Voters asked to consider new county jail

For the monumental task of financing construction for a new jail in Whatcom County, voters will be asked to consider increasing the county sales tax from 8.8 percent to 9 percent to fund in-part what the county estimates to be at least a $39.5 million one-time investment, with more than $21 million in annual operating costs. Major capital investments include:

• $12 million (with $3 million from proposed sales tax) in funding for construction of a 23-hour crisis relief center.

• $8-10 million annually in capital expenses for the new jail and $8 million in one-time expenses for a behavioral health treatment center.

• $6 million in capital investments to fund re-entry support services.

• $4 million to maintain and expand recovery and supportive housing programs.

County voters have twice rejected similar ballot measures, in 2015 with 51.4 percent rejecting the measure, and more vocally in 2017 with 58.6 percent voting no. When ballots are filled out by November 7, proponents of Proposition 2023-04 hope a third time could be the charm to green light construction on a replacement of the current jail. The tax would also fund an in-person behavioral health facility and diversion, housing and re-entry programs.

The current jail, located in downtown Bellingham adjacent to the county courthouse, was built in 1983 to accommodate 148 inmates. According to booking data by the Whatcom County Sheriff’s Office (WCSO), as of October 9, the jail is housing 163 inmates. 

Since March 2020, booking restrictions have been implemented to attempt to keep the jail population manageable while the county court system worked through hundreds of backlogged cases. Still, the jail remains at or over capacity on a weekly basis, according to WCSO data.

WCSO corrections lieutenant Caleb Erickson said that corrections staff at the downtown jail are forced to constantly improvise ways to fit more people than the jail was built to safely house. 

“Everything is designed for 148 people,” Erickson said. “It’s full as a tick.”

Erickson said corrections staff have had to increase capacity in makeshift ways as the jail stays above capacity. That included turning the men’s indoor recreation area into dormitory-style bunks that hold up to 20 inmates and the women’s into a dry food storage unit, the women’s block converting from 64 beds to bunk beds to accommodate 128 people in the same square footage and having inmates sleep on cots on the ground when bunks are full. 

The jail is not only constantly at or over capacity, but is also experiencing major infrastructure challenges. Two elevators service the entire complex, and have been partially working for the past three years, Erickson said. In January 2022, the county canceled all in-person visits besides lawyers and case managers due to the state of the elevators. 

Four washer/dryer units are used for hundreds of inmates every day. Three are currently working after one was destroyed in a fire.

“It’s anybody’s guess,” Erickson said on the status of the dilapidated laundry room. “Sometimes we’re down to one, sometimes we got two. Sometimes you can get one of them to rotate, but it doesn’t heat. We’ve had a couple of fires in recent months.”

By 2004, just 20 years into the lifespan of the jail, the county Law and Justice Council recommended the construction of a new jail to accommodate overcrowding. By 2011, the Whatcom County Jail Planning Task Force formed to make recommendations to council on what a new jail should look like. In 2014, a property in Ferndale on the corner of LaBounty and Slater roads was purchased as the site of a new jail. In 2015, voters narrowly rejected a measure to fund a new, 521-bed facility. Again in 2017, voters rejected another sales tax measure to fund construction, this time by an even wider margin.

Some voters rejected both measures due to the lack of accommodation for nonviolent drug offenses and crimes of poverty. County government responded by creating a flurry of task forces and institutions to find rehabilitative alternatives to locking people up. 

In 2015, the Incarceration Prevention and Reduction Task Force began recommending incarceration alternatives to pretrial defendants who are deemed safe for bail and reviewing criminal justice and behavioral health programs. In 2018, the Ground-Level Response and Coordinated Engagement (GRACE) program provided alternatives to “high utilizers” of stretched-thin emergency and criminal justice systems. In 2019, the Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion (LEAD) model was adopted to help those who kept getting arrested for unmanaged substance use, mental health challenges or extreme poverty. 

Whatcom County Democrats ratified a resolution against voting for the November 7 ballot measure, citing a lack of transparency from the county government on potential taxpayer costs, and the inability to reduce the underlying causes of incarceration. 

The Whatcom County Democrats were a key opponent to the 2017 ballot measure that proposed a jail of 244 cells, now the county is proposing a roughly 440-cell jail, “with no explanation or public discussion,” according to the Democrats’ resolution.

“The county budget is stretched tight, only getting by because of federal pandemic relief funds,” the resolution stated. “The additional staff and maintenance costs not covered by the tax will eat up our capacity to provide other services to the community.”

County Democrats also pointed to other means of incarceration reduction such as cash bail reform. The county’s 2023 Needs Assessment Report showed that 98 percent of inmates in county jail are being held pretrial, and that nearly two-thirds of those cannot afford to post bail. 

The Democrats declined to provide additional comment.

Jed Holmes, community outreach facilitator for the Whatcom County Executive’s Office, said any legislation toward cash bail reform has to come from the state legislature.

“That’s just not in our realm of responsibility,” Holmes said. “There’s a long list of things that should be done with regard to criminal justice reform. The amount of those things getting done in this building are very small.”

County executive Satpal Sidhu has been an avid proponent of the new jail. In a statement to The Northern Light, Sidhu urged the public to vote yes on the ballot measure. 

“This is a complex issue with many facets and requires huge investments both to build a new building for the current jail and a behavioral health care center,” Sidhu wrote. “I admit that this may not be a perfect solution, but this is the best compromise solution.”  

To date, all seven Whatcom County mayors publicly approved the current ballot measure, and all seven city councils have approved resolutions supporting the initiative. 

Erickson believes in order for a jail to have the power to rehabilitate, rather than simply punish, it needs things like natural lighting, art, long lines of sight for corrections staff, and adequate room for inmates to live.

“Any corrections building should function as a limiter of people’s freedom. Taking away your liberty is the restriction,” Erickson said. “It shouldn’t be anything in addition to that.”