San Juan Coun­ty has its first per­son under inves­ti­ga­tion relat­ed to the 2019 nov­el coro­n­avirus (COVID-19) glob­al out­break. A per­son under inves­ti­ga­tion is a per­son with symp­toms con­sis­tent with coro­n­avirus infec­tion and who has either recent­ly trav­eled to an affect­ed area, or has had close con­tact with a con­firmed nov­el coro­n­avirus case. Test­ing is cur­rent­ly  Con­tin­ue Reading

Do you know what a tardi­grade is? If not, it’s time to find out! It could soon become Wash­ing­ton State’s offi­cial micro-ani­­mal thanks to a part­ner­ship between stu­dents at Fri­day Har­bor High School, River­day School in Spokane, Jef­fer­son Mid­dle School in Olympia, along with Lynn Bahrych from the San Juan Islands Con­ser­va­tion Dis­trict, and Katie  Con­tin­ue Reading

Pres­i­den­tial Pri­ma­ry Vote count­ing equip­ment test­ing Feb­ru­ary 24 at 11:00 a.m. A “Log­ic and Accu­ra­cy” test of bal­lot tab­u­lat­ing equip­ment to be used in San Juan Coun­ty for the March 10, 2020, Pres­i­den­tial Pri­ma­ry is sched­uled for Feb­ru­ary 24 at 11:00 a.m. The test works by tal­ly­ing the results of a pre­pared set of bal­lots  Con­tin­ue Reading

San Juan Coun­ty Pub­lic Works con­tin­ues to mon­i­tor and respond to the ongo­ing rain and flood­ing events appear­ing along Coun­ty Roads. The fol­low­ing two loca­tions may con­tin­ue to have restric­tions post­ed or may be closed to vehi­cle traf­fic entire­ly. Bail­er Hill Rd (west of False Bay Dr) San Juan Val­ley Rd (west of Dou­glas Rd) Please avoid  Con­tin­ue Reading

The U.S. Cen­sus Bureau is con­tin­u­ing it’s peak hir­ing efforts through Feb­ru­ary for the 2020 Cen­sus. A rep­re­sen­ta­tive from the Cen­sus Bureau will be avail­able at Skag­it Val­ley Col­lege — San Juan Cen­ter 221 Weber Way Fri­day Har­bor, WA on Tues­day Feb­ru­ary 11th from 10:30 AM — 1:30 PM.  Get infor­ma­tion on how to become a  Con­tin­ue Reading

The World Health Orga­ni­za­tion declared a glob­al emer­gency on Thurs­day and Fri­day the White House declared a U.S. pub­lic health emer­gency as the coro­n­avirus out­break has spread world­wide. Human-to-human trans­mis­sion of the virus was also con­firmed in the U.S. this week. The out­break orig­i­nat­ed in Decem­ber 2019, in Wuhan City, Hubei Province, Chi­na. Since then,  Con­tin­ue Reading

Fire Dis­trict #3 will hold an open house this Sun­day, Feb­ru­ary 2, at noon to give vot­ers the oppor­tu­ni­ty to learn more about Prop 1, the pro­posed sales tax to help fund an upgrade of San Juan Coun­ty’s  Emer­gency Com­mu­ni­ca­tion Sys­tem.  This will be at the Fire Sta­tion at 1011 Mullis Street. Cit­i­zens will have  Con­tin­ue Reading

Fire Dis­trict Com­mis­sion­ers and hon­ored guests recent­ly attend­ed an annu­al awards din­ner and cer­e­mo­ny rec­og­niz­ing San Juan Island Fire & Res­cue (SJF&R) mem­bers for their ser­vice dur­ing 2019. Kath­leen Sali­nas was pre­sent­ed with 2019 Fire­fight­er of the Year award for her out­stand­ing con­tri­bu­tions on a num­ber of ini­tia­tives and her com­mit­ment to her com­mu­ni­ty and to  Con­tin­ue Reading

By Louise Dus­trude The road through the grav­el pit con­nect­ing Turn Point Road and Pear Point Road is under con­struc­tion, more than 10 years after it was for­mal­ly agreed to. The coun­ty is ful­fill­ing a com­mit­ment it made to the town in 2009. It will be called Miss­ing Moun­tain Road, allud­ing to the actu­al removal of  Con­tin­ue Reading

San Juan County’s 2020 Point in Time Home­less Count will be con­duct­ed on Thurs­day, Jan­u­ary 23. Count orga­niz­ers and vol­un­teers work with local fam­i­ly resource cen­ters, food banks, emer­gency cold weath­er shel­ters, church­es, health­care providers, senior cen­ters, libraries, the sheriff’s office, and many oth­er com­mu­ni­ty sup­port ser­vice providers to con­duct the count. The count, ini­ti­at­ed  Con­tin­ue Reading

Here’s a let­ter to you from Coun­ty Coun­cil mem­ber Bill Wat­son… I am announc­ing today that I will retire at the end of 2020 and not seek re-elec­­tion for a sec­ond term as Coun­ty Coun­cil mem­ber for Dis­trict #1 in Novem­ber of 2020.  In the final year of my term, I will con­tin­ue to do my  Con­tin­ue Reading

This just in from the Wash­ing­ton State Recre­ation & Con­ser­va­tion Office… Exec­u­tive Sum­ma­ry OLYMPIA–Trails con­tribute more than $8.2 bil­lion to the state’s econ­o­my, accord­ing to com­pan­ion stud­ies released today by the Wash­ing­ton State Recre­ation and Con­ser­va­tion Office. Done in col­lab­o­ra­tion with Wash­ing­ton Trails Asso­ci­a­tion, Wash­ing­ton Bikes, and the Uni­ver­si­ty of Wash­ing­ton, the stud­ies look at  Con­tin­ue Reading

San Juan Coun­ty Parks Camp­ing Reser­va­tion Infor­ma­tion for Year-Round Res­i­dents San Juan Coun­ty Parks & Fair is again offer­ing advance camp­ing reser­va­tions for peo­ple who reside in our coun­ty year ‘round! Choose from San Juan Coun­ty Park, San Juan Coun­ty Fair­grounds (RVs only), Odlin Coun­ty Park, and Shaw Coun­ty Park for any dates in 2020. To  Con­tin­ue Reading

The U.S. Cen­sus Bureau is kick­ing off peak hir­ing efforts for the 2020 Cen­sus. A rep­re­sen­ta­tive from the Cen­sus Bureau will be avail­able at Skag­it Val­ley Col­lege — San Juan Cen­ter 221 Weber Way Fri­day Har­bor, WA on Tues­day, Jan 14th from 10:30 AM — 1:30 PM. Get infor­ma­tion on how to become a Cen­sus work­er,  Con­tin­ue Reading

The Town is now accept­ing appli­ca­tions for the AWC Cen­ter for Qual­i­ty Com­mu­ni­ties Schol­ar­ship Fund. The schol­ar­ship is avail­able through a statewide com­pet­i­tive process for stu­dents who are active­ly engaged in their city gov­ern­ment and/or com­mu­ni­ty and plan to attend post-sec­ondary school in fall 2020. Up to six $1500 schol­ar­ships will be award­ed. As a mem­ber of  Con­tin­ue Reading

The Town will col­lect Christ­mas trees for res­i­dents inside Town lim­its on Thurs­day, Jan­u­ary 9, 2020. Trees must be placed at the curb no lat­er than 9:00 a.m. and must be sep­a­rate from oth­er unbun­dled trash and woody waste. To ensure the suc­cess of the tree recy­cling pro­gram, please remove the tree stand and all tin­sel,  Con­tin­ue Reading