This week, we’ve published a page 1 article that begins to explain a topic that has seen a lot of discussion on local social media pages in the past week or so — King County’s new proposed zoning changes for Vashon Town.

The article also details some other elements of a draft of King County’s Comprehensive Plan, as it pertains to our island — and we’ll continue to dig into this complex but very important subject.

What’s needed this week, we felt, were solid facts — because, on social media, people already have seemed to form pretty strong opinions about the whole thing, minus those facts.

That’s why we’re here. That’s why it’s good to have a newspaper on Vashon.

This week, we went to press a day ahead of schedule, on Monday instead of Tuesday, due to the Fourth of July holiday.

It’s a quirk of the calendar we’re grateful for, though we hope we won’t be interrupted on our holiday break with news of brush fires, injuries, or other unfortunate consequences of the boisterous holiday.

We also hope our extremely hard-working local firefighters and EMTs will have an uneventful holiday, too — they deserve that after their hard work on two recent residential fires on Vashon, and other calls for assistance that have come in fast and hard, along with the summer weather.

It’s always worth pointing out the obvious: our fire service professionals are on their own when islanders need them most: mutual aid from other fire departments is always about an hour away from our ferry-dependent town. We owe our first responders an endless debt of gratitude for their work in keeping us safe.

We owe many others our thanks too — especially those who volunteer their time to build an infrastructure of community connection and support on Vashon.

Readers will no doubt notice that The Beachcomber is still amplifying the work of VashonBePrepared each week in our paper — a practice we began back in the darkest days of the COVID-19 pandemic, when the organization mobilized response teams to help our isolated island survive, and even thrive, during the public health crisis.

Factual information about the virus, vetted by experts, was vital to finding our way through the pandemic years, but now that we are — at least for now — on the other side of that, VashonBePrepared hasn’t gone away.

The organization’s vital work continues to remind islanders how to respond to new and old threats — everything from that earthquake we are overdue for, to overheating in the summer sun, to dealing with wildfire smoke.

VashonBePrepared makes us more resilient, and strong.

The same thing is true for the Vashon-Maury Community Council — a local body that draws big crowds to its monthly meetings to discuss all the issues facing our community.

The current list is long: our affordable housing crisis, new zoning changes proposed by King County, post office problems, rising water levels, reduced ferry service, health care issues, struggling local businesses, and more.

The Council provides a remarkable forum for islanders to receive factual information and become involved in these issues, and we salute the tiny cadre of volunteers who attend to the infrastructure of the council — keeping the minutes, setting the agenda, inviting guests, and fielding questions, complaints and demands from members.

Their very hard work deserves recognition, but more than that, they need help.

Our Ferry Advisory Committee is another body that deserves islanders’ recognition and participation, as its members attempt to sort out the absolute mess our ferry service has become. It will take more well-informed islanders, getting involved and speaking up, to make a dent in this problem.

It’s easy to opine and complain— but much more difficult to truly make a difference. Keeping our island community strong, connected, and well-informed requires diligence, the gathering of solid facts, and boots on the ground.

Think about it — how can you help?