I suppose, in Utopia, nothing ever breaks or, if it does, the Utopians have a ready-to-hand set of highly trained mechanics of all sorts who just fix it up. Here in Point Roberts version of Utopia...well, not so much.
Here's how we deal with this mostly: If neither Ed nor I know how to fix something, it's likely that we'll figure out how to get along without it, or we'll just replace it. I don't mention that latter option with any pride, but still, the prospect of figuring out where in lower Vancouver or in Bellingham you will find a repairer--either bound to involve an hour or two of driving--just leads you into break-and-replace mode.
But if it's something pretty pricey or that we cannot do without, then we are obliged to ferret out a repairer in this near world. Sometimes, you can find somebody in P.R. E.g., Neilson's keeps a list of people who do work of various sorts, including repairers. But it isn't exhaustive. For example, if my clothes dryer ceases functioning (it is old and i got it free 12 years ago), which is likely, I will turn it into a planter and wait for the next dryer on Point-Interface because there's not a dryer repairer here to my knowledge (other than casual home repair knowledge). If my fancy, front loading washing machine which is only 18 months old goes down, there is definitely no one here who will know how to repair it and I will have to figure out how to get someone from Bellingham to come up here. I may just quit washing clothes.
This comes to mind because this past week, two of my workhorse sewing machines at least temporarily retired from their labors. I was led to a nice retired sewing machine repairman right across the border for the first one. In 25 minutes, he had sent me on my way with a fixed-up machine and a firm refusal to charge me anything. May good kharma be coming to him for a long time for such a generous gesture. The other one required one of those long drives and will doubtless cost much because a special metal part is going to need to be replaced. The repairman is a long ways away and the work goes to him in shifts. I take it one place and then someone else picks all the work up every so often and takes it to him North Vancouver. And then, when fixed, it all repeats but heading south. This is not a 25-minute repair experience. It may be gone for several weeks or more.
Utopia would be better, but I'm grateful that I have any repair hopes here, because I am certainly not expected to go through life without a functioning sewing machine. That's a fundamental belief! But this problem is one of the continuing downsides of living in a small and isolated place. You simply can't have everything. It is so hard to ultimately grasp that.
Wednesday, February 27, 2013
Friday, February 22, 2013
Hard to Argue with These Pics
Thursday, February 21, 2013
The Cat Confounds Its People
I mentioned the coming of the cat last December. It has gone well; she has (slowly) acclimated to the idea that she lives with us and this past week was even willing to show herself to our visiting family members. Up until then, the issue of whether we had a cat simply depended upon our friends' and families' willingness to believe that we did because we said we did. No sign of said cat ever seen by any of them.
Now, the cat has truly confounded us. Today, Zoe (the cat) was wandering around in the bathroom (whose door I had not closed tightly) and came out with a thick pony-tail rubber band hanging out of her mouth. We were eating lunch and she came up to Ed and dropped the rubber band at his feet. He went to pick it up and she tried to grab it back but he was (unusually) faster than she was. He threw it across the room and she raced off to get it and then came back and dropped it at his feet. They fought over possession of the rubber band, again; Ed threw it again, and off she went. Even when she didn't exactly see where it went, she searched for it at length until she found it. For a half hour, they kept this up (she did stop fighting with him for possession after the 3rd or 4th throw). So, the cat plays fetch. But apparently only with thick rubber bands. She has never done anything like this with the (admittedly) small number of cat toys we possess.
Now, the cat has truly confounded us. Today, Zoe (the cat) was wandering around in the bathroom (whose door I had not closed tightly) and came out with a thick pony-tail rubber band hanging out of her mouth. We were eating lunch and she came up to Ed and dropped the rubber band at his feet. He went to pick it up and she tried to grab it back but he was (unusually) faster than she was. He threw it across the room and she raced off to get it and then came back and dropped it at his feet. They fought over possession of the rubber band, again; Ed threw it again, and off she went. Even when she didn't exactly see where it went, she searched for it at length until she found it. For a half hour, they kept this up (she did stop fighting with him for possession after the 3rd or 4th throw). So, the cat plays fetch. But apparently only with thick rubber bands. She has never done anything like this with the (admittedly) small number of cat toys we possess.
Now she is yowling. She doesn't want to quit and ed wants to do something else...
Wednesday, February 20, 2013
What We Pay For
I was cleaning up my desk a few minutes ago (I'm easily distracted, obviously) when I ran into some notes from a meeting last year. One of the items was about property assessment and Whatcom County property taxes. The reason I kept the notes is because it gave me the relative costs of various P.R. districts in terms of what we pay the districts for direct services. But it was 2011 figures, so now I've had to look up the 2012 numbers and my desk is worse than it was before I started to clean it up.
