The Great Island Clean Up is this weekend. I will be holding down the fort at the Olga Energetics Club from 10-2 Sunday, passing out empty garbage bags and collecting full ones. There will also be base camps at the Deer Harbor Community Club and the Orcas Hotel. Hopefully the sun will be shining and we will have a great turnout. There certainly appears to be plenty of roadside trash to keep us busy. Seriously, who in the world is tossing all those cans and bottles out of their cars?!?
Tuesday is the day Orcas votes on the Hospital Taxing District. Please get your ballots in the mail before 3 pm on the 24th. Thank you to the Coalition for Orcas Health Care who worked diligently to get information out to help inform voters, inspire candidates, and vision a path forward for local health care services. It has been a great team effort to address a critical need for this community.
With that said, the heavy lifting starts on Wednesday. If the Public Health District passes, the commissioners will have a very tight timeline to conduct a needs assessment, develop a service plan and construct a budget. I suspect there will be many more community meetings to define the scope of services and tease out the details of delivery. If it fails, the community will have a very small window to develop a ‘plan B’ and raise the money to keep the doors open at the clinics. Either way, there will be work to attend to.
Hope your weekend is joyful.
Hilary