How’d We Do in Our 2015 Predictions?

— by Margie Doyle —

Making predictions is a fun way to square our perceptions and philosophies with reality. So tomorrow, we’ll be posting our predictions for the Year 2016. And in the reflective spirit of New Year’s Eve, we present our 2015 predictions with a year-end update.

Some tanked, some “not yet,” but some were right on the money:

• No moratorium on growth or sales of marijuana; Yes! the Council recognized the complexities of the legalization of marijuana and dropped plans to regulate marijuana growth and greenhouse regulations, after extensive pubic input.
• At least a trial of Eastsound walking village (only motorized shuttles) for a day, a weekend or a week; didn’t happen this year, but Council Member Rick Hughes will push again for a pedestrian-only pilot program in 2016 and we’re behind that idea all the way, following the lead of cosmopolitan tourist cities like Rome and London who limit automobile and truck traffic.
  
• Restaurants cooperating in an off-season Calendar of Restaurants, like Roses for Mardi Gras, White Horse for St. Patrick’s Day, New Leaf for Easter; also didn’t happen this year, but Mia’s expanded and opened in a new location at the Our House building; Catkin Cafe opened with the remodeled Olga Artworks Building, Chimayo’s opened again at Odd Fellows Hall and Clever Cow Cremery opened on North Beach Road — hmmm, could this be a Chamber of Commerce initiative that might fly?
  
• Purchase of property for re-establishing the Exchange; the 2015 plan didn’t pencil out, and the Orcas Recycling Services/The Exchange non-profit went full speed ahead with building a road and launching a capital campaign to build a fully-regulated, state-of-the-art, new Exchange on the leased County Transfer Station Site.
• Mental health counseling and resources more accessible with county funding ( the one-tenth of one percent retail sales tax fund); this funding resource still stymied with lack of available school counselor and inability to meet qualification thresholds.
• Use of the county building at the Orcas ferry landing; leased temporarily by Denise and Dennis Wilk of Eclipse Charters; next year the County and the State Dept. of Transportation will begin work  to move the ferry terminal operations and passenger waiting room into the building.
• Progress and community support in preschool attendance through the Bob and Phyllis Henigson, and Joe Cohen and Marsha Farish initiative;now in its second of three years, the Early Childhood Education Initiative makes possible more preschool admission scholarships and more subsidized teacher training.
  
• Trail restoration and installation in Eastsound; still talking about it.
• Expansion of the Orcas public library; with two million-dollar-plus grants from the state — thank you Kevin Ranker!– and the Bob Henigson estate — always a champion of the library, including his donation and preservation of Library Park; the library expansion project is underway, due for shovel work this June, and completion by June 2017.
• County-wide celebration of the Pig War, the war that didn’t happen; what a shame this didn’t happen, BUT there are international talks to end the civil war in Syria — maybe local awareness will benefit global conflicts?
• A successful, win-win ferry reservation system.Yes! for although the computer reservation system overloaded and crashed, and we were down two ferries this summer, most people feel that knowing you can avoid the uncertainty and hours-long lines is worth working out the wrinkles and appreciate the reservation system.
  

Check in tomorrow for our 2016 Predictions! Happy New Year and remember your loved ones when you party — have fun!