A can-do town `knows how to potty'

GRANITE FALLS, Snohomish County - Vendors sold outhouse T-shirts and commemorative rolls of toilet paper. A landscape - flowers on a mountainside - was painted on a toilet bowl, one of several commode-themed works of art.

The mayor, decked in a robe of bathroom tissue and holding a plunger as a scepter, smiled as she declared: "This town knows how to potty!"

For Granite Falls, a woodsy town of 2,000, nothing was out of line at yesterday's Toilet Festival to celebrate the opening of its first public restroom - a high-end facility featuring four stalls (two accessible to the handicapped), two urinals, metal fixtures, skylights and sinks equipped with infrared sensors.

A stopping point for truckers and tourists headed toward the Cascades, Granite Falls had struggled for years without a place for folks to . . . er, go, and needed the potties so it could expand its tourism base, said Mayor Rella Morris.

When Charlotte Petersen, a resident and member of the town's chamber of commerce, suggested to Morris that the problem was no longer a laughing matter, it became a cause celebre for the community.

"We all need toilets. We all laugh about them," Morris said.

"But when you're looking around for a place to go, this is no laughing matter."

It took more than a year to raise the $100,000 to build the restroom, Morris said. Petersen applied for a Forest Service grant.

Others held a communitywide garage sale to raise matching funds, and businesses and individuals donated materials.

A year's worth of toilet paper was donated by Kimberly-Clark, a Dallas-based paper manufacturer that also donated $2,500 for the local Boys & Girls Club.

Yesterday's ode to the commode coincided with the town's fourth annual Art in the Parks festival for local artists. The festival continues today. The Toilet Festival included a ceremonial cutting not of a ribbon but of a strip of toilet paper, and an art display featuring pictures of outhouses from around the country and other works featuring toilet seats and bowls.

"This is definitely a challenge to artists who are used to painting on a canvas," said Raedrele, a Granite Falls artist who painted "Flowers Seated Beneath the Mountains" on a toilet bowl. Raedrele, 32, goes by just one name.

The honor of christening the throne went to 21-month-old Dylan Cupic.

Dylan, whose grandmother bought the winning raffle ticket for the honor, smiled and laughed as he made the first flush.

The festival has brought some national attention to Granite Falls. Organizer Bonnie Cosentino said she has fielded calls from radio and TV stations all over the country, wanting to know about "the town without a toilet."

But not everyone was pleased with the publicity. Several residents rolled their eyes or groaned.

"The festival's OK, I guess," said Chris Schmidt, a 24-year-old volunteer firefighter who moved to Granite Falls two months ago.

"There's a lot more to this town than the toilet, though. I hope people realize that."

Morris believes you can't underestimate the power of public potties. It hasn't spoken well for the town, she said, that vandals blew up its only portable restroom several years ago.

"A lot of people judge the hospitality of a community based on its public restrooms. They judge a town based on how clean it is, how well lit it is," she said.

"Well, what do you think of a town that doesn't even have one?"