New County leadership faces potential choppy waters immediately after leaving the dock
Sunday, January 12, 2025
by Jeff Noedel
After a thorough vetting of six candidates for two County Council offices, the voters spoke. A new leadership team occupies the legislative chambers now.
Kari McVeigh, Justin Paulsen, and Jane Fuller will be making decisions that affect the lives of 18,000 San Juan Countians. They will make decisions that will ripple many years into the future.
Their headwinds are significant. Adding to the perennial challenges inherent in funding the myriad local services to which the County has obligated itself:
- Likely cuts in State funding that may flow through from the new State Legislature in Olympia (also meeting for the first time Monday). A revenue shortfall of up to $12 billion awaits State leaders, and Governor-elect Bob Ferguson has stated his preference for billions of dollars in cuts, as well as some additional taxes. These billions in cuts (if they happen) are sure to be felt in every county in the State.
- Potential cuts in Federal funds, under new President Donald J. Trump and a Republican-controlled Congress. Trump has openly relished retribution against “blue states,” and few state attorneys general were more of a thorn in his side during Trump’s first term than soon-to-be former attorney general Ferguson.
- The County may find it difficult to stay out of Federal changes to immigration policy. While some citizens prefer San Juan County government to stay out of national and international issues, other citizens expect the County to stand up to potentially severe immigration policy changes out of Washington, D.C.
- A desperate need for more progress with affordable housing in the islands
- The growing threat of a disastrous oil spill and increasingly hostile conditions for Southern Resident Killer Whales posed by manifold increases in oil tanker traffic through the Haro Strait. This is a result of the completion of the Trans Mountain Expansion Project, which — in May 2024 — increased capacity from 300,000 barrels per day to 890,000 barrels per day.
- Electrical energy demand in the Pacific Northwest is expected to climb 30 percent in the next decade — driving up long-term wholesale electricity costs and someday risking brown-outs. But a proposed solar microgrid on San Juan Island has been met with stiff local opposition and little is publicly known about a possible tidal power generation project off of Orcas Island.
- The continuing need to develop synergies and common cause between the governments of the County and the Town of Friday Harbor. Years of acrimony culminated in a lawsuit between the governments over water usage at the County Fairgrounds that has divided, distracted, and wasted lots of money on legal fees.
- After the County mounted a loud and very public lobbying campaign for relief from failures in service by Washington State Ferries, on September 17 outgoing Governor Jay Inslee announced a $1 million emergency grant (later increased to $1.5 million) for local ad hoc solutions. Programs that can impact islanders’ lives are expected to hit the water in March or April.
- And if those ad hoc foot ferry services are extended long-term, then new facilities and programs must be developed, such as docking facilities for smaller vessels and improved parking, shuttle services, and/or transit services to move foot-ferry passengers from docks into Eastsound and Lopez Village, as well as enhanced transit options in Anacortes.
- While the County has no direct responsibilities to the local news media ecosystem, the County does benefit from healthy independent news coverage. The County does not want to become a news desert, a problem now being experienced in nearby La Conner, Wa. And recent policy changes that will severely relax fact-checking at Facebook have many concerned.
- And (knock on wood) all hope the U.S. economy remains very strong. Any serious downturn in the economy and consumer confidence could badly crimp our tourism sector, which would reduce sales tax revenue and make the County government harder to run.
This is the mountain — the 2025-2026 biennial session — that this new team of three leaders will begin to climb in their first meeting Monday morning.
