||| FROM ISLAND STEWARDS |||
Looking at the population of San Juan County, it’s easy to wonder how such a tiny place—just 0.000212% of the world’s population—expects to make even the smallest dent in the challenges around us. Our demographic reality is clear: we are aging, our working-age population is shrinking, health burdens are rising, and many of our young people are navigating a world more volatile and disorienting than anything their grandparents faced.
But numbers alone never tell the full story of capacity.
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| Demographics count bodies; they do not count behavior. They cannot measure how many of us are working to preserve rural character, or how many are pushing toward a more modern, connected island future. And if we’re honest, most of us live a blend of political realities at once: communal with our families, cooperative in our neighborhoods, and deeply individual inside the national economy. The world is shifting fast, and the market increasingly rewards autonomy more than interdependence. Our national politics swing between those impulses too—left to right and back again—rarely pausing long enough for anyone to catch their breath.
All of this unfolds against a backdrop of global strain. Which brings us home. For all the noise of the world, San Juan County remains one of the rare places where wild nature still has a say—where storms dissolve politics, and community reasserts itself through instinct, not ideology. When the wind knocks out power, tractors show up. Neighbors check on neighbors. Kids get fed. Life returns, briefly, to a human pace. That is our wealth. But none of that protects us from the nonprofit industrial complex—a system that asks us to nurture community while feeding bureaucracy. Every nonprofit on these islands knows what their people need; we see it daily, in real time, in ways no grant rubric or quarterly report can capture. Yet we detour through paperwork, competition, and compliance rituals that turn certainty into delay and urgency into administrative burden. We want to help. And this tension isn’t unique to organizations. It shows up in the smallest choices of daily life. Even when shopping for clothes or groceries, we’re forced into impossible moral math: Do we pay more for humane treatment, real nutrition, and environmental care— Every necessity demands a trade-off. Grassroots change doesn’t lack heart here. It lacks time—the very resource siphoned away into proving, documenting, and justifying what we already know to be true on the ground. Consequently, participation becomes more than civic goodwill—it becomes the antidote to burnout. Honest disagreement becomes a lifeline. Sitting at the same table becomes an act of resilience. Because if we, in one of the smallest counties in the nation, can cultivate a shared sense of purpose despite these pressures, then we are modeling something the world desperately needs: democracy practiced at a human scale. And that is the invitation at the heart of Island Stewards— To use this intact, wild, healing place to reconnect with the pace of nature and the pace of each other. To remember that small communities can carry big wisdom. That slow can be strong. And that hope is not found in scale—it is found in people willing to keep showing up. Even in a world stretching at the seams—economically, environmentally, socially, cosmically—we are still lucky to live in a place where community remains a muscle, not a memory. And now, we want to strengthen that muscle together. New: Island Stewards Monthly Community Meeting Beginning Sunday, November 30th at 3:30pm, Island Stewards will host a remote monthly community gathering. Online attendance will be available for everyone @: https://us06web.zoom.us/j/ Meeting ID: 868 6391 6766 Passcode: 586246 |
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While individuals are largely free to practice as they wish with respect to their own property, “to practice what is possible here” are words missing from many otherwise interesting suggestions for larger projects and policies. They are wise words. I look forward to what comes out of this effort.
I greatly appreciate this! Just a word of caution. When you send out a zoom link without requiring registration, you leave yourself vulnerable to getting zoom bombed. In the future, you might want to provide a zoom registration link rather than the zoom link for joining the meeting.
RE: Common Ground Transit
As someone who initiated and led the public transit efforts that Island Stewards references, I need to correct the record about this “partnership.”
I organized the meetings with National RTAP and other key stakeholders that Island Stewards attended. While I transparently invited them to every meeting and shared all information, they were simultaneously arranging separate meetings with transportation groups while excluding me.
When I helped develop their survey and brought them into my organized meetings, they later requested I remove the public meeting history from my website.
Most concerning was their refusal to collaborate on the project management board they’d agreed to use. For months, they offered excuses for not engaging. When a volunteer project manager from FORPT joined to help, it became clear Island Stewards would not work collaboratively. They ultimately deleted the entire planning board rather than participate.
While Island Stewards claims to be working on public transit, they’ve shown almost nothing publicly. Meanwhile, I’ve published detailed transit proposals and continue engaging openly with the community through public meetings and transparent communication.
I led these transit initiatives, invited Island Stewards to participate, and maintained complete transparency throughout. Their exclusionary behavior and lack of public deliverables raise serious questions about their actual commitment to solving our county’s transportation challenges versus simply seeking organizational recognition and funding.
