I Read the News Today.... Oh, Boy!

The first of the month is the day the All Points Bulletin appears in our street mailboxes to tell us what we have missed the past month. In Roberts Creek, B.C., the monthly newspaper is actually a weekly newspaper, but the amount of news/month is about the same for each place. Which is to say, there’s not much news because it’s only local news and there’s not much local. In B.C., we get a bunch of advertising supplements, whereas in WA, we get just the paper, which has some advertising of minimal interest, only because we all pretty much know what you can buy in Point Roberts or in the neighboring small town, Tsawwaaasen. But it usually has a kind of entertainment value, if only the ‘Letters to the Editors,’ written by the town cranks.

Nevertheless, after reading the March edition of the APB, I found myself feeling a little down. Then, Ed read it and commented, ‘There’s nothing in this paper that made me feel good.’ A true and lively statement, and worthy of all men (and women). An article on the border leads us to believe that the people responsible for the border think the situation is just going swimmingly. (Which might be a better way to cross the border.) The decision about a cell phone tower (which would provide cell phone coverage here) has been postponed yet again. Now, I don’t really have a dog in that race, but it would be better if it just got resolved instead of keeping people crazed over a yet longer period. (One, but not the only, issue is that the Parks and Recreation Board would like to rent some space to the tower builders so that they’d have a little income without having to ask for additional tax levies, which they probably wouldn’t get. The other issue, on the NO! side, features concerns about health issues, which surely we would then share with the entire U.S. population given the level of cell phone coverage around.)

The third issue is water, of course. The Water Board has now gotten the developers to more or less agree to foot the $3 million cost of this giant storage tank that they want to build. The developers will then get those up-front costs back when they sell the houses and assess each of the new owners for their share of the 3 mil. I’m dubious about how this is all going to work, and can easily imagine this tank coming apart like the 3 Gorges dam in China is reputed to be about to do. Bound to be bad for property values if that happens.

But worse is the description of the developers’ plans for high end developments of 150 houses in gated communities (apparently more than one of these). I can imagine McMansions with fences around them and their neighboring McMansions with their own fences (good fences do make good neighbors), and all the McMansions in each development encircled by yet another fence. Meanwhile, all of us here are encircled by a figurative fence—that is to say, The Border: fenced mansions in a gated community inside yet another gated community. Is this the future I was hoping for? Not. So. Much.

I know, now that I’m here, let’s pull up the road (the carpet?) and not let anyone else come. Actually, I’m entertained by the idea of more people, but not of gated communities with McMansions with helipads on their roofs so that the owners don’t have to fool with the silliness of the border; owners that are able to pay those very big charges for their piece of the storage tank. Why, I ask myself, in the midst of the worst housing downturn in U.S. history are we contemplating the building of 150 McMansions inside a gated-fence?

Ahh, I remember: it’s the nature of Point Roberts...always on the wrong side of history.