Our Own E-News?

The All Point Bulletin has sent forth Issue #1 of its E-news.  You can sign up for delivery to your email address here.  I had heard around that they were going to start with some kind of blog operation but if this is it, it isn't a blog operation.

It's called The All Point Bulletin E-News.  The first issue, which just appeared yesterday in my email box, includes four short news stories as well as meetings, events, and classifieds.  It doesn't say how often it is to be published, but it certainly would be nice to have them providing us with at least middle-of-the-month updates on breaking news.  Indeed, it would be nice to have reminders of the upcoming week's meetings.  As well as what's playing at the movies.  If there were movies playing.

Anyway, might as well sign up and encourage them to provide this service.  Since the Bulletin doesn't charge us for the newspaper anyway, it can't be driven by its economic need to make up for falling newspaper subscriptions.  Still, it's not hard to see that we are moving quickly to a world in which the New York Times as well as the All Point Bulletin will exist solely in digital form.  And we'll be able to read them on our Kindles or our I-Pads or whatever comes next.

Big World, Small Place

The April edition of the All Point Bulletin seems very unusual to me.  Each month, I look at the paper, I read all the material in it, look at the ads, read the classifieds and the real estate, and it reflects back the Point Roberts that I know: a place where not a lot happens and where it's hard to get anything done if you aren't planning to do it yourself.  This month's edition, though, seems to be about a very different place, a place where a lot more things are going on, a lot more people are simmering up various plans. 

There are all the animals that are being cared for, and for various purposes; there's the locavore movement manifesting here in our very own townlet; the Customs and Border Protection people are coming back to talk to us again, as promised last year; and we have a brand new Point Roberts Advisory group that will work with the County to try to bring an informed view to the County's interactions with the Point.  There are a bunch of other stories, as well, but what struck me most was the very impressive job that the paper's staff had done in selling ads.  Normally, excessive ads in a publication turn me off, but in our newspaper I am always hoping to find that someone has come here to do something that we didn't have anyone previously doing.

And this month, it's like that: there's a nice Cando ad for their new recycling and disposal program, three or four new (to me) painters, small-scale builders, window and pressure washing, not mention tree and lawn care people, two nurseries where there used to be but one, storage facilities, and a plumber from Point Roberts who sounds like he's planning to do plumbing right here in Point Roberts. 

Maybe it's just spring time enthusiasm, but it really seems as if the paper is discovering a Point Roberts we haven't seen for awhile.  AND, I am told on good authority that the paper is going to start having a blog or two or more on its website so as to be able to update stories more than every month.  Even the paper is joining in in the apparent change.

Great Minds Think Alike, or Something

The newest issue of the All Point Bulletin is up on the web and possibly in my mail box.  I was amused and interested to find articles on the medivac flights to St. Joseph Hospital in Bellingham, on the varied animal population in Point Roberts (including pictures), and on the community garden project in Point Roberts all included in this issue.  All are topics that I wrote about over the past four or five weeks.  No articles, however, about the trash collection starting up or about the community events sign or about Point Roberts' abandoned houses under restoration.  Maybe they'll get around to those next month?

Quagmire

 The very word is so nostalgic, so late-60’s, so Vietnam War-ish.  But nowadays, quagmire means so much more:  Afghanistan, health care reform, trash collection.  Yes, I’m afraid it’s once more time to get a trash collection update.   It’s been maybe six months now since those of us in Point Roberts lost all curbside trash collection, in addition to curbside recycling pick-up.  Each month, it seems as if the WUTC has yet another problem to contend with in respect to getting this knotty problem solved.  Mostly, WUTC thinks that it needs another thirty days to do whatever needs to be done.

And what needs to be done?  At the moment, we seem to have applications from two candidates: Freedom 2000, the Dave Gellatly/Ron Caulder outfit; and Point Recyling and Refuse, the Arthur Wilkowski outfit which, up until six months-ish ago actually had a certificate to provide those services and was in fact providing at least the trash collection part.  In fact, Wilkowski recently offered up several ways in which he might provide some services, but WUTC turned him down on the ‘temporary’ plan, and now we seem to be fixed on the full plan, which is not exactly as full as he used to provide.  And that is perhaps because the business model for the ‘full’ plan—curbside pickup of trash and recycling--is no better now than it was when he cut the curbside recycling because the business model had too few customers to make it a viable model.  You still with me?

The WUTC may now be as confused as many of us are.  I say this because their current plan (since Dec. 4) is to wait about 25 days and then have a public hearing on the issue.  The official reason for this is that, because the Commission has decided to combine its consideration of these two applicants—even though they are not applying to provide exactly the same service--it would be ‘appropriate to hold a public hearing. . . to provide an opportunity for members of the public to comment orally on the record concerning the pending applications.’  It’s particularly worth noting, I think, that on a matter that is of great concern to and (far too) lively comment among the residents of Point Roberts and of interest to virtually no one else in the State of Washington, the WUTC has decided to hold the hearing in Olympia, Washington, maybe 150 miles away from us.  To their credit, they scheduled it for 1:30 in the afternoon.  On the other side of the balance sheet, there’s not only the location but also the date: December 29.  So, if you aren’t too busy with post-Christmas shopping, or sunk in the post-Christmas blues, and have cleared out the Christmas guests, or returned from your Christmas travel, well...here’s an event that might attract your interest, fill up your otherwise blank calendar in that strange week between holidays, assuming the weather isn’t so unseemly as to make driving dicey.

