February 2nd, 2010, by Margie Doyle
By Stan Matthews
County Communications Program Manager
After being satisfied that online video of Council meetings is reliable and convenient for citizens to access, the San Juan County Council has directed its clerk to start keeping official “action” minutes rather than detailed minutes of Council discussions.
The new format for the minutes will include more concise information about votes and official actions of the Council, making video recordings the primary source for detailed information about the Council’s discussions, public hearings and deliberations.
The online service, provided through AV Capture All, headquartered in Olympia, Washington; makes several months’ worth of recorded Council meetings available via the County website (http://sanjuanco.com/Council/video.aspx).
The Council’s meeting room was equipped with video equipment when the Legislative building was remodeled in 2007 and meetings were made available online, initially on a trial basis with the current vendor, in 2009.
The meeting video is displayed onscreen alongside a copy of the meeting’s agenda. Online users can jump directly to an item of interest simply by clicking on its title on the agenda.
San Juan County will also be one of AV Capture All’s first clients to offer live on-line “video streaming” coverage of the meetings, so interested persons can view the proceedings live via the Internet. No date has been announced for the beginning of the live video service, but it is expected to be within the next few months.
Video copies of council meetings on DVD will continue to be available through the Council Clerk’s office for a nominal fee.
The Clerk will also continue to maintain the online Council agenda which includes downloadable copies of staff reports, proposed ordinances and other documents related to items on the Council’s agenda. That agenda is available on the County’s website at: http://sanjuanco.com/council/displayagenda.aspx
The Council’s decision to move to action meeting minutes was based both on the availability of the new technology and in recognition of increased demands on its reduced staff in the wake of budget-driven cutbacks.
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December 23rd, 2009, by Margie Doyle
The San Juan County Community Development and Planning Department (CDPD) has posted “fill-in and save” permit applications for building and land use permits on the County web site.
Unlike many on-line forms, the new forms can be saved with the data entered, if the user has the Microsoft Word™ word-processing program. Printable permit forms are still also available in “.pdf” format which may be opened and printed using no-cost software available from Adobe™ and others.
The new fill-in forms and printable forms are both available at CDPD’s permit applications web page: www.sanjuanco.com/permitcenter/applicationforms.aspx
For more information, contact: Stan Matthews
Mail: 350 Court St #5, Friday Harbor, WA 98250
Voice: 360-370-7405
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April 16th, 2009, by Margie Doyle
Puget Sound writer-editor Knute “Skip” Berger will read at Darvill’s from his latest work, Pugetopolis: A Mossback Takes on Growth Addicts, Weather Wimps, and the Myth of Seattle Nice on Friday, April 17 at 7 p.m.
Berger is widely-read throughout the Northwest, as the Editor/Columnist for the Seattle Weekly, and currently as contributor to Seattle magazine, Washington Law and Politics, Crosscut.com news website.
Pugetopolis is a compilation of editorials and columns, mostly from the last five years, that sheds light on Berger’s perspective of the pitfalls of unbridled growth in the region, and “the wisdom of that.”
“Pugetopolis,” Berger says, is an old term from the 60s, originally implying advocacy of the development and urbanization of the Puget Sound region. But even at its origin, the term carried a warning. “To me, it’s a matter of scale and what you allow to drive the agenda,” he says.
“It’s a real dilemma. We have an economic system based on the notion that endless growth is the source of prosperity. It’s in our pioneer DNA.”
While many came to the NW, seeing the area as a resource-rich area “ripe for creating economic paradise; others had a utopian vision to create another kind of paradise.”
While Berger feels that growth should be controlled with laws and policies that limit the “free market” of unregulated growth, he acknowledges, “It’s hard to come up with a common vision of a future when we feel that someone’s trying to take it away from us.”
“What’s most important is to recognize we’re not living in a ‘blank slate;’ we have history and it’s really important to find ways of respecting what is already here and to shape it positively.”
