San Juan Coun­ty and the Town of Fri­day Har­bor both need cit­i­zen vol­un­teers for their respec­tive plan­ning commissions.

The Coun­ty needs to fill two Plan­ning Com­mis­sion vacan­cies — one for posi­tion #5, a par­tial term that ends in Dec. 2024, and one for posi­tion #8, a par­tial term that ends in Dec. 2025. Both vacan­cies must be filled by a res­i­dent of San Juan Island.

The Town has one Plan­ning Com­mis­sion vacan­cy for an at-large posi­tion reserved for a Coun­ty res­i­dent — a res­i­dent of San Juan Island and reg­is­tered vot­er of San Juan Coun­ty who does not live with­in the town lim­its of Fri­day Harbor.

San Juan Coun­ty’s Plan­ning Com­mis­sion is a group of cit­i­zen vol­un­teers appoint­ed by the Coun­ty Coun­cil who make rec­om­men­da­tions on plan­ning relat­ed mat­ters includ­ing the Com­pre­hen­sive Plan and Devel­op­ment Code. Work­shops and pub­lic hear­ings of the Plan­ning Com­mis­sion are a pub­lic forum where pub­lic opin­ion and advice becomes part of the County’s records and deci­sion-mak­ing process. Meet­ings are typ­i­cal­ly held once per month on the third Fri­day of the month in the morn­ing, but occa­sion­al spe­cial meet­ings may be required.

Fri­day Har­bor’s five-mem­ber Plan­ning Com­mis­sion acts as the fact-find­ing agency of the Town with respect to growth and devel­op­ment. It is charged with review­ing the Town Com­pre­hen­sive Plan and mak­ing rec­om­men­da­tions to the Town Coun­cil con­cern­ing land use mat­ters. Ir meets reg­u­lar­ly on Thurs­day evenings.

To apply for one of the Coun­ty vacan­cies, email ingridg@sanjuanco.com for a vol­un­teer appli­ca­tion. To apply for the Town vacan­cy, send a let­ter of inter­est to the May­or’s Office at rayj@fridayharbor.org.

The PHD sends along a link to a long-term care sur­vey tar­get­ed at seniors in San Juan County.

San Juan Coun­ty Pub­lic Hos­pi­tal Dis­trict No. 1, along with the oth­er Hos­pi­tal Dis­tricts in San Juan Coun­ty and Inter-Island Health­care Foun­da­tion, is in the process of con­duct­ing a sur­vey to iden­ti­fy the needs and expec­ta­tions of seniors in San Juan Coun­ty relat­ed to long-term care.

The goal of the sur­vey is to eval­u­ate the impacts of long-term care plan­ning over the past three years and deter­mine the effi­ca­cy of cur­rent ini­tia­tives in San Juan Coun­ty. It will also help the PHD with its expan­sion plan­ning for Vil­lage at the Har­bor. This sur­vey gives mem­bers of the pub­lic a chance to ensure their opin­ions and con­cerns are heard and tak­en into con­sid­er­a­tion as we move for­ward with planning.

Click here to take the sur­vey — which is intend­ed only for Coun­ty res­i­dents age 65 or old­er or Coun­ty res­i­dents, regard­less of age, that serve as a care­giv­er for some­one age 65 or older.

The sur­vey is fund­ed by a grant from the Fed­er­al Office of Rur­al Health Policy.

The San Juan Coun­ty Coun­cil will hold a reg­u­lar meet­ing on Tues­day, Sept. 27 at 9 a.m. Items up for dis­cus­sion or action include:

• Employ­ee recruit­ing incentives
• Annu­al trans­porta­tion programs
• Approval of tem­po­rary road clo­sure in Eastsound
• Approval of inter­local agree­ment with the Port of Fri­day Harbor
• Pub­lic Works oper­a­tions on Lopez Island
• Road levy messaging
• 2022 Home Fund projects
• Low-income hous­ing awards fund­ing decision
• Coun­ty Cli­mate Action Plan update

The meet­ing also includes an exec­u­tive ses­sion to dis­cuss lit­i­ga­tion or poten­tial lit­i­ga­tion with legal counsel.

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. 27.

Have you seen the blue and white yard signs pop­ping up on San Juan Island that say “Vote Yes Library”?

