SOUNDER THE ISLANDS’
Serving Orcas, Lopez and San Juan County
WEDNESDAY, October 5, 2011 n VOL. 40, NO. 40 n 75¢
Sports coverage – PG 14
Scott Rasmussen/staff photo
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Love in a furry, four-legged package October is the American Humane Association’s ‘Adopt A Dog Month’ By COLLEEN SMITH ARMSTRONG Editor/Associate Publisher
October is the American Humane Association’s “Adopt A Dog Month” month. The organization is encouraging people to adopt a shelter dog and experience the joy of saving an animal’s life. Featured below are two stories of Orcas Island residents who adopted from an animal shelter.
Lexi, the active cattle dog High strung and energetic, Lexi the heeler mix was a hard sell. Even with her bright blue and brown eyes, potential adoptive families were put off by her liveliness. That was until Sarah Wesen walked through the Orcas Animal Shelter doors. “Lexi is the best dog we have ever had,” Wesen said. “She’s really, really smart and really gentle. And she’s able to be in my work environment.” Wesen went to the shelter late last spring with her daughter Talhia, who wanted to see the kittens. She thought she would check out the dogs until her daughter was ready to go. And then she met Lexi.
contributed photo
Above: Annie Stowell with Jimmy Grey Wolf, Charlie Bear Paw and Susan Weber. Right: Sarah Wesen and Lexi. “She was wired and out of control,” Wesen remembers. “But there was something I really liked.” Lexi had been returned to the shelter multiple times. She was extremely high energy and prone to running away, clearing six-foot high fences, jumping up on people, and
Colleen Smith Armstrong/staff photo
destroying furniture. For two months, Wesen went to the shelter for training sessions with Lexi, who is a mix of red
SEE SHELTER, PAGE 6
Land bank committee seeks to renew excise tax By SOUNDER/JOURNAL STAFF
It’s not the existence of the Land Bank itself that voters are being asked to decide upon. Rather, it’s the fate of San Juan County Land Bank’s primary founding source – a 1 percent tax on local real estate sales – that hangs in the balance of the Nov. 8 election. There’s no other like it in Washington state, dedicated solely to land conservation and open space preservation. Not that others haven’t tried. “Five other counties put it on the ballot back in 1990,” said Land Bank Commission chairman Tom Cowan. “All of them were defeated. Except here in San Juan County – and by wide margins.” More recent efforts have failed elsewhere as well, according to Land Bank Director Lincoln Bormann. “I think it’s now 12 counties where it hasn’t passed,” Bormann said of efforts to implement a voter-approved real estate excise
tax, or REET, similar to San Juan County’s. “Six or seven counties have tried it since 1990.” Not only are they unique, the county Land Bank and its real estate excise tax have proven popular among islanders as well. In 1990, roughly 70 percent of local voters supported the creation of both. Nine years later, just over 73 percent of voters agreed that the REET should remain in place. For Cowan, who 20 years ago helped lead the campaign for a change in state law that would usher in the Land Bank’s “enabling legislation,” the longevity of the Land Bank’s wide-spread support is firmly rooted in a long ago, determined effort to bring as many people on board as possible, realtors in particular, and in the art of compromise. “There was a broad constituency and compromises on all sides,” Cowan said of the campaign in support of that enabling legislation. “It wasn’t difficult for peo-
2011 ELECTION
courtesy of the SJC Land Bank
A map of land bank properties in San Juan County. The green triangles are conservation easements on privately owned properties.
ple to support it up here [mainly because] the whole concept was designed in San Juan County.” Cowan recalls that it took some
SEE LAND BANK, PAGE 8
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