The Friday Harbor Town Council will vote Dec. 2, noon, on lodging tax funding for the San Juan Islands Visitors Bureau, San Juan Island Chamber of Commerce, The Whale Museum, San Juan Historical Museum, Art Studio Tour, and Artstock. The council meets at noon and 5:30 p.m. in the Town Hall Council Chambers. The meeting is open to the public.
The Brown House, believed to be the oldest building on San Juan Island and one of the oldest in Washington state, will be moved Dec. 2, 3-7 p.m., from West and First streets to American Camp. The route, according to Nickel Bros. House Moving and the National Park Service: First Street, Court Street, Spring Street, Argyle Avenue, Cattle Point Road, Pickett’s Lane, and then Redoubt Road to the American Camp parade ground. Nickel Bros. asks that islanders not park their vehicles along any of these streets during the move; your vehicle may be towed. If you have any questions, call Nickel Bros. at 378-3328.
Thanksgiving may have brought an unseasonable amount of snow, but shoppers still came out for Black Friday. Several Friday Harbor businesses said sales on the day after Thanksgiving — the kickoff to the holiday shopping season — went as well if not better than last year. “It was really great,” said Laura Norris of Griffin Bay Book Store. Norris said she has read that the nation’s financial status is starting to improve, and took the good Friday turnout as a sign that “maybe things have plateaued … people want to get back to life.”
Life on our islands was once described by a local writer as similar to living on a ship at sea. We are largely on our own out here in the northwesternmost county in the continental United States. With that in mind, “shop local” takes on new meaning. Money we spend here stays here. It helps pay local wages, support local public services, pay local wages, put food on local tables, pay local rents and mortgages. And it funnels through to the many non-profits by the generous donations of local businesses.
Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, the San Juan Island-based organization that has long been on the front lines in the campaign against Japanese whaling, has unveiled a new weapon in its battle: A swift and ominous-looking interceptor vessel named Gojira, or Godzilla.
An artist would be hard pressed to find a creative place that is closer to nature than Danny Stough’s: At the end of an island road named for an edible mushroom, in a place with an ancient feel, amid standing cedars and cedars that have fallen and become nurse logs, a place where the soil yields surprises (like the spring that was revealed when a neighbor dug a foundation for a house).
It’s official. Jamie Stephens prevailed in a recount Monday, winning election to the San Juan County Council from District 6 (Blakely, Decatur, Lopez and Shaw islands). In final election results posted Nov. 22, Stephens led with 877 votes to Bob Myhr’s 866. That vote was unchanged after the recount.
Landowners enrolled in “current use” programs receive a reduced assessment and pay less tax in exchange for managing the land as agreed. It does not mean that taxes are not collected from land in current use programs, but instead that the taxes that would have been paid on land assessed at their “highest and best use” value are shifted to other taxpayers.
This has been a tough year on the islands. Several downtown storefronts are empty. Local businesses, schools, and town and county governments have tightened their belts and/or reduced services. Local workers in the public and private sector have taken unpaid furloughs. The jobless rate was 5.5 percent in September, although some experts say the rate could be higher because that number only reflects the number of people who are receiving unemployment checks. And yet, at the risk of sounding Pollyannish, we do on this Thanksgiving eve find much for which to be thankful.
Classes will begin at regularly-scheduled times at Friday Harbor elementary, middle and high schools on Nov. 24. School buses will be on snow routes in the morning and following the end of the school day as well.
Local Girl Scouts will be offering homemade pecan and pumpkin pies for sale Nov. 24 at the MarketPlace, 8 a.m. to 2 p.m.
With bone-chilling winds gusting up to 40 mph and temperatures plunging into the teens, Orcas Power and Light linemen worked through the night and into the pre-dawn hours Nov. 23 to track down and restore multiple power outages across the county.
Tuesday’s classes at Friday Harbor elementary, middle and high school will begin 90 minutes later than usual, at 9:45 a.m.
