FRONT PAGE

County pulls plug on Point Roberts advisory committee

by Meg Olson

Whatcom County Executive Pete Kremen has decided a rural advisory committee won’t work for the Point.

In a September 10 letter to the candidates he had selected to form the committee Kremen wrote that “due to the diversity of perspectives and community interests present in Point Roberts” more community-wide public meetings and occasional staff attendance at monthly meetings of existing groups gave the public “broader opportunities to participate.”
“I was not really keen on setting this up from the get-go,” Kremen said. “We went through the same thing at Lummi Island and when all was said and done the community revolted. It created ill feelings and was not successful. I don’t want to go through that in Point Roberts.”

Kremen said community advisory committees in a community as small as Point Roberts served no constructive purpose and were essentially a shortcut for staff. “The rationale is to make it easier for staff to get consensus from the community without going to the community,” he said. “We should go out of our way to elicit the input of the whole. This is kind of like a crutch in lieu of being involved with the community at large. We need to be more of a presence rather than relying on a select committee.”

With only 12 applications for seven positions on the proposed rural advisory committee Kremen acknowledged it would have been difficult if not impossible to form a committee that could garner the broad community support it would take if a rural advisory committee were to be successful. “With Lummi Island everyone was unhappy in the end. Many, many residents felt the advisory committee was not reflective of their views,” he said.

As to why there was such sparse community interest in participating in the proposed committee, Kremen speculated some of it could be part of a nationwide trend of voter apathy, especially at the local level, “and part of that may be our fault for not having been more of a presence there.” He also suggested a reason some might shy away from public involvement. “Maybe they don’t want the controversy, the wrangling,” he said.

Instead of the rural advisory committee Kremen suggested a series of public meetings involving county staff and perhaps council members. “I’ve encouraged them to do that, to be there,” he said. County staff would put together an agenda of discussion points with time to hear concerns from community members on additional topics. “We’re talking about planning for Point Roberts for the next 20 or 50 years. The public needs to be more involved,” he said. “An unintended result of that kind of select committee could be discouragement of large-scale involvement. We’re asking the community, the whole community, to tell us what kind of vision they see for Point Roberts.”

County staff members have been regular participants in the local economic development committee and Kremen said he will direct them to broaden their participation with local groups. “There’s more to planning a community than economic development,” he said. “We can’t be at every meeting but I’ll encourage them to be involved with other community organizations.”

Kremen said he would work with staff to develop a meeting schedule, likely to get underway this fall. “Having that committee really was a shortcut but not nearly as effective a way of garnering community vision in a town like Point Roberts,” he said. “I think no matter how much work that they do, it wouldn’t be nearly as effective as involving the whole community.”