Sports
Playoff preview: volleyball team prevails in grudge match vs league rival
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Editorial
If an exponential expansion of emergency medical services is what it takes, why not just say so? PAGE 7
Journal
The 75¢ Wednesday, October 29, 2014 Vol. 107 Issue 44
2014 ELECTION
Sales 2014 tax for streets
Celebrated birth, untimely death By Scott Rasmussen Journal editor
ELECTION
By Scott Rasmussen Journal editor
For the second time in two years, Friday Harbor voters are being asked whether to help pay for public services via an uptick in the town sales tax. They joined their county counterparts two years ago in approving a public safety sales tax, which raised the percent of sales-tax rate across the county from 7.8 percent to 8.1. This time, however, the would-be increase, at .02 percent (increasing the rate in town to 8.3 percent), is all about streets, sidewalks and storm drains, walking paths and bicycle lanes. The new revenue would be dedicated for a select-list of transportation improvements that reside exclusively within the town and are cataloged on the town sixyear transportation improvement plan. While the fate of the ballot measure rests solely in the hands of the town’s 1,354 registered voters, the increase would apply to anyone that, for lack of a better term, shops in Friday Harbor, visitors and islanders alike. That’s part of the equity of the proposal, billed on the ballot as Town Proposition No. 1, according to town officials. “It’s a way to spread out the cost of taking care of the town’s roads,” Mayor Carrie Lacher said of the sale-tax proposal. “It See STREETS, Page 5
Contributed photo / Carrie Sapp
Missing and presumed dead, L-120 swims alongside its mother, L-86, shortly after its birth in early September. The first southern resident born in two years was last seen more than seven week ago.
Only seven weeks after its celebrated arrival, the first newborn in nearly two years to join the population of endangered killer whales that makes its summer, seasonal home in the San Juans is now missing, and presumed dead. The Center for Whale Research confirmed that the baby, L-120, first identified Sept. 6 off the west side of San Juan Island, was nowhere to be seen when its mother, L-86, along with other members of L-pod, were recently photographed in the waters of Juan de Fuca Strait. “L-86 was seen and photographed on Friday, Saturday and Monday, all without L-120,” Center for Whale Research Ken Balcomb said. Balcomb maintains the disappearance of another calf and the absence of newborns underscores the plight of the orcas, whose numbers continue to plummet as the onceabundant salmon runs of the Pacific Northwest and Canada, Chinook in particular, the primary source of prey of the resident whales, dwindle to historic lows. The population, 78 whales in all, is at a 30-year low. “Thirty years ago, there were anywhere See DEATH, Page 5
Which way would that spill drift?
Friends of the San Juans’ Stephanie Buffum holds a drift-card. The cards, dropped throughout the Salish Sea, are intended to simulate the possible path oil could drift in the event of a spill.
By Emily Greenberg Journal Reporter
A tanker carrying hundreds of tons of fuel lost power close to the shores of Haida Gwaii, a northern British Columbia archipelago, Thurs., Oct. 16. The vessel, nearing the shoreline, in danger of running aground and spilling fuel into the water, was rescued by a U.S. tug boat after the Canadian Coast Guard was unable to tow it to safety. Three environmental organizations from the U.S. and Canada,
Journal photo / Emily Greenberg
including Friends of the San Juans, have dropped drift cards labeled “this could be oil,” over the past year, with the most recent drop Aug. 25. The cards were dropped along oil tanker routes from the Burrard Inlet in southwest B.C., through the Gulf
Islands and San Juan Islands, and out into the Strait of Juan de Fuca. The goal is to model the likely path where oil would travel, in the event of a major spill. Out of 700 cards dropped, six See DRIFT?, Page 4
Winner of six 1st place awards in Washington Newspaper Publishers Association 2014 BNC, 17 in all
Decision 2014
Who’s in, who’s out; Find election results online, at www.sanjuanjournal.com