Island Senior is a regular column on the San Juan Update written by Peggy Sue McRae…

A Tale For The Time Being by Ruth Ozeki

On Monday the Mullis Center Book Club met for the first time using Zoom. This was also my first time using Zoom so I was happy to discover how easy it was. The Book Club is facilitated by San Juan Island Library’s Beth Helstien.

Although we were a small group this time, our discussion of The Highest Tide by Jim Lynch, a coming of age story taking place on lower Puget Sound, led to our own stories of tides and sea creatures.

We plan to meet by Zoom again on May 11 at 1:00 pm to talk about our next book, A Tale for the Time Being by Ruth L. Ozeki, another tale of tides, in this case tides that connect the Pacific Northwest to Japan via the 2011 tsunami. You are welcome to join us. Check events on the library website. Continue Reading

In the Mailbag this morning we find this letter from Eileen Drath…

Dear Editor,

During this time of coronavirus unrest, there are some particularly comforting aspects of living in San Juan County.  Right at the top is our San Juan County Land Bank.

We are fortunate to have land set aside in perpetuity.  We have dedicated stewards, director and staff, who carefully work for our public land, that we may use it for our enjoyment and recreation.

For the last 17 years, when possible, I have attended monthly Land Bank meetings, because never have I experienced people like our Land Bank Commissioners.

There is a constant respect in their deliberations; they listen to each other and the public, considering all sides of an issue, whether or not they agree.  It is an opportunity to watch a group of people whose main objective is the good of this county. They are a working example of the concept of finding consensus.  

We residents are the beneficiaries.

In appreciation,

Eileen Drath
San Juan Island

COVID-19 updates from San Juan County around subjects on the minds of islanders

The first thing you need to know is that there are abbreviations for everything. From EOC (Emergency Operations Center) to PPE (Personal Protective Equipment) to IC (Incident Commander), everything this team does is designed to make the most of every resource, down to the number of keystrokes required to write a report.

More than 70 people are now part of San Juan County’s response to COVID-19. Some are paid staffers, some are volunteers, but in our island community all of them are your neighbors—getting and giving daily briefings, and working together to anticipate and respond to the changing circumstances of the pandemic. Who is on this team? How did it begin and grow? How does it utilize limited resources to actively address the crisis? That is the subject of this Hot Topic. Continue Reading

Due to concern for public safety, as well as the extended orders from Governor Inslee and guidelines from the federal government, the April 17, 2020 Land Bank Commission meeting on Lopez Island is cancelled.

The next scheduled Land Bank Commission meeting is Friday, May 15, 2020 on San Juan Island at the San Juan Island Grange.

Please email Tanja Williamson at [email protected] with any questions.

WSF is postponing its 2-month advance release of vehicle reservations on the Anacortes/San Juan Islands and Port Townsend/Coupeville routes, which was originally scheduled for Tuesday, April 21. While WSF’s winter sailing season has been extended through June 20, sailing schedules beyond this date have not been finalized and will be dependent on ridership and traffic impacts related to COVID-19.

WSF will send additional information as soon as future reservations become available. Thank you for your patience and understanding during this fluid and challenging time.

You can view all travel alerts at the WSF Travel Bulletins page. This alert was sent on 04/16/2020 at 5:54AM. Please do not reply to this message. Replies are sent to an email inbox that is unmonitored.

Visit the WSF Website or Contact Us page for more information about Washington State Ferries. You may also change your Account Preferences anytime. Please visit the COVID-19 Travel Updates page for all up-to-date travel information regarding COVID-19.

In the San Juan Update mailbag today we have this letter from Brandon Cadwell and Erin Wygant…

When we’re faced with uncertainty, we seek a sense of rootedness. How do we ground ourselves? We might ask, “What is it that gives me a sense of place?”

For some, it’s the sweeping views of the Olympic Mountains beyond a driftwood-strewn South Beach or the reassuring presence of an old-growth tree in Moran Park. For others, it’s familiar faces in a favorite coffee shop or the joy of watching or participating in a local theater production.

A sense of place is a sense of belonging. It’s where we feel connected, supported, and at peace. Now more than ever, we are invited to recognize what a sense of place means to us – as locals and stewards of the islands, and as visitors who are missing their getaway.

The factors that create our sense of place are currently impacted by COVID-19 and the precautions we take to protect ourselves and those we love. Quarantine restricts us from enjoying the expanse of nature across state lands, social distancing keeps us from gathering in person, and dark storefronts limit us from supporting our economy. At a glance, our sense of place is being tested. Continue Reading

Planning for the San Juan County Fair occurs year round.  As planning continues for the 2020 San Juan County Fair, each day presents new situations, issues to explore, and opportunities for creative problem solving. 

