Thank you to all Lopez music lovers for bringing the Miró Quartet to Lopez Island on Aug. 10 for the 15th annual Orcas Island Chamber Music Festival.
The Lopez and San Juan Islands’ community lost a good man, a good friend and a leader a few days ago. We also lost a role model educator, who epitomized what education should be about. We owe our friend Greg Ewert our deepest gratitude for consistently and unflinchingly showing us what good teaching, good schools and education in general should be.
Did you know that CAO provisions on Fish and Wildlife Habitat Conservation Areas and Wetlands pending before the county council would declare our entire shoreline to be a “critical” area, and turn shoreline setbacks into “buffers?”
Every September there is a nationwide United Way Day of Caring. I first experienced this event when my husband worked for a nonprofit in Seattle.
The county council has shown its leadership* by passing a new cell tower ordinance. We may now see phone companies sniffing about for “willing landowners” in your neighborhood. If you are approached by one of these companies, think long and hard before you sign that contract (25 or so pages of fine print) the companies don’t take risks, they put them all on you.
Did you know you can now add paper cups to your commingled recyclables? They must have no liquid in them so drink it up or pour it out, please, before recycling. Plastic cups are not recyclable; if you’re not going to wash them for reuse, paper cups might be a better choice!
The proposal by Peabody Coal and SSA Marine to build a terminal port at Cherry Point near Bellingham to ship approximately 100 million tons of coal per year to China is really a bad idea.
What do the visual arts, performing arts, music and dance have to do with education? Everything! Reports from the U.S. Department of Labor urge schools to teach for the workplace of the future; a workplace that calls for skills such as the capacity for working with teams, communication, creative thinking, self esteem, imagination and invention.
I would like to applaud Steve Ludwig for his recent letter regarding the telecommunications/wireless ordinance.
I recently ordered two books from Amazon and was shocked that with shipping and handling, the bill was for more than what our Lopez Bookshop would charge and the books would be in your hand in the same amount of time, unless you don’t come to the village often enough to pick up your books.
Much of the conflict or controversy over the critical areas and other local land use decisions is primarily due to the absence of adequate information. Neither we, the country, or the state authorities have enough information to be able to tell if such proposals will help or not.
Clearly, the Friends’ feathers are quite ruffled about the wave of citizen opposition to the ill-conceived CAO revisions proposed by CDPD.
In 1854 Herman Meville, author of “Moby Dick,” penned a short story, easily read in less than ten minutes: “The Lightning Rod Man.” A rascal goes door-to-door selling lightning rods, dramatically appearing at the height of thunderstorms forewarning dangers of lightning and benefits of his product in providing protection from certain disaster. This time honored sales technique of doom is alive and well in county politics. It is called the Critical Areas Ordinance.
