Onward! Upward! Some Direction Like Those.

Last night, the Community Advisory Committee celebrated about a thousand months or years of meetings by agreeing to recommend to the Executive of Whatcom County that the Executive or the County Council or Someone in Authority order the following things to be done (and paid for out of the Gas Tax Funds):

1.  Post six signs meeting federal guidelines that direct people/cars to the four corner parks in Point Roberts.

2.  To clear and gravel (as with the path on Benson Road that regularly obscures itself with undergrowth) about 700 feet of shoulder near Lighthouse Park apparently to improve pedestrian safety (although I know of no pedestrians found to be unsafe.  What is routinely invoked in such discussions is 'It is an accident waiting to happen."  We do not deal in data.)

3.  Do something about making clearer that street parking on the Maple Beach sidestreets is allowed, regardless of what signs say.  The 'something' might be signs saying 'Beach parking allowed.' Or they might require the corner house owners (14 of them? or at least the owners controlling 14 parking places) to remove any barriers to parking including signs, driftwood, rocks, whatever, so that people can park. Or maybe they'll send a letter to the Maple Beach Homeowners Association.  Or like those things.

And then, in a discussion which certainly felt like "GroundHog Day,"  various of the 14 attendees and 5 committee members pawed through the knotty matter of trailers and such-like that offended the eyes and (allegedly) the property values of some folks, but not of the people who had the trailers and suchlike on their land.  There is a code section that deals with all such matters in Point Roberts.  You can find it here.  You can complain to the County and see if they have an interest in doing something about it.  Happily, the Code does not yet prohibit clotheslines that expose residents' underwear to their neighbors' eyes.

And then a discussion of the Long-Ago Executed Community Character Plan.  The discussion featured concerns that the Plan is not important enough.  Perhaps because Point Roberts is not important enough.  Hard to know. It requires that there be, to be effective, a Character Plan Committee.  There is no such committee.  There you go. 

I celebrate the Community Advisory Committee members' and their ability to move anything forward given that the County insists on having agreement from all five members: (one from the Voters' Association, one from the Taxpayers' Association, one from the Chamber of Commerce, and two at large members) before anything is moved on for recommendation to the County Executive.  In Point Roberts, 5 people, 6 opinions.  But if efficiency has any value at all, it is hard to imagine how one might justify the amount of time that has gone into these results.  But maybe efficiency has no value at all in political settings which might explain why people are so turned off by politics.

Note: there is a comment below from the CAC chairman which makes two corrections in this post.