In case you haven’t heard, the San Juan County Fair Board selected a futuristic theme for this year – “2020: A Fair Odyssey”, and lately, each day has felt like a new journey, an odyssey of sorts. 

While it is not certain what the future holds, there is one thing you can count on, the San Juan County Fair Board and Staff are working on creative ways to meet the Fair’s core values in 2020:

• Provide a wholesome community and family focused fair by incorporating healthy competition, education, entertainment, and activities appropriate for all fairgoers.
• Promote agriculture, environmental sustainability and rural living.
• Operate in a safe and fiscally conscious manner.
• Invest in our clientele, our personnel, and our facilities.
• Provide the County and WSU 4H program participants a venue to fulfill their projects.
• Provide a venue that encourages Civic, Town, and County organizations to promote and fundraise for themselves.

How will these core values be met?  Continue Reading

Dead and dying conifers have proliferated throughout the Salish Sea area, especially with cedars and hemlocks, causing concern for many property owners.

This webinar will talk about why so many trees are dying right now and how to recognize when there’s a problem on your property. Topics include insects, diseases, and drought, and what property owners should do (and not do) to increase tree resilience and mitigate impacts.

Kevin is a professor with Washington State University and a Certified Forester. He coordinates the Extension Forestry program in the Puget Sound area, working with people who own forested property. Kevin has two forestry degrees from the University of Washington.

His research interests include forestry education and outreach methodology, using technology in forestry education, forest owner demographics, forest health and ecology, and native trees. He is based in Everett and is the author of the book Native Trees of Western Washington.

You must have an activated zoom account to participate in this webinar. Please create your zoom account well in advance to ensure you can join. Continue Reading

Friday Harbor Town Administrator Duncan Wilson – Contributed photo

Dear Community Member:

During these trying times when most of us are following stay-at-home orders to prevent the spread of the COVID-19 virus, I wanted to draw your attention to a critical operation that is underway in our community; the 2020 Census. It is extremely important that everyone in our community be counted.

Last month, the U.S. Census Bureau began distributing invitations to participate in the census throughout the country. Many homes received their invitation in the mail. Some homes, primarily those with PO boxes, did not receive an invitation in the mail but had an invitation left at their home. Unfortunately, many homes with PO boxes did not receive their invitation because the Census Bureau had to suspend its field operations in the middle of March due to the corona virus.

I am writing today to encourage all of you to take a break from your essential job, your new “profession” as an at-home educator, or your care and protection of your family to take the time and answer the on-line Census questions required of each household in the country. You should answer the census, whether you received an invitation or not. You do not need to wait for an invitation to answer.

There are three easy ways to participate:

1. Answer online at www.2020census.gov
2. Call toll-free to 844.330.2020 (English) or 844.468.2020 (Spanish). Call centers are open from 4 a.m. to 11 p.m.
3. Return a paper form via the mail (this option is only available if you received a paper form in the mail)

The census is critical to our community. To date, the participation by Town residents is approximately 32.8% and County-wide is only 25.5%. The U.S. Census is conducted every 10 years and is an important process that determines such important questions as the number of congressional seats the state of Washington will have in the U.S. House of Representatives. Census data also impacts more than $675 billion distributed by the federal government every year to the states. Continue Reading

San Juan Islands Strong: The Visitors Bureau is Here for You

FRIDAY HARBOR, WA… The San Juan Islands Visitors Bureau acknowledges and is concerned about the far-reaching impact the COVID-19 crisis has had on our small community. All around us we see acts of kindness and cohesiveness that make us grateful to be part of an exceptional community, but we realize it will take all of us continuing to pull together to get through the hardship.

You may be wondering what The Visitors Bureau—the County’s destination marketing and management organization (DMO)—is doing right now, when our usual task is to promote visitation to the Islands. From the onset of the crisis, we’ve been working with the County Council, Department of Health & Community Services, and Department of Emergency Management on appropriate messaging to potential visitors. We posted our first Travel Advisory on March 16, and have been adjusting it to reflect the County’s mandates. It is now called Travel Restrictions and addresses emerging challenges presented by the coronavirus and visitors.

Like other DMOs around the state and country, we’ve suspended our advertising campaigns. Our staff hours have been reduced, but our work remains devoted to helping our visitor-dependent island businesses, and nonprofits stay informed and afloat. We’ve been fortunate to take part in free webinars by highly respected international tourism consulting companies, and media relations associations. We are taking their recommendation to be creative and do “soft messaging” vs. “hard marketing,” putting out social media messages to travel dreamers and planners that the Islands will welcome them back when it’s safe to travel again.

