The Editor:
I have a question, what is the point of having a NEXUS pass and a NEXUS lane when it takes you 55 minutes to go less then 300 yards and yet, the regular lane is whipping by like a freeway? At one point, we sat for fifteen minutes in one spot.

As NEXUS pass holders, we are supposed to be checked out by the RCMP and the United States agencies. They have all our information on the screen in front of them. We have our passports ready for more ID. Why then does it take 55 minutes and regular customs booths 10 or 15 minutes (we were timing them)?

We can’t understand why this hold up happens. Two officers were standing around apparently directing traffic, two NEXUS lanes available, but only one open on a Saturday afternoon and an officer who is oblivious to how slow the NEXUS lane is moving and further more didn’t care. I thought NEXUS was supposed to speed up travel.

I just don’t get it. They have everything you could ever want to know about me in front of them. Why then do people they don’t have any information on getting processed faster.

I have also been to the site of 9/11, I understand about security. But I also believe in common sense and the very basics in common courtesies.
Name Withheld
Blaine

The Editor:
Is there  a psychologist in the area who could spend some time with me and explain why I handed over $50 for a Nexus pass, only to sit in a line-up for up to 35 minutes?
Ellen Gregg
Point Roberts and White Rock

The Editor:
Most people may think that crashing into a deer with a bicycle, shattering your collarbone and having surgery to repair the bone with a titanium plate, is a bad thing.

Initially I was one of those people since I was having that exact experience. However, the community here in Point Roberts managed to turn the whole thing into a warming and heartfelt experience.

Immediately after the accident I had no cell phone reception and had to ride the bike home, where my family was out for the evening. But close firefighter friends, captain Gary and firefighter/EMT IV Thompson and his wife, Jana, dropped everything and rushed over to help get me to Delta ER for x-rays. Within a few days my fellow firefighters had taken up a collection.

I finally went into surgery and came home with my wife to strategize our financial plan to tackle the bills, since we had cancelled our medical insurance for a few months to catch up on debt. Suddenly I was invited to a benefit breakfast at South Beach Restaurant for me! I had a lump in my throat and didn’t really know how to handle this kind of generosity. The breakfast was a thoroughly warming experience, especially since Max and Diane were serving Mexican-style picante. Encountering all of the folks who showed up to help me out, began to paint a much deeper picture of Point Roberts than I had ever experienced or imagined.
As I was recovering from surgery and the generosity of the South Beach benefit, I learned that chief Nick Kiniski and the firefighters had arranged a silent auction in my benefit at the Reef Tavern. The lump in my throat came back. I was floored. I attended the benefit to see happy people and two tables beautifully stocked with donated items for bidding.

We have been the recipients of the most expansive outpouring of generosity. Everyone has said Point Roberts is not just a town or community, it is a family. We feel privileged to experience this firsthand.

A huge thank you to everyone.
Marco, Danelle, Leora, Antonio and Dante Aurilio
Point Roberts

The Editor:
The “Life’s a Beach” program at the Point Roberts Library was a great success according to our granddaughter, Jaymelyn and dad, George Hubert, of Davis, California.

They immediately appreciated the friendly welcome given by Rose Momsen and her crew of volunteers. The cheerful atmosphere allowed all the children to enjoy each other and their projects.

The activity of painting real fish and transferring the shapes to paper was enjoyable, educational and timed to be finished at the end of the session.

Such fun for the kids takes real planning and work. Thank you! We hope the program continues in the years to come. It is a real asset for Point Roberts.
Knick and Lyn Pyles
Point Roberts

The Editor:
PAWS would like to express sincere gratitude to everyone who made the second annual “Every Dog A Winner” dog show such a success.
The almost 40 doggy participants were both awesome and adorable and made a big contribution to PAWS. The volunteers were wonderful; the people who attended were generous and enabled the raffle to contribute handsomely to the fundraising effort. Thanks go out to all those individuals and businesses who donated the fabulous raffle prizes and dog treats.

