On your bal­lot right now is the years-long cam­paign to build a new Library. The issue is shroud­ed in rumors and misinformation.

Many won­der why the Library itself has not done more to respond and answer people’s ques­tions. The answer is sim­ple — pub­lic agen­cies are high­ly con­strained in their abil­i­ty to cam­paign, and the Library is act­ing with­in the law. The Library has doc­u­ments and facts on its web­site but must leave it to out­side vol­un­teers to cam­paign and advocate.

A ded­i­cat­ed group of vol­un­teers has been try­ing to get the facts in front of vot­ers with an exten­sive FAQ page and let­ters to the edi­tor, as well as per­son­al let­ters to friends and neigh­bors. Our site clar­i­fies and guides you through the doc­u­ments you see on the Library’s web­site.

We under­stand that the new Library rep­re­sents expen­sive pub­lic con­struc­tion. Our group believes that the right time for our com­mu­ni­ty to improve civic infra­struc­ture is now. By build­ing it now, we’ll do it at a time where inter­est rates for pub­lic enti­ties are at very rea­son­able lev­els – between four and five per­cent, a far cry from some of the mis­in­for­ma­tion float­ing around.

We believe that we are doing the right thing for the com­mu­ni­ty, for this gen­er­a­tion and the next, in vot­ing yes for the Library. And we ask you, our friends and neigh­bors, to do so as well.

Louise Dus­trude
Beth Hel­stien
William Appel
Dana Ander­son
Eileen Drath
Gay Gra­ham
Susan Maz­zarel­la
Lov­el Pratt
Boyd Pratt
Liz Pil­low
Mark Mad­sen
Lara Braith­waite
Lau­rie Orton
Jean Grif­fin
Richard Grout
Alan Roochvarg
Lynn Weber/Roochvarg

Every com­mu­ni­ty deserves a first-rate pub­lic library, and I hope that we will all embrace this oppor­tu­ni­ty to build one. The exist­ing struc­ture is burst­ing at the seams, with no room to expand in its cur­rent loca­tion. Through years of work and study, our library board has cre­at­ed a vision for a facil­i­ty that can serve the island for decades. Some argue that now is not the time, but it’s hard to imag­ine that the future would be a bet­ter time, when real estate and build­ing costs will be even more expen­sive, and when a suit­able site will no longer be avail­able with­in the walk­a­ble core of Fri­day Har­bor. This project allows us to address a clear com­mu­ni­ty need in a thought­ful way, sub­stan­tial­ly off­set­ting the pub­lic invest­ment with grants and pri­vate fundrais­ing. That approach can serve as a mod­el for oth­er local pri­or­i­ties, and in fact it already has. Ten years ago, sim­i­lar efforts result­ed in a fine new hos­pi­tal to care for the health of our bod­ies. Let us do the same now to nour­ish the health of our minds.

Thor Han­son
San Juan Island

Fol­low­ing a suc­cess­ful sea­son for Fri­day Har­bor Tigers youth foot­ball, all three teams will host a first-round play­off game tomor­row at Linde Com­mu­ni­ty Fields.

The Midget team (ages 9–10) kicks off at 11 a.m. against Belling­ham, fol­lowed by the Juniors (ages 11–12) at 1 p.m. against Belling­ham, and the Pee Wees (ages 6–8) at 3 p.m. against Oak Harbor.

The teams enter the play­offs with con­fi­dence after strong per­for­mances against dif­fi­cult off-island com­pe­ti­tion all season.

“Fri­day Har­bor Tiger youth foot­ball has his­tor­i­cal­ly played against sim­i­lar­ly ros­tered teams from La Con­ner, Lum­mi Island, Con­crete, Dar­ring­ton, Lake­wood, and Gran­ite Falls,” says Pee Wees coach Juan Unping­co. “But this sea­son, leagues were merged to include Belling­ham, Ana­cortes, Oak Har­bor, Mount Ver­non, Fer­n­dale, and Sedro Wool­ley. These teams have twice the num­ber of play­ers and are usu­al­ly two times the size of our Fri­day Har­bor Tigers.”

Each team rose to the chal­lenge this year, with the Juniors fin­ish­ing 6–2, the Midgets 7–1, and the Pee Wees 5–3.

