Run for office
Springtime in odd-numbered years brings a peculiar milestone: candidate registration for local office elections in King County. This year registration will be open from May 5 to May 9, even though terms don’t start until January 2026. I’m writing to encourage all fellow islanders to consider running for office.
I’m now in my eighth year on Water District 19’s board of commissioners. I’m proud to have played a small role in safeguarding our precious water resources and working to update the district’s policies. After unexpectedly starting a business during the pandemic and taking on the extra work of being self-employed, I’ve decided not to run for reelection. That means at least one seat will have no incumbent candidate. A quick look at King County’s list of positions shows that at least 15 total Vashon-Maury positions will be on the ballot this year.
Please consider running for public office. Candidate registration is free, easy, and open to all voters. Information about the process is available at elections.kingcounty.gov. Your participation can help keep our public services strong, and will make a meaningful impact in our community. If you have any questions about serving as a Water District 19 commissioner, my email is mweller@water19.com.
Mike Weller
Thank you for supporting the food bank
On behalf of the Vashon Food Bank, I want to thank our generous community for supporting our mission to provide islanders with access to good food and vital resources. At our recent Full Plates 2025 gala, more than 200 neighbors helped us raise more than $150,000 — a testament to Vashon’s compassion and commitment, especially as need reaches record levels.
Your support has real impact. In 2024, we provided groceries at no cost to more than 900 households, serving 1,800 islanders each year. That’s more than 15% of our community, and up 36% since 2022. We also offer summer lunch programs and snacks for Vashon Youth and Family Services, and connect families to resources including health care and housing.
We’re advancing our campaign to build a new food bank home at Vashon United Methodist Church, a critical step for our future. However, we now face new challenges, including the loss of our long-standing partnership with Northwest Harvest, which supplied essentials like milk and canned tuna. We must now purchase these items ourselves, which may limit the variety of what we offer, but we remain committed to providing healthy, culturally appropriate foods to all islanders.
Despite these obstacles, we are hopeful, thanks to the unwavering generosity of the Vashon community. Together, we nourish our neighbors and strengthen our community.
Nan Wilson, Vashon Food Bank board member
Nuances to pesticides and herbicides
Thank you for highlighting “Eight steps to save insects from global decline.” (The Beachcomber, April 17 edition.)
Indeed, insects pollinate 90 percent of all plant species, the source of our oxygen and much of our food. Yet insect populations have declined significantly, about 45% in the last 40 years.
With 40 million acres of turf grass in the U.S., you are correct to encourage converting lawns to native plant habitat. However, there are nuances to “reduce pesticide and herbicide use.”
“Pesticide” is a broad term that includes insecticides, herbicides, fungicides, and rodenticides. In the public mind, pesticides are synonymous with insecticides. While technically a pesticide, herbicide is often conflated with insecticides in media reports. But counterintuitively, herbicide helps control invasive plants that take over native habitat critical to insects.
Organic weed removal works well on small sites. But large infestations of holly, ivy, hawthorn, and knotweed require a skilled applicator who can preserve valuable native plants and avoid erosion with judicious herbicide.
Even Rachel Carson, author of Silent Spring, condoned “perfectly sound methods of selective spraying … to preserve natural plant communities.” She said this well before practices evolved toward targeted injections and cut-and-treat applications with low-toxicity herbicides.
Ms. Carson wrote: “We need wild habitats in which original populations of insects and other organisms can be maintained. To destroy the homes and food of wildlife is perhaps worse in the long run than direct killing.”
Whether by direct insecticides or neglect of invasive species, the outcome is the same for insects.
Steve Richmond
What to do about Trump?
I along with millions of Americans have been perplexed and stymied as to what we do amid this Trumpian nightmare. The abject cruelty and disregard for the rule of law is staggering. The devastation to our democracy is mounting day by day, with a full authoritarian takeover happening right before our eyes.
Do we complain about it, avoid the news and hope something changes? No — they want us to be overwhelmed and scared. It’s part of the playbook. So, what are regular citizens to do here? My feeling is that we can’t afford to be cowed and must stand up and say “No, you can’t destroy our democracy!”
Do we continue to protest in the streets? Do we write and call our congress people every day and demand they do more? Do we donate to the likes of the ACLU and get involved locally with Indivisible Vashon or The Backbone Campaign?
I say “Yes” to all the above, and more! We’ve seen first-hand that action and community are powerful agents of social change. We saw it in the U.S. in the 1960s and 70s, and recently when 500,000 South Koreans marched to stop their leader’s authoritarian power grab.
I personally would prefer to just keep making art and enjoy my happy little life on Vashon, but now I feel called to do more because I do not want to live under a dictatorship, and I believe most of you don’t either.
Bill Jarcho
