The San Juan Coun­ty Coun­cil will hold a reg­u­lar meet­ing on Tues­day, Sept. 13 at 9 a.m. The meet­ing includes a pub­lic hear­ing accept­ing tes­ti­mo­ny about emer­gency and sup­ple­men­tal appro­pri­a­tions to the 2022 Coun­ty bud­get. Items up for dis­cus­sion or action include:

• Opi­oid lit­i­ga­tion and set­tle­ment agreement
• Draft request for qual­i­fi­ca­tions for the Argyle St. property
• 2022 Pub­lic Facil­i­ties Finance Assis­tance Pro­gram applications
• Six-year trans­porta­tion improve­ment plan
• San Juan Islands Con­ser­va­tion Dis­trict rates and changes

The meet­ing also includes a closed ses­sion to dis­cuss mat­ters per­tain­ing to col­lec­tive bargaining.

You can view the live stream of the meet­ing online or attend in per­son at the Coun­cil Leg­isla­tive Hear­ing Room. To make a pub­lic com­ment, sign up pri­or to 9 a.m. on Sept. 13.

• San Juan Island fire­fight­ers Michael Hen­der­son, Craig McConnell, and Tom Eades head­ed off island on Sat­ur­day to pro­vide sup­port for the Bolt Creek wild­fire in King Coun­ty.
• It’s the last day for two exhi­bi­tions at the San Juan Islands Art Muse­um — Look­ing Into Kab­ul by James Lon­g­ley and Lat­tice II by Hen­ry Jackson-Spieker.
• Start­ing today, the Library is expand­ing its Tech Cafe hours to include the sec­ond Mon­day of each month from 4–5:30 p.m. The pro­gram will con­tin­ue to oper­ate on Tues­day from 10 a.m.-noon as well.
• Sal­ish Cur­rent shares an update on the sta­tus of the man­age­ment plan for the San Juan Islands Nation­al Mon­u­ment.
• The native wild­flower sale by Sal­ish Seeds opens tomor­row at 9 a.m.
• Thanks to our adver­tis­ers for their con­tin­ued sup­port of the San Juan Update — includ­ing Island Petro­le­um Services.

Have some­thing to share with the Island? Whether the news is big or small, let us know!

A portion of the undeveloped 1.75 acre lot at the corner of Argyle Ave. and Malcom St.

The San Juan Coun­ty Coun­cil is set to review a pro­pos­al that calls for the devel­op­ment of up to 42 units of low- and mod­er­ate-income rental hous­ing in down­town Fri­day Harbor.

A draft of a Request for Qual­i­fi­ca­tions relat­ed to a 1.75-acre par­cel of Coun­ty-owned land at the cor­ner of Argyle Ave. and Mal­com St. has been pre­pared by the Coun­ty Depart­ment of Health & Com­mu­ni­ty Ser­vices for the Council’s review at Tuesday’s Coun­cil meeting.

“San Juan Coun­ty seeks an expe­ri­enced devel­op­er to part­ner with and enter into a long term, low- to no-cost lease agree­ment for a 1.75-acre par­cel,” accord­ing to the RFQ. “The site presents a unique oppor­tu­ni­ty for a large-scale afford­able hous­ing devel­op­ment serv­ing a vari­ety of income lev­els, pri­mar­i­ly house­holds that earn at or below 80 per­cent of area medi­an income.”

The Fri­day Har­bor Town Coun­cil has agreed to allow den­si­ty of up to 24 units per acre on the prop­er­ty, which means that up to 42 hous­ing units are pos­si­ble if the site is devel­oped to max­i­mum capac­i­ty. The draft RFQ calls for up to 50 per­cent of the new units to be afford­able for mod­er­ate-income house­holds earn­ing between 80 and 115 per­cent of AMI. The oth­er 50 per­cent of the units must be dis­trib­uted between low income (80 per­cent AMI or less), very low income (50 per­cent AMI or less), and extreme­ly low income (30 per­cent AMI or less) levels.

80 per­cent AMI for a fam­i­ly of four in San Juan Coun­ty is rough­ly $70,000 per year.

“The Coun­ty is pre­pared to make sig­nif­i­cant finan­cial con­tri­bu­tions to the project to off­set infra­struc­ture costs,” the draft RFQ says. It also com­mits the Coun­ty to pro­vid­ing frontage improve­ments on the site, includ­ing side­walks, street trees, land­scap­ing, curbs, gut­ters, and street lamps.

