June 2025
IN THIS
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Parents explore school alternatives, page 6
Two houses destroyed by fire in a week
Plenty of election contests, page 7
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King and queen for a night ...
B y P a t G r u bb In the second fire in a week, a house on Peltier Drive was destroyed on the morning of May 15. “By the time [firefighters] got there, the flames were coming through the roof,” said fire chief Christopher Carleton, speaking from a fire fighting conference in Phoenix, Arizona. “We got there pretty fast,” he said, adding, “Assistant fire chief John Shields was first on scene and followed by the engine. We had a crew on duty this morning at the hall.” Carleton said the response had been slowed by the fact that the person calling in the fire by cellphone had connected with the emergency dispatch service in B.C. and it took time to be transferred to What-Comm 911 in Bellingham. He reminded residents to use the full phone number (360/676-6911) when using a cellphone to report emergencies in Point Roberts. Carleton said the single-story home located at 1361 Peltier Drive was destroyed and the cause “looks suspicious.” Crews worked “defensively” to protect the house to the west of the burning house, he said. A final determination of the cause of the fire would be issued by the Whatcom County fire marshal. According to assistant fire chif John Shields, as of May 29 fire marshal Tiffany Honey had not het determined what started either of the two blazes. More details on the Edwards Drive fire Not much was left after a fire that destroyed a home at 1641 Edwards Drive on May 8. During salvage operations, firefighters were “able to recover (although burnt) hundreds of family photos and personal items including clothing for the owner,” according to chief Carleton. The chief reported that the department had received a dispatch call at 9:39 a.m. and the first unit, Battalion 58, arrived on scene at 9:43, followed by Engine 58 at 9:55. Delta Engine 2 from Tsawwassen was dispatched at 10:09 and arrived at 10:20 after a request for mutual aid was sent out. North Whatcom dispatched its apparatus at 10:30 and arrived at 11:06. (See Fires, page 6)
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WEEKLY NEWS BULLETIN
s A Point Roberts Prom was held May 3 at the community center. Sponsored by the park and recreation district along with the seniors association, Rick and Makai Genovese were crowned the first Point Roberts Prom King and Queen. Photo by Bob New
Proposed stormwater fixes to cost millions of dollars B y P a t G r u bb Presenting the final results of a Point Roberts drainage study at the Point Roberts Community Advisory Committee meeting on May 15, county engineer Eris Vavra was blunt in his assessment – it would cost a lot of money to fix even some of the problems and where that money would come from is far from clear. In all, there were 94 identified problem areas with 30 areas considered to be capital projects. Of those, 13 were considered highest priority and would cost $22,280,000 to fix. The top three in terms of expense would be Gulf Road at $7.27
million, Maple Beach at $2.88 million and Teller Road at $2.69 million. County staff expressed a glum realism when it came to paying for any or all of the projects. “To pay for these out of the Road Fund, which is kind of the most obvious way to pay for them, they’ll have to go up against the list of projects we’ve already programmed, or they’ll be programmed in the future. Then they’ll have to be compared to those and making sure that the projects we’re doing here fit into the grand scheme of Whatcom County right now, where we are already deprogramming (See Stormwater, page 2)
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Inside
Church ............................................... 8 Classifieds ......................................... 12 Coming Up ....................................... 12 Garden............................................... 10 Library Picks..................................... 11 Obituaries ......................................... 14 Opinion ............................................... 4 Seniors ............................................. 11 Sheriffs.............................................. 11 Tides ................................................. 13
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