Coach Juan encour­ages the com­mu­ni­ty to come out to the games on Sat­ur­day to show its love and sup­port for our hard-work­ing island athletes.

• Today is home­com­ing at Fri­day Har­bor High School. The parade starts at 3 p.m. from WSF Lot C and pro­ceeds up Spring St., to be fol­lowed by a pep ral­ly at 3:30 p.m. at Turn­bull Gym. The foot­ball game against Coupeville High School starts at 6:30 p.m.
• High school boys soc­cer fin­ished up their reg­u­lar sea­son strong with a come-from-behind road win at Mt. Ver­non Chris­t­ian by a count of 3–2. They end­ed the sea­son 10–2 over­all, 7–1 in con­fer­ence, and play in the dis­trict tour­na­ment next week.
• The San Juan Islands Muse­um of Art hosts a gallery walk-and-talk with artist Kevin Chris­ti­son tonight at 5:30 p.m.
• Tom­my Dale & the Dan­ger­fields host a Hal­loween dance tomor­row night from 7–10 p.m. at Brick­works. The 21-and-over event has a beer and wine gar­den, and a cos­tume con­test with prizes. It’s pay-what-you-can, with a $5 sug­gest­ed donation.
• The sec­ond annu­al Fri­day Har­bor Witch­es Pad­dle takes place on Sun­day. All human-pow­ered ves­sels are invit­ed to meet at Ship­yard Cove for a 10 a.m. launch. Park­ing at Ship­yard is lim­it­ed, so car­pool­ing and drop-offs are encour­aged. Email wendyzappelli@yahoo.com for more information.
• Here are the week’s spe­cials at Kings and Mar­ket Place. Mar­ket Place is hav­ing a Hal­loween-themed anniver­sary sale that runs through Nov. 1, with spe­cial deals and a chance to win prizes like Alas­ka Air­lines miles and a stay at Sun­ca­dia Resort.

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

Friends who know I served on the Char­ter Review Com­mis­sion asked for my take on the four CRC propo­si­tions that are on the bal­lot. Here’s what I told them.

Dur­ing the CRC meet­ings the only one of the four pro­pos­als I sup­port­ed was Prop 2. The 2021 CRC spent three weeks try­ing to secure basic sup­port from the Coun­ty admin­is­tra­tion so we could func­tion. The CRC is in the orig­i­nal Coun­ty char­ter and is a part of Coun­ty gov­ern­ment. It’s also a low-cost oper­a­tion. I believe we spent $14,000 for the entire year of our term, pri­mar­i­ly for cler­i­cal assis­tance. Prop 2 is intend­ed to clear­ly define the Coun­ty’s respon­si­bil­i­ty so that no future CRC has to expe­ri­ence what we did. It deserves approval.

Prop 1 would cre­ate a new posi­tion of Pub­lic Advo­cate. I still don’t under­stand the need for it. In my expe­ri­ence, when you aren’t sure who in the Coun­ty you need to talk to about a par­tic­u­lar issue, Coun­ty employ­ees are impres­sive­ly help­ful in direct­ing you to the right office or the right person.

Prop 3 is the one that wor­ries me. It says that if the leg­is­la­ture autho­rizes ranked-choice vot­ing it would auto­mat­i­cal­ly become law in our coun­ty. We don’t know how the leg­is­la­ture might struc­ture it, or when it might hap­pen, but we’re going to impose it on our­selves now, sight unseen. I don’t think that’s a very good idea. On top of that, look at your bal­lot. We have a hard time get­ting two peo­ple to run for the same Coun­ty office, nev­er mind three or more. In my view, Wash­ing­ton’s cur­rent top-two sys­tem has served us very well.

Prop 4 would make it eas­i­er to put ini­tia­tives on the bal­lot by low­er­ing the num­ber of sig­na­tures required. What’s wrong with that? It short-cir­cuits the delib­er­a­tive process that, in my opin­ion, is nec­es­sary for good gov­ern­ment. Look at the hav­oc that’s been cre­at­ed statewide over the years by ill-advised ini­tia­tives. The prob­lems with our fer­ry ser­vice go back to an ini­tia­tive that destroyed WSF’s fund­ing base.

Richard Grout
San Juan Island

Contributed photo

The Library shares news about their upcom­ing Hal­loween event for island children.