If you don’t care that much or aren’t able to make the trip, however, WUTC will accept your written views up until January 4.  After that, I guess, they’ll be taking about 30 days either to make a decision, or to figure out how to get some information that they don’t already have.

The residents and sometime-users of trash and recycling collection have been busy making their views known to WUTC over the past months, of course.  The WUTC puts all comments on line, so you can check out your neighbors’ views here.  This is a list of all the documents they’ve received, and if, say, you want to see what Knick or Gordon thinks, click on the date of the document (the far left column).  Then you usually have to choose to see the document in either a ‘pdf’ or a ‘word’ format.  It’s not the friendliest website I’ve ever seen, but if you keep at it for awhile, you’ll probably get the knack.  If you lose the site, it might help to know that the docket # is 091687.

The complainant ladies trio are represented among these commenters, although if you read the APB you probably already know what they think.  Reading Mr. Wilkowski’s response to their comments may be of interest, though.  I, at least, had not seen his response to their views anywhere, and it is certainly the case that there are two sides (at least) to this dispute.   His response is here. 

About thirty people have taken the time to communicate their views and, having read them all, I can tell you it’s a mixed bag.  Some support Freedom 2000, some support Point Recycling, some support them both but just want a solution, some primarily support mandatory participation in a trash collection system in order to make sure that it’s economically viable.  I found it problematic to offer my views to WUTC insofar as I have no special or specific information (as opposed to rumors) that the WUTC lacks about either applicant or about the nature of trash and recycling collection.  On the other hand, perhaps they need to know where Point Roberts is located.  I do know that.

Winter and the Tree Sweaters

The cold, dry northern front is dominating our weather and freezing is our lot.  We awake to an outside temperature of 30 degrees F, and an inside temperature of about 60 degrees because the propane stove is having a little trouble getting it up to 65 first thing in the morning.  And if we are cold, how much colder are those who live outdoors, such as the trees?

I decided about 6 weeks ago to knit sweaters for the trees as a way to use up my excessive store of small amounts of acrylic yarns.  As the first photo shows, I knit three coils/rounds, each about 8 inches wide and about 15 yards long.  I didn't really have much idea of how much length would be involved in wrapping the tree: would 15 yards cover ten feet of trunk or 20?  It turns out that 15 yards gets you about eight feet of wrapped trunk.  Less, of course, if you are engaged with a very large trunk.

I also have no idea what will be the effect on the wrapping or on the 'sweater' of having a lot of rain.  At the moment, that's not our problem.  The front tree has an as yet unwarmed branch, and I think I've enough yarn still around to do that one before Christmas.  These trees are right next to the street on our lot, so the neighbors have the advantage of admiring them.  Or laughing at them.  Or wondering why anyone would go to the trouble...

Almost Dark: Not Quite Yet

This month’s Harpers has an article by Richard Rodriguez called ‘Twilight of the American Newspaper.’  I’ve followed Rodriguez’s literary and TV career over the years and have always found him the most interesting and most eloquent of despairers.  I mentioned to Ed this morning that there was a Rodriguez article in Harpers, and his reply was, ‘What is he sad about?’  Which may about cover it.  He used to (and may still for all I know) convey his hopelessness as an occasional contributor to the PBS evening TV news, and I always felt the better for knowing that someone shared my feeling that things were indeed going to hell in a handcart, as my grandmother always said.

But, that sense of doom needs to be taken in small measures.  And one article every year or so in the morning with coffee is about my allotment.  His point was that newspapers are not disappearing because the internet has overtaken them, or at least not just because the internet has overtaken them.  His claim is that newspapers in the U.S., anyway, arose in order to tell us who and where we were in this new land.  Thus, using San Francisco as his examplar, the first newspapers in S.F. followed close upon the gold rush and the great intake of people who had no sense of community in a town which hardly existed anyway until they all got there. 

The San Francisco Chronicle (in its first form) told the first-comers what was happening, and then told the second-comers the nature of the place in which they were now living.  Rodriguez’s account seemed right on to me.  I grew up in a small town in the West, and it, too, had a daily paper.  If you wanted to know what was happening far away, in Europe or Utah, you read the Salt Lake City Tribune, but if you wanted to know what was happening in Pocatello, you read the Pocatello Tribune, even if you were just a 12-year-old.  Who was born, who died, who did well in school, what the high school basketball team was doing, what jobs were around, what houses were for sale or rent, what church was conducting what community event, what the City Council and the civic organizations were up to.  Boys scouts, girl scouts, cub scouts, brownies, campfire girls, bluebirds, 4-H: every kid in town, at one time or another, had his picture in the local paper.  That’s how we knew who we were and where we lived.  That was the town, and just as much so as its physical existence.

Rodriguez went on to say that we don’t live in those kinds of towns anymore.  The physical places are still there, but our newspaper existence has pretty much disappeared.  And that may be true.  When my son and his family lived in a small town in Minnesota, the local paper was largely classified ads and syndicated stuff from wire services.  Maybe it’s different in other small towns, but all small towns with newspapers are having difficulty staying alive, and their preferred business plan is probably not more coverage of girl scout meetings. 

So I would join Mr.Rodriguez in his despair, if it were not that I lived in Point Roberts where, even though it is only a once-a-month publication, the All Point Bulletin is totally devoted to tracking and demonstrating our existence.  We are here because the APB says we are, and we are what we seem to be because the APB keeps reminding us of it!  So, down with doom, and up with Pat, Louise, and Meg: our authenticators and chief reminders of what a motley, crotchety, generous, and interesting lot we are.