Gary Davis

Gary Davis is a permanent resident of Guemes Island and is sole proprietor of Guemes Sunrise Coffee Roasters. He was a public servant for 15 years in the Bay Area and relocated here with his wife Donna in 1999. He has been on the FGI interim board since its inception and assumed the duties of president August 29, 2005.

Gary, like many of his friends and fellow islanders, is opposed to extending the weeknight ferry schedule and is willing to continue on the board of directors of FGI and lead the effort to persuade the County Commissioners to back off of this program. In addition to this very important issue he feels that FGI as an organization can help insure that Guemes maintains its rural character well into this new century by supporting the wishes of its members both politically and, when necessary, legally.

Mary Jo Andrak

I have been a permanent resident of Guemes Island for eleven years. My husband and I developed five acres of land and built our own home in 2000-2001. This experience  gave me an idea about  the workings of Skagit County, regarding planning, land use, permitting, and water issues.

I have been on the Guemes Island Library Board for 10 years. I schedule and coordinate the library’s volunteers, purchase books and materials, and participate in the planning for the annual Dog Island Run. This keeps me in touch with the Guemes Island Community and the larger community of Anacortes and Skagit County.

I have attended many County meetings regarding ferry issues and written commentary for LineTime.org for almost five years. Hopefully informing LineTime readers of ferry outages, fare increases, schedule and procedure changes. This afforded me the opportunity to meet diverse, interesting people, some I agree with and some I don’t.

I’ve attended Guems Island Ferry Committee meetings, both on the island and in Mt. Vernon and served as Public Meeting Secretary for the Ferry Committee quarterly meetings. 

There are many reasons that I have agreed to serve on the Friends of Guemes Island board at this time.

FGI has gained political influence, thanks to the previous board’s hard work and efforts. FGI also gained considerable monetary and other support from people on and off Guemes, over and above membership dues. That financial support may be called upon again for yet to be identified issues.

Watershed, land use and ferry operations issues, as well as the seemingly stalled Sub Area Plan process have been ongoing points of contention between Guemes Island and Skagit County and will continue to be so.  Reinvigorating and reorganizing Friends of Guemes Island is important at this time to address these issues. All of them touch every Guemes Islander in one way or another.

I  feel the mission statement of Friends of Guemes Island - to preserve Guemes Island's rural character, sense of community and sustainable lifestyle and to plan for change - is important enough for me to step up personally and to continue to work with all Guemes Islanders and Skagit county personnel to acheive that end.

Virginia (Ginger) Orsini

When I was asked to serve on the FGI board, I remembered Anne Jackets saying, “Someday you can volunteer, too!”.  So I agreed to volunteer to help reorganize FGI. The job ahead lies in maintaining pressure on the county to make provisions for sustaining resources, particularly the water resource, in its planning code.

My day job is as the music specialist at Mt. Erie and Whitney schools where organization and planning are paramount. My liberal arts education at Lewis and Clark College developed an interest in politics, and I served in the Peace Corps in Honduras where I worked on the real needs of poor people. 

In the last 20 years that my family and I have lived here, I have witnessed considerable growth on the island, and watched water quality along the beaches, where 80% of islanders live, degrade to the point where it is hazardous to our health. The county continues to function, however, as if water quality is of no consequence, and has made no substantive changes in county code to address this degradation of the sole source aquifer.

The recent suit launched by FGI directed at containing the ferry operating hours had at its heart the preservation of the rural character of Guemes through the contention that expanding ferry operation was like widening a highway to allow for more growth when the county was still turning a blind eye to the reality of salt water intrusion on this island.  Unfortunately that suit ended by the judge throwing the decision-making power back to the same county planning department that had failed to address issues of growth and water degradation.  The major concern was lost, and therefore, remains a major concern.

Meanwhile, the second Guemes Island Sub Area Plan has been repeatedly delayed.  The county needs to have its feet held to the fire on the issue of water quality on Guemes Island.  Even though Guemes does not have the voter base to swing the power, we do have resourceful citizens who can make their concerns known, and  FGI is the organization with the focus and historical knowledge base to finally address the major issues of loss of water quality and a rural island life style on Guemes island.