Three voter awareness events provide information and a forum for east Whatcom County voters
Updated Aug. 9, 2024
Jeff Margolis describes himself as a face-to-face kind of guy.
The 82-year-old resident of Van Zandt, an unincorporated community in Whatcom County, has long been part of the community’s social interaction. This includes operating the area’s first organic grocery store, launching a local radio station with his wife and serving as a volunteer firefighter and first responder. Margolis is also the current board chair of the South Fork Valley Community Association (SFVCA).
As an activist during the Vietnam War, Margolis even once confronted President Richard Nixon about the conflict — face-to-face, of course.
Today, amid a world working in digital interactions and a contentious but important election cycle, Margolis and the other volunteers of the SFVCA are putting on a series of local voter events designed to bring Whatcom County voters face-to-face with the candidates they’ll vote for this fall.
“We’re the only face-to-face event that I know of,” said Margolis of the SFVCA voter forums. “And that’s what South Fork Valley Community Association is all about: growing social capital.”
Feeding awareness
With the financial generosity of the Whatcom Community Foundation, SFVCA created three voter-awareness events that are far more ambitious than any of the informal meet-and-greets they’ve put on in past election cycles.
The first, held July 24 at Mount Baker Senior High School, featured a keynote speech by Whatcom County Auditor Stacy Henthorn. Margolis said Henthorn provided a slideshow and video presentation on ballot security, while Chief Deputy Auditor Amy Grasher spoke on the purpose and history of the county’s charter review commission.
The county charter, which is updated every 10 years by a 15-person review commission, will have three commissioners chosen from each of Whatcom County’s five council districts. Five of the candidates running in Council District 3 — an area that includes a substantial number of Whatcom communities including Sumas, Deming, Kendall, Maple Falls, Glacier, Sudden Valley, Silver Beach, Nooksack and Everson — attended the July 24 event.
Others in attendance included Rep. Alex Ramel (40-Bellingham), who is running for re-election; Sen. Manka Dhingra (45-Redmond), a candidate for state Attorney General; 2nd Congressional District candidates Edwin Stickle and Daniel Miller; and proxies for gubernatorial candidates Semi Bird and Bob Ferguson.
Despite a question-and-answer session with the substantial number of candidates and over $1,000 in catered refreshments, Margolis said he was disappointed with the audience turnout of only about 60 people.
Margolis added that providing east Whatcom County voters with these events is important for keeping them properly informed, and also for allowing them to voice their concerns.
“Those of us who live in District 3, we all — regardless of which side of the political fence we’re on — feel like we are the orphan child of Whatcom County,” he said. “That we’re not taken notice of, and money is not invested in this direction. And that urban interests really dominate rule-making, especially when it comes to zoning.”
Getting the word out
Informing people about the county’s charter and the importance of the review commission is important for two main reasons, Margolis said.
The first is that, historically, many charter review commission members are civic-minded community members who have used their membership as stepping stones to higher, more powerful public offices. This includes the Elenbaas family, from which Ben Elenbaas is currently a Whatcom County Council member.
“These are the people who are going to be playing into the future of county politics,” he said.
“It’s not merely a matter of ‘what should the county do,’ but who are the likely players. Who would you prefer to support to be a potential player?”
The second reason, Margolis said, is about the important issues that can change the way the community functions politically. These include considerations to implement ranked-choice voting or eliminate nonpartisan offices.
“There’s issue and there’s character,” he said. “People should be interested in charter review because it impacts whose ox is going to get gored.”
Once vote totals from this week’s Aug. 6 primary election are determined, Margolis said the SFVCA will send out emails and letters to the local winners, inviting them to the meet and greet scheduled for Aug. 17 at the Van Zandt Community Hall.
“We’re notifying the candidates that they can come with everything,” he said. “Come with their yard signs, come with their team, come with their table, their promotional materials. We are going to do everything possible to bring this attention to both the candidates and the electorate.”
This event, taking place from 1 to 5 p.m., will coincide with SFVCA’s annual Summerfest at the Josh VanderYacht Memorial Park next to the hall. Summerfest features games, live music, a potluck and a reading of the park’s memorial names.
The third event — a general election candidate forum — will be held Oct. 19 at the community hall, with Whatcom County Executive Satpal Sidhu giving a keynote speech.
Importance of community
This year has been important to Margolis and SFVCA not just from an electoral perspective.
The Van Zandt Community Hall — originally built as a two-room schoolhouse in the mid-1920s — is approaching the beginning of a $1.1 million renovation project for which fundraising has made significant progress.
The hall and adjacent park sit on about two acres of land owned by the county, Margolis said. [Correction of hall site acreage.]
When the Mount Baker School District consolidated in 1951, the schoolhouse was turned into a community hall, with the county bequeathing the maintenance and operation of the building to the Van Zandt community.
The SFVCA recently received $502,000 in state grant funding toward the renovation, Margolis said, and was able to fundraise another $100,000 through community generosity, including from local philanthropist, artist and former developer David Syre. Whatcom County stepped in with another $330,000 in funding.
“It is practically a done deal,” he said. “We’re going to probably start construction in the spring of 2025.”
Although acquiring the necessary funding was initially challenging, support from local elected officials — including Sidhu, Sen. Sharon Shewmake (42-Bellingham) and county parks chair Bennett Knox — became instrumental in moving things forward, Margolis said.
In addition to hosting community events in what amounts to the area’s only real multipurpose public hall, Van Zandt Community Hall hosts low-power FM radio station KAVZ 102.5 FM. Margolis and his late wife, Amy, helped found the station about 20 years ago.
Though the current station studio more or less operates from what has been characterized as “an old broom closet,” the renovation efforts will add a roughly 700-square-foot addition for the station’s operation.
The community hall also houses an old baby grand piano once owned by Bing Crosby and possibly played by members of Frank Sinatra’s Rat Pack. Margolis said the piano was acquired around 2011 by an Acme woman whose mother allegedly bought it from Bing Crosby in Beverly Hills, California.
Moved from Acme to Van Zandt at a cost of $500, the piano was previously tuned by the late David Steege, a piano tuner who worked as a piano technician at Western Washington University for decades and also maintained the sound of the Mount Baker Theatre’s iconic organ, Margolis said.
For Margolis, who moved to Van Zandt from the East Coast in 1970 with his wife, two children and two dogs, the continuation of the community hall and the SFVCA is critically important to the social health of the Van Zandt community.
He looks forward to seeing what the future of both his community — and democracy — holds.
— By Matt Benoit
[Ed.: An earlier version of this story noted that Everybody’s Store was in Acme; it was in Van Zandt.]