes.  

Further, America’s food crop farmers overwhelmingly voted for Trump. But Trump has shut down USAID, whose mandate also includes providing large quantities of food aid overseas.

And this has a domestic rural constituency: farmers.

“Foreign aid” is politically unpopular in food crop-growing states, including in Central and Eastern Washington, because they see the money as being spent on development programs “overseas” and not here.

American food crops are exported, some commercially, others, part of “foreign aid,” to food-deficit countries and communities, mostly in Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Pacific. These crops are shipped on taxpaying American vessels from taxpaying American ports, including those in Washington.

In a struggling farm economy, farmers rely on the federal government to consistently buy their crops. A shock has now come from the shutdown of USAID; it means the loss of one of their biggest customers.

Elections often have unanticipated consequences for uninformed voters.

Curt Wolters

Bellingham

Editor,

Regarding our current presidential administration: Would anyone like to take a Mulligan?

I’m wondering if people who voted for Trump have seen enough of the Trump/Musk regime yet, to make them want a do-over. And maybe non-voters might like another chance to use the ballot drop-box.

I think this is still “a government of the people and by the people” but I’m not sure how much of the “for the people” is left.

If it is our government, could we move the next election up to, say, April?

How would this work? Maybe the National Governors Association could oversee this? 

Who would we run for president? Maybe Kamala Harris would come back. Or may Hakeem Jeffries? He has shown himself to be a strong leader. Maybe Pete Buttigieg? He seems to care about the country.

Kudos to the people who show up for protests, such as the Indivisible group. But how do we actually effect change before it is too late? DOGE is already messing with Social Security and Medicare, not to mention our veterans, our weather and earthquake forecasters, our national parks … the list is long. If you can’t name a few more places where chaos has ensued, you have not been paying attention.

Gwen Parker

Bellingham

Editor,

I’m unsure there’s any evangelical “Climate Change Religion” we need to be delivered from. There are policies and protocols from the 1970s, that have become a make-work river of endless red tape, that clearly needs deleting. 

Meanwhile I’m not seeing the citizen science and public technology one needs to be building shining new cities on the hills. A geo-poetic neuroaesthetic that works with the economy of nature and its ecology of mind … as infinite reasoning machine-learning? 

Something basic AI today may be far better equipped to explain than these dithering leaders of “our” archaic institutions, that few still have the heart to believe in anymore?   

John C. Ruth

Bellingham

Editor,

U.S. deaths from fentanyl overdoses now number more than 600,000, more than double American combat deaths in World War II, and almost triple the combined combat deaths in the Civil War.  Overwhelmingly, the deaths have been in the 18 to 45 age group.

By officially designating drug cartels as foreign terrorist organizations, Trump has taken the battle to the next level.

What is key to victory is to ruthlessly attack the true “godfathers” of the global narcotics trade. To do that, the methodology must be “to follow the money.”  

None of the drug cartels — in Mexico, China or elsewhere — could function without a vast financial apparatus behind (and above) them. Drug trafficking is the biggest business in the world, involving trillions of dollars.

The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists has published a series of reports, including the Fin-CEN Files and the Panama Papers, proving massive involvement of major banks and off-shore financial centers in drug financing. Other studies have pinpointed the role of “black-market money laundering” utilized by drug cartels in Southeast Asia, China, Mexico and South America.

These operations include billions of dollars passing through major financial institutions such as JP Morgan Chase, HFBC, Standard Chartered, Deutsche Bank and others. The key role, however, is reserved for the unregulated and secretive “off-shore” financial centers, i.e., the off-shore banking centers created by the British Crown in the 1970s.

Doris Smith

Ferndale

Editor,

In February, Cascadia Daily News reported on a proposal for the state to close the Bellingham Reentry Center, a transition house for incarcerated people (CDN, Feb. 16, 2025).  

