News catch-up: VCC, VIFR, Burton post office and bus company

Published 1:30 am Wednesday, April 27, 2022

Editor’s note: Wondering what’s going on with the Vashon Community Care building, Vashon Island Fire & Rescue, the Burton Post Office, and the bus company that transports island kids to and from field trips and sporting events? Here’s what we know.

Vashon Community Care

Transforming Age, a nonprofit corporation that owns the building that formerly housed Vashon Community Care, has signed nonbinding exploratory agreements with multiple entities seeking to use or purchase the building.

Torsten Hirche, President and CEO at Transforming Age, told The Beachcomber on April 7, that agreements have been signed by both on-island and off-island organizations. However, he declined to name any of the entities — but said that Transforming Age would continue to support collaborative efforts as well as singular entities interested in the building.

“The ​​good news is we’re making progress and moving forward,” Hirsche said. “We’re in a place where we will have an answer over the next few months as to partners and next steps.”

One possible use of the VCC building — a remodel of the facility to house Vashon’s Sea Mar Clinic — was ruled out late last year after Sea Mar’s CEO and other executives deemed that the facility could not be remodeled economically to create an efficient primary care clinic.

However, Vashon’s affordable housing organization, Vashon HouseHold (VHH) might still be in the mix for future usage of the property.

Chris Szala, VHH’s director, would not comment on whether his organization was among the signers of memorandums of understanding with Transforming Age.

Szala served on a now-disbanded community task force that assisted Transforming Age on the closure of VCC at the end of 2021. The group, he said in a recent email, had identified VHH as an organization that could be helpful in the process to “envision new possibilities for the VCCA building.”

“Vashon HouseHold believes Transforming Age is still committed to that community process and prioritizing those community housing options,” Szala said.

Vashon Island Fire District

A special meeting held on April 12 by Vashon Island Fire & Rescue’s board of commissioners, appointing Brigitte Schran-Brown to fill a vacant commissioner seat, will need a re-do.

Last week, commissioners were notified that public notice of the meeting had not been posted on the district’s website, as required, within 24 hours in advance of the public meeting.

“The problem has nothing to do with the decisions or protocols implemented or acted on during the meeting,” Fire Chief Charles Krimmert told The Beachcomber, in an email. “[It is| just that the meeting was not correctly advertised.”

The decisions made at the meeting, he added, would need to be “done over” in the context of a properly noticed public meeting, which he said he expected to take place at the commissions’ next regular public meeting on April 27.

Also at the same meeting on April 12, commissioners voted to temporarily install Camille Staczek in the position of board secretary, following the resignation of district finance manager and secretary Rebecca Nason.

Nason, who has now left her post, was still in place at the time of April 12 meeting; it was her responsibility to post notices of public meetings.

Burton Post Office

After multiple inquiries to United States Postal Service (USPS) spokesperson Ernst Swanson throughout March and April, Swanson confirmed on April 25 that the Burton post office will close at the end of April, with a one-word answer — “yes,” acknowledging the closure, but giving no further details.

Swanson told The Beachcomber in mid-March that the branch was slated to close at the end of April, because it had “lost the lease on the Burton Post Office and we must vacate by April 30,” adding that USPS might move that “operation temporarily to another nearby USPS facility while we work to find a more permanent location.”

At the time, Swanson did not respond to an immediate follow-up email from The Beachcomber, asking for more details about the closure.

Harry Larsen, who manages the property that is owned by a trust in the name of his late mother, Ellen Larsen, had alerted The Beachcomber in March about the scheduled closure.

Larsen said that his family’s most recent lease with the post office had expired on Feb. 12, and negotiations for a new lease had broken down over a single issue — a stipulation in the lease that he give 24 hours notice prior to conducting maintenance on the property.

Last week, Larsen told The Beachcomber that he had not received any communication from USPS since Nov. 19, 2021.

“They are very good at keeping one in the dark,” he said. “I’ll be out this next week and I’ll see if they are still there.”

First Student agrees to settlement

On April 12, the staff of the Washington Utilities and Transportation Commission (UTC) announced a full multiparty settlement with First Student, Inc. resolving a complaint it filed against the charter transportation company in February.

First Student, based in Ohio, serves multiple Washington school districts — including Seattle, Tacoma, and Vashon — with charter-bus services, which are regulated by UTC. The complaint, which came with suggested fines of $396,000 for hundreds of safety and procedural violations by First Student, did not specify violations by school district, but rather, by bus driver’s names.

In addition to UTC-regulated services, First Student contracts with school districts to provide school bus and charter services related to student transportation.

Under the settlement agreement, First Student admitted to 396 safety violations identified by UTC staff and agrees to a penalty of $188,000 with $68,000 due immediately. The UTC suspended the remaining $120,000 for three years and waived the suspended portion of the penalty if First Student does not commit any repeat critical or acute violations during that time. In the agreement, First Student also agreed to pay a previously suspended $10,000 penalty due to repeat violations, and provide quarterly reporting to UTC for 18 months on corrective actions to address the violations.

An administrative law judge will review the settlement agreement prior to its implementation.