So, here are some highlights of what we’ve been up to: Continue Reading

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, San Juan County Treasurer, Rhonda Pederson, has encouraged those who are able, to pay the full year in April to offset those who will have difficulty making the first half payment. 

If you have been financially impacted by this pandemic and find yourself in need of a payment plan to pay the first half of the annual property tax due April 30th, there are three options now available to assist you: Continue Reading

COVID-19 updates from San Juan County around subjects on the minds of islanders.

It has been nearly a month since the release of Hot Topic #1, which also focused on testing. Since then, a lot has changed, but some things remain the same. This article is going to give an update on testing, and take a guess at what the future might hold.

Initial shortages of testing capacity have lessened a bit. The labs on the mainland that process tests are closing in on being able to do 10,000 tests a day across Washington and that will likely double in the next few weeks. Testing supplies are still limited, but less so than before.

High risk and severely symptomatic islanders have been tested and more than 300 tests have been completed in San Juan County as of April 13^th. Testing will continue and the number of tests performed will vary depending on availability of resources and the number of priority patients needing testing. Continue Reading

In Appreciation to our Partners in Healthcare and the Public

This is a demanding time for healthcare in all of our communities as we work to help ensure the safety of the public. It’s a time of worry and anxiety for everyone. We are grateful to Chief Administrative Officer Merry-Ann Keane for representing PeaceHealth Peace Island Medical Center (PIMC) at our first fully online Board meeting this week.

We want to echo Keane who said, “First and foremost, I’d like to acknowledge our caregivers and physicians—both at the bedside and behind the scenes leading COVID-19 planning and preparedness.” We are particularly grateful that because our residents have taken social distancing seriously, Keane was able to say: “We do not foresee any issues or limitations treating patients in the emergency department at PeaceHealth Peace Island Medical Center.”

Although PIMC is our primary partner in healthcare, which we subsidize through tax funding, we also acknowledge the efforts of Eventide and Dr. William House, who are working to help take care of our community even as they adjust to new management during a major public health crisis. For many healthcare providers including hospitals, this crisis has paradoxically reduced patient volume, adding financial strain even as expenditures go up to deal with the crisis. Continue Reading

Dr. House – Contributed photo

Eventide Health will begin voluntary testing for Essential employees and volunteers, who provide essential functions in our community, as defined by the Governor of the State of Washington beginning tomorrow, Monday, April 13.

We have developed a list of volunteers already for a diverse group of essential services providers from around the community. We have discussed this plan with Dr. Frank James, Health Officer for San Juan County and it has been approved by officials at the Washington State Department of Health, who condition the testing in two ways:

1. First that the testing be limited to those providing Essential Services in our community
2. and Second that all testing will be done in labs that have excess capacity after all tests done for symptomatic patients have been completed.

The testing will be limited to 200 individuals at this time and will be an effort to provide important information about the frequency of asymptomatic infections and specifically how common these infections are in essential service providers who have significant interactions with others in the community. Continue Reading

Washington State Ferries is extending the winter sailing schedule through June 20 because of a continued decline in ridership due to COVID-19. It was previously scheduled to end on April 25. Therefore, customers should continue following the winter schedule through at least June 20. Routes that are on a modified/reduced service schedule will remain on those schedules until further notice.

Reservation routes

All vehicle reservations for the Port Townsend/Coupeville and Anacortes/San Juan Islands/Sidney, B.C. routes that were booked on dates between April 26 and June 20 will automatically be cancelled. Customers still looking to travel during those dates will need to rebook new reservations based on the extended winter sailing schedule. Because WSF will need to reprogram its reservations system, it will take a few days for those extended winter season reservations to be available. WSF will notify all customers as soon as they are able to rebook their travel.

International service to and from Sidney, B.C. is cancelled until at least June 21, and customers will not be able to rebook those trips.

Even without reservations, all passengers seeking to travel should be able to do so due to declines in ridership, which increases the amount of available standby space.

Over the last few days, we have been getting a lot of calls and complaints regarding the vacation rentals in San Juan County advertising their rentals. Everyone is concerned about a huge influx of visitors during this time of crisis, and rightfully so.

We have looked into nearly all of the complaints to date on the vacation rentals. Every one we have contacted has sent back an automated response with something to the effect that they are not renting during the governor’s lockdown. They will resume renting after the order is lifted and will rent if the person is designated as an essential worker.

Essentially, of the hundreds of VRBO and Airbnb rentals we have looked into, we have not found a single one that is not complying with the governor’s order. Continue Reading