The third annu­al Trick or Book event will be held on Sun­day, Oct. 30 from 2–4 p.m. on the Mullis Cen­ter lawn behind the Joyce L. Sobel Fam­i­ly Resource Center.

This free event is designed for fam­i­lies with babies, tod­dlers, and preschool­ers. Old­er sib­lings are wel­come to attend. Chil­dren will receive a book along with oth­er good­ies for their treat bags.

Trick or Book was start­ed as a com­mu­ni­ty enrich­ment and lit­er­a­cy pro­mo­tion event to help give fam­i­lies with chil­dren ages five and younger a safe and wel­com­ing space to wear cos­tumes, hear sto­ries, enjoy Hal­loween fes­tiv­i­ties, and receive an age-appro­pri­ate book to keep.

Trick or Book is orga­nized by the Joyce L. Fam­i­ly Resource Cen­ter and the San Juan Island Library with addi­tion­al sup­port from San Juan Com­mu­ni­ty The­atre, SAFE San Juans, San Juan Coun­ty Health and Com­mu­ni­ty Ser­vices, P2P, Co-op, and Peace Island Med­ical Cen­ter Volunteers.

Local vot­ers have already approved the pur­chase of the Life Care Cen­ter prop­er­ty. Now there are oppo­nents say­ing we should not approve a bond to actu­al­ly build a new library. Unbelievable!

We choose to live in this beau­ti­ful place where we have good pub­lic ser­vices to meet our needs. Our library has been pre­em­i­nent in serv­ing the needs of all seg­ments of this com­mu­ni­ty, seniors as well as chil­dren, aid­ing the tech­nol­o­gy-impaired as well as the pro­fi­cient, serv­ing the Eng­lish lan­guage — flu­ent or not, those who read books and those who read online — meet­ing our needs onsite and offsite.

Our cur­rent library is burst­ing at the seams and has nev­er had ade­quate park­ing. The oppor­tu­ni­ty to build on an ide­al site has already been decid­ed, and it should not now be set aside. To nay-say­ers we say: there will always be oth­er ways to spend our mon­ey. Yes, we can always tight­en our belts and make do with what we have. On the oth­er hand, we can see a bet­ter future and make a com­mit­ment to get­ting there.

We will vote yes for the Library and urge you to do so too.

Rita and Richard Weisbrod
San Juan Island

San Juan Coun­ty shares their respons­es to com­mon ques­tions about the road levy propo­si­tion up for a vote in this Novem­ber’s election.

Novem­ber’s bal­lots will include Res­o­lu­tion No. 20–2022, a propo­si­tion to increase the Coun­ty road levy from $0.56 to $1.00 per $1,000 of assessed val­ue. The $0.44 increase will be used to main­tain roads and marine facil­i­ties, repair storm dam­age, and enhance roads for pedes­tri­ans and cyclists.

What is the levy rate? The lid lift is $1, but what’s the rate?

The pro­posed bal­lot propo­si­tion is to increase the road fund levy to $1.00 per $1,000 assessed val­ue. The new levy rate would also be $1.00 per $1,000 of assessed val­ue — mak­ing both the lid lift and the levy rate $1.00.

What does a “sin­gle-year per­ma­nent levy lid lift” mean?

With a per­ma­nent sin­gle-year lid lift, the levy lid bumps up more than one per­cent in the first year, and then that amount is used to cal­cu­late all future 101 per­cent levy lim­i­ta­tions. The mea­sure nev­er expires, and the levy lid nev­er reverts. How­ev­er, future annu­al increas­es may not exceed one per­cent with­out going to the vot­ers for anoth­er lid lift.

Will the road levy real­ly raise my prop­er­ty tax­es by 79 percent?

No, your over­all prop­er­ty tax­es will not increase by 79 per­cent. The road levy rate will increase by rough­ly 79 per­cent — from $0.56 to $1.00 — but the road levy is a small per­cent­age of total prop­er­ty tax­es paid. Last year it was about sev­en per­cent of the total tax­es levied. A 79 per­cent increase of about sev­en per­cent of the over­all tax bill results in only about a 5.6 per­cent increase overall.

How will this levy lid lift affect my taxes?