The Riveters Collective Justice System Committee opposes the closure of this facility. Media coverage by the Cascadia and Washington State Standard cite the proposed corrections closure as a cost-saving strategy, while the Department of Corrections is exempted from submitting across-the-board cuts expected from other state agencies. Prison beds are significantly more operationally expensive than reentry beds. Reporting documents that the targeted reentry programs in Bellingham and Yakima are underutilized. 

The answer is to fill reentry beds, not eliminate them. Those are policy decisions. “Halfway houses” or reentry beds are designed to provide a bridge for people moving from incarceration to independent living. They offer support, supervision and skills to reduce recidivism, or the likelihood of an individual’s return to criminal activity and prison.

To the Department of Corrections and the Legislature: make better policy decisions, elevate reentry programs, and commit to evidence-based transition services.

Riveters Collective Justice System Committee

Bellingham

Editor,

Whatcom County Council has been discussing an ordinance to ensure that large public capital projects benefit local workers and community residents. When public money is spent on projects, it is important to me that our local workers and our community benefit. The standards that county council has been discussing are only common sense:

• Enforcing prevailing wage and establishing a Labor Compliance Program.
• Establishing a Priority Hire program — many construction workers in Whatcom County travel long distances to work. Priority hires could support local workers for local jobs and increase access for women, minorities and veterans.  
• Ensuring the use of apprentices from registered apprenticeship programs — apprenticeships train a new generation of skilled workers who earn while they learn. 
• Having workplace safety standards and protecting workers from discrimination — these should be a given on any worksite.

Many other jurisdictions in Washington state and around the country have passed similar requirements.  Snohomish County, for example, recently passed a Project Labor Agreement. Daniel Villao from Intelligent Partnerships gave a factual and even-handed presentation of these types of agreements to county council of the whole on Feb. 25. In addition to benefiting workers, the development in advance of standards and conditions of work may save money by eliminating costly delays due to labor conflicts or shortages of skilled workers. 

Thank you, county council members, for your forward thinking.

Betsy Pernotto

Bellingham

Editor,

This is an open letter to the Washington state contingent in the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives, and is being sent to their offices.

I won’t try to rehash all the things that are happening under President Trump’s administration. I do know there are many lawsuits challenging his illegal and destructive actions. But that should not encourage you to sit back and let the courts protect us. While I’m on the subject of courage, perhaps you could lend some of yours to your colleagues. Convince them to stand up for America, that you’ll stand with them so they aren’t alone. Urge them to resist what they surely know to be wrong and harmful. Lend them your support, so that the entire Congress will have the strength to stand against the obvious harm being done to not just your constituents, but all Americans.

Taking an oath is not enough. Fulfilling that oath by resisting Trump and Musk is what will prove you deserve your position, now and for the future. That resistance will also show the world that, when this current nightmare ends, America would be proud to once again join the rest of society in protecting the innocent around the globe from war, famine, disease and power-hungry dictators.  

There are serious mistakes being made that will have serious consequences. Please find a way to show strength and lend some of that strength to those who know what is happening is wrong, but are too afraid to stand alone. Do not concede the power with which you are entrusted  We will not forget it.  There are lives in the balance.

Gary Meader

Nooksack

Editor,

At least three former Russian intelligence officers say Trump was turned. If so, is this the game plan? 1.  Destroy our relationships with our allies. 2. Break the economy. 3. Make the federal government incapable of performing its function. We can observe all three in our daily news. Conclusion: Trump is Putin’s tool.

Mark Hendershott

Bellingham

Editor,

Our current president seems to have an affinity for President William McKinley. His renaming of the highest mountain peak in North America back to Mount McKinley from Denali is one example of this. It was during McKinley’s presidency that the U.S. took control of the Philippines. McKinley’s decision was one of the most consequential in the history of U.S. foreign policy. It led the United States to colonize a country the size of Arizona, with a population of 9 million, located 7,000 miles from the California coast. It was, and remains, the United States’ largest annexation outside its hemisphere.

