The Eco­nom­ic Devel­op­ment Coun­cil of San Juan Coun­ty announced that they will offer free home care aide train­ing lat­er this year. The EDC will also pro­vide finan­cial sup­port for the cost of state cer­ti­fi­ca­tion fees.

Accord­ing to the EDC:

HCA cer­ti­fi­ca­tion can help peo­ple earn a liv­ing while help­ing their neigh­bors. Work­ing as an HCA can be a step­ping­stone towards oth­er health­care careers such as nurs­ing or adult fam­i­ly home man­age­ment. If you work part-time, sea­son­al­ly, or free­lance, you could gain income sta­bil­i­ty and flex­i­bil­i­ty by work­ing as an HCA for a sec­ond income. If you work in per­son­al care ser­vices, becom­ing an HCA would allow you to offer addi­tion­al services.

The EDC has part­nered with Cor­ner­stone Health­care Train­ing to offer the pro­gram, which has lim­it­ed avail­able space. Appli­cants must be 18 years of age or old­er and res­i­dents of San Juan Coun­ty. More infor­ma­tion is avail­able on the EDC web­site.

Last week the MV Tillikum head­ed south to Wash­ing­ton State Fer­ries’ Eagle Har­bor Main­te­nance Facil­i­ty on Bain­bridge Island, where it will remain until ear­ly March. The ves­sel — built in 1959 and refit in 1994 — is in Eagle Har­bor for its annu­al main­te­nance and inspections.

The larg­er MV Sealth has replaced the Tillikum on the inter­is­land route.

The San Juan Coun­ty Mas­ter Gar­den­er Foundation’s online plant sale runs through March 11, but many of this year’s choic­es have already sold out or are close to sell­ing out.

The annu­al sale start­ed about two weeks ago and includes bun­dles of bare root shrubs and bulbs, along with local­ly grown wild­flow­ers pro­duced by the Sal­ish Seeds Project — a part­ner­ship between the San Juan Coun­ty Con­ser­va­tion Land Bank and the San Juan Preser­va­tion Trust.

Remain­ing vari­eties include Noot­ka rose, Broadleaf sedum, Great camas (pic­tured above), and Hook­er’s onion.

Sorop­ti­mist Inter­na­tion­al of Fri­day Har­bor has opt­ed to can­cel its in-per­son St. Patrick­’s Day din­ner and auc­tion because of con­cerns about ris­ing COVID cas­es on San Juan Island. This is the third straight year that the event has been cancelled.

The St. Patrick­’s Day din­ner is the pri­ma­ry way the orga­ni­za­tion rais­es funds for its pro­grams, which include edu­ca­tion­al awards and schol­ar­ships, the Can­cer Treat­ment Trans­porta­tion Fund, the Wom­en’s Emer­gency Fund, and the Food Secu­ri­ty program.

To help off­set the lost income from the event, an unnamed cou­ple has pledged to grant the orga­ni­za­tion $5,000 if they can reach their orig­i­nal $5,000 fundrais­ing goal. As of Feb. 9, the Sorop­ti­mists are about a quar­ter of the way there, hav­ing raised just over $1,100.

The match­ing grant dead­line is Tues­day, Feb. 15. Dona­tions are accept­ed online.

Accord­ing to pre­lim­i­nary results released by the San Juan Coun­ty Elec­tions Office at 8 p.m. on Feb. 8, both levies put before the vot­ers of San Juan Island in today’s spe­cial elec­tion are expect­ed to pass.

San Juan Coun­ty Pub­lic Hos­pi­tal Dis­trict Propo­si­tion 1, a six-year emer­gency med­ical ser­vices prop­er­ty tax levy renew­al, has received 64.66 per­cent yes votes to 35.34 per­cent no votes.

San Juan Island School Dis­trict Propo­si­tion 1, a replace­ment edu­ca­tion­al pro­grams and oper­a­tional levy renew­al, stands at 70.02 per­cent yes votes to 29.98 per­cent no votes.

The 2,997 bal­lots count­ed as of 8 p.m. rep­re­sent a 42.61 per­cent vot­er turnout rate — although that fig­ure may change as bal­lots post­marked today are received and count­ed lat­er this week. The Coun­ty esti­mates there are 500 bal­lots left to count.

The Elec­tions Office will peri­od­i­cal­ly update the results as addi­tion­al bal­lots are processed. Elec­tion cer­ti­fi­ca­tion occurs 10 days from today, on Feb. 18.

An addi­tion­al 3,000 free at-home COVID tests kit are being made avail­able to the com­mu­ni­ty by San Juan Coun­ty Health and Com­mu­ni­ty Ser­vices. Dis­tri­b­u­tion on San Juan Island will take place at the Mullis Cen­ter on Thurs­day, Feb. 10, between 9 a.m. and 3 p.m.

The Coun­ty dis­trib­uted 5,000 free tests in the islands last week.

Each house­hold can request one test kit per mem­ber over age three, with a lim­it of four kits per fam­i­ly. Busi­ness own­ers can pick up one kit per employ­ee, with a lim­it of ten kits per busi­ness. The Coun­ty asks that Islanders who picked up free tests last week allow oth­er res­i­dents the chance to obtain these new­ly avail­able kits.

The test kits must be used pri­or to their July 17, 2022 expi­ra­tion date.