Use this for­mu­la to cal­cu­late your tax: 2023 assessed val­ue x $1.00 levy rate/ 1,000 = your road fund tax. For exam­ple, a home in 2022 that was val­ued at $700,000, pay­ing last year’s road levy rate of $0.56, con­tributed $392 to the road fund. If that same home received a 30 per­cent increase in assessed val­ue this year, it is now val­ued at $910,000. With the new road levy, the rate becomes $1.00 per $1,000 of assessed val­ue, and that home would pay $910 to the road fund.

What hap­pens if the Coun­ty col­lects more rev­enue than was estimated?

The Coun­ty esti­mat­ed rev­enue to be gen­er­at­ed by this levy lid lift using 2022 prop­er­ty val­u­a­tions. Actu­al rev­enue col­lect­ed will use 2023 prop­er­ty val­u­a­tions. Any addi­tion­al funds col­lect­ed by this levy lid lift are expensed for the same pur­pos­es for which they are col­lect­ed — repairs and replace­ments of fail­ing cul­verts, updates to marine facil­i­ties, and widen­ing of shoul­ders for mul­ti-modal transportation.

Can the Coun­ty use mon­ey from oth­er funds to sup­port the road fund?

The Coun­ty uses funds sources to sup­port a vari­ety of exist­ing pro­grams and ser­vices includ­ing but not lim­it­ed to the Sheriff’s Office, Dis­trict and Supe­ri­or Courts, Com­mu­ni­ty Devel­op­ment, Parks and Recre­ation, grant match­es, and more. Diver­sion of gen­er­al fund pro­ceeds to the road fund may affect exist­ing programming.

Why doesn’t the Coun­ty use LTAC to pay for road shoulders?

LTAC stands for Lodg­ing Tax Advi­so­ry Com­mit­tee and is a grant pro­gram for tourism-relat­ed improve­ments. The Coun­ty does apply to LTAC for pub­lic works projects includ­ing road shoul­der improve­ments. While the Coun­ty has and will con­tin­ue to apply for LTAC fund­ing, as well as oth­er state and fed­er­al fund­ing sources, these grant pro­grams do not replace the need for a levy lid lift.

Where can I learn more about the road levy?

Learn more about the pro­posed levy and use the inter­ac­tive project map on the San Juan Coun­ty web­site.

I live on San Juan Val­ley Road and each day as I dri­ve or ride my bicy­cle through the val­ley, I have seen the sign and now the ban­ner at the Undersheriff’s home sup­port­ing Ron Krebs. I did a lit­tle check­ing and dis­cov­ered that the vast major­i­ty of the cur­rent­ly serv­ing as well as retired deputies in this Coun­ty are sup­port­ing our Sher­iff for re-elec­tion, not Eric Peter. I have noth­ing neg­a­tive to say about Eric Peter. I just think there is a good rea­son there is so much sup­port among Ron Krebs’ depart­ment mem­bers. I hope that helps you decide instead of who has the most signs.

Brad Pil­low
San Juan Island

The Cham­ber of Com­merce shares news about the event that will kick off San Juan Island’s hol­i­day season.

The San Juan Island Cham­ber of Com­merce is proud to announce that the Island Lights Fes­ti­val will take place this year on Fri­day, Dec. 2 at 6:30 p.m. This kick-off event for the Fri­day Har­bor Win­ter­fest is pre­sent­ed in part­ner­ship with Island Rec and, of course, San­ta Claus.

Our tree light­ing will be a touch dif­fer­ent this year and we will be resort­ing to how the Island Light Fes­ti­val was years ago. This is due to the sad demise of the big tree in Memo­r­i­al Park. The Town will make the shape of a tree with twin­kling lights and the col­ors will coin­cide with the Noel sign, which is man­aged by the San Juan Island Lions Club.

It will be a fun-filled evening when the com­mu­ni­ty gath­ers on Spring Street between First and Front streets to await the arrival of San­ta. We will have car­ol­ing while sip­ping some hot choco­late and cof­fee before he arrives to light the tree.

There are a num­ber of impor­tant dif­fer­ences between Sher­iff Ron Krebs and his oppo­nent, but one of those dif­fer­ences is crit­i­cal. Ron is the only can­di­date who under­stands what’s required to be the sher­iff in a small rur­al county.

Ron’s built rela­tion­ships over time. Peo­ple trust him and are will­ing to con­fide in him. That’s crit­i­cal for a small town sher­iff. Those rela­tion­ships and his approach to law enforce­ment help him and his deputies solve crimes and keep us safe.