In addi­tion, the draft RFQ details design require­ments and pre­ferred approach­es to ener­gy effi­cien­cy. The Coun­ty seeks a devel­op­ment that “main­tains the char­ac­ter and design of the his­toric Argyle neigh­bor­hood in Fri­day Har­bor while max­i­miz­ing allow­able den­si­ty for long-term afford­able hous­ing rental units … As fea­si­ble, [the devel­op­er should] pro­vide solar arrays and ener­gy-effi­cient build­ings, appli­ances, and low-flow or water-effi­cient plumb­ing fix­tures. This will not only help con­serve our water resources; it will low­er util­i­ty costs, which will help main­tain long-term affordability.”

Should the Coun­ty move for­ward with the project, the draft RFQ out­lines a three-step devel­op­er selec­tion process. Coun­ty staff would first eval­u­ate sub­mis­sions and their adher­ence to the stat­ed project goals, pri­or­i­ties, and strate­gies. The Hous­ing Advi­so­ry Com­mit­tee would review the staff reports and present their rec­om­men­da­tions to the Coun­cil. The Coun­cil then has the option to accept or reject the HAC’s rec­om­men­da­tions, or make mod­i­fi­ca­tions to the scope and terms of the project.

The Ani­mal Pro­tec­tion Soci­ety of Fri­day Har­bor shares a look at the adopt­able ani­mal of the week — Zel­da, a five-year-old domes­tic short­hair tabby.

Hi, I’m Zel­da! Although you may have already heard the sto­ry of how I end­ed up in the shel­ter, I’m here to tell you the real, insid­er sto­ry straight from the cat’s mouth — mine.

The sto­ry, as the shel­ter knows it, is that I end­ed up in one of their traps meant for the fer­al cats and imme­di­ate­ly upon real­iz­ing I was too lovey-dovey to be fer­al, they tried to find if I had own­ers. But here’s what only I know, and what only I can tell you: I went into that trap inten­tion­al­ly. I know I’m not fer­al, but that doesn’t mean I’m not street-smart. These smarts led me to real­ize that these traps, once filled, made their way to APS-FH and that’s exact­ly where I want­ed to be. Why you ask? Because although you may notice the beau­ty scars I’ve obtained from a life on the out­side, what I have always real­ly dreamed of, is being some­one’s. I long for the com­fort, safe­ty, and nev­er-end­ing love that comes from being a part of a family.

I made and exe­cut­ed the plan to get here, now I just need you to come adopt me!

Learn more about Zel­da here.

The Coun­ty’s Pub­lic Works team requests the pub­lic’s help deal­ing with an increase in stolen street signs.

San Juan Coun­ty is expe­ri­enc­ing a slew of street sign thefts, leav­ing inter­sec­tions and many pop­u­lar roads unmarked. Coun­ty offi­cials are call­ing for the public’s help in find­ing and return­ing miss­ing street signs.

In the last two months, 13 signs were stolen, bring­ing 2022’s total to 35 stolen signs. Used for more than nav­i­ga­tion by locals and vis­i­tors, street signs are imper­a­tive for the Sher­if­f’s Office, EMS, fire­fight­ers, and oth­er emer­gency and util­i­ty ser­vices who rely on accu­rate signage.

Each road sign costs around $250 to replace if the post and brack­et can be sal­vaged. These replace­ments are paid for by tax­pay­er dollars.

Pub­lic Works crews are work­ing quick­ly to replace the miss­ing signs, but in doing so are being pulled away from oth­er impor­tant duties like mow­ing, road repair, and main­te­nance projects. That’s why the depart­ment is ask­ing for the public’s help in track­ing down and return­ing stolen signs or urg­ing friends and fam­i­ly to leave signs in place.

The depart­ment would like to thank the anony­mous cit­i­zen who brought back sev­en of the stolen signs to the Guard St. office. Oth­ers wish­ing to pro­vide the same ser­vice are encour­aged to return signs – no ques­tions asked – to 1000 Guard St. in Fri­day Harbor.

Freez­er Burned is an ongo­ing series for the San Juan Update, writ­ten by Steve Ulvi. Read the pre­vi­ous sto­ry in this series.

