Jeff Downer's View of Us

Jeff, a Vancouver guy, was around last year; interested in doing some kind of grad school project on Point Roberts.  But then he disappeared.  I ran into his website this evening, which has this about the Point:

"Point Roberts, WA

A quarantined culture 
Point Roberts, Washington, the awkward little peninsula below Tsawwassen, is a space kept in isolation from the rest of it’s country, cut off from its inherent culture of the United States. It exists as an American territory solely because it falls below the 49th parallel, rendering the space, its culture, its people in a quarantine-like state, away from major sociological, technological, and economical advancements. It remains untouched from large american corporations, other than gas stations that residents from the Greater Vancouver area flock to on weekends in search of cheap gas prices, or an easy entry point into Canada by runaway criminals.
I am interested in what the culture of an area so gated (Americans have to cross two borders to access the area, Canadians, one) and so detached, yet independent, is like within a contemporary societal context. Or, like most areas, has this area too been effected by mass development, or is it a destination for retirees? Do people that work and live in a displaced landscape mimic their environment? The physical border itself, a mere cement block cylinder lines the border of the two territories. How can something so superficial hold so much weight?
As both an American and Canadian Citizen, I am personally drawn to this binary, and feel Point Roberts is probably the closest space to an area where both countries overlap and coexist in what feels like an ephemeral refuge or muster-station; waiting, just waiting." 

 www.jeff-downer.com

Although it doesn't all sound right to me (as a near 20-year resident), i do very much like the phrase: "waiting, just waiting."  But I surely don't know for what.

Truth in Advertising, Election Edition

I was out driving round the Point today and saw that 3 of the 4 the candidates for Fire Commissioner positions have election signs out on the road shoulders.

--"Elect Jeff Wilmott" (Fire Commissioner)

--"Craig Carter" (for Fire Commissioner)

--"Re-elect Stan Riffle" (for Fire Commissioner")

The problem with that is that Wilmott and Riffle were both appointed to their current seats.  We are getting the chance to ELECT Mr. Wilmott, Mr. Riffle, Mr. Carter, and Mr. Dean (Dean doesn't have any signs up) for the first time since none of them has previously been elected to the position of Fire Commissioner.

Why does Mr. Riffle think that he is being RE-Elected?

Good Citizens

On Saturday, Rhiannon Allen was bringing wonderful chard (I bought some; I speak from experience) from her garden to the Great Indoor Yard and Baked Sale for the benefit of the new library.  Yesterday, I saw her on Tyee doing the fall work on the beautiful garden created and maintained by the P.R. Garden Club.  It's people like Rhiannon that make this a community in the best sense of the word.

Local Starfish: They Okay?

News of a strange die-off of sunflower starfish off the B.C. coast comes to our attention.  You can read about it here and look at pictures, too.  I've not seen sunflower starfish down here off Point Roberts--just the purple ones--but then I don't spend a lot of time looking for them.  Anybody seeing dead ones?  Of any kind?

update:  http://kuow.org/post/mass-starfish-die-may-be-headed-washington

second update:  http://www.vancouversun.com/travel/Sudden+disappearance+sardines+serious+economic+ecological/9034961/story.html
The sardines/pilchards have all disappeared too.

Second Set of Fire Hydrants, Point Roberts

A number of you called or wrote to tell us where your painted fire hydrant was located, but Ed is still missing some of the reported 147 that have been painted.  Nevertheless, here is another bunch, none of which were included in the first set he/we published.  You can click on each of the small pictures to get an enlarged version.

Whatcom County Politics

We're a little sheltered up here from Whatcom County politics, even though we are in Whatcom County.  Which may mean nothing more than that we are largely uninformed about the county politics that affect us in various ways.  I have just had my attention brought to a blogger who writes about Whatcom County politics. Worth bookmarking and reading, I suspect, especially during this onrushing election season.

See it here.

What We Do in the Fall

The Last Sunflowers of the Summer, photo by Ed Park



The off-and-on aggressive rains of the past ten days remind us of the fall that is to come.  But today there is sun to tempt us to think that summer will come back.  I don't think so.  At least not for many months.

There are many things on our plates this fall in Point Roberts.  There's the County decisions (Planning Board, Hearing Examiner) on the Cottages at Seabright Farm and on the KRPI radio tower construction; there's the election with (unusual) contested seats: in particular, two Commissioners at the Fire District (which election you may conclude safely that I have a special interest in); there's the $250,000 bond issue for the vitally-needed renovation and maintenance of the Community Center; and (for me, but really for us all) the conclusion of the two-year drive to raise money for the renovation of the Julius Firehall into a new library for Point Roberts.  All have their supporters and their opponents and we'll be hearing more about that as the weeks progress.

At the moment, I want to bring to your attention the All Community Indoor Yard and Bake Sale to be held at the Community Center on October 12, from 10-6.  Although it is sponsored by the Library Fundraising Group, it is not intended to raise money solely for them.  Anybody can reserve a table space and sell what they want of a yard-sale nature and keep the money (although everyone needs to pay a $5 table space fee for the use of the Community Center).  The Library Fund will have several tables of yard sale goods plus the baked goods sale products.  But we have already had requests for about 8+ other tables, including fall produce, as well as yard sale materials (clothing, household goods, skill saws, golf clubs, etc.)

The Library people will make some money here for the new library, they/we hope, but the decision to do this was largely based upon our experience at the Saturday Market this summer when, for 3 or 4 weeks at the end, we had a yard sale table.  That came about because a friend of Ed's was cleaning out their garage and offered him a bunch of construction materials which we decided to take to the Market for the library cause.  And that first week was so much fun, that we repeated it for the next few weeks, adding to the stores of goods from here and there.  We 'sold' things for whatever people thought they were worth, and the process itself engaged people in a surprising way.  I discovered people just like to poke around in boxes and consider adding to their own supplies of things.  And they like the bargain aspect, setting what I think of as a Platonic, which is to say, ideal price.  I believe that each of us has some firm idea about what something is really worth (as opposed to what somebody else thinks we ought to pay), and this is a process which lets you execute that 'real worth' decision.  I like it; lots of other people seemed to like it.  And the money went to the library which is a pretty popular cause.

So we're doing it one more time, all day.  Join us as a seller; join us as a baker; join us as a shopper.  But join us.  And we'll all be there having a good time.