Rep. Rick Larsen visited San Juan Island and Lopez Island last week to hold round table discussions and visit local sites.
On Tuesday, Aug. 25 Larsen met with members of the advisory committee for the National Monument to see Lopez’s progress in coming up with a development and management plan.
“The community at large has done a great job on preparing for a potential monument as well as insisting that there be a management advisory committee that is community based,” Larsen said. “It helps that the monument manager is out here, from the Bureau of Land Management, and so it’s not being managed in D.C., it’s being managed locally, and the management plan is being developed locally.”
Transportation
On Wednesday, Aug. 26 on San Juan he spoke with transportation stakeholders about county infrastructure, holding a roundtable discussion with members of county council, the school district, the town administrator, Port of Friday Harbor, and more. Larsen talked about the importance of federal government funds to assist the county with infrastructure, mentioning that San Juan County is “just about as far north and west in the lower 48 as you can get from Washington D.C.”
Larsen mentioned the possibility of upgrading the Anacortes ferry terminal now that the Mukilteo ferry terminal project has begun.
Members at the roundtable commented that they were appreciative of Larsen’s work for transportation, which include the Cattle Point Road realignment project, 14 years in the making. The project is realigning 1.27 miles of county road that was threatened by coastal erosion and moving the road up 300 feet to a glacial bench.
“I think it’s an example of one: sometimes it does take a long time to get things done in the federal government. Second, it’s really emblematic that San Juan County itself doesn’t have a lot of resources to do a major transportation investment like that, so having the federal government step in through the federal lands access program really helps with funding,” said Larsen. “Third, and this is sort of tooting the horn of the office, there’s just a lot of ‘stick-to-it-ness’ in the office when it comes to getting things done, so 14 years on we can have this road done.”
In Congress, Larson has been pushing to renew the Highway Trust Fund, which supplies funding for roads and highways and includes the ferry system.
“It’s the important way the federal government, through the graces of the tax payer, helps fund transportation improvements around the county,” Larsen said. “If we let the fund go bankrupt, what that means for Washington State, would be a precipitous drop in transportation funding. It’s great that the state passed the gas tax increase to help fund projects, but the State Department of Transportation’s budget is 27 percent federal money.”
According to Larsen, in 2014 Washington state received $600 million of federal money for roads, bridges, highways and ferries, and received $400 million in transit improvements.
“So we’re talking about a situation where if the Highway Trust Fund is not reauthorized, those dollars go away,” Larsen said. “And we’ll have a huge hole blown up in the middle of the state’s transportation budget despite the state’s gas tax.”
The conversation at the transportation round table touched on the recent outage that happened Wednesday, Aug. 16, when a truck in Anacortes clipped low hanging cables and caused a phone and internet outage throughout the county, and some members commented that a discussion needed to happen to find a way to keep it from happening again, though no plan of action was set forward.
Others present at the meeting brought up awareness of how rising sea levels may affect low-lying roads, and the importance of paying attention to smaller road projects in town, not just larger, long-term projects.
Veterans
Larsen also held a roundtable with veterans at American Legion Post 163 to discuss ways to let them gain better access to services for education, insurance, healthcare, employment, and more. It was the last stop on five meetings he held with veterans throughout his district in Washington.
“The real value of these roundtables is to hear directly from veterans, both in terms of individual cases they may need help on as well as their input on how well or how not well in their estimation the Veterans Affairs is working for them,” Larsen said. “The VA here is based in Seattle, which is a closer than D.C., but veterans in San Juan County can feel like the VA is something that is on a different planet or at least across the country.”
When discussing his goals of making the VA process better for veterans, he mentioned that the VA Reform Bill had helped with backlog and lowering wait time. Several island veterans at the meeting expressed concern over the VA choice program, which was created last year to help veterans receive better medical care.
John Beckham, director of the health plan management service of the Veterans Affairs Puget Sound Health Care System also took notes at the discussion and met with veterans to talk about solutions.
Problems with the Choice Program include vets not being able to pick their physician and time of appointment. Choice also does not cover emergencies and can require a week wait to be authorized for a medical appointment.
“These are not new frustrations,” said Larsen, who urged vets to talk to Beckham in detail after the meeting.
Another issue raised was that the program does not cover local prescriptions so vets have to pay up front and apply for financial assistance later.
“It’s a huge access,” said councilman and Ray’s Pharmacy owner Rick Hughes. “We’d prefer they have local access.”
Another veteran at the meeting said his health care has improved since the new program was created.
“Kudos to ‘Choice,’” he said. “He has come through for me.”
Westcott Bay
Larsen met with Westcott Bay Shellfish Company owners Andrea and Erik Anderson. After a tour of the grounds, Superintendent of San Juan Island National Historical Park Lee Taylor and Chief of Resources Manager Jerald Weaver gave Larsen a tour of the recently acquired 34 acres of the park.
The addition was bought by the National Park Service using funds left over from the purchase of Mitchell Hill, a 312-acre trail system that recently added trail signs this summer. The 34-acre waterfront features a long sand spit.
“We have a very active and engaged community here, and we ended up with a much better product for it, I have to say,” Taylor said of the public input to both purchases. During his visit, sea gulls, a harbor seal and pup rested on the spit, sunning themselves.
Larsen also visited Roche Harbor Resort to talk about immigration visa issues, went out on the water with a new Fish and Wildlife boat funded by a grant from National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and mentioned that affordable housing is still an issue that has plagued the islands and said that federal dollars from Rural Development Funds from the Department of Agriculture is important.
“It’s just almost impossible to find something that someone from middle class income could buy,” Larsen said. “Some of these folks work at a gas station or King’s Market and a lot of those places and doing a great job, but they’re not going to be able to make enough money to afford a lot of the housing stock on the island.”
Larsen applauded the work of nonprofits and volunteers on the island working to make more affordable housing available.
For more photos of Larsen’s visit go to the slideshow.
Interim editor Cali Bagby contributed to this story.
