I commend the Vashon Park District commissioners and The Beachcomber for their dedication and efforts to address the current situation. Unfortunately, both the board and The Beachcomber fail to recognize it is impossible for the current board to address the many challenges facing the park district. The only solution is for the four remaining commissioners to follow the lead of their fifth member and resign. The mass resignation is the district’s only hope since any recall would fail, because the Island is too nice to recall anyone unless it could be proven the person was a murderer, rapist or was named Dick Cheney.

Bill Ameling said it all when he stated, “The reason we’re in a hole right now is because of the board.” As a result of the board’s failures, it is impossible for them to hire the high-quality executive director the park district needs. Given what happened to Jan Milligan during her short tenure, high-quality candidates need only to read the last year of Beachcomber articles regarding the park district to know they would never want to report to such a board.

Aside from the board’s inability to attract a qualified director, the future of the park district depends upon trust. Unfortunately, this board has permanently lost the trust of the park district employees and the Vashon community.

With regard to the employees, the continued uncertainty surrounding the many park district programs and the related jobs has to have created a stressful situation which translates into even full time employees believing a position with the park district is nothing more than temporary.

While starting the fields project before it was fully funded was irresponsible, facing a loan default caused by the lack of an operating reserve confirms this board can no longer be trusted to make the right decisions.

 

— Scott Harvey

 

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