The history lessons of that time period usually leave out the U.S. military massacre that occurred a few years later on the Philippine island of Jolo, the massacre is known as Bud Dajo, not our country’s finest hour. See a recent book by Kim  A. Wagner, “Massacre in the Clouds: An American Atrocity and the Erasure of History.”

That said, can we please go back to using Denali?

Gary P. Malick

Bellingham

Editor,

As someone deeply involved in housing advocacy and community building, I’ve seen firsthand how Bellingham’s housing crisis is impacting residents. More than 56% of renter-occupied households are cost-burdened, meaning they spend more than 30% of their income on rent. This isn’t sustainable, and it isn’t inevitable — it’s the result of policy choices.

One policy we urgently need is Inclusionary Zoning (IZ). Without it, developers can continue to build housing that’s out of reach for working people while our community members struggle. Other cities have successfully implemented IZ to ensure that growth benefits everyone — not just those who can afford market-rate housing.

I urge the planning commission and city council to prioritize affordability in Bellingham’s Comprehensive Plan update. That means requiring new developments to include homes for those making 0%-80% of Area Median Income (AMI). Housing policy is a choice, and right now, we have the chance to choose a future where everyone has a place to call home.

Kerri Burnside

Bellingham

Editor,

Since 1990, Bellingham has added 3,200 acres to parks and open spaces and 80 miles of trails using funding from Greenway levies for a total of about 3,700 acres of parkland. And the 2023 Greenways Levy provides $90 million over 10 years to buy even more land. 

The “Use of Funds” section in the levy resolution calls for property acquisition, development, climate resiliency and maintenance/operations. Unfortunately, nothing seems to be provided for public safety and enforcement of laws. As we continue to grow our parks and trails, and as our population grows and changes, this seems like a huge oversight. 

This month, Bellingham is spending $4 million on 66 acres to be added to the Samish Crest Open Space to finish a unique forested 2-mile public trail and park land corridor from Racine Street to the Lake Padden Park entrance. Without enforcement, open spaces like Samish Crest are just unofficial off-leash dog parks. Already, people avoid or limit their use of Samish Crest due to off-leash dogs and other safety issues. Bellingham doesn’t seem to have a strategic plan to address such issues. It doesn’t even post signs early on newly acquired land that is to be used for parks and trails to help establish ownership and the applicable rules. Unfortunately, Bellingham waits years or decades to set such expectations.

Shouldn’t Bellingham address public safety and enforcement as it acquires land for parks and trails rather than just letting problems grow larger?

Greg McKinney

Bellingham

Editor,

Sit down at any senior center across this state and listen to the members’  personal stories of how their monthly Social Security check is an irreplaceable lifeline — a program which is the most effective anti-poverty program in the U.S., lifting tens of millions of people above the poverty line each year.

For many, it isn’t the option of depositing their Social Security check in a growing savings deposit account. No, it’s supporting their food budget, their housing budget and maintaining their health. And it’s a win-win benefit: Social Security (the government) supporting food, housing and health, and the local business community being supported by the purchases of the Social Security recipient. 

This Trump administration’s increasingly brazen seizures of power, civil rights violations and sprees of civic destruction have been streaming forth at what has felt like an impossible rate. The SSA has now been subjected to mass firings, funding cuts and the invasive and capricious changes dictated by DOGE.

This is the call to action by people power.

Please write or call your state senators and House representatives to assert their moral courage to fight against the administration.

Helen Moran

Bellingham

Letters to the Editor are published online Wednesdays; a selection is published in print Fridays. Send to letters@cascadiadaily.com by 10 a.m. Tuesdays. Rules: Maximum 250 words, be civil, have a point and make it clearly. Preference is given to letters about local subjects. CDN reserves the right to reject letters or edit for length, clarity, grammar and style, or removal of personal attacks or offensive content. Letters must include an address/phone number to verify the writer's identity (not for publication).