Special thanks go to birthday girl Tracy Kelly, who not only shopped for all the dog prizes, but rounded up the majority of the raffle prizes too.
We were fortunate indeed that Tony Slater contributed his sound system and his talent and that David Reynolds stepped up to be our professional MC. It was a pleasure to welcome back Mary and Mark Edgley as our expert judges. The exhibitors added another level of interest and the hot dog stand provided welcome sustenance. Thank you to all the community members, visitors and four legged friends who made this a special afternoon.
Carol Fuegi
Point Roberts Animal Wellbeing Society

The Editor:
We wish to respond to Mary Beth’s letter, published in the August 2010 issue of the All Point Bulletin, in which she declares that all of the homes she inspected and our library had “extremely high levels of toxic mold.” She also claims to have seen overflowing septic systems and other building code violations everywhere she looked. Ms. Beth helpfully recommended widespread demolition to solve these problems.
We are not aware of septic runoff flowing down the streets of Point Roberts, as reported by Ms. Beth but we’ll let other people respond to that accusation. We do wish to address air quality concerns in our community center, which, of course, houses the Point Roberts library.
We do not dismiss or take lightly complaints about air quality in the community center. A couple of years ago, such complaints resulted in our addressing moisture in the basement, including installation of a sump pump to deal with any accumulation of water during the rainy season. This appears to have resolved the most serious complaints, but we are striving to make further improvements.

In December 2009, a local resident very generously helped us perform a professional air quality assessment. It did not include laboratory cultures, but it did include indicative air quality testing over time. It found no indications of active mold growth; but there was some mustiness emanating from one ceiling panel near the front door. There is no current moisture problem there, but this may be the source of a musty odor reported by some people on entering the building. Replacement of that ceiling panel is slated, as recommended in the assessment report.
Roof leakage has been a recurrent problem and we try to respond to any new leaks as quickly as possible. A more comprehensive, preventative repair job is slated for this month and we believe that it will add at least five years to the present roof’s life expectancy.

Other recommendations from the December 2009 assessment have been implemented in order to increase air circulation in the building. We found that some fresh air intake filters on the roof were clogged and this was immediately corrected. We have switched the fan in the library heating and air conditioning system from “auto” to full time “on.” During the warm season, we are keeping both hallway doors open when the building is in use.

We believe that claims of extreme toxicity are unfounded and inflammatory. Our community center is a venerable, historic building and an incredibly valuable resource for the community. Our continued commitment is to ensure the best conditions that our budget will allow. It’s the only community center we have and we want to preserve and improve it as best we can. As always, we depend on the public to bring both problems and solutions to our attention. The public is always welcome to attend our monthly meetings or to contact any one of the commissioners.
Mark Robbins, Linda Hughes, Bev
Griffith, Marco Aurilio, commissioners
Point Roberts Park and Recreation
District #1

The Editor:
Saturday Morning Live would like to thank the All Point Bulletin, Point Interface ­– PAWS, PointRobertsLiving.com, Point Roberts volunteer fire department, Steve Inferno and other musicians, vendors and members of our community who have helped make Point Roberts’ farmers/community market a fun success.

Newcomers are very welcome to participate as patrons, vendors or entertainers during the rest of SML’s 2010 dates: August 28, September 4 (Labor Day weekend), September 18 and October 9 (Canadian Thanksgiving weekend) at 9 a.m. – 1 p.m. Visitors are always welcome.
Marco Aurelio, Naomi Shucard
and Laura Vestanen
Point Roberts

The Editor:
Thanks so much to everyone who came out for the festivities on the Library’s Summer Fun Game Night on August 10. Many thanks to our summer reading club sponsors, Nielson’s Building Supply and Dylan’s, at Point Roberts Shell.

Every young summer reader will get a free ice cream cone and Antonio Aurilio was the lucky winner of the boys bicycle. Alison Coatsworth was the lucky teen reader who won the iPod Shuffle. Everyone had a great time. We handed out prizes and played games and shared time on the Wii system. Thanks to all the helpers and game players. We’re planning on doing another game night this winter, so stay tuned. You won’t want to miss it!

The staff and friends of the Point Roberts Library would like to thank the Maple Beach Property Owners Association for its generous donation of $1,000. We plan to buy new furniture for our teen area.
Rose Momsen, Point Roberts Library
Point Roberts

The Editor:
The festival may have been sparked by Craig and Nancy’s Blackberry Festival back in the day, but for the past 10 years that I have been a director of the Point Roberts Arts & Music Festival, it has grown and evolved and become the terrific annual free celebration that it is today.
Last month’s article should have included the all-year undying efforts of Ed Buendia. He drums up vendors, coordinates everything, produces t-shirts and posters, posts them, finds musicians and more. It missed mentioning Heather Good, who has been diligent year after year running the children’s program at the festival that we established in 2000.

The addition of Carol Foster made the event so much easier to coordinate for Ed and myself. She has been focused and doing many of the gagillion tasks that are invisible before showtime. Then at showtime, we have Craig Jacks who makes all my musical plans turn into actual music, Steve O’Neill throwing barbeques extraordinaire next door that add a whole other aspect that makes the festival all the bigger. And the people who work hard for us at the festival once a year like Karl King, Dana Turpin, Darlanne Buendia, Darlene Perrit, Shea Perrit and more – we owe thanks.

