Guest Editorial: A Call to Serve

By Martha Farish

Now through June 10 Orcas Islanders can register online to run for a number of elected offices on Orcas. It is so important for Orcas to have smart, financially astute, cooperative people in positions on these boards during these economic times.  If you have qualifications and skills that can be helpful please consider running.

These arenas are where we, as a community, spend our tax dollars directly.  None of these dollars pass through anyone else to be  “wasted’.  They are collected here and they are spent here. Period. Those of you who want to establish the Kingdom of Orcas, here’s where it “rules”.

If the politics of old were about “throwing the bums out”, the politics of today is in community minded collaboration and spending our resources wisely. We must find adaptive ways of coming to public judgment on behalf of the whole. We must use our great resident brains and financial skills to govern and spend wisely on our own well being. Through these existing governing structures we can ensure we simplify wherever possible and put the resources we control to work as efficiently as possible.

To illustrate the point: It will take cooperation and collaboration between the Park and Rec, the Port of Orcas, the School District and even Eastsound Sewer and Water to make sure Orcas Islanders have both the infrastructure and capacity to efficiently take care of its parks and recreational opportunities going forward. We must do this regardless of what happens to the economy at large, or what was “wasted” in the past and/or by whom. It is part of who we ARE as a community to take care of our quality of life. It is therefore the charge of all newly elected locals to “take back” what we can make better, run more efficiently and at lower cost than the alternative bigger systems were/are able to deliver.

Orcas may have the strongest, smartest, and most committed citizenry in the state. In our island governing structures we have transparency and accountability.  We also have a vibrant and ever improving non-profit sector fueled by an extraordinary number of volunteers and donors.  The stronger all our resident institutions become the more they can take on and the better we as a community can insulate ourselves from forces outside our control. This IS the alternative to big government. But we need flexible, bright, willing- to- compromise and willing-to- collaborate people in these positions.

Now is NOT the time of running for office to throw someone out or punish them so you can place someone else in office to yell at or punish. Hopefully we are over that Fox News type silliness. Now is the time for practical, financially astute,  collaborative souls to step up, sign up, and help INNOVATE our way up and out of this economic mess. Online registration is at www.sanjuanco.com under “Elections”.