Year in review: Point Roberts Taxpayers Association

During the past year, the Point Roberts Taxpayers Association (PRTA) met monthly, mostly via Zoom during the winter months and in the community center during the summer, plus on the patio of Kiniski’s Reef Tavern for our annual general meeting (AGM) in July.

The public is always welcome to join us, at 7 p.m. on the second Thursday of each month. We aim to serve as an open forum for discussion of community matters and, on county matters, to work through the Point Roberts Community Advisory Committee (PRCAC) to advance our views and recommendations. In addition to having a PRTA representative on PRCAC, currently two other PRTA board members happen to be at-large members of PRCAC.

We started off the year by dedicating our January meeting to hearing from Whatcom County Assessor Rebecca Xczar, who explained our property tax system and answered questions from the public. We invited her in response to concerns of many residents over increased property assessments.

In February, we hosted special guests Elliott Smith and Gina Stark from the Port of Bellingham (POB). Elliott updated us on POB’s interest in purchasing the Point Roberts Marina; and Gina described the POB’s mandate to promote economic development, as reflected subsequently by a state grant to develop an Economic Development Strategy for Point Roberts in 2025, which PRTA endorsed.

In April, Shauna Sylvester, from Resilient Point Roberts: Going Solar, briefed us on their plans and proposals to assess feasibility of backup solar power at public buildings and to develop local capacity to assess residential properties.

The keynote speaker at our AGM was resident historian Mark Swenson, speaking on the subject, “Point Roberts: Mistake or Theft.”

Years of effort by PRTA culminated in success, with the passage of legislation sponsored by our state senator Sharon Shewmake to broaden the allowed uses of our local fuel tax revenue to support transportation improvements besides street maintenance and construction, e.g., public transportation. Earlier efforts a decade ago, working with the late senator Doug Ericksen and representative Luanne Van Werven failed in committee. However, this year senator Shewmake and her bipartisan co-sponsors passed the legislation, and Governor Jay Inslee signed it into law.

PRTA partnered with Kelly & Son Roofers to conduct litter collection on our “adopted” Gulf Road. We participated in the fire department’s open house, to share information on PRTA and attract new members.

Our greatest disappointment in 2024 was U.S. Representative Rick Larsen’s inability to hold the usual summertime town hall meeting with our community, breaking an annual tradition initiated by PRTA with former representative Suzan DelBene in 2014.

Some of the ongoing community concerns at PRTA meetings include illegal roadside dumping, illegal off-premise advertising signage clutter, getting high speed broadband in place, removal of Delta Cable’s abandoned cables, and Whatcom County Parks & Recreation priorities at the four county parks in Point Roberts.