Trou­ble at the Ramparts

The full moon loomed high in the sky; the fad­ing cre­pus­cu­lar light of mid-after­noon gave in eas­i­ly to the rush­ing tide of night. The radi­ant moon­glow cre­at­ed spec­tac­u­lar soft light­ing; grey-blue shad­ows from tall wil­lows and trees along the riv­er bank lat­ticed on reflec­tive snow. Son­ny was glad to save on pre­cious head­lamp bat­ter­ies. He filled up on snow­shoe hare stew using the last of some pre-cooked rice from Ada; stand­ing on a cush­ion of spruce boughs, rotat­ing front to back near a sub­stan­tial “white man’s blaze” to stave off the pen­e­trat­ing cold. He mar­veled think­ing about his Atha­paskan ances­tors liv­ing suc­cess­ful­ly for thou­sands of years through the long win­ter nights with­out arti­fi­cial light.

The Ram­parts Cliffs shone bone-col­ored in the reflect­ed lunar light; the maw of the canyon, the gates to the upper Kuuk Riv­er. Son­ny sought the respite of heat­ed space again. Ram­parts Cab­in, only two or three miles away as the raven flies, was still twice that dis­tance trudg­ing on the sin­u­ous riv­er. Repet­i­tive hoots from Great Horned Owls, asked and answered, punc­tu­at­ed the night.

After he drift­ed to sleep in his tarped sleep­ing bags, he was dream­ing of snow­ma­chines speed­ing around his vil­lage of Tonas­ket with­out rhyme or rea­son. The dis­rup­tion was the plague of boot­leg­ging in a dry com­mu­ni­ty after the arrival of sum­mer fire-fight­ing pay­checks in the mail. Elsa Hen­der­son was roman­ti­cal­ly present and a con­fus­ing ele­ment in the nether­world of emo­tions. Son­ny wak­ened; star­tled to hear actu­al snow­ma­chines loud­ly announc­ing human trav­el in the motion­less dense air. At first, he thought that they were com­ing right into camp and sat up con­fused, grop­ing for his head­lamp. He soon real­ized that they were near­ly a quar­ter mile away, across the riv­er from his siwash camp; bounc­ing head lights sweep­ing the frozen shore. A dog-hair stand of young spruce around him hid his dying fire, smoke spi­ral­ing heavenward.

No longer alone in the vast land­scape, Son­ny was imme­di­ate­ly jolt­ed from tired slum­ber to stress­ful spec­u­la­tion. He knew that it had to be that damned Pok­er Creek crew. They were run­ning hard. It was cold, maybe ‑40F. Vil­lagers had no rea­son to be trav­el­ling way up here. Most of them would be hun­kered by the stove and blan­ket­ing doors or has­sling with haul­ing in more wood. Those vil­lagers often paid out­ra­geous prices for green wood as skimpy piles dis­ap­peared rapid­ly in try­ing to main­tain heat in their old drafty cab­ins. Some homes had two or even three wood­stoves requir­ing reg­u­lar stok­ing like the boil­ers on the small stern­wheel­ers that once served Tonas­ket. Besides, he thought, bad things often hap­pened with snow­ma­chines oper­at­ing in rub­ber and plas­tic break­ing tem­per­a­tures. Must be a damn good rea­son for run­ning in this cold; at night. Con­tin­ue Reading

• Here’s the line­up for today’s farm­ers mar­ket.
• Fri­day Har­bor High School foot­ball knocked off Gran­ite Falls 27–6 last night in the Wolver­ines’ home open­er. The game was called at half­time fol­low­ing the can­cel­la­tion of the 10 p.m. fer­ry to Ana­cortes, allow­ing the Gran­ite Falls team, cheer­lead­ers, and fans to catch the unsched­uled 8:30 p.m. depar­ture. The Wolver­ines take on La Con­ner High School next Fri­day night at home at 6:30 p.m. It’s the last home game until Oct. 28, their final reg­u­lar sea­son game.
• San Juan Coun­ty Health & Com­mu­ni­ty Ser­vices will not be offer­ing COVID boost­er clin­ics for adults this month. They plan to announce the dates of their Octo­ber clin­ics on or after Oct. 1.
• Island Rec’s free TREC after-school pro­gram for stu­dents in grades 6–8 returns on Wednes­days at 1:45 p.m., start­ing on Sept. 21. It’s a drop-in pro­gram, but advance reg­is­tra­tion is required.
• Tick­ets are still avail­able for two of the three remain­ing Arch­i­pel­ago Col­lec­tive cham­ber music per­for­mances, hap­pen­ing today and tomor­row at Brickworks.
• Tara Craig per­forms in the wine gar­den at the Madrone Tast­ing Room (40 First St. S.) from 5–7 p.m. tonight.
• Thanks to our adver­tis­ers for their con­tin­ued sup­port of the San Juan Update — includ­ing the Mullis Cen­ter.

Have some­thing to share with the Island? Whether the news is big or small, let us know!