King County did not move forward on amendments submitted by Vashon’s Town Plan Committee in 2012 after the amendments came in at the last moment and weren’t all suitable for the town plan, according to John Starbard, director of the county’s Department of Permitting and Environmental Review (DPER).

Islanders involved with the committee, however, were never informed and only recently learned that their changes had not been added to the plan.

“We did drop the ball on that. Someone should have come back to the community,” Starbard said.

In February of 2012, after getting several deadline extensions for their work to update the 1996 Vashon Town Plan, the committee submitted nine amendments to Paul Reitenbach, a senior policy analyst at DPER. In an email to committee member Melodie Woods, Reitenbach, who has since retired, said he would “get the plan revision to the Council for approval.”

But Starbard, who recently spoke with Reitenback after The Beachcomber asked for more information, said what islanders submitted wasn’t ready to go in the Vashon Town Plan, which is folded into the county’s comprehensive plan. Reitenbach said some amendments weren’t in comprehensive plan language and had items not appropriate to include, such as a job creation program. With the comprehensive plan due to the King County Council in one week, there was not time for officials to work with islanders to straighten the amendments out.

“It would have taken too much staff work at a time when staff was already operating at its peak,” he said.

At the same time, Starbard said, the Vashon Maury Island Community Council, which had approved the amendments, was struggling after being stripped of its official status by the county.

“I’m pretty certain that the county was uncertain … if this was still something that was approved by the community,” he said.

Woods said she is disappointed the changes never made it into the town plan. The amendments came in at the last moment, she said, in part because another county official helping the committee, Julia Larson, was moved to another job toward the end of the process. She added that five of the nine amendments were simply updates of sections of the town plan — such as adding new parks or historical landmarks — and were in the original language. If they had been heading the wrong direction on the other amendments, she thought Larson or Reitenbach would have said something sooner.

“I’m not totally in agreement,” Woods said, “and I still don’t know why they couldn’t have called and said something.”