Local
Fundraiser gives big boost to ‘Field of Dreams’ page 10
Scene
Good Lovelies; taking the folk music world by storm, Friday Harbor next page 11
Guest Column
Forty years of painstaking attention to environmental rules... where did we go wrong? page 8
Journal
The 75¢ Wednesday, April 25, 2012 Vol. 105 Issue 17
of the San Juan Islands
www.sanjuanjournal.com
Voters get final say on tax hike
King of the road
3 percent increase would generate $1.1 M for public safety By Scott Rasmussen
Journal photo /Scott Rasmussen
A bald eagle with a bit of a ‘bad hair’ day sits on a perch and surveys the scene near the intersection of Cattle Point and Golf Course roads.
Liquor store fetches 197K
The winning bid for rights to sell liquor from the state store in Friday Harbor generated $197,100, and $30.75 million in auction revenue statewide
High bidder snags liquor rights in Everett, too By Steve Wehrly
Want to guess the price paid for operating rights at the Friday Harbor liquor store? How about $197,100? That’s the winning bid filed during the state-sponsored auction by Sarbjit Singh, who also “won” the store on Broadway in Everett with a high bid of $251,100. Singh couldn’t be reached for comment after the state released
Journal file photo
the names of the high bidders, but he now has right to compete in Friday Harbor with King’s Market and Friday Harbor Marketplace. The “extended auction” on the government-surplus bidding site
(kind of like e-bay for state and local governments) was part of the after-four-o’clock plan as bidding shot up on the final day for purchasing “operating rights” at the state-owned liquor stores around
At 7.8 percent, the sales tax in San Juan County is among the lowest in the state. But that could soon change, depending on the outcome of the August primary election. Working against a May 7 deadline, county officials have been busy preparing necessary paperwork to ensure voters get the chance to weigh in on a funding mechanism that, as compared to property taxes, the islands’ many visitors would contribute to as well. San Juan County Councilman
Washington. Liquor Control Board spokesman Brian Smith reported board members and staff were “surprised and very pleased” with the results of the auction, which ended with 167 stores selling to 121 individual bidders for a total of $30.75 million dollars. A day or so before the auctions were scheduled to terminate, Smith said the total bids were only four or five million dollars. But bids went up fast, including for Store Number 169 in Friday Harbor. On Friday morning, the highest bid was under $30,000. At four o’clock, the scheduled closing time, bids were heading toward six figures increasing by thousands of dollars every five minutes. Only after five minutes passed with no higher bid recorded on the bidSee LIQUOR, Page 4
2011 Special Award; Second Place: General Excellence from the Washington Newspaper Publishers Association
Rich Peterson, North San Juan, said to wait until early November for an outcome would force the county’s budget team to devise two separate budgets for the year ahead, one with a bump in salestax revenue and another that would be more status quo in that arena. But more importantly, Peterson said, the County Council would be reluctant to put the question of a sales-tax hike before the voters in either election unless local law enforcement officials, and public safety officials, and the town of Friday Harbor, all of whom would share in the largesse, are onboard to support it publicly. “The thought is that if we don’t have the town in and the law and justice guys in, then let’s forget about it,” he said. “But we think See TAX, Page 4
Vote for your favorite dog! Last day to vote is May 9. www.sanjuanjournal.com for details.