— from Nick Jones —
Dear Editor,
Watching the San Juan Sungrown debacle unfold has been like watching a slow-moving, entirely preventable car accident. This situation is a tragedy for the Rice family, their employees, our struggling island economy, a tragedy, ultimately, for their neighbors, who are going to have to live with the ugliness they have created, and also for what it bodes for San Juan County as a whole.
How does this look to prospective San Juan County entrepreneurs, agricultural or otherwise? The lesson thus far is loud and clear: Do not invest in San Juan County. Move on.
This controversy has nothing to do with marijuana. This controversy has everything to do with how our county will accommodate, or not, people who wish to be productive here. This controversy has everything to do with whether we, as a county, will make space for working people and people striving to be productive here.
Let’s make the San Juan Sungrown case an example of how we should not do things, either privately, as we interact with our neighbors, or on a policy level. Let’s make sure our elected officials know the value, to the vast majority of us, of creating a diverse and vibrant rural economy in San Juan County.
Last Friday, sitting in court, witnessing Jenny Rice lose access to her own property, from a road her neighbors cannot even see from their houses, a refrain from Woody Guthrie’s, “Pretty Boy Floyd” popped into my head;
Yes, as through this world I’ve wandered
I’ve seen lots of funny men;
Some will rob you with a six-gun,
And some with a fountain pen.
Nick Jones is owner of Jones Family Farms on Lopez Island
Looking at the number of business that open and close- restaurants, bakery, B & B’s, gift shops, healthcare, landscaping, brewery, etc., I think it’s clear that the SJI’s are not against business minded entrepreneurs.
I hope Jenny can appeal.
The legal case that Jenny Rice is fighting is important to ALL of rural Washington State. I feel that it needs to be decided on the State level. I hope that all will help Jenny prevail!
I respectfully disagree with the comments above. I am completely in favor of grow operations, it concerns me that there has been no concern over the legal right to quiet title to property. We have seen a very concerning destructive trespass over the rights of every occupier of property by over regulation and arbitrary rules placed over what has been considered sacred to us and our families before us.
These comments suggest that a legally enforceable instrument “Title to property” should not be enforceable? There was no lack of disclosure in the limitation of other than residential access. Your are suggesting trespass should be legal? This is larceny Guys? And on a grand scale. Maybe you simply do not understand the implications of your suggestions. While I feel compassion for the owner of the operation. It is imperrative that property law, as it stumbles to remain to protect our interests, must be preserved, or we will wake up to find there is no private title to property. The neighbors have every right and even the responsibility to defend that title which they hold in their property, or risk loosing it