Community Meet-Up

Tonight was the community meeting with two members of the County Council wherein we were to learn more about the septic inspection system that has been inaugurated for us by the County and the State.  Alas, everything was not illuminated, although much was described.  The Council Members described what they had done and the community members described how they thought and felt about the implementation of the Council's work.  There was some meeting of the minds.  At least it did not become a libertarian shout fest in which people expressed beliefs about how the County had no right to make them do anything, although there was one impassioned claim about the whole program being unconstitutional because it was a 'referendum tax' instead of an 'initiative tax.'  About this, I will say no more.

Over a hundred people from Point Roberts showed up on a truly unpleasant weather evening: the rain was pouring down, the winds were blowing, and there are reports of bigger winds, bigger tides, and flooding by morning.  So people might reasonably have had something else on their mind than showing up at this meeting.  Lots of part-time residents were there, explaining their particular problems with this system.  What was most notable, however, was that most everyone, and in fact perhaps actually everyone, agreed with the impetus for the system.  That is, they did not disagree that research showed increasing coliform problems in shoreline waters and that human and agricultural sources both contribute to that problem.  We need clean water.  The issue was about how to get from here to there.

Unlike the Border Control meeting that was held last spring, the meeting (which lasted two full hours) did not end with a sense of hope that something had been heard that hadn't been heard before, and that, as a result, there was a distinct prospect of change.  The border issues definitely improved subsequent to that meeting.  But nothing is going to change as a result of this meeting, I think.  Yes, there are many distinct problems with the implementation of the inspection system, but these problems are not a surprise to the Council members for the most part (although they did admit that they had not thought about houses occupied only on a part-time basis).  But there you are: that's the system that the Council voted for, and that's how the system is being implemented by the Health Department, which is not a department that the Council controls.  You got problems with that?  Talk to Pete Kremens who is the County Executive.

The issue of conflict of interest captured most of the conversation.  One suggestion that seemed to be accepted for immediate action was providing people with information about what an inspector should be doing when he comes to do an inspection.  That information could be provided pretty quickly.  If it's not at least in the All Points Bulletin's December issue, I'm going to be pretty disappointed.  It was the one thing the Council members agreed could and should be done.  And if they don't do it, they've lost their bona fides with me.

There is a proposed amendment to the inspection enforcement legislation coming before the Council at the end of January.  It was introduced by Barbara Brenner (who was one of the two Council persons who drove the roads for us tonight--the other, Carl Weimer).  The first hearings on that will be at the end of January.  But nothing is going to change the problems that we already have before the deadline for inspections passes us by in early December.

There were lots of interesting details in the meeting, but I'll postpone that illustrative material until the next post, on Wednesday, since this is already long enough.  

Trash Redux and Encore

The information flies fast about the trash problem. Councilwoman Brenner has written to us all again saying that when she said that the County and the WUTC are responsible for garbage being picked up in Pt. Roberts, she didn’t mean to say that the County or the WUTC were responsible for garbage being picked up in Pt. Roberts. What she meant to say was that the County was responsible for running the Transfer Station where you can take your own garbage and the WUTC was responsible for approving rates for such person/company as was certified to actually be responsible for picking up garbage in Pt. Roberts. Actually, she went on, what she meant to say was that she knew we had the kind of community spirit that would make it possible for us to help one another pick up our own trash and take it to the transfer station and that, Golly Gee!, if it were actually necessary, she would drive her own truck up here and help us with our community spirit or just join in our community spirit, or something like that.

Then we got a message from the County Public Works Director and he said that unless something turned up, we’d be taking our trash to the transfer station ourselves for the next month or forever because although one person had said he might put in an offer to do it, he hadn’t gotten any offers yet. Further, that though he’d talked to some other trash collection companies, they hadn’t stepped up to the plate. And finally, he pointed out to us that there were three problems associated with this trash situation: "(1) turnaround time for solid waste disposal (garbage cannot be imported to Canada, so containers must be transported to Bellingham through two border crossings), (2) the small number of collection customers, and (3) recent contraction of recycling markets. There are no ready solutions to these problems.” Suggesting that Ms. Brenner might be making repeated truck trips up here for some time to lend a hand.

