County defines PRCAC's enforcement role

By Meg Olson

Whatcom County planning staff have clarified the role of the Point Roberts Community Advisory Committee (PRCAC) when it comes to code enforcement.

“The PRCAC should only focus and assist on potential code violations to the Point Roberts Character Plan and not other types of enforcement action,” wrote Tyler Schroeder, project manager with the county executive’s office, in a December 19 email. This would limit the official enforcement role of the committee to commercial, industrial and signage issues, but not to perceived critical areas violations or perceived violations on residential properties.

The issue came to a head at PRCAC’s December meeting, at which committee members questioned whether or not it was appropriate for the committee to collect potential code violations and forward them to the county, as they had at their October meeting through chair Arthur Reber.

While committee member Jennifer Urquhart felt PRCAC should stay out of code enforcement, Louise Mugar felt the committee did have a role ensuring compliance with the character plan, and reporting violations was consistent with that.

The county’s position reinforces that of committee member John Lesow, who put forward a motion at the December PRCAC meeting to limit their purview to commercial and industrial violations, not residential. That motion was tabled pending clarification from the county.

Schroeder also agreed with Mugar and Reber’s position at the December meeting that the committee had a role as a liaison with the county “regarding needs and issues specific to Point Roberts,” and that this included bringing the concerns of citizens regarding code violations to the attention of the county executive, specifically if they had filed a code violation report with the county which had “produced no action.”

PRCAC will meet again on Tuesday, January 13 at 7 p.m. at the Gulf Road community center.