In Trouble In The San Juans

There was a time when an average private citizen could get in trouble with the law, or receive widespread "community" condemnation, only for doing really unspeakable things. Those were the days.

Here in the San Juans, we citizens can get in frightening confrontations with the police for going on Christmas hayrides ... or for going 28 mph in a 25 mph zone.

Here in the San Juans, we citizens can be criminally prosecuted for land use violations.

Here in the San Juans, we citizens are subject to community outrage if we rent to the wrong tenant.

Here in the San Juans, we citizens are subject to County and State investigations ... and community outrage ... for cutting too much brush along the shoreline.

Here in the San Juans, we have proposed laws that may make it illegal for anyone to cut grass or trim bushes near anything critical ... and nearly everything will be critical.

And despite all that ... here in the San Juans, we can buy and sell drugs with impunity ... reportedly right on Jackson Beach. 

We worry about this place and fear that our ecosystem is endangered ... but it also seems to me as if all our efforts to protect the San Juans ... have already ruined it.

This county needs to take a real hard look at itself in 2014.

Happy New Year!