LETTER: Story answered important questions

I’m a mostly retired journalist with 40 years’ experience, most of that with The Seattle Times.

Elizabeth Shepherd consulted me regularly while reporting her piece on Vashon Center for the Arts (“Arts Center answers a $6 million question,” June 20). She shared with me the hundreds of pages of state and county records she received, as well as documents later provided by VCA, so I’m well acquainted with much of the source material.

This was a sprawling, complex story that would have given many big-city journalists pause. Shepherd acquitted herself well.

She was thorough. She was accurate. She was fair.

My wife and I are VCA members. I wish the center only the best.

I hope VCA realizes Shepherd actually has done them a great service. Her reporting has gone a long way toward answering questions that have hung over VCA for months. The longer those questions linger, the more difficult they will be to resolve, to move past.

How VCA responds now will say a lot about what kind of organization it is, and what it hopes to become.

— Eric Pryne