Bill, I appreciate your encouragement, and I’m looking forward to what emerges from this next chapter too!
Thank you Sharon — I’ve never had to deal with Zoom-bombing before, so I really appreciate the tip!
Colin,
I need to correct several inaccuracies in your statement, yet again. Island Stewards has never removed your materials, requested removal of public records, or deleted any shared project history. The project board you reference is still active; no one has removed it. The only person who added paid upgrades to the board was you without permission, and the additional cost was absorbed without complaint. No one else used that board because it was not a format the broader group found workable, nor did anyone continue to want to get lectured about it’s value.
Regarding collaboration: Island Stewards repeatedly invited you to participate, contribute, and coordinate. When the work moved from brainstorming into feasibility, budgeting, and inter-agency coordination, the project required a level of follow-through and practicality that did not align with the direction you continued to take. Both advisors and outside experts made it clear that launching a pilot without a financial plan, operational feasibility, or partner commitments was not responsible or achievable.
Like everyone else doing this work, we have been slowed by the federal shutdown. No organization—ours or anyone else’s—can override that. In the meantime, we’ve continued conversations with transportation professionals, government partners, and feasibility experts, the same way any responsible project would.
It’s also important to acknowledge that your claims extend beyond Island Stewards and include multiple organizations full of hard-working volunteers, elders, and young people who do not feel comfortable engaging when there is a pattern of public misrepresentation. We all want better transportation options, but progress requires collaboration, listening, and accuracy—not demands or accusations.
Island Stewards remains committed to transparent, community-centered work. When there is new information to share publicly, we will share it openly, as we have done with every other project we manage.
Robin,
From the IS website: “incubates and supports small non-profit organizations, projects, and programs dedicated to environmental stewardship, social and economic justice. By providing resources, mentorship, and collaboration opportunities, we ensure that grassroots initiatives have the support they need to thrive.”
I met you at the community lunch and I brought up the topic of Public Transportation, and I organized the first community meeting. I shared all my ideas and contacts with your organization. But little did I know. You were organizing to take over regarding the Transportation effort.
In my opinion contradicting the statement on your website. IS worked to subjugate myself from my own effort. IS didn’t work to support my grassroots initiative. IS refused to work together as described above.
But you don’t have to take my word for it. I might compile and publish a collection of fact based concerns on my website.
I think perhaps the quote at the Orcas Skateboard Park might be appropriate to ponder:
“There is no limit to the amount of good a person can do, if he doesn’t care who gets the credit.”
Brian Ehrmantraut
While it’s a nice statement. I think it’s important that we do recognize a person, and the good that they do. Otherwise we aren’t valuing that persons contributions to society.
As far as Island Stewards is concerned:
From the IS website: “incubates and supports small non-profit organizations, projects, and programs dedicated to environmental stewardship, social and economic justice. By providing resources, mentorship, and collaboration opportunities, we ensure that grassroots initiatives have the support they need to thrive.”
The problem as succinctly put from someone else. Is Island Stewards a nonprofit that helps other nonprofits develop their ideas?
Or are they a nonprofit that develops the ideas independently?
IS should pick a lane. And if they’re operating both lanes. They should make that entirely clear. This is what I claim they did not do.
I have found these articulate but somewhat fuzzy statements from Island Stewards confusing. I agree with many of the issues of import as stated on their website and think that the Goldilocks surveys are a good idea at this stage of yet another County Comp Plan grind. Increasing islands participation in the Comp Plan is a winner but I wonder how much impact in what specific areas other than transit is claimed. I have taken an active part in past Comp Plans and the beginning of this one but burned out trying to ingest the planner speak word salad and reiteration..
Other grass roots local organizations have done the same with specific issues like fresh water availability and climate change. I was involved with them.
What is most confusing to me about IS are regular use of inspirational words that are not descriptors of San Juan Island landscapes or for that matter marine systems. “Inatact”, “wild”, “natural” etc. I smiled when reading that we expe3rience rare powers of wild nature in winter storms. I know of no place in the world where weather and now climate do not ocassionally pose serious problems for local communities. Loose words and phrases sink credibility.
The there are the odd statements about non profits implying self-serving policies and competitive practices that you apparently never stoop to. But Colin Williams in my way of thinking is making an important and disturbing point to which you nave not responded.
