Dear Guemes Island Ferry Users,

The Ferry Committee genuinely appreciates the effort of the Island community to come out in such large numbers on a sunny Sunday afternoon for our annual meeting. We also appreciate the efforts made by many of you to ensure participation by calling others about the meeting and offering rides to those who needed them. With 188 people signing in, this was our largest public meeting ever.

Even though the Ferry Committee is an advisory committee, the voters of the Guemes precinct will now be able to vote for those serving on the Ferry Committee in the same manner as we vote for Guemes Fire Commissioners and Guemes Cemetery Commissioners.

Public meetings at the Community Center have traditionally been used for electing Ferry Committee members but the process has raised issues that concerned some, including the County Commissioners. By re-writing the Ferry Committee Charter to primarily define: 1) who can be a candidate and 2) who can vote, we established rules that are in line with an official election process.

Within the next three weeks, a ballot containing the names of the candidates running for the open position on the Ferry Committee will be sent to all registered voters of the Guemes Precinct. All ballots must be postmarked by April 15th 2004. Future elections will be completed by March 15. The election process will be supervised by volunteers who are either past or present Guemes precinct poll workers.

Sample ballots and voting instructions will be posted on line at our website, GuemesIslandFerryCommittee.org and hard copies will be available on various Island bulletin boards. Candidates have been invited by LineTime to submit position statements to Comments@LineTime.org.

We are confident that these changes will allow the County Commissioners to accept the Ferry Committee Charter and ultimately pass a resolution recognizing the Ferry Committee as the representatives for Guemes Islanders in ferry related matters before the Public Works and Board of Commissioners.

Thank you again for your support and thanks to all those who donated to the election fund for our first mail out ballot.

Sincerely,

Guemes Island Ferry Committee

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