On Nov. 8 we have an oppor­tu­ni­ty to approve a bond pro­pos­al to build a new pub­lic library on San Juan Island. To learn more about this, look up voteyesforoursjlibrary.com. This is a worth­while project.

Please be sure to give your sup­port for our new library.

Eileen Drath
Fri­day Harbor

The Ani­mal Pro­tec­tion Soci­ety of Fri­day Har­bor shares a look at the adopt­able ani­mal of the week — Faline, a five-year-old domes­tic medi­um-hair tab­by with spe­cial needs.

I’ve heard what some peo­ple say — they say I look “a lit­tle rough around the edges”, but I real­ly like the way I look and the scars that I have. I wear them with pride because they are reminders of all the life I have lived despite being only five.

Pri­or to com­ing here, I lived out in the wilder­ness and streets of Moses Lake. Those times were not always easy, but they defined me. Whether it was the absolute joy of being out­side in nature, hav­ing to sur­vive on my own, moth­er­hood, or get­ting sick — these expe­ri­ences are ones I reflect back on warm­ly. My life has been adven­tur­ous thus far and although I’m still look­ing to keep things inter­est­ing, I’m now want­i­ng to slow down some­where I can call home, with a person(s) I can call my own.

I want to find some­one who will let me love them hard, but will also appre­ci­ate and adore my quirks because they are a part of my sto­ry — a part of me! My person(s) must love the way my left eye leers to the side, how my coat doesn’t ever lay just so, and the fact that I am FIV+ and FeLV+. They must val­ue these things in me, because I do. Could you be, would you be my safe space? If so, I’d love to meet you.

Learn more about Faline here.

Pottery by Lenore Wan — Contributed photo

Alche­my Art Cen­ter shares news about their upcom­ing art and music performance.

Come see what Alchemy’s tal­ent­ed August/September artist cohort has been up to this sum­mer. This Tues­day, Sept. 27 from 6–9 p.m., Alche­my wel­comes you to their dome exhi­bi­tion space at 1255 Wold Rd. You will be able to pur­chase beau­ti­ful pot­tery, prints, and oth­er orig­i­nal art. This is the cul­mi­nat­ing event for Lenore Wan, Coz­ette Ellis, and Emer­ald VL, all of whom have been liv­ing and work­ing at Alche­my and inter­act­ing with the San Juan Island com­mu­ni­ty through free art activ­i­ties for the past two months.

Emer­ald will also be per­form­ing her orig­i­nal songs at 7 p.m.

Lenore Wan is a mul­ti­dis­ci­pli­nary artist from Seat­tle work­ing in the realms of ceram­ics and illus­tra­tion. She loves to cap­ture play­ful forms and col­or­ful pat­terns in her work. At Alche­my Art Cen­ter, she’s been devel­op­ing hand-build­ing and glaz­ing tech­niques, as well as fab­ric paint­ing. She loves to work spon­ta­neous­ly and loose­ly to cap­ture the explo­rative process of art making.

Coz­ette Ellis is a visu­al artist and illus­tra­tor who has spent her time at Alche­my work­ing with dif­fer­ent forms of print­mak­ing and learn­ing ceram­ics. She is inspired by the human body in all its forms, espe­cial­ly incor­po­rat­ed with col­or and pattern.

Emer­ald VL is a vis­it­ing artist from Berke­ley, Cal­i­for­nia. She has a back­ground in draw­ing and paint­ing, and has spent her time here at Alche­my focus­ing on her music, and learn­ing screen print­ing & ceram­ics. At the show on the 27th Emer­ald will share some art, and a set of music she has writ­ten dur­ing her time on island.

These vis­it­ing artists are part of Alchemy’s Artists in Com­mu­ni­ty Pro­gram, which is made pos­si­ble by sup­port from the Nation­al Endow­ment for the ARts, ArtsWA, Tulalip Char­i­ta­ble Fund, San Juan Island Com­mu­ni­ty Foun­da­tion, and by the sup­port of the San Juan Island community.

