LETTER: Blaming former plant owner for Forest Stewards’ situation is not fair

Published 1:30 am Tuesday, June 13, 2017

I understand that you can speak your mind in an editorial, but yeesh! (“Forest Stewards are unfortunate casualty of good intentions,” June 7). First of all, you are talking about Frank Zellerhoff, Jr., not Frank Zellerhoff. You need to print your error in next week’s paper.

Second, why do you paint Frank Jr. as a money grubbing, land grabbing, selfish monster? That isn’t the case at all. The circumstances that led to the current scenario were created by King County and Mukai, and Vashon Forest Stewards (VFS) was hurt in that process. You can’t fault a hardworking Vashon resident for wanting to make a living; $1,200 a month is not an exorbitant fee if you look at current rates and the county is offsetting more than half of that amount.

I support VFS, but their complaint isn’t valid. You can’t denigrate one island business at the expense of another, profit or not. There were many factors that led to the current scenario, but blaming Frank Jr. isn’t fair.

— Dale Greenfeld