Proposed Amendment to 55%/45% Should Be Reviewed

Opinion and Action.  I became concerned after reading that the County Council plans to introduce an amendment to the ferry fund / fare structure tomorrow night  (Council meeting 6/5/2012) without following the Council’s general policy of reviewing proposed legislation with fiscal consequences.   After reading the proposed amendment (AB2012-197) , I emailed the Council requesting simply [...]

End of Lummi Island Ferry Forum?

There is no way that I can keep the Ferry Forum going on my own.   When I said I missed Colleen, I really, really meant it. As long as we live on Lummi Island and depend on the ferry, we need a way to stay informed and communicate with each other on “all things ferry”  [...]

A Rock and a Hard Place

From Colleen McCrory: The vote on the ferry lease is most likely tomorrow.  We are down to the wire, and the pro and con arguments are coming in hot and heavy. We are seeing provocative arguments on the illegality of the lease and/or suing to “perfect the right of way”. One islander wrote the Council [...]

Attend Tuesday Council Hearing on Lease

There is no real chance of the Council’s hearing on the lease being changed to a post dry-dock date. Enough of our elected Council representatives are waffling that there’s a real chance the 35 years lease will be disapproved. This would leave us in an even more unstable situation than we’ve been in the last [...]

How to Become a Remote Island

One Editor’s Opinion, by Colleen McCrory: We are at a cross roads, with a whole new future on the horizon.  We can go from being a very accessible island (for most us us, a crucial factor in our decision to move here)— to becoming a remote San Juan island. If living remote is appealing, here [...]

POLL! Dry Dock Parking Preference

POLL IS CLOSED – Kremen said he’s got enough information to move forward. FINAL RESULTS from Paul Davis’ email poll and this one are at the bottom of the post. This seems as good a time as any to try a first very very very overly simple-minded opinion poll on the Ferry Forum, based on [...]

Have your say NOW on draft Task Force recommendations

Friday, June 24 is the deadline for comments. Do you have questions, thoughts, concerns and ideas (pros, cons, other ideas) for recommended changes to ferry operations, fares etc that you would like the Ferry Task Force to consider at their next meeting (and before they write their next pretty-much-final report)? Send in your comments (in [...]

Crunch Time for Input to Task Force Decisions

Bill Lee, who’s diligently attended County Council, Task Force and other ferry-related meetings for many years, submitted this piece urging everyone to attend remaining task force meetings in June.    ———— I would like to strongly encourage Lummi Islanders and in fact any and all Whatcom County residents to attend the June 20th meeting of the [...]

Task Force DRAFT cost-cutting / revenue ideas

Here’s a draft of ferry cost-cutting and revenue-generating options that the Task Force is considering recommending to the County Council (spreadsheet, MS Excel or OpenOfficeCalc).   PDF Version of recommendation-costs20110611-p-draft At the June 13 Task force meeting (Grange, 6- ~830 PM), the focus will be on the cost-cutting measures since revenue and other issues have [...]

Possible changes to ferry operations and fares — your thoughts?

Please send written input to Kathy Berg, secretary of the Ferry Task Force (kathyberg@comcast.net) by mid-day May 9, 2011 Total Ferry expenses:  What it costs to run the system Total Ferry revenues:  Funds from multiple sources that pay ferry expenses to keep the system running The Ferry Task Force is seeking input about some possible [...]