Finally Showing Her Hand

Many who watched the progress of the Birch Bay Steering Committee have wondered why no drive was mounted for incorporation once the consultants’ positive report was completed. Kathy Berg, the chair of the committee, said the time wasn’t right, and maintained public neutrality, although some suspected she was for Birch Bay becoming a city.

As we were writing an article for the January issue of the Cascadia Weekly about the lack of enthusiasm for incorporation, Berg told us, “The tipping point will come when something happens that gets folks pissed off.” (A few days later when we asked if she could live with that quote, her answer was, “That’s what I said.”)

At the Birch Bay Chamber of Commerce breakfast meeting on July 15, Berg and her long-time cohort, Doralee Booth, said they are angry now because the Whatcom County government -- particularly Pete Kremen, the county executive, and his adjutant Dewey Desler -- is reneging on promises to pay for Birch Bay road improvements this year. The reason given is that the county is out of money. But, as one chamber member at the meeting called out, “They can fix a dip on Slater Road that floods twice a year to make sure gamblers can get to the casino!”

Berg and Booth are particularly incensed about cancellation of a $400,000 engineering study for development of the berm along Birch Bay Drive that has been waiting since first proposed in the 1970s by Wolf Bauer, whose vision of a more welcoming beach and walking promenade is well remembered.

So Berg has called a meeting, not of the Steering Committee, rather of “some members of the Birch Bay UGA community wishing to explore incorporation.” The meeting is next Monday, August 4, at (where else?) the Birch Bay Community Bible Church on Jackson Road. At 7 o’clock.

Many see incorporation as a giant challenge that Berg & Booth can’t be expected to achieve. Isn’t that what they said about George Washington?