Ron has also been will­ing to stick his neck out and pub­licly sup­port crit­i­cal com­mu­ni­ty ser­vices, like the recent EMS levy, even when the com­mu­ni­ty debate is contentious.

It’s also telling that a large major­i­ty of the deputies favor Ron’s re-elec­tion. They’re the ones who know what’s going on inside the depart­ment and who will be imme­di­ate­ly affect­ed by the vot­ers’ decision.

Ron isn’t per­fect. He’s made some mis­takes. But over the course of his tenure as sher­iff he’s served us well. We will con­tin­ue to be well served by re-elect­ing Ron Krebs.

Richard Grout
San Juan Island

Unit­ed Way of San Juan Coun­ty shares news about their severe weath­er shel­ter program.

It’s that time of the year, where the sug­ges­tion of very cold weath­er is loud and clear. We are hop­ing to put togeth­er a team of vol­un­teers to open the Severe Weath­er Shel­ter this year.

An ori­en­ta­tion will be held on Tues­day, Nov. 1 at 5 p.m. at Islands Com­mu­ni­ty Church — 127 Gilbert Lane, on the south side of San Juan Val­ley Road, just east of Dou­glas Road. Cof­fee and treats will be served.

See what we are about and decide if it’s for you. Trained and com­mit­ted vol­un­teers get paid $10 to sign up shel­ter atten­dees and $75 to stay overnight. The shel­ter is half pol­i­cy-and-pro­ce­dure and half we’re-just-keep­ing-folks-warm. Sign up with a friend, if you wish. You can chat and play cards.

Vol­un­teers also require a back­ground check, but not all records will exclude one from volunteering.

My sense is that we are doing quite well hav­ing Ron Krebs as Sher­riff. Why change what isn’t bro­ken? Sure there have been some awk­ward moments, as any­one in such a high-pro­file posi­tion will expe­ri­ence in this insu­lar, small Coun­ty fish­bowl. We live in an unusu­al place of trust and hope that is pro­found­ly dif­fer­ent than the vio­lent crime-rid­den big city of Hous­ton, Texas.

I count it a major plus that Krebs has had oth­er career paths that bal­ance his per­spec­tive. I have talked with him about spe­cif­ic issues many times as Sher­iff. I well remem­ber his artic­u­late and com­pas­sion­ate under­stand­ing of the causal rela­tion­ship between a lack of afford­able hous­ing and com­pound­ing stress, fam­i­ly abuse and low-lev­el crime. He has fol­lowed through with increas­ing the diver­si­ty of deputies to bet­ter reflect our com­mu­ni­ty. More cops out of their cars; but there is more to do. We have our share of trou­bled char­ac­ters hang­ing out in Fri­day Har­bor. I have been impressed with his respect for the first amend­ment rights of all indi­vid­u­als and see­ing law enforce­ment as a tool to per­suade, rather than pun­ish, some non-vio­lent offenders.

I worked close­ly with many law enforce­ment rangers in the Nation­al Park Ser­vice who trans­ferred to light­ly vis­it­ed, huge Alas­ka park units pre­vi­ous­ly hav­ing been sta­tioned in urban, urban-influ­enced or row­dy recre­ation­al parks in the low­er 48. With few excep­tions, indi­vid­u­als from seri­ous crime area post­ings, espe­cial­ly after many years, have a hard­ened per­spec­tive that makes nec­es­sary adjust­ments to quirky, small-town prob­lems with only a sprin­kling of vio­lent crime, very dif­fi­cult. There is some truth in the old saw, “if you only car­ry a ham­mer, you see every prob­lem as a nail.”

Sher­iff Krebs has an islander’s “fam­i­ly is the foun­da­tion for com­mu­ni­ty” view, and has spent years build­ing good work­ing rela­tion­ships here — sel­dom easy — with chang­ing Coun­ty Coun­cils, pros­e­cu­tors, EMS, Fire, busi­ness lead­ers, and fed­er­al and State agen­cies work­ing dai­ly in com­plex coop­er­a­tive roles. I believe that he shares our com­mon desire to live in a safe, cohe­sive, respect­ful and slow­er-paced community.

Steve Ulvi
San Juan Island