Mossback is an old term Berger came across while researching pioneer accounts in the old Tacoma Ledger. When the railroads brought settlers to the area, newcomers were disparaging of the earlier pioneers, whom they called “Mossbacks.” The term had the regional meaning of the settlers who had dug in and gathered some moss. Though meant as a term of disparagement, Berger adopted it as his moniker, saying, “People rooted in the Northwest have something to be proud of.”
Two related misconceptions that Berger has observed newcomers bring with them to the Northwest are that the Puget Sound area is a blank slate where you can do whatever you want to do in pursuit of individual ambition; and that everything her is purely natural. “It really isn’t the case that we’re an “island” of naturalness,” Berger says. He cites Seattle’s “complex and inconvenient” urban environment as being “harshly terra-formed at the expense of the landscape.”
Historically, the city and the area have washed away hillsides, filled in tideflats and estuaries, built canals and dammed rivers. Now, Berger warns of the “everyday drip, drip, drip of oil, prozac” and other pollutants that we allow into the Puget Sound waters. “The way we live is not compatible with our ideals.”
Being a third-generation Seattleite himself, Berger has fond recollections of the Seattle Center, where the World’s Fair took place from April to October in 1962, and the site continues to intrigue him.
“It’s a wonderfully complex and much-argued-over unsettled gem of the city. It literally is for all people, although it’s about to lose the Fun Forests, which is too bad. It combines sports events with high-mindedness and a Coney Island feel – I love that.
“It continues a tradition of early-60s idealism; it’s very compelling that way. It’s kind of cornball, but I’m a big fan.” Read more
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April 10th, 2009, by Lin McNulty
Knute Berger, author of Pugetopolis
Knute Berger thinks Seattle is turning into the civic equivalent of a Starbucks Frappucino.
For years Berger has been Seattle’s own Mossback, sharing his sharp-tongued yet conscientious musings with the public in his weekly appearances on KUOW radio, as former editor at Seattle Weekly, and in his writings for Crosscut.com.
Knute Berger is the author of PUGETOPOLIS: A Mossback Takes on Growth Addicts, Weather Wimps, and the Myth of the Seattle Nice (Sasquatch Books; January 2009), and he will be visiting Orcas for a free reading at Darvills on Friday, April 17, at 7:00 pm.
A third-generation Seattlite, Berger writes with the intimate knowledge of a life-long insider and someone who cares—deeply—about the fate of the city. And, whether you agree with him or not as he asks questions such as “What kind of sissified Seattleites have we become that we cower at the threat of a seasonal shower?” his essays exhibit his acute ability to put Seattle’s subconscious on public display.
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February 24th, 2009, by Margie Doyle
My life as a journalist began with reading the funny pages on the living room floor and Time magazines from the World War II-era in my father’s basement study. Even as a kid, the funny pages gave a “don’t be so serious” lift to my day while the Time magazines informed my world with serious tales of global importance — and tragedy.
I remember the day, as a nine-year-old child reading the front page of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, that I saw a photograph of a high-heel shoe on top of a restaurant dining table, a picture from the Algerian War. The photo caught my imagination – how could war happen in a restaurant?
Then along came the Vietnam War and journalism via daily televised broadcasts brought the war into our living room, like those of thousands of Americans. With the release of and subsequent lawsuit over the publication of the Pentagon Papers, it was obvious that even in America, freedom of the press needed to be defended.
The war was still raging when the scandal of Watergate broke, courtesy of the persistence and integrity of the press, and the excitement of justice finally prevailing may have been the high point of my youth. Read more
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February 11th, 2009, by Margie Doyle
By Margie Doyle
My editorial position is that the traditional journalistic standards must continue even as “citizen journalism” and technological advances change the face of news delivery.
In reporting the news, this means that the news events that happen daily in our lives must be reported factually with enough background information to make the historic significance clear.
Government at all levels benefits from objective reporting on its activities. Journalists must work towards making transparent the workings of government at all levels through questions, research and investigation. At the same time, coverage of government’s more tedious and undramatic work must also be maintained. Read more
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January 11th, 2009, by Margie Doyle
Some quick and easy (if you practice a lifetime) tips on writing for journalists. Read more
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