The addition of the stage this year, my 10-year dream, made the festival so much more focused and honored our performers. Our greatest thanks to Point Roberts Auto Freight who lent it to us. Point Roberts Auto Freight has been a large part of our Point Roberts family for many, many years and we love their support. Also our local businesses, our banks and Westshore Terminals pick up a lot of the tab and we are so grateful.
See you next year.
Pamala Sheppard
Point Roberts

The Editor:
The Point Roberts Friends of the Library is a volunteer group that organizes community events, fundraisers and book sales to support our Point Roberts Library. Library funds are used primarily for staffing and books. The money raised by the Friends of the Library is used for many activities, which include summer reading programs, bookmarks, magazine subscriptions, prizes, etc.

We are looking for new members and officers to join us in our exciting and worthwhile endeavors as we continue to support our Point Roberts Library. We meet on the second Tuesday of every month from 1 – 2 p.m. at the library. Please join us for our next meeting on September 14 and light refreshments will be served.
Kandy Harper
Point Roberts Friends of the Library

The Editor:
This letter is to express my gratitude to the fantastic Point Roberts fire department. My elderly cousin recently underwent a medical procedure which left him bed-bound for several days and during this time we had a case of an exploding dryer which caused what could easily have been (and indeed at the time resembled) a wall fire.

I called 911 and the response was nothing short of excellent. It didn’t take the big truck and many of our wonderful firefighters very long to get to the house with all the necessary equipment and fortunately things checked out OK with no actual fire in the wall.

I had to get my cousin out of his sick bed since we didn’t really want him going up in flames and the kindness and concern displayed by Nick Kiniski and all his crew was so very much appreciated. They offered to do anything they could to help him out while they were there.

Did we want anything heavy moved or lifted? Could they help in any way while he’s so sick? “That’s what we’re here for, to help people...” is what Nick said. Oh, my goodness, I cannot thank you guys enough. You make this place an even better place to live than I thought it was.

Please, everyone who’s reading this, think about Marco, one of our firefighter volunteers, who has given tirelessly to his community only to be saddled with an enormous debt-load after a deer crashed into him while he was biking. People like that not having health insurance is one thing that does not make this country great, but if everybody puts their hands in their pockets and helps somebody very deserving of our help, we can make this small part of America greater still. Thanks.
Sue Johnson
Point Roberts

The Editor:
My apologies to the woman in the black SUV who I momentarily inconvenienced on Friday, August 6, on Benson Road. I apologize for not having the presence of mind to parallel park before helping a 67-year-old man who I witnessed fall 10 feet from a ladder after being struck in the head by a 6-foot long, 8-inch diameter tree branch he was attempting to cut off.

It was inappropriate for me to block one lane of Benson Road at 8 p.m. on a Friday night and cause a traffic-jam of epic proportions with zero cars backed up for zero miles in both directions. I fully understand her inability to pass my truck with all of the other invisible cars blocking her way.

Clearly her schedule was more important than helping a fellow neighbor in need of medical attention. It was entirely appropriate for her to feel wronged by me and flip me the bird while I was being told by a Canadian 911 operator that I would have to hang up and dial 0, speak with an operator and have them transfer me to Washington state 911 – all while trying to maintain the thread of cell signal I had in that stretch of Benson Road.

I just hope she made it to where she was going in time and that by causing me to lose my cell signal and my temper she didn’t mean the difference between life and death. Thankfully I was able to use a nearby land line to summon our local fire department to come to his aid. I hope he makes a full and speedy recovery in spite of her very helpful actions.
Graham McClusky
Point Roberts

The Editor and visitor from California:
We are so pleased you enjoyed visiting out little big community. One that seems so small geographically but manages to provide huge opportunity for our visitors in the way of culture, history, arts, nature, food and entertainment, spirituality, fitness, education and the list goes on.

I always refer to Point Roberts as an experience rather than a place because those of us who live here and thrive do so because of our human connection and our affinity to the richness of our resources that are both natural and a combined effort of our growing community.
I want to assure you that though there are homes here that have stood the test of time, there are some that, like in any other community, have their issues. We are under a microscope with the county that prompts us to correct and restore any ailing structures and keep the code even as it changes sometimes regularly.

I have personally, along with some others, been subject to almost complete overhaul of my property. I now stand proud of the fact that I meet the guidelines the county has set forth with regard to my property. I walk this entire area though I have never once seen or smelled the likes of free running sewage; however, if a system fails then it is replaced. I would not in all fairness say that many of the homes have this issue. Most likely it was water runoff.

