Incum­bent San Juan Coun­ty Dis­trict Court Judge Car­olyn Jew­ett has announced her inten­tion to run for re-elec­tion. “Dur­ing my first term, I gained a lot of expe­ri­ence fig­ur­ing out what ‘access to jus­tice’ real­ly means,” said Jew­ett in her can­di­da­cy announce­ment. “The COVID-19 pan­dem­ic turned our judi­cial sys­tem on its head and forced us all  Con­tin­ue Reading

Peace­Health shares news about revised vis­i­tor pro­to­cols now in place at Peace Island Med­ical Cen­ter. With COVID-19 trans­mis­sion rates in San Juan Coun­ty sig­nif­i­cant­ly increas­ing, Peace­Health Peace Island Med­ical Cen­ter and the adja­cent Peace­Health Med­ical Group clin­ic will be scal­ing back the num­ber of vis­i­tors per­mit­ted inside our facil­i­ties. Effec­tive this Tues­day, May 3, only  Con­tin­ue Reading

Fed­er­al charges were filed on Mon­day against the per­son sus­pect­ed of set­ting fire to four Fri­day Har­bor build­ings on April 7. Dwight Hen­line of Whid­bey Island faces a min­i­mum of five years in prison and a max­i­mum of 20 years for the crime. High school base­ball and fast­pich return to the dia­mond with dou­ble­head­ers against LaCon­ner  Con­tin­ue Reading

The San Juan Coun­ty Coun­cil will hold a reg­u­lar meet­ing on Tues­day, May 3 at 9 a.m. Items up for dis­cus­sion or action include: Increase school-based men­tal health bud­get con­tract for San Juan Island School Dis­trict for the 2021–22 school year Con­sid­er adopt­ing an ordi­nance to adopt tech­ni­cal cor­rec­tions to the San Juan Coun­ty Char­ter  Con­tin­ue Reading

With aver­age tem­per­a­tures more than ten degrees below nor­mal, it has been an unsea­son­ably cool April. And if you’ve been lay­er­ing on wool sweaters, you’re not alone. Cady, the lamb, has been too. It was shear­ing day when we vis­it­ed Oak Knoll Farm and the barn was noisy and bustling with humans, sheep, a guardian lla­ma,  Con­tin­ue Reading

Con­gress­man Rick Larsen and his staffers vis­it­ed Fri­day Har­bor on Sat­ur­day to meet with local gov­ern­ment and non­prof­it lead­ers and hold the first San Juan Coun­ty event for the 2022 cam­paign cycle. After arriv­ing late due to a delayed fer­ry sail­ing, Larsen first met with Fri­day Har­bor town offi­cials to learn about the impacts of last  Con­tin­ue Reading

The Spring Flea & Craft Mar­ket is look­ing for ven­dors — food ven­dors, crafters and artists, com­mu­ni­ty orga­ni­za­tions look­ing to fundraise, fam­i­ly and friends clean­ing house. The event takes place on Sat­ur­day, May 14 at the Fair­grounds. Learn more at the Fair web­site. Pick­up ulti­mate fris­bee hap­pens tonight at 5:30 p.m. at Linde Park. Tomor­row night  Con­tin­ue Reading

Pho­to cred­it: Brad Pillow

The San Juan Islands Vis­i­tors Bureau pro­vides an update about mes­sag­ing efforts being planned in response to feed­back they received dur­ing pub­lic meet­ings ear­li­er this year. The San Juan Islands Vis­i­tors Bureau host­ed three pub­lic Tourism Talk meet­ings ear­li­er this spring as an oppor­tu­ni­ty for res­i­dents to share con­cerns and ideas about tourism in 2022 and  Con­tin­ue Reading

Wolf Hol­low Wildlife Reha­bil­i­ta­tion Cen­ter shares some advice about how to help fawns on the island this spring. There may be few­er deer in the San Juans than last year, but quite a few fawns will still be born in the next few weeks. You may come across a tiny fawn curled up in the  Con­tin­ue Reading

Some time today M/V Yaki­ma will be towed to the Dako­ta Creek ship­yard in Ana­cortes, where crews will work to repair dam­age sus­tained when the Yaki­ma’s anchor unex­pect­ed­ly deployed ear­li­er this week. The ves­sel is expect­ed to be replaced some time this after­noon by M/V Kalee­tan, which must first be repo­si­tioned from the Edmonds-Kingston route.  Con­tin­ue Reading

On Sun­day, May 8, the San Juan Island Yacht Club will ring in the new boat­ing sea­son by host­ing an open­ing day boat parade and Moth­er’s Day brunch. Both events are open to the com­mu­ni­ty. “Our theme is Back to the Future and we see the event as an oppor­tu­ni­ty to come togeth­er as a  Con­tin­ue Reading

The Wash­ing­ton Util­i­ties and Trans­port Com­mis­sion on Thurs­day grant­ed a peti­tion filed by the oper­a­tor of MV San Juan Clip­per to tem­porar­i­ly sus­pend­ed oper­a­tions until May 2023. San Juan Express, Inc. filed the peti­tion with the UTC two weeks ago, on April 13. With its approval, SJE will elim­i­nate their four day per week ser­vice from  Con­tin­ue Reading

MV Yaki­ma remains out of ser­vice. This will can­cel the 5:45 a.m., 6:25 p.m., and 10:05 p.m. sched­uled sail­ings from Fri­day Har­bor. New reser­va­tions are still sus­pend­ed and exist­ing reser­va­tion hold­ers will be pri­or­i­tized on a first-come, first-served basis. Due to the strong response it received the first time around, 50 more prints of Doug  Con­tin­ue Reading