Bellingham staffer asked ChatGPT to ‘exclude’ vendor from city contract

By: Nate Sanford, KNKX

Outlets: KNKX

Published: January 5, 2026

Words: 2,165

Last Updated: 1 week, 4 days ago

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The City of Bellingham is launching an independent investigation in response to public records uncovered by Cascade PBS and KNKX that show a city employee asking ChatGPT for help tipping the scales to ensure a preferred vendor would be awarded a large city contract last year.

The ChatGPT messages were obtained through a public records request as part of our initial reporting on the use of the artificial intelligence chatbot in local government …

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