• It was a rough day for Fri­day Har­bor High School sports yes­ter­day. The foot­ball team lost 41–0 at Merid­i­an High School in Belling­ham and boys soc­cer lost 3–1 at Coupeville High School.
• High school girls soc­cer takes on Mariner High School at noon today at Linde Com­mu­ni­ty Fields. Vol­ley­ball plays Gran­ite Falls in a road game at 2 p.m.
• For the first time in 24 years, Sweet Retreat is clos­ing for a week so that the staff can take some well-deserved time off. It’ll re-open on Mon­day, Oct. 3.
• There’s a Grange-spon­sored cider press­ing event hap­pen­ing today at Sweet Earth Farm — 16 Sweet Earth Ln., just off West Side Road — to wel­come new Grange mem­bers. Any­one is wel­come to attend. The press­ing starts at 3:15 p.m., but you can also arrive ear­ly for the 2 p.m. tour of the farm. If you have extra apples of pears, bring them with you.
• Salt­wa­ter Farm is host­ing an open house tomor­row from 2–6 p.m. for peo­ple inter­est­ed in host­ing an event there, or just curi­ous to see what the prop­er­ty looks like.
• San Juan Island Food Co-op now has kiwi berries from Mitchell Bay Farms and French fin­ger­ling pota­toes from Glad Acres.
• Thanks to our adver­tis­ers for their con­tin­ued sup­port of the San Juan Update — includ­ing San Juan Com­mu­ni­ty The­atre.

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

I’m well into my “gold­en years,” and I’ve had arthri­tis and joint issues for all of them. Still, I walk just about every­where I go in Fri­day Har­bor, and late­ly sev­er­al of my senior walk­ing bud­dies and I have com­mis­er­at­ed about a prob­lem that I hope mem­bers of our com­mu­ni­ty are will­ing to help solve.

There are many trees grow­ing near side­walks that have limbs hang­ing over the side­walks. Often these limbs are so low to the ground that my friends and I, all 5’10” to 6’6”, have to duck under­neath them. Because we are not as lim­ber and agile as we once were, it is dif­fi­cult to duck under the limbs and near­ly as dif­fi­cult to step off the curb into the street and back up in order to pass around them.

I’m sure that a lot of short­er peo­ple can pass under the limbs with­out dif­fi­cul­ty. How­ev­er, it real­ly would be help­ful if home­own­ers and busi­ness­es would trim the limbs over pub­lic side­walks to the height of their stan­dard inte­ri­or home doors, which is 80”. Your taller island neigh­bors would be very grateful.

David Bent­ley
Fri­day Harbor

The San Juan Coun­ty Eco­nom­ic Devel­op­ment Coun­cil shares news about the next class in their Trades Train­ing initiative.

Islanders seek­ing new careers are invit­ed to learn wood­work­ing basics in a class offered by the EDC. Jean Shear­er and Nicholas Col­dren, cab­i­net­mak­ers, will be teach­ing an intro­duc­tion to wood­work­ing, on Wednes­day evenings from Oct. 12 to Nov. 2, from 5–9 p.m., at the Fel­low Shop on San Juan Island.

This course is intend­ed to help peo­ple gain job skills and obtain eco­nom­ic sta­bil­i­ty. The course will teach tool use and safe­ty, and oth­er wood­work­ing skills. These skills are foun­da­tion­al for those seek­ing to enter many trades, includ­ing con­struc­tion and fur­ni­ture making.

The pro­gram is free except for a $50 reg­is­tra­tion fee, and is open only to San Juan Coun­ty res­i­dents who plan to use wood­work­ing skills for pay­ing work. Pref­er­ence will be giv­en to appli­cants who demon­strate that the course will help them enter a new career or seek employ­ment. Enroll­ment is capped at six stu­dents. Appli­cants must be 18 or over.

Instruc­tors Jean Shear­er and Nicholas Col­dren have BFAs in Wood­work­ing and Fur­ni­ture Design from Rochester Uni­ver­si­ty, and exten­sive pro­fes­sion­al expe­ri­ence as cab­i­net­mak­ers, boat builders, and finishers.

Con­tact the EDC at marti@sanjuansedc.org to reg­is­ter for the class.

When 30 non­prof­it orga­ni­za­tions on San Juan Island asked for the community’s help last month, islanders respond­ed in a big way. Near­ly 500 peo­ple came togeth­er to donate over $180,000 in just four days in sup­port of crit­i­cal local projects as part of the San Juan Island Com­mu­ni­ty Foundation’s 2022 Coun­ty Fair Giv­ing Campaign.

