PRCAC asks council to hold off on committee changes

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A proposed amendment to the ordinance governing the Point Roberts Community Advisory Committee (PRCAC) met with resistance from the PRCAC board at a special meeting held on Zoom December 2. The amendment, put forward by Whatcom County Councilmember Rud Browne, calls for increasing the number of ‘at-large’ members from two to four, making it a seven-person board, and establishing stricter rules regarding meeting notices and the taking of minutes.

Including the board, just under 20 people attended the meeting.

The board mostly agreed to send a letter to county council asking that they put the proposed amendments on hold in order to give constituent organizations (Point Roberts Chamber of Commerce and the taxpayers’ and voters’ associations) time to review the proposed changes and to see if any alternatives to the plan would arise from those reviews.

At-large member Pamala Sheppard did not attend the meeting while chamber representative Judson Meraw was abruptly replaced at the beginning of the meeting by Linda Hughes, a former PRCAC director. Sheppard submitted her resignation from the committee December 3. In her letter of resignation, Sheppard wrote that she felt her abilities would be better used by fundraising to help the community and promoting tourism. She expressed appreciation for PRCAC’s work.

Taxpayer representative Steven Wolff took “particular umbrage” at the county’s description of the minutes taken by PRCAC secretaries and called for increased detail. Allison Calder from the voters’ association backed Wolff, saying, “Linda [Hughes] wrote short stories, Stephen Falk wrote novels.”

Part of the committee’s opposition to the proposed procedural changes was based on the feeling that council was asking PRCAC to give longer meeting notice periods than “County Council applies to itself, and administrative rules that [seem] more appropriate for the PRCAC bylaws currently under final review,” according to Stephen Falk.

Close to the end of the special meeting, county executive Satpal Sidhu joined in and took questions from the committee and other attendees. When asked his opinion on the proposed amendments by audience member Tom O’Brien, Sidhu declined to respond, saying he preferred to wait until the matter came before council on December 8.

Sidhu’s professional courtesy was blasted the next day by O’Brien in a Point Roberts Independent Business Council email charging that Sidhu “declined to provide anything substantive, as is typical, when it concerns providing greater oversight of the PRCAC, and actual support for Point Roberts as a whole. … Suffice it to say, the old adage is true … when their lips are moving.”

In a December 3 email regarding the meeting to county prosecutor Royce Buckingham, O’Brien wrote, “We are actively consulting with regard to our legal remedies. … In the meantime, we are preparing to take action, and your office will be the first to receive notice.”

O’Brien neither explained what his beef was or what action he was considering.

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