As I watch the fourth generation of my family now entering Vashon Island School District’s schools, I am reminded of the lucky breaks that landed my Norwegian ancestors here in 1941. Our clan’s arrival on Vashon Island from the then-impoverished farmlands of South Dakota was a somewhat random event, driven mainly by a need to find steady work that could provide food and shelter for all of us migrating Lutherans. There was ample employment here for sure, but the unexpected surprise was how well suited this rather peculiar, moat-surrounded patch of ground was for family life. It’s always been a good place to raise kids, then and now, and I guess that’s why we’re still here.

As a since-birth islander, whose 60-some years have been spent almost entirely here, I freely admit to a naïve world view, though I’m very interested in all that happens beyond our shores. I watch the news, I form opinions about the wider world, but I’ve had a lot of time, living and working on Vashon Island, to reflect on what makes this place tick. The thing that sticks out to me is that we are tremendously dependent on each other, in ways that can’t be understood by people living in towns whose boundaries are not constrained by water on all sides. I think we have always tried to understand our neighbors and develop tolerance for the things they do that we can’t understand. We have supported public projects that move the whole community forward, even when we can’t agree on exactly how those things should be done. We have trusted each other to do the right thing.

I don’t claim that my family’s long tenure here makes me better qualified to express my opinion than those who recently arrived. Sometimes people with a fresh perspective may see things more clearly than those of us who have been around a long time. But I think we on Vashon will continue to support the things that matter to us, as we always have done, and probably always will. When my great grandparents arrived, churches and schools were the fabric of island society. The current generations have added support of the arts to the list of things that matter, further enriching us all.

These foundational elements of our local culture exist mostly through the grace and generosity of unpaid volunteers. Let me say how fortunate I feel to live in this little town full of big-time volunteers. The number of hours donated by countless of our neighbors to make Vashon Island a cool place to live is really quite humbling. One such group of these people comes to mind now, as they meet near-constantly, advocating for the academic, artistic and athletic well-being of our school-aged children. The Vashon Island School District board continues to strive for the best school experience possible for all our kids, in preparation for that big and always changing world that awaits.

Rather than becoming discouraged by the close failure of the 2016 school bond proposal, the board wisely re-evaluated their effort, re-grouped, formed committees of islanders and held numerous community meetings, gathering input to determine what part of that last bond discouraged some voters. The culmination of all of that data is a much lower-cost proposal that mainly addresses necessary maintenance and improvements of existing facilities. We’ve got an ancient and worn out athletic field whose turf requires a million and a half gallons of water every year. We’ve got the same track I ran on as a teenager, so sub-standard that the Nisqually league won’t even allow track meets on Vashon. We’ve got a collection of old buildings for which energy upgrades, paint and roofs are necessary to extend their lives while reducing ongoing costs. Some of our old school furniture would interest the Smithsonian if it were in better shape. The list goes on, but the point is this: There is no extravagance in this bond request. It will likely cost an average homeowner around $5 a month, if anything. Sensible maintenance of what we already have will save all of us tax dollars down the road.

I am lining up, not only as a supporter of this measure, but also as a citizen deeply indebted to our school administrators and our school board for their exhaustive research before placing this revised and scaled-back bond proposal before the voters of Vashon Island. This town has a long history of supporting sensible school bond issues like this one, and I think we’ll do the right thing.

I don’t want to disappoint either my ancestors or my grandchildren.

— Tom Langland is an island resident and an owner of a local business.