Journal of the San Juans, January 21, 2015

Page 1

Local

New testing at APS helps determine pup’s personality PAGE 3

Scene

Hands-on healing at Lavendera’s wellness night PAGE 9

Guest Column

Risks of fossil fuel exports in Salish Sea go beyond climate change PAGE 5

Journal

The 75¢ Wednesday, January 21, 2015 Vol. 108 Issue 3

‘Food for Thought’ program builds chef skills By Emily Greenberg Journal Reporter

T

he smells from large batches of homemade food wafts beyond the high school grounds. Students clad in chef coats and aprons rush around to put the finishing touches on the dishes that will feed hundreds of community members. The head chef rings the bell and the line queued up out the door is ushered to the buffet-style bar. Dinner is served. “If you want to learn how to cook take culinary,” said Liz Varvaro, San Juan Island School District food service supervisor and teacher. “If you want to learn how to work take chef.” Semi-monthly community dinners are hosted to showcase “Food for Thought,” a program started in 2008 to bring hearty, healthy, from scratch meals to the district’s

students and faculty. Varvaro works side by side with Executive Chef Andrew Radzialowski, better known as “Chef Andy.” Together the two run a tight ship. Varvaro isn’t your typical lunch lady, and her kitchen not your typical classroom. She’s the teacher of Chef 1.0, a work-based learning “student chef internship.” From prep to cleanup, the program teaches high school students how to work in a commercial kitchen. Students leave the program with the skills needed to work in the food-service industry, oftentimes starting above minimum wage because they already know the industry standards. Many students are able to find well-paid summer jobs in the local workforce, while others go on to continue their education in culinary school and have careers in the food industry. See CHEF SKILLS, Page 4

County Council ends moratorium

Marijuana production regulations undecided

By Scott Rassmussen Journal Editor

While the looming specter of a moratorium may have vanished, the tug-of-war over marijuana production and whether impacts of the newly created industry warrant a new regimen of local landuse rules remains anything but resolved. In a 3-0 decision, the San Juan County Council voted without dissent Jan. 12 to disengage from its pursuit of a would-be moratorium that by design targeted the processing of permits

for marijuana-related production facilities. By default, however, that same moratorium may have also applied to the construction of any type of greenhouse, regardless of whatever crop it was intended to house, from tomatoes to basil, to bokchoy. Enforcement would have proved problematic, said Councilman Jamie Stephens, District 3, noting that construction of a so-called “temporary” greenhouse does not require a permit under existing regulations. “A moratorium on something that doesn’t have any regulations

Journal photo / Emily Greenberg

The line winds up out the front doors of the high school as people flock to the nearly monthly community dinners that benefit the Food for Thought program. Dinner is made from scratch with the help of students in the Chef 1.0 work-based class.

means nothing,” said Stephens, who, six months ago, joined fellow councilman Bob Jarman, District 1, in moving discussion of a moratorium into the drafting of a possible ordinance. The vote followed nearly 90 minutes of public testimony from a crowd that the council hearing room proved to small by itself to contain. Support for agricultural, in general, and for marijuana production in particular, was abundant from the 30-or-so people who testified, as was the call for tighter restrictions on a laundry list of impacts from fledgling industry. Those unable to find a seat or room to stand watched a videofeed and listened in from an adjacent conference room on proceedings of the first of two council-led workshops focused on the regulatory ins-and-outs, ups and downs, and the nuances, hurdles and economic promise of local marijuana production. The second workshop

is slated for Jan. 26. In initiating the vote to strike down the greenhouse moratorium, Councilman Rick Hughes, District-2, outspoken and steadfast in opposition to the wouldbe legislation, included that the council also forgo pursuit of any moratorium regarding voter-approved state Initiative 502, which legalized the cultivation, production, sale and recreational use of marijuana by adults. That proviso passed as well. The state Liquor Control Board, the agency tasked with implementation and regulation of I-502, has so far issued a total of 16 licenses to marijuana grow operations in San Juan County, according to county Agricultural Resources Committee Coordinator Peggy Bill. That total consists of four Tier 1 facilities (less than 2,000 square feet), nine Tier 2 (maximum 7,000 square feet) and three See MORATORIUM, Page 4

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Real Estate in the San Juan Islands

See inside for December’s real estate sales, listings and statistics.


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