We have five districts (Water, Cemetery, Hospital, Fire, and Park and Recreation). The Water District does not receive a levy since users pay directly for the water costs. The other Districts all have to go to the voters every so often to ask for funds to keep providing services and those costs show up as a levy rate against the assessed value of your house on your property tax bill.
Thus, if your house's assessed value is $100,000, you pay almost $90/year for the Fire District's services; $1/year for the Cemetery District's work; $40/year for the Hospital District's provision of clinic services; and $10/year for the Park and Recreation District's work (largely maintaining the Community Center and Baker Field). (I've rounded these numbers to make it easier to keep in mind.)
If your houses' assessed value is closer to $300,000, then it's about three times those numbers, and so on. In any case, it's really not very much. The Fire District, until a couple of years ago, got only half as much as it does now. In either case, it's a small amount of money per house. And particularly considering what we get for the money.
If you were the owner of a modest, $100,000-assessed-value house here, would you pay $90/year to make sure that someone qualified responded to a 911 call for a fire or medical emergency? Would you pay $40/year to make sure that you'd have a trained medical professional to see you for non-emergencies? Would you pay $1/year to have a community cemetery? Would you pay $10/year to have the Community Center available for meetings and events, for Seniors Services, for the Library? I'd think most of us would pay more than that, and if we have bigger, fancier houses, we do. But still, not a lot of money.
We have five districts (Water, Cemetery, Hospital, Fire, and Park and Recreation). The Water District does not receive a levy since users pay directly for the water costs. The other Districts all have to go to the voters every so often to ask for funds to keep providing services and those costs show up as a levy rate against the assessed value of your house on your property tax bill.
Thus, if your house's assessed value is $100,000, you pay almost $90/year for the Fire District's services; $1/year for the Cemetery District's work; $40/year for the Hospital District's provision of clinic services; and $10/year for the Park and Recreation District's work (largely maintaining the Community Center and Baker Field). (I've rounded these numbers to make it easier to keep in mind.)
If your houses' assessed value is closer to $300,000, then it's about three times those numbers, and so on. In any case, it's really not very much. The Fire District, until a couple of years ago, got only half as much as it does now. In either case, it's a small amount of money per house. And particularly considering what we get for the money.
If you were the owner of a modest, $100,000-assessed-value house here, would you pay $90/year to make sure that someone qualified responded to a 911 call for a fire or medical emergency? Would you pay $40/year to make sure that you'd have a trained medical professional to see you for non-emergencies? Would you pay $1/year to have a community cemetery? Would you pay $10/year to have the Community Center available for meetings and events, for Seniors Services, for the Library? I'd think most of us would pay more than that, and if we have bigger, fancier houses, we do. But still, not a lot of money.
Thursday, February 14, 2013
About the New Dock
Somebody recently wrote a comment on an old post asking when the new dock is going to be coming our way. I checked with CAC chair Arthur Reber and the word is maybe August 2013 it will be operative.
The Commissioners Laugh!
Last night's Fire District meeting provided some narrow contrast to the high-tension string of meetings over the last six months in that there was some good-natured laughter among the Commissioners and their various employees. Even jokes. Perhaps a return to a more-nearly-normal status of human sociability.
On the other hand, some things remain the same. In one agenda item, they discussed (you could say exhaustively, but since they didn't have much to say, maybe just exhaustively for them) whether the public comment period should be at the beginning of the meeting or at the end. (Note that a few meetings back they voted to have it at the end; last night's agenda item was about moving it to the beginning.) Mr. Meursing carefully solicited the opinion of every person there--except, of course, the six members of the public in attendance. And no one who was asked really had any reason to put it in either place. Of course, the real argument would be that if it is at the end, the public would be able to comment/query on the meeting they had just sat through. But I suspect Mr. Meursing does not want to hear any such comments/queries.
And I say this because (at last night's meeting, comments were still placed at the end), when I asked to speak, I began with "I have a question and a comment." At that point, Mr. Meursing interrupted me, saying, "Mrs. Ross, this is a comment period; no questions are permitted." So, I was obliged to rephrase my question as a comment: I offered the information that some people in the community might be wondering what had happened to the County Auditor's audit of the Fire District for the years 2011 and 2012 and its final report. (Although I was not allowed to ask a question, the Financial Manager offered an answer: the information for the 2011 audit was submitted but the Fire District had not heard anything back yet. A final report will be public information.) And I commented that, since the Commissioners had spent some considerable time discussing what to do with an extra $60,000 that they had found available to them, perhaps they should reimburse the County Council for its generous gift of $50,000 to pay for former Chief Kiniski's paramedic training expenses. Dead silence followed that.
