San Juan Coun­ty Depart­ment of Com­mu­ni­ty Devel­op­ment (DCD) is now accept­ing eli­gi­bil­i­ty appli­ca­tions for detached ADU per­mits pro­posed out­side of urban growth areas and activ­i­ty cen­ters. ADU eli­gi­bil­i­ty appli­ca­tions must be received no lat­er than 4:30 pm Feb­ru­ary 10, 2020.   In 2020, six eli­gi­bil­i­ty slots are allowed for the con­struc­tion of new ADUs and  Con­tin­ue Reading

This new pro­gram series begins Mon­day, Jan­u­ary 27 at 7:00 pm at the San Juan Island Library and it’s free. The Library is pleased to announce a new series based on the For­eign Pol­i­cy Association’s Great Deci­sions pro­gram. Great Deci­sions is America’s largest dis­cus­sion pro­gram on world affairs and high­lights eight crit­i­cal for­eign pol­i­cy chal­lenges fac­ing  Con­tin­ue Reading

Dwight Ware, Pres­i­dent of Com­mu­ni­ty Trea­sures Recy­cling (for­mer­ly Con­sign­ment Trea­sures), writes to invite you to a CT meet­ing this Sun­day… Com­mu­ni­ty Trea­sures at a Cross­road If you val­ue CT ser­vices, please attend the meet­ing, Sun­day, Decem­ber 29th, 2019 at 5:00 pm at Grange Hall in Fri­day Har­bor. See the 2019 Final CT Peti­tion for rezone  Con­tin­ue Reading

Friends of the San Juans Ensures Added Pro­tec­tions for South­ern Res­i­dent Killer Whales in Regard to Phillips 66 Refin­ery Expan­sion On August 29, 2019, Friends of the San Juans appealed What­com County’s con­di­tion­al approval of a 300,000-barrel exter­nal float­ing roof crude oil stor­age tank and an 80,000-barrel exter­nal float­ing roof fuel oil stor­age tank in  Con­tin­ue Reading

San Juan Coun­ty res­i­dents respond­ed enthu­si­as­ti­cal­ly to the Fri­day Har­bor Arts Commission’s call for sub­mis­sions for its first Poet­ry Gar­den Con­test. The Town received 271 poems com­posed by 89 adult and stu­dent poets. Those enter­ing the con­test were required to reside with­in the coun­ty but oth­er­wise were lim­it­ed only by the num­ber of lines that  Con­tin­ue Reading

The Cat­tle Point Estates Own­ers Asso­ci­a­tion oppos­es BLM’s pro­posed changes to the San Juan Islands Mon­u­ment. See their let­ter to the BLM below… To: Bureau of Land Man­age­ment Direc­tor Re: San Juan Island Nation­al Mon­u­ment RMP for Cat­tle Point , San Juan Island, WA From: Cat­tle Point Estates Own­ers Asso­ci­a­tion PO Box 644 San Juan Island, WA 98250  Con­tin­ue Reading

Vote count­ing equip­ment test­ing Jan­u­ary 7 at 11:00 am A “Log­ic and Accu­ra­cy” test of bal­lot tab­u­lat­ing equip­ment used in San Juan Coun­ty for the Feb­ru­ary 11, 2020 Spe­cial Elec­tion is sched­uled for Jan­u­ary 7 at 11:00 am. The test works by tal­ly­ing the results of a pre­pared set of bal­lots to see if the results match  Con­tin­ue Reading

While flood impacts in the islands are much less than for our main­land neigh­bors, every few years the islands get enough rain to cause local­ized flood­­ing- espe­cial­ly in our more “urban” areas. With a chance of heavy rain in the fore­cast for lat­er this week, now is a good oppor­tu­ni­ty for home and busi­ness own­ers  Con­tin­ue Reading

San Juan Coun­ty is seek­ing vol­un­teers to cre­ate oppos­ing state­ments to place in the online Voter’s Guide for the upcom­ing Feb­ru­ary 2020 Spe­cial Elec­tion. San Juan Coun­ty Coun­cil approved send­ing Res­o­lu­tion No. 49–2019 to vot­ers. If approved, the mea­sure would autho­rize a coun­ty­wide sales and use tax of 0.20% for a peri­od of 60 months,  Con­tin­ue Reading

Sto­ry by Louise Dus­trude… After 23 years head­ing Coun­ty Parks, and near­ly half that long run­ning the Coun­ty Fair as well, Dona Wuth­now has decid­ed she’s ready to start a new chap­ter. She’ll def­i­nite­ly stay on the island, she said, and she hopes to work in some­thing nat­ur­al resource con­ser­­va­­tion-relat­ed. She is pas­sion­ate about parks  Con­tin­ue Reading

In the SJ Update mail­bag today we find this let­ter from Louise Dus­trude… I worked on the 2010 U.S. Cen­sus, as did more than half a dozen oth­er island res­i­dents, and I found it inter­est­ing and reward­ing. I’m retired, and the pay­check was wel­come. Some of my col­leagues were unem­ployed or just “between jobs,” and  Con­tin­ue Reading

The Town of Fri­day Har­bor Refuse Depart­ment pro­vides one day of pick­up for Yard Waste dur­ing the month of Decem­ber. This month that day would nor­mal­ly fall on Decem­ber 26th. How­ev­er, because the employ­ees of the Town will have Christ­mas Day as a hol­i­day, the Refuse work­ers will have to pick up two sep­a­rate routes  Con­tin­ue Reading

How often does the may­or pro­claim a day in your name? Ask Mike Cohen, who will turn 90 this week! Here’s what the Town had to say: “Michael J. Cohen” Our friend and fel­low Island res­i­dent Mike Cohen will turn 90 on Sat­ur­day, Decem­ber 14th. This is a note­wor­thy life event for any­one, and we wish to hon­or Mike,  Con­tin­ue Reading

The dog licens­ing sea­son was kicked off in grand fash­ion at the cour­t­house last week, when the first dog tag of 2020 was issued to a spe­cial “celebri­ty” canine. Mia, an 8‑year old Stan­dard Poo­dle, escort­ed by her own­er Bar­bara Wright, received tag #1 at the Auditor’s office. Dog licens­es are now avail­able for all  Con­tin­ue Reading

Here’s an impor­tant reminder for res­i­dents of San Juan Coun­ty from Jim Coren­man, Chair of the coun­ty Fer­ry Advi­so­ry Com­mit­tee… San Juan Coun­ty FAC here, with a request for assis­tance: WSF is hold­ing two online pub­lic meet­ings, this Sat­ur­day at 9am and Tues­day evening at 6pm. This is a new for­mat for WSF, and is  Con­tin­ue Reading

In the SJ Update mail­bag today we find this let­ter from Town Admin­is­tra­tor Dun­can Wil­son… On behalf of the May­or, Coun­cil and Cit­i­zens of the Town of Fri­day Har­bor I would like to sin­cere­ly thank those that donat­ed in their Novem­ber util­i­ty pay­ment to our Har­bor Life Ring pro­gram. Each year at this time the  Con­tin­ue Reading