The laws are very strict and strictly enforced. We are required to have an inspection yearly of our septic systems and everyone who owns a property here must participate. I do not smell smoke from burn piles or BBQs on a regular basis but I certainly do in the summer months when friends and family gather to celebrate their union.

Point Roberts is highly forested. There are molds, mildews, fungus that live in the forest, so it is not unusual to have the presence of these spores. What I think you saw when you were here were opportunities.

Some of the homes need upgrades and they are priced accordingly so that perhaps a young couple could afford to purchase one and do repairs or the like. Others are lower in price because of the abundance of newer homes that are priced higher and so it seems like a balance in the offering.

Either way our small town is hardly a collection of run down properties with failed sewage systems and electrical and plumbing mishaps as your letter suggests. We are well informed and becoming an ecologically conscious community with massive improvements and developments and on a strong path of growth.

Perhaps you might be safer in California where the homes are perfect and the air quality suits your liking; but thanks for visiting.

Ellen Roth
Point Roberts

The Editor:
I would like to ask Jeff Anderson, Noel T. Cameron and anyone else who has a problem with green waste burning in Point Roberts to turn your complaints into positive action by donating any land you may own for use as a community green waste composting and recycling center.
Burning is sometimes necessary and, as an avid organic gardener, I find it useful to reduce bulky materials to a compact, usable ash. I also compost everything I can, but it is sometimes difficult to deal with the volume of material that’s generated.

If you are truly concerned about your own health, and that of the children and elderly, I encourage you to donate money, time or usable land to the Point Roberts Community Garden. Our projects include newly built beds at the community center and a larger scale garden on private land off APA Road. This way you can achieve your ends and assist those who are doing the hard work of developing gardening opportunities for public use here on the Point.

Also, regarding air pollution, do you, Jeff and Noel, drive cars? Do you perhaps own a boat? Do you own stock in a major chemical or oil company? Do you use plastic, rubber, cleaning products, paint or drive on asphalt roads? Have you calculated your own personal carbon footprint? Please include information on the environmental cost of the foods from your favorite grocery store and any imported products especially those coming from China. I am happy to see that you are interested in a more sustainable environment. You talk the talk. Can you walk the walk?
George Wright, the Point Roberts
Community Garden
Point Roberts

The Editor:
In a follow up to my last letter to the editor, I would like to add some additional insight to those who wish to remain entrenched in a very limited and regressive policy of outdoor burning.

Within the Whatcom County government website, and specifically the Whatcom County Fire Marshal, you’ll find a list of guidelines and definitions for allowable burning. ‘Nuisance.’ is defined as, “Smoke, odor or ash that unreasonably impacts neighboring properties is illegal.”
While this short, concise and straightforward message is here for all to see, the community of Point Roberts and many of its residents remain in a state of denial, negating all of the negative drawbacks in long term health and associated damaging affects this burn policy may potentially have on residents and visitors alike.

Many progressive communities within Whatcom County, are already ahead of the curve and have made the necessary changes to reflect the clean living standards and expectations for today’s world.

On January 1, 2001, permanent outdoor burn bans became law in Bellingham, Ferndale and Lynden. On January 1, 2007, permanent outdoor burn bans became law in Blaine, Everson, Nooksack, Sumas, Birch Bay, Cherry Point and Columbia Valley.

Point Roberts, and Lummi Island remain the only two holdouts toward positive change.

Unfortunately, ‘Going Green,’ ‘Sustainable living’ and ‘Eco-tourism’ are some of the terms for lifestyles that have yet to be factored into the mindset of Point Roberts and its people.
Noel T. Cameron
Point Roberts

The Editor:
Seven to seven would have been heaven, but eight to eight would still have been great. But ten until nine is not fine – and we have been ignored one more time.

I had hopes that our meeting with the border personnel would bring time changes (silly me!) but find the same early morning line to get into Canada taking 15 or more minutes – not in our day’s plan and therefore exasperating.

Those men and women in uniform, most with guns, were probably paid overtime to attend that meeting but for all of us it was another waste of our valuable time. In talking with one of the Canadian supervisors I learned that changing the time is not even in their control. Could they not have told us that?

It appears now we have a further problem in that the Canadians are without summer students this year and so are working to rule, causing even more delays.

So perhaps it is time we get the Canadian Federal Minister of Parliament for Delta involved. He will be home for the summer and the following is where he can be reached: John Cummins, 4871 Delta Street, Delta, B.C. V4K 2T9 or call 604/940-8040 or fax: 604/940-8041
Let’s write, call, or visit and see if he can do something.
Beverley Richmond
Point Roberts

(Ed. note: The summer hours going north in the NEXUS lane were changed July 23 to 8 a.m. to 9 p.m.)