The pointlessness of the "Public Comment Period" was made clear when another member of the public suggested that the public would find it helpful if the District made a quarterly financial report available to the public that, after all, pays for the Fire District and its many expensive activities. "Thank you," said Mr. Meursing, making it clear that the response to such comments would come some time after hell freezes over.
Other things happened, but you have to attend to see the whole show. In any case, it was Another Fun Night with the Fire District Guys!
A Note: My granddaughter, a college student currently taking a class on local politics/poli sci, asked me why I keep going to these meetings. I thought about it. There is the bizarre story aspect of it, of course, but I found plenty to write about in this blog before I ever took an interest in the Fire District. There is the fact that it is quintessentially Point Roberts in its tiny dictator patterns. But that point has been amply made, I think. More, it is simply the fact of bearing witness to what is being done in our names. I object, and my only way of objecting is to go and to say what I see. We are better than this, I have to believe.
And a second note: Chief Carleton appears to have taken over the running of the whole operation. He seems to know what he is doing although (in my view) he has way too much money to spend freely as a result of the doubling of the levy a couple of years ago. He may well be trying to turn this into a more terrific fire department than we need, but apparently we can afford it.
On the other hand, some things remain the same. In one agenda item, they discussed (you could say exhaustively, but since they didn't have much to say, maybe just exhaustively for them) whether the public comment period should be at the beginning of the meeting or at the end. (Note that a few meetings back they voted to have it at the end; last night's agenda item was about moving it to the beginning.) Mr. Meursing carefully solicited the opinion of every person there--except, of course, the six members of the public in attendance. And no one who was asked really had any reason to put it in either place. Of course, the real argument would be that if it is at the end, the public would be able to comment/query on the meeting they had just sat through. But I suspect Mr. Meursing does not want to hear any such comments/queries.
And I say this because (at last night's meeting, comments were still placed at the end), when I asked to speak, I began with "I have a question and a comment." At that point, Mr. Meursing interrupted me, saying, "Mrs. Ross, this is a comment period; no questions are permitted." So, I was obliged to rephrase my question as a comment: I offered the information that some people in the community might be wondering what had happened to the County Auditor's audit of the Fire District for the years 2011 and 2012 and its final report. (Although I was not allowed to ask a question, the Financial Manager offered an answer: the information for the 2011 audit was submitted but the Fire District had not heard anything back yet. A final report will be public information.) And I commented that, since the Commissioners had spent some considerable time discussing what to do with an extra $60,000 that they had found available to them, perhaps they should reimburse the County Council for its generous gift of $50,000 to pay for former Chief Kiniski's paramedic training expenses. Dead silence followed that.
The pointlessness of the "Public Comment Period" was made clear when another member of the public suggested that the public would find it helpful if the District made a quarterly financial report available to the public that, after all, pays for the Fire District and its many expensive activities. "Thank you," said Mr. Meursing, making it clear that the response to such comments would come some time after hell freezes over.
Other things happened, but you have to attend to see the whole show. In any case, it was Another Fun Night with the Fire District Guys!
A Note: My granddaughter, a college student currently taking a class on local politics/poli sci, asked me why I keep going to these meetings. I thought about it. There is the bizarre story aspect of it, of course, but I found plenty to write about in this blog before I ever took an interest in the Fire District. There is the fact that it is quintessentially Point Roberts in its tiny dictator patterns. But that point has been amply made, I think. More, it is simply the fact of bearing witness to what is being done in our names. I object, and my only way of objecting is to go and to say what I see. We are better than this, I have to believe.
And a second note: Chief Carleton appears to have taken over the running of the whole operation. He seems to know what he is doing although (in my view) he has way too much money to spend freely as a result of the doubling of the levy a couple of years ago. He may well be trying to turn this into a more terrific fire department than we need, but apparently we can afford it.
Wednesday, February 13, 2013
Fire District Meeting Tonight
The Fire District monthly meeting is tonight, Wednesday, at 7 pm at the Firehall. Usually, a notice goes out with Point Interface, but it hasn't done so this month. However, the All Point Bulletin E-Edition listed the meeting in last week's email. So, if you are an attendee, now you know.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)