More than $32,000 in addi­tion­al match­ing funds and bonus grants were award­ed by SJICF, bring­ing the four-day giv­ing total to $213,000.

“The impact of the community’s dona­tions will be felt through­out the island,” said SJICF Exec­u­tive Direc­tor Car­rie Unping­co. “From human ser­vices to edu­ca­tion, ani­mal wel­fare, afford­able hous­ing, com­mu­ni­ty health pro­grams, the arts, and con­ser­va­tion – islanders stepped for­ward to sup­port the many non­prof­its that have made it their mis­sion to main­tain and enhance our qual­i­ty of life here on San Juan Island.”

The 2022 Coun­ty Fair Giv­ing Cam­paign was a true com­mu­ni­ty effort, with indi­vid­ual dona­tions rang­ing in size from as lit­tle as $5 to as much as $8,500. Donors also dis­played sup­port for a broad range of orga­ni­za­tions, with near­ly 150 peo­ple choos­ing to con­tribute to more than one project.

As part of their par­tic­i­pa­tion in the cam­paign, each non­prof­it must sub­mit a grant eval­u­a­tion and sta­tus report to SJICF to pro­vide details about the ways in which the dona­tions they received made a pos­i­tive and mea­sur­able impact. The Com­mu­ni­ty Foun­da­tion looks for­ward to shar­ing sto­ries about these impacts with the com­mu­ni­ty in the months ahead.

• The Cor­ner Store is closed today. It re-opens tomor­row at 11 a.m.
• Bin­go hap­pens at the Mullis Cen­ter today at 1 p.m.
• Farm tours on San Juan Island start today and run through Sun­day. Eight island farms are tak­ing part this year.
• Zyl­stra Lake Pre­serve is closed Sat­ur­day and pos­si­bly Sun­day this week­end so that the Land Bank and its farm lessees can apply agri­cul­tur­al lime to its pas­tures.
• The Fall Great Islands Clean-up is Sat­ur­day between 10 a.m and 2 p.m.
• Alche­my Art Cen­ter hosts the New Moon Sound Bath on Sat­ur­day at 6 p.m. — 1255 Wold Rd. The sug­gest­ed dona­tion is $10-$20.
• The San Juan Golf and Ten­nis Foun­da­tion’s fall fundrais­er takes place on Sun­day, Oct. 9 at 10 a.m. at San Juan Golf & Ten­nis Club. It’s a four-per­son, nine-hole scram­ble — $25 per play­er, $100 per team, and the entry fee includes a bar­beque lunch. A silent auc­tion runs from 9:30 a.m.-3 p.m. Club mem­bers and the gen­er­al pub­lic are wel­come. Call the Club pro shop at 360–378-2254 to register.
• Thanks to our adver­tis­ers for their con­tin­ued sup­port of the San Juan Update — includ­ing Kings Mar­ket.

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

We are writ­ing to sup­port the re-elec­tion of Ron Krebs as San Juan Coun­ty Sher­iff. We met then-Deputy Krebs on New Year’s Eve 2009. We had been bur­glar­ized twice, and were called to the bur­glars’ home to help iden­ti­fy our prop­er­ty, which was com­min­gled with items stolen in oth­er bur­glar­ies. We spent 3–1/2 hours with Deputy Krebs iden­ti­fy­ing our prop­er­ty, and pro­vid­ing infor­ma­tion that could be used in pros­e­cu­tion of the bur­glars. We were impressed with his pro­fes­sion­al­ism, cour­tesy and atten­tion to detail.

We were delight­ed when Deputy Krebs suc­cess­ful­ly ran for Sher­iff in 2014, and was re-elect­ed in 2018. After two terms, it is clear that Sher­iff Krebs has a gen­uine under­stand­ing and con­cern for the com­mu­ni­ty he works for. Ron has con­sis­tent­ly demon­strat­ed his sin­cer­i­ty, integri­ty, and abil­i­ty to dis­cern what is impor­tant and what is not; good traits to have when work­ing with a lim­it­ed bud­get and resources. The cit­i­zens of San Juan Coun­ty have been well served by this sher­iff, and would do very well by elect­ing Ron Krebs for anoth­er term.

Bill and Katia Robinson
San Juan Island