I have saId many tines that population capacity is a very important concept but is often used as a red herring without at the same time addressing our sorry, tourism dominated economy and lack of family workforce due to a paucity of affordable housing and limited seasonal jobs that lock us into the insanity of continuing to chase summer tourism even though we have proved (The County Visitor Use Plan) there is no way to manage it. An increase year around population and small businesses is inevitable and critical tor community resilience.
Colin,
I want to address this clearly so the community has accurate information.
First, National RTAP was recommended not only by you, but also by the County Council and other regional advisors. You were always welcome to continue those conversations directly—as you had for several years before I ever became involved. The reason those conversations did not advance into a pilot was the same reason they did not advance for you: there are many required steps, and they take time, feasibility work, and partnerships. That is not a matter of willpower; it is the bureaucracy required for any public transit system in the United States.
Island Stewards supports emerging nonprofits, and we’ve helped new groups take real steps toward legitimacy and collaboration. That was our intention with FORPT as well, but the working relationship did not succeed. The pattern was the same one others in the community have experienced: difficulty collaborating, difficulty following through, and difficulty shifting from idealism to practicality.
As for the specific claims:
• No one at Island Stewards has ever asked for any of your public meeting history to be removed.
• The project management board was not deleted. It remains online under the subscription you charged to the group without approval. No one used it except you.
• We created the printed materials, handled outreach, and invited participants for the meeting you referenced.
• Island Stewards has never “taken over” your work. We joined the conversation, brought in professionals, and followed the county-recommended process.
• The government shutdown delayed every organization and agency involved. No one here is all-powerful.
We did everything we could to include you, and many people here tried to collaborate with you over the years. The reason the partnership ended is the same reason it has been difficult for others: the behavior you are displaying now is exactly why the working relationship could not continue.
Multiple organizations in this community—some of them run by elders who have been doing this work long before me—have been subjected to the same pattern of public accusation when collaboration became difficult. That is not healthy for the individuals involved or for the community.
Island Stewards remains committed to asking the community what it needs and how we can help and that includes transportation as was found during our work with the Department of Commerce and our winter focus groups regarding the comprehensive plan (work island stewards has been doing since the 1990’s), and we are working with professionals, government partners, and community members who understand the complexity of that task. We are not interested in creating or responding to unnecessary conflict. We are focused on real feasibility, on public transparency, and on supporting the people who are doing the work together.
I will not continue engaging in a public back-and-forth. The community deserves clarity, not escalation. Anyone with questions is welcome to come to our meetings, review our public materials, or talk with us directly.
We wish you well in your separate efforts and urge you, yet again, to discontinue the unneseccary and unkind remarks on a piece that is about bringing the community together, not demanding a pilot program for transportation and credit for work that you did not do.
Steve, thank you for taking the time to write this. You’ve been involved in these conversations far longer than I have, and I’m learning a great deal from people like you who’ve put in the hours—through earlier Comp Plans, water initiatives, climate work, and the difficult parts of policy that many of us are still catching up to. The lack of clarity in my wording is on me. I was trying to fold in optimism and metaphor while also naming the pressures we’re under, and I can see how that blurred the message instead of sharpening it.
Your points about language are well taken. When I say “wild” or “intact,” I’m trying to reference the parts of these islands that feel rare in a world where so much has already been paved, reshaped, or privatized—not to pretend these ecosystems are untouched or that weather here is more meaningful than anywhere else. I understand how loose phrasing sinks credibility, and I’ll tighten that going forward.
On the nonprofit comments—those weren’t meant to position Island Stewards above anyone. They were meant to acknowledge the structural barriers many grassroots groups face, including us. That could have been clearer, and I appreciate the pushback.
And on the core issues you raise—tourism dependence, lack of family-wage jobs, affordable housing, the burnout of planning processes, and the difficulty of addressing population capacity without confronting economic structure—you’re right. These are interlocking problems that won’t be solved by inspiration alone. That’s why I value hearing from people who have lived through multiple rounds of this and who understand where the real pressure points are.
My hope is to blend practical steps with a bit of optimism—to keep participation alive without pretending there’s an easy solution. If we can increase engagement in the Comp Plan, lift up what others have already done, and keep the conversation grounded in reality rather than rhetoric, then maybe we can move the needle a little. I love these islands, and I want to make sure I’m contributing in a way that’s helpful rather than adding noise.
Thank you again for holding the line on clarity and substance. It’s appreciated.
These comments are directly from myself and not piped through an AI system for polish:
Robin Baldwin,
It appears that IS doesn’t recognize any wrongdoing on part of it’s organization. It sees no fault in operating as stated above:
Is Island Stewards a nonprofit that helps other nonprofits develop their ideas?
