FRONT PAGE

Local associations succumbing to burnout?

By Meg Olson

Are local community organizations dying? Is the county’s “we’ll come to you” policy helping hurry them into the grave?

That’s a question taxpayers association president Michael Rosser is asking after the organization had to cancel their annual general meeting August 6 because not enough people showed up to form a quorum representative of the over 300 members of the group. The voters association faced a similarly bleak annual meeting earlier this year, when there were no candidates willing to take on board positions and the nine-person board was reduced to five members, one of whom quit at the next meeting.

“The vigor that was there is the ’70s doesn’t exist anymore,” Rosser said. “Then it was a small place you could wrap your head around. Now the community has grown and it seems out of people’s control, like they can’t do anything about it. There’s apathy.”

That apathy seems to be almost encouraged by county executive Pete Kremen’s decision to not form a rural advisory committee for Point Roberts, Rosser said, but instead hold quarterly community meetings on the Point with senior staff members responding directly to individual concerns. “The numbers at the second meeting were way down,” he said, referring to a July 21 county meeting that had significantly reduced attendance compared to the first of the meetings held in April. “People are just waiting now. Waiting to hear back,” about specific queries to county staff, not going to the associations asking for their advocacy Rosser speculated. “Now the county can just ignore local organizations.”

“Point Roberts needs community associations,” Rosser said, because they help maintain focus and build consensus on local issues. “The county may be coming up a couple times a year but what about the rest of the time,” he said. Long-time board members of both the voters and the taxpayers associations are feeling the burden of holding the torch too long and leaving. “I felt I had served my time,” said former voters association president and then vice-president Tom Hollett, who resigned following his acceptance of a board position at the last annual meeting. Rosser said his own professional demands were making it difficult for him to continue to lead the taxpayers association. “The secret to keeping these community associations now is in getting the new people moving here to join,” he said. He also said the new blood needed to be balanced by strong participation from older members who knew the history of the association and the community. “It would be nice to see some former members come back to the board,” he said.

Rosser said that the community would be best served by a single community association with an open, representative membership, and he had hoped the proposed rural advisory committee would be that mechanism, uniting representatives from existing local organizations and the community at large. He said his organization would be open to working with the voters and other local groups to form such a single entity. “Things are changing and possibilities for the future can evaporate,” he said. “The work these groups do is important.”