The District Committee of the Mullis Community Senior Center has worked through many challenges over the past few months and confronted concerns in our Friday Harbor community. We have come to better understand the perspectives of those we serve and have reinstated all Use Privileges to the four islanders who were cited for non-compliance with the established Mullis Center’s Code of Conduct.
Washington State Ferries’ new Long Range Plan, released in January, was the result of nearly two years of input, experience and expertise of a wide range of stakeholders who know what it takes to ensure the viability of the largest ferry system in the United States.
Last Tuesday Feb. 5th our representatives threw away a golden chance to appoint a strong strategic advocate for San Juan County. The San Juan County Council voted unanimously to appoint a State Senator who was not their constituents first choice nor the local Democratic party's first choice. Unfortunately, the way the final vote was made in addition to some allegations still in the process of being corroborated that the suprising outcome of the appointment process was known to at least one public official ahead of time, has sparked concern that the Open Meetings Act was violated by a number of councilors. Since the vote in favor was 2 from Skagit, .6 from Whatcom and 3 from San Juan County, that means our county councilmen were the deciding votes. We need to take this very seriously.
When Randy Gaylord talked to the county council in January 2017 about Detective Stephen Parker’s sexual relationship with the victim in the Orcas teacher-student sex case, he introduced the council to something called a “Brady” letter.
Washington State Ferries recently released the draft for their Long Range Plan looking out the next two decades to 2040. This has been a long time in the making, including meetings over the last year and public outreach by WSF this spring. The draft plan is now open for comment, and the final draft will be complete and presented to the state legislature in January. The next month is the time to for serious attention.
A couple of weeks ago the county’s Superior Court judge, Kathryn Loring, ruled that the county’s law limiting how long before election day political signs could be posted was most likely unconstitutional and she temporarily barred its enforcement.
I was speaking to a group of small business owners a few days ago about the benefits of military service and hiring military veterans for their businesses. As I received their still very special, “Thank You for Your Service,” compliments following my talk, I realized that the public displays of gratitude for military service have their origins in the failure to honor, recognize, and respect military veterans from the Vietnam War upon their return. In so many ways, my generation of military veterans owes an incredible debt of gratitude and respect to the actions that the Vietnam War military veterans took to create a world-class military.
As a grateful nation pauses to honor women and men who served in the military this Veterans Day, I call on community members to reflect on how to best support local veterans.
The #1 responsibility of a board – nonprofit or otherwise - is to promote the mission of an organization and ensure financial viability. Financial stewardship is critical, because without it, the rest doesn’t matter.
Yes, it’s true. Back without any readership demand whatsoever, I paused my other life-affirming activities and taken on, once more, the heavy Mantle of Gifting Consultant. If you were reading the San Juan Islander a few years back, you may remember that I offered an annual guide to holiday gifting - an essential bible for the shopper. The series was like The Great Courses in its scope and erudition.
We are so fortunate to have many gluten free food choices in Friday Harbor at Marketplace (in the Natural Foods Section) and the San Juan Island Food Co-op. Several people, on learning that I am gluten intolerant, have asked me for advice on good tasting gluten free foods for their family or friends, which is one of the reasons I wrote this. The other one being my utter delight when I found a large variety of gluten free foods here.
To whale watchers in Washington State and British Columbia, the recent oil spill in Vancouver’s English Bay was a wake-up call.
April is Sexual Assault awareness month. It is a month that for most people passes without a thought about sexual assault. But for some, it is a grim reminder of a day or days that they would rather not remember.
In any small community personal judgments and personalities arise in disagreements and obscure the issues. But no matter how strongly we feel, in the case of OPALCO, the rules of economics are inexorable: