A forum on village life and the impacts of tourism will bring together a cohort of village associations, elected officials and agency representatives later this month at the Dance Palace. The event, hosted on Thursday, Feb. 23 by the Point Reyes Station Village Association, is coinciding with a town hall meeting with State Sen. Mike McGuire that’s billed as the first state-sponsored gathering in West Marin in years. It will focus specifically on California Coastal Commission rules, heavy tourist traffic from cars and bikes, mounting trash problems and septic system challenges. The event was coordinated with other associations, such as the East Shore Planning Group, the Bolinas Community Public Utility District, the Inverness and Inverness Park Associations and the Olema and Stinson Beach Village Associations, which met together last fall to start the conversation. Karen Gray, part of the leadership committee of the Point Reyes group, said the idea for the forum arose when these concerns came up month after month (after month) on that group’s agenda. “It became clear that we can learn from other villages up and down the coast,” Ms. Gray said. By cultivating a unified voice, coastal villages in West Marin could better brainstorm ideas and send clearer messages to those with power over unincorporated West Marin. Along with Sen. McGuire and Supervisor Dennis Rodoni, representatives will come from Caltrans, the California Coastal Commission, the Marin County Sheriff’s Office, California Highway Patrol and Point Reyes National Seashore. “Neighbors have made it loud and clear they would like the state to be more involved in West Marin,” Sen. McGuire, who will take questions from the audience for a segment of the event, said in a statement. “We’re thrilled to host the Town Hall and help convene a working group to address longstanding issues such as increased traffic in peak seasons, parking and the need for coordinated waste management services in West Marin’s unique coastal communities.” Ms. Gray emphasized that the village association wants to provide visitor access to the coast as required by the Coastal Act— she herself runs a small inn serving visitors, she noted. Yet solutions are needed to balance that mandate with the heavy impact on village life, particularly as downtown Point Reyes Station has become a destination in itself in more recent years, she went on. (Ms. Gray said one time she talked with tourist downtown who didn’t even know there was a national park here.) She couldn’t say for sure what solutions might come from the forum—better signage might be a good start—but hoped it would lead to greater collaboration. “This is really the culmination of work to bring the villages together and develop a common voice to speak to the county, state and coastal commission.”