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Taxpayers report

County Parks
Speaking to the local taxpayers association annual general meeting Lighthouse Park manager Ben Van Buskirk said the community shouldn’t expect any major parks project in Point Roberts in the next few years, but that his organization continued to plan for things like parking and restrooms at Maple Beach and a real lighthouse replica for Lighthouse park. “That’s the question everyone asks when they visit the park. “Where’s the lighthouse?” It sure would be easier to just put one there. And nice too,” he said.
A project Van Buskirk and association president Michael Rosser have been collaborating on is likely to come to fruition before the park gets a lighthouse – a paved non-motorized vehicle trail loop using county road right of way. “People come through Tsawwassen and stop at the border, because the bike trail does,” Van Buskirk said. He said the project would need the cooperation and funding of the county public works department, and Rosser added the project had been prioritized as one of the county’s transportation projects. “We want them to pay as much attention to non-motorized transportation as they do to roads,” Rosser said.
Van Buskirk added another trail project now in the conceptual stage would be a network of unpaved nature trails taking advantage of easements on private property, connecting Baker Field, the marina, Lighthouse and Monument parks. The first segment of the network, connecting the marina to Lighthouse park, has already been developed for public use by the Point Roberts Marina Resort.
A member of the audience asked Van Buskirk if the county had any plans to build public tennis courts. “I don’t even see it on the radar,” he said, adding that if community members wanted to get something on that radar they needed to propose the idea to the county parks board for inclusion in the parks five-year planning process. “For something to happen people need to pick it up and do it,” Rosser said. “We want people on our board who want to do things.”

Fire
Addressing the June 19 taxpayers association annual general meeting fire commissioner Susan Brownrigg said the commissioners were still working to clear up the fallout from the district’s split with North Whatcom Fire and Rescue Services in January and get the department standing strong on its own legs. “A lot of what we’ve done in the last six months is figure out what we’re doing,” she admitted. “With North Whatcom we didn’t even pay our own bills so we’re kind of guessing what things will cost while making our budget.”
She explained former chief Nick Kiniski had stayed on as an interim volunteer chief and that battalion chief Bill Skinner had been hired as a part-time administrator, but that commissioners had decided the department needed a full-time chief. She said a consultant would be visiting the Point June 28 to meet with volunteers, commissioners and community members and draft a job description for the position, and she encouraged interested citizens to call the firehall for an appointment at 945-FIRE.

Water
Water commissioner Arthur Wilkowski outlined proposed upgrades to the local water system and a likely change is how users are charged for water. “Our goal is a comprehensive rate study to create a mathematical model so people are charged for the cost of providing them the service,” he said.
Wilkowski said charging people for the water they use was one of the best ways to encourage conservation, but that the district would also be implementing some conservation education programs. “If we hit some sort of threshold in the future the conservative mindset will be built into the community,” he said.

Character Plan
Kent Craig, who represents the taxpayers association on the character plan advisory committee said that committee was working with the county on ongoing complaints leveled at the storage business on Georgia Way. “One of the neighbors has pointed out a lot of landscaping and other work camouflaging the business has not been done,” he said. “It is a conflicting use in that area further exacerbated by general storage that wasn’t intended in that area at all.” He said the county had already levied fines against the property owner for zoning violations on two previous occasions.

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