Friends? Or Enemies?
On Wednesday, February 22, the group currently known as Friends of the San Juans held a public meeting at the Odd Fellows Hall in Eastsound. The meeting was held because of a YouTube video entitled “San Juan County regulations are not friendly towards small organic farmer.”
At the meeting, Friends’ Executive Director, Stephanie Field, stated she went to Charles Dalton’s farm on Orcas Island in response to a complaint about Dalton’s activities received from one of his neighbors—perhaps someone without the knowledge or courage to approach Dalton directly. Standing on or near the roadbed, Field took some photos and reported the matter to the county.
On its website, the Friends lists education among its activities. In this case, Field and/or other members of the Friends could easily have educated Dalton in a friendly, neighborly manner. They could have approached this farmer and introduced themselves. They could have given him information about the Friends, describing the possible problems they’d discovered. They could have offered to help Dalton solve those problems with their direct help and/or by referring him to other people who could have guided him through the processes required to make his work conform to all applicable building and environmental laws and rules.
That would have been the neighborly and friendly thing to do as a part of our community. Those acts might even have convinced Dalton to become a contributor and/or member of the Friends organization and encouraged him to make his farm be a showplace for their efforts.
The vast majority of speakers at the Friends’ meeting were critical of the manner in which the Friends brought our county bureaucracy into the alleged problems discovered on Dalton’s farm. Instead of acting as part of our community, the Friends became a vigilante organization and committed a most unfriendly and unneighborly act. By going to the county, rather than trying to work with a neighbor, the Friends tried to make Dalton into a criminal, liable for expensive fines.
It’s time for the Friends to figure out who they are. Do they want to be a part of our community, working together with the rest of us to keep our islands as beautiful as we all want them to be? Or, do they want to become “they” or “them” versus the majority “we” and “us”? In other words, do they want to remain the “Friends of the San Juans” or are they ready to change their organization’s name to “Enemies of the San Juans”?
all the best,
J B McGuire
Olga
I find Friends of the San Juans to be everything but friends. They are obstreperous narrow minded “our way or the highway” litigants without regard to solution oriented outcomes or creative compromises.
Well said Howard – and Thank You !
If the ‘Friends’ would like to be constructive contributors to our collective community – perhaps they could do so in the manner of Missouri – Show Me (by your actions).
McGuire has effectively reflected how many islanders are currently viewing the “Friends” of the San Juans. The Friends may be at a crossroad as to the type of organization they want to be. Lets hope, for everybody’s sake, that they live up to their name and work cooperatively with residents and landowners to help preserve the San Juans in a realistic and pragmatic manner. Lets hope they choose to leave their dogmatic and policing mentality in the past.
I find the obtrusive actions of the Friends to be highly repugnant. I attended the Feb. 22 meeting. The Friends, staff, and board members did not get the message. They were quite arrogant in defending their secret police tactics. I can only hope the community becomes more informed on the hidden dangers of the CAO and thinks twice about supporting it or the Friends.
Well, we can surmise and blame who we want all we want, that’s democracy! But the fact is, nobody knows much about a whole lot of facets of this story, so it’s best not
Although my hopes are the same as Nelson Rio’s – that Friends takes the path of mediation/education which they do so well, I am outraged at the spin, myths, outright lies, and scare tactics used to incense the public and inflame the community against Friends and “government.” The accusers know exactly what they’re doing; kill two birds with one slingshot; Friends and education/conservation. If they succeed, the outome will be tragic and far reaching.
We are a microcosm of the same global lust for grab-and-take by the few. Let’s at least tell the whole truth to the story and the spin.