Then, the Voters’ Association sent an open letter to the County and us urging the County to have a meeting so we could all talk about this, although I’m not sure what it is that we are going to say to the County when we talk. I mean, when the Border people came up, we all pretty much agreed about what the problem was. With respect to the trash, as far as I can tell, no such agreement exists, although I guess we can all agree—County, WUTC, Pt. Roberts residents—that trash pick up as it now exists will come to an end on June 30. But other than that: well, it’s a topic that some people have agreed not to discuss. The County has now agreed to hold such a meeting on this very day and I, sadly, will not be there for it. Or, perhaps, I fortunately will not be there for it. Anyone who goes is surely free to post their assessment of the event on this blog. Just go the 'post a comment' at the end of this day's writing.

Then an open letter from a neighbor vigorously pointing out the way in which the County had failed to address this problem over a long period of time and suggesting that, as the political blogs are always saying, ‘hoocoodanode?’ is just not a viable defense.

Yesterday, an announcement of a brief radio interview with Dave Gellatly, a Pt. Roberts resident and trucker who now seems to have applied to be the WUTC and County certified trash and recycling hauler for Point Roberts. When asked by the radio interviewer how he planned to overcome the situation the current trash certificate holder found himself in (not being able to make a financial go of it because of the three reasons that the County Public Works Director also cited), Mr. Gellatly assured us that he would do it smarter, based upon his prior trucking experience in which he hauled people and money. Well, Okay! I guess. I never realized that anybody other than Brinks was in the money hauling business, but why not Dave Gellatly in Point Roberts? Trash and money and people might be the combination that would work.

And today, a ‘statement of facts’ about the trash situation, again from Ms. Brenner. As near as I can tell, the point of this statement of facts is to suggest that when the musical chairs game stops, it is the WUTC that should not have a chair, not the County. Let the music play on!

Update: a reader proposes: "How about a garbage barge that doubles as a ferry?"

Your County Government At Work

As I may have mentioned, we are having some trouble with trash collection up here in Point Roberts. The guy with the contract has announced he is throwing it in as of June 30. He will, apparently, continue to run the transfer station where we can bring our trash and recycling, I guess, but maybe not our recycling. Not clear to me.

Fortunately, the County Council has stepped forward into the breach—or into the trash--so to speak. Those of us on the Point Interface email list received the following email on June 1 from the person who is alleged to represent Point Roberts on the Council. Well, maybe not ‘represent’ us, but at least have some kind of knowledgeable relationship to us, and she has indeed been up here several times in recent years. Here is the entire text of that message:

Regarding what you may have heard or read, Whatcom County is responsible for your receiving responsible garbage service. If a certified garbage collector at any time interrupts or discontinues responsible, contracted garbage service, Whatcom County, working with the Washington State Utilities and Transportation Commission will ensure your service will continue.

Please forward this information to anyone you think may be interested.
I will forward any related information I receive.

Barbara Brenner, Whatcom County Council Member

Ms. Brenner apparently has failed to receive any related information insofar as two weeks have passed without any further messages. I’m happy to know that the County has this responsibility, but I’m not sure what it means from the County’s perspective. The County itself, of course, has no garbage trucks, so the County itself isn’t going to be providing anything, including ‘responsible garbage service.’ It’s only responsible for finding somebody else to do that. That might take awhile; that might take forever. After all, the County wasn’t making much headway in the matter of the current ‘contracted garbage service’ (that is, the curbside recyling) that was discontinued some time ago. So I’m dubious about the likelihood of their proceeding to remedy the new situation with any particular speed.

I wonder if it ever occurs to elected politicians to communicate truthfully, honestly, straight talk and all that with the public? Maybe Ms. Brenner could have sent us something like this:

Yikes! We just heard that the guy with the certificate to collect garbage is pulling out at the end of the month and we don’t have any clear plans at the moment about what to do next. We’re hoping to have a meeting soon to see whether some other company would be interested in taking the task on. But for the moment, we are pretty clueless. We’ve been fiddling around with this problem for a couple of years, but, strangely, it never occurred to us that we might come to this unhappy situation because, of course, we are pretty short-term thinkers here what with elections coming up so often and you people up there being so low on our list of priorities. Sorry! Probably won’t do better next time, but I did want you to know that we are thinking about you and your problems.

I’d have been pretty pleased with that, even if I still had to haul my own trash.