Or are they a nonprofit that develops the ideas independently?
IS should pick a lane. And if they’re operating both lanes. They should make that entirely clear.
I see many claims that IS is making regarding FORPT. I suggest that you provide fact based evidence that supports your claims. I encourage your organization to do so. I will honestly reflect back regarding issues.
And I’ll collect and publish factual evidence that supports my claims.
And finally, it may be considered that working with Island Stewards affected the presentation of FORPT by the way that you organization handled the relationship.
Colin,
Not to dismiss what you have said you have done but I had never heard of you or any work you’ve said you’ve done progressing transportation on the island until you were involved with the Island Stewards. If you have done so much for so long, can you show us what your timeline has been?
I know that over the years the county council has suggested and connected many organizations to local nonprofits including the National RTAP, FAA (for all aerospace things), and the Coast Guard (for shoreline/marine wildlife concerns). If it ever got to the point that I was being excluded from meetings and planning sessions, personally, I would find the fortitude to ask myself why before lashing out and blaming everyone around me or picking a target and laying all my grievences at their feet.
Going through all the online materials of FORPT and hearing you at meetings, it just sounds like you don’t have more to offer other than being a broken record and repeating the same tired rhetoric of telling everyone what they should do and what they should be concerned with without offering attainable, actionable goals or that you truly do not understand how much of a slog it is working with government agencies to get permitting, to get approvals, and to get things done.
I truly do wish you well and hope that you not just listen but actually hear the people around you, whether online or in person, with their ideas, thoughts, and criticisms. The only way to get things done in our community is by doing things as a community.
Tom Long
I will publish factual information. It will take some time to compile. I will publish it. But I encourage IS to show their work as well. Because I see no factual evidence that Island Stewards did anything significant related to creating Public Transit until publishing the transportation survey which I supported them with by inviting them to the meeting with National RTAP; who I had met with years prior.
By the way I have no idea who you are. But I have the impression that you have a relationship with IS if you don’t personally have a relationship with Joe Symons and Morgan Meadows
> county council has suggested and connected many organizations to local nonprofits including the National RTAP
Which council member connected who to National RTAP Tom ? When ?
Robin, your open-minded, introspective response to my loosely worded critique of my imperfect understanding of what IS is doing, is a fresh breath of air in this contentious airing of Orcas Island laundry..
Good people wanting to make a difference in the world is often somewhat conflicting because caring people begin to feel under-appreciated in a world that continues at all scales to degrade. I know that one of the things I most enjoy about these islands is the quality and life experiences that we bring together.
Trying to turn or slow the incoming tides of humanity and ecological destruction has been nearly an adult lifetime of effort for many with grey hair but we too feel cumulative exasperation with too few wins and lots of losses. And I agree with you and all the residents who have voiced concern and attempted to prevent the boulder from sliding back down the hill for decades out here. This is a place and community well worth efforts to preserve the qualities that remain.
Re: Tom Long
I apologize to Tom Long from Deer Harbor. I understand that he didn’t make the above comments.
Colin,
Yar! Wrong harbor matey! Just because I use a pseudonym for online interactions to seperate myself from online trolls, doesn’t mean you don’t know me or who I am or that I haven’t heard you speak. Considering your own online behavior and attacks on any group that has worked with you in the past further cements the wisdom of my actions.
While I admire Joe for the decades of work he’s put in to better our island, I would be hard pressed to find anyone living on Orcas over a certain age that doesn’t know him or at the very least knows of him. However, I am not affiliated with Island Stewards. I don’t truly believe someone has to have a relationship with a group to stand up and decry poor treatment of others. “First they came for…” and all that.
Why would I tell you who has spoken to other nonprofits, when, or their reasoning behind it if they haven’t already given you that information? To further fuel your sense of indignation over not being included? To enlarge the chip you already seem to be carrying on your shoulder over these things? To give you another target to lash out at? That doesn’t seem like a good course for anyone, including yourself.
You are continuing to ask everyone to give you proof of things, evidence, copies of communications while still saying that you have all of these things like some sort of smoking gun and I look forward to seeing what you compile and publish as far as your grievences but without the materials you claim to have, it just doesn’t seem to hold water.
Yo ho ho!
> Just because I use a pseudonym for online interactions to separate myself from online trolls, doesn’t mean you don’t know me or who I am or that I haven’t heard you speak.
To the person who is masquerading with the same name as another person in our community. I suggest that act in itself speaks volumes regarding the credibility of your comments. I will not respond further to this alias as I have spoken with the person who employs the canonical name.