Environmental consultant faces businesswoman for seat on Whatcom Council

In a race that could tip the balance of power on the Whatcom County Council, at-large candidates Jon Scanlon and Hannah Ordos are facing each other Tuesday after they finished first and second in the August primary.

Councilwoman Carol Frazey, the current at-large B representative, is not seeking re-election.

In Whatcom County, the at-large seat holds a four-year term, and the job pays $77,915 annually.

This year’s city and county races are nonpartisan, but Scanlon is endorsed by the Whatcom Democrats and Ordos is endorsed by the Whatcom Republicans.

Frazey was endorsed by the Whatcom Democrats, and her vote generally gave the council a 4-3 liberal majority. Of the other six County Council members, three are Democrats and three are Republicans. Two other open council seats in this election are held by council members in generally conservative rural districts who are endorsed by Republicans — Ben Elenbaas and Kathy Kershner.

All Whatcom County residents can vote for the at-large candidate, and voting is by mail only in Washington state.

Ballots must be postmarked — not simply placed in the mail — by 8 p.m. Tuesday to be counted. Ballots can also be placed in official ballot drop boxes that will be locked when polling closes.

Here’s how the candidates responded to Bellingham Herald questionnaires:

Jon Scanlon

Scanlon is a consultant working with Indigenous communities and conservation organizations regarding climate change and human rights, a board member at RE Sources and an appointed member of the Bellingham Community Development Advisory Board.

He lives in the Columbia neighborhood of Bellingham and has a master’s degree in international affairs from the Georgia Institute of Technology. He has worked for Oxfam America, CARE USA and several U.S. government agencies, including the State Department, the Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs, the U.S. Agency for International Development, the Bureau of African Affairs and U.S. Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Missouri).

Scanlon’s priorities are affordable housing, health care and child care, he told The Herald in an email.

An upcoming land-use document called the Comprehensive Plan is due for an update, and Scanlon said he’s eager to make certain that county officials get serious about planning for the inevitability of growth.

“I know this sounds simple, but we haven’t always planned ahead for population growth. Past failures to plan are part of the reason why we have a housing affordability crisis in our county today. We have a unique opportunity to engage in planning together: our Comprehensive Plan update, which is due by June 2025.

“This update is our chance to align population growth and our affordable housing goals with budgets, policies, and regulations. On County Council, I plan to be a strong voice for community engagement with this 2025 update to ensure all voices are heard and a champion for evidence-based planning decisions,” he said.

Scanlon said that he’d use his experience “building large coalitions” to enlist the support of leaders in the seven cities in Whatcom County, state and federal officials, and representatives of workers, businesses, nonprofits, renters and others.

In the short term, Scanlon said he favors additional tiny home villages.

“More tiny home sites can fit within current budgets and help quickly house more people. Whatcom County Council has a large role in building more tiny home villages. We need our Council to be an active partner with local, state, and federal partners to fund additional tiny home villages. We also need our council to ensure these villages can be permitted safely and efficiently. On council, I plan to be a champion for this and other solutions to homelessness that have been proven out by data and evidence,” he said.

“Whatcom County has an affordable housing crisis,” Scanlon said.

“We need a variety of policy, budget, and legislative changes to address affordable housing, including new funding and additional county government staff to support affordable housing, more tiny home villages and ADUs, support for renters, eviction prevention programs, permitting reform and zoning changes and planning policies that promote dense, bike/pedestrian and transit-oriented neighborhoods in cities and Urban Growth Areas outside of floodplains and the Lake Whatcom watershed,” he said.

“There’s no silver bullet that will fix things, and it won’t happen overnight,” Scanlon said.

In addition to the Whatcom Democrats, he is endorsed by the Riveters Collective and several local elected officials, including County Council members Frazey, Barry Buchanan, Todd Donovan and Kaylee Galloway, 42nd District state Sen. Sharon Shewmake, D-Bellingham, and 42nd District Rep. Joe Timmons, D-Bellingham. Further endorsements include Bellingham-Whatcom Firefighters Local 106, the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers 191 and several other labor unions, Planned Parenthood, the Sierra Club, Lummi Nation and the Nooksack Indian Tribe.

Scanlon has raised $70,992 for his campaign, according to the state Public Disclosure Commission.

Hannah Ordos

Ordos of Sumas graduated from Nooksack Valley High School and has a bachelor’s degree in human resource management from Western Washington University.

A customer support manager for Vitamin Portfolio LLC, she has additional certifications in nutrition/health, fitness, lean leadership and professional mediation training from the Whatcom Dispute Resolution Center.

Ordos has held leadership positions at T-Mobile, Sterling Life Insurance, Charter College and Amazon.

In addition, she serves on the North Sound Behavioral Health Advisory Board, is a Be the One mentor to high school girls and a parent volunteer at Nooksack Valley School District. She’s a former president of the Happy Valley PTA and an executive board member of the Mother Baby Center.

Public safety, affordable housing and economic development are among Ordos’ priorities.

She told The Herald that she would like to examine zoning policies, land-use policies, and permitting regulations and “competing priorities” that she said make building expensive and complex.

“Building more housing that our community members cannot afford does not make sense so streamlining the cost of building by addressing our permitting requirements and ensuring our planning and development department is adequately staffed would be a good first step,” Ordos said.

“In our unincorporated areas, I would like to see more flexibility with ADUs (backyard cottages) to increase opportunities for having housing for aging parents and/or adult children residing on the same property without affecting our agricultural spaces,” she said.

Homelessness is complex issue, combining affordability, opportunity, a lack of services, “and the presence of fentanyl has changed everything,” Ordos said.

“I think we need to look at sheltering models that have worked in other places and have a conversation about those. What I would like to see is continuing to support the programs who are doing good work and explore ways that our partners can streamline services and reduce duplication so that expansion in needed areas (such as outreach) can occur,” she said.

“If I were to add one ‘concrete’ thing it would be to bring all the necessary parties to the table and take steps to address our fentanyl crisis. The effects of fentanyl have increased the complexity of this topic exponentially,” she said.

Ordos is endorsed by the Whatcom Republicans and several elected leaders, including Sheriff Bill Elfo, port commissioners Ken Bell and Bobby Briscoe, Lynden Mayor Scott Korthuis, Everson Mayor John Perry, and County Council member Tyler Byrd.

She has raised $59,893 for her campaign, according to the state Public Disclosure Commission. In addition, a group called Concerned Taxpayers of Washington State has spent $39,420 in support of her campaign.