School bond

Former measure failed because of its price tag

The Beachcomber suggested in its editorial last week that the school district’s $75.5 million bond measure failed earlier this year because two board members hadn’t endorsed it. That’s not true. It failed because the bond was too far-reaching and too expensive for the size of our community.

I do not consider it “a spirit of compromise” when the board rushes the vote for a part-one bond of $47.7 million. Once the decision was made not to put the bond on the February ballot, why rush to vote? Is it because a new board member who might ask some pointed questions is about to join the board? Is it because a wait might actually encourage community input? Where were the community meetings for this proposed bond? 

Last Wednesday was a specially called meeting to vote on the bond. “The public is encouraged to attend,” the notice said. But the public was not invited to speak at this short, 45-minute meeting until after the vote was taken.

I know this board has worked hard and is dedicated. I know their job is to do what is best for the schools. Sometimes people need to step back and look around to see the whole picture and ask, “Is this also best for the community as a whole? How will the largeness of the first phase of the bond affect people’s budgets? What about phase two?” 

Yes, we have to take care of our children, but we do not help families when we cause living expenses to rise substantially.

If the most important need is a new high school building, then let’s build that one building now, for less than $20 million. After that is built, let’s together decide where to go from there.

— Hilary Emmer

Tourism

It could have negative impacts for the Island

Vashon Islands’ economy is suffering from both cyclical and structural trends. There have been many suggestions to improve the economy. The fix proposed by the Vashon Chamber of Commerce to develop Vashon into a tourist mecca has serious unintended consequences that need to be overtly recognized and weighed by the chamber members and the community before proceeding. The incident of many of these costs of an expanded tourist economy will fall on Islanders not reaping the benefits of the increase in tourists. A full-blown economic and social impact study should be undertaken by the chamber before launching its advertising campaign.

Many of these costs were brought out at the public meeting last week. Two examples:

The lack of tourist infrastructure, such as available beaches and parking access, will cause a severe negative impact on KVI Beach Island users and neighborhood property owners.

The increase in the number of houses in the vacation rental market has affected the lower-income housing market availability. There are many young Vashon residents whose first rental was the vacant beach cabin. Expansion of tourism will generally raise rents at all levels, including small business space.

Local Island businesses are indeed suffering in today’s downturn, and the best shot in the arm for local shopkeepers is for all Islanders to focus their holiday shopping here at home and forgo the box stores as a Beachcomber editorial suggested. This year is a very critical time for many of our Island businesses.

A most critical need in my mind is to improve loan availability to small businesses and home buyers on the Island. All of our savings and deposits go into global banks, but accessing credit for inventory here at home is more and more difficult and a most important cause of business failure.

Maybe the chamber should focus on developing a local bank or a local branch of a credit union where Islanders’ savings can be put to work locally. Without more adequate credit opportunities, local small business entrepreneurship is not sustainable.

— Jack Churchill

Thanks to council for a thoughtful forum

I would like to commend Vashon-Maury Island Community Council — Hilary Emmer and Chris Beck, in particular — for hosting the community forum on the Chamber of Commerce’s plan for advancing tourism on Vashon.  With the exception of one individual, everyone gave articulate, intelligent, impassioned and occasionally funny opinions on both sides of this important issue. Thank you all for attending!

As to the plan, I would also like to commend the Vashon Chamber of Commerce for including everyone in their planning. A major topic of the evening was the “branding” of Vashon Island. Thank you for listening to everyone’s concerns. 

In the past I do not recall anyone having public meetings or focus groups before launching the “Keep Vashon Weird” bumper sticker or before portraying Vashon as a great place to ride your motorcycle for Motorcycle Sunday or a great place to ride your bicycle for bicycle weekends or a great place to buy art for the Art Tour or pottery for the Pottery Tour or a great place to ride your horse for equestrian events. My point is, every activity anyone undertakes on the Island affects all of us.  We are all “branded” by the activities that occur here. We may not all agree on the way we are portrayed, but it is Vashon, it is us.

I am confident that with their effort to listen, the Chamber of Commerce will represent all of our varied interests well. I look forward to a subtle, intelligent campaign — and just a few extra tourists during the winter months.

— Truman O’Brien

Dancing

Administrators should have enforced the rules

In regard to the dancing issue, I think the school administrators owe the students an apology. For a number of years, grinding has been tolerated, for whatever reason, by the powers that be. A precedent was established for this style of dancing. Administrators ought to acknowledge they were remiss in not enforcing existing school policy regarding sexually explicit dancing. If they had enforced the rule, then all this grief could have been avoided.

— Anne Moses

Adults shouldn’t tell teens how to dance

Although I personally find “grinding” to be distasteful, I am far more disappointed by the views expressed by my friends Marcy Summers, Tim McTighe and others — that we need to take away from our high school students the choice of how they dance.

Mr. McTighe wrongly likens “grinding” to porn, which is exactly the sort of indecency arguments that got Chuck Berry and other early rock ’n’ roll musicians arrested.

No doubt, many letters to the editor back then also claimed that they “know it when they see it” and so they supported those, now clearly ridiculous, arrests.

Rock ’n’ roll is not porn, and neither is grinding. Period. And then my friend Marcy Summers summarily states that “grinding” is “disrespectful, exploitative and unhealthy.” Again, I’m sure that if we looked back at letters in newspapers from the ’50s and ’60s we’d find many letters that used those exact same words to describe our dancing at the time.

It is disappointing to see us repeating our parents’ mistakes and using our personal reactions to justify taking lifestyle choices away from our high school students.

In the end, it is absurd and wrong that we are telling young men and women who are mature enough to drive and apply to colleges and soon vote, that they are not mature enough to choose how to dance.

— Scott J. Engelhard

Island businesses

Some do a great job; others don’t

We continually read that Islanders should use the businesses on Vashon. We are writing to provide insight about this from one Island family. Most businesses that we visit are friendly and professional and provide great customer service. But those businesses that we hire to come to our home to work are a different story.

We hired a gardener who didn’t show up.

We hired a handyman who showed up drunk. We told him not to do it again; he did, so we asked him not to come back.

We asked for an estimate for our heating system; the company’s person showed up and went over our requirements, never to be heard from again. Called another one and did not receive a call back for at least a week.

We had a locksmith rekey our locks; they had to be rekeyed because the work was substandard.

We called a plumber several times; the calls were never returned.

We asked a home designer to help us hang a heavy wall hanging. The designer put two large holes in my wall before the person was asked to leave.

We had construction work done. It was excellent, but unfortunately extra work was done without our consent, and they expected payment for it.

We had a painting done; it was not finished within the timeline and about 40 percent had to be repainted by us.

We want to be able to use the businesses on Vashon because we understand the importance, especially in this economy. And we know that these businesses are not representative of all. But unfortunately they do represent some of the more important functions that we residents need.

We love Vashon and want our businesses to thrive, so we want to encourage our businesses to do the following:

Show up when you say you will be there. Consumers do not want to hear you are on “Island time.”

Complete the work on time and on budget.

Call when the schedule changes.

Back up your work.

— Renee and Terry Lynden