Page 8 WWW.VASHONBEACHCOMBER.COM Wednesday, October 6, 2010 • Vashon-Maury Island Beachcomber

Animals come to us… Abandoned, insecure, fearful and sometimes injured or sick.VIPP provides… Protection, love, stability, strength, structure, positive reinforcement and positive training.Animals go out to their new homes… with love, con� dence and optimism. They relax and open up and their individual personality appears.Adoption and fostering are very rewarding… These animals bring joy, laughter and companion-ship into your home.Thank you Vashon for support of VIPP and the animals taken in. The animals are cared for by the organization.

Advertising written and photographed by Cindy Koch, who fostered Teddy and many

other VIPP animals.

More animals and information atwww.vipp.org

Give a Pet a Home!

Happy Tails

TeddyEddy, nka (now known as) Teddy, the border collie came to us when he kept

running away from home. We located the owners who knew he wasn’t happy and were trying to � nd him a new home. We o� ered to help.

How this dog could run away was beyond me, as we could hardly get him to leave our porch, even to go play on the beach. We had to lure him with his beloved tennis ball and even then, he would turn and try to go back every 20 steps or so.

We didn’t get to keep this beautiful guy long. A couple right here on Vashon fell in love with him and grabbed him up quick. They are together all the time and the husband exclaims, “She hasn’t been this excited about anything since the kids were home”. She shows him o� to her friends, pampers him, he sleeps in the house … ah-h-h-h it’s a dog’s life! As it should be! We love you Teddy.

Boat arsonNewspaper article was one-sided

I’m writing to express my concern with an article in The Beachcomber, “Island Man charged with arson for Christmas Day fire on his sailboat” (Sept. 29), which was written in such a one-sided manner it ensures Lyman Houghton will be deemed guilty by the Vashon community before he is given an opportunity to defend him-self in a court of law.

I believe the information was presented in a biased way that failed to include other perspec-tives that may have presented a different under-standing of what actually occurred.

The boat that burned was Mr. Houghton’s home, which contained many of his belongings and was where his daughters visited him on a weekly basis. The fire left him with nowhere to live and nowhere to have his daughters visit. It was devastating to him.

The Beachcomber article made it sound like Mr. Houghton contacting the insurance com-pany the day after the fire was a crime in itself. Who wouldn’t have made that call to let an insurance agent know such an incident took place? I certainly would have.

Mr. Houghton’s contract with King County gave him a wide range of responsibilities, including looking out for unlawful activities in Dockton Park. The record shows he was assaulted twice after having turned a number of people in and that there was a previous arson at Dockton Park that remains a mystery to this day. Mr. Houghton has no prior record and has never been convicted of anything.

Time will tell what really happened on Christmas Day 2009. In the meantime, we must be careful to not condemn people in the press but rather leave the determination of guilt or innocence where it belongs — with our criminal justice system.

— Lisa Peyer

I grew up in a family that did not practice a religion, but whenever the weather allowed, my parents knelt on the earth, planting seeds, weeding or harvesting. Although I did not then understand their actions as a form of prayer, I do now.

Some of my first memories are of crawling through my parents’ vegetable garden tasting and smelling the bounty growing in their neatly kept rows. Before I learned to speak, I was digging in the dirt and tossing compost into the bin.

As I grew older, I spent hours lifting up rocks to observe insect life and rare-ly tired of picking berries. Never did I imagine, however, that gardens would become a leitmotif of not only my life but my art practice as well.

In 2003 I was hired to create and teach interdisciplinary arts courses at the University of Washington Tacoma. My new colleagues advised me to look for a home on Vashon Island. They felt it would be a good fit, and it has been.

This year I am experiencing my first paid sabbatical, after more than three decades of teaching all over the conti-nent. While most people might imagine that professors go away to do research somewhere exotic, I’m doing my cre-ative work right here on my own island. It is an extraordinary privilege to slow down and really feel the texture and

pulse of where I live.

As part of this year’s artistic jour-ney, I’ve developed a project that will hopefully give back to the community for

years to come. UW’s Royalty Research Foundation has awarded me a grant to create a community-based, eco-art project, and I’m excited to invite the community of gardeners and farm-ers to be participate in this new work titled “Eden Reframed: Gleaning Abundance.”

Inspired by the work of Vashon Island’s non-profit SEEDS (or Social Ecology Education and Demonstration School), which is currently funded by the Harris and Frances Block Foundation to do a soil remediation project on the south end of the Island, I conceived of a project that involved collecting the stories of gardeners and farmers and placing those stories in interactive sculptures surrounding a meditation garden.

Although the original site for my proj-ect has changed and the future site for the eco-art is still in discussion, it is now the season to collect stories. My per-maculture design consultants will assist in the restoration of the land once the

site is confirmed, and we will disclose more about the project at that time.

As part of this eco-art project, we will build sculptural “story hives” to hold the stories we collect. My collaborator Shahreyar Ataie and I will collect stories like pollen, fill the “combs” with excerpts of those stories and offer up this “honey” to the visitors in the garden.

Tory benches with text burned and carved onto their surfaces will be placed where visitors can rest and con-template the garden and a video will be created so that visitors from afar can enjoy the stories and garden on the web.

We are curious to learn what inspires the people who plant seeds and how they relate to their work as a spiritual practice. We will ask gardeners and farmers what gives them a sense of future, what mystery guides them in the garden and what about the work of growing food and plants heals them.

During a time when many aspects of our world are undergoing dramatic change, it is important to be reminded about what gives our neighbors faith in the future. The harvest of “Eden Reframed” will be available to everyone who visits the eco-art site for years to come.

— Beverly Naidus is an artist, author and professor at the University of

Washington Tacoma

PUBLIC ARTBy BEVERLY NAIDUS

Eco-art will tell stories of farmers and gardners

Get involvedIf you are interested in participating in “Eden Reframed,” contact Beverly Naidus at edenreframed@gmail.com.

It will also explore the spirituality of planting seeds in the earth.

Page 8 www.vashonbeachcomber.com� Wednesday,�October�13,�2010�•�Vashon-Maury�Island�Beachcomber

Animals come to us… Abandoned, insecure, fearful and sometimes injured or sick.VIPP provides… Protection, love, stability, strength, structure, positive reinforce-ment and positive training.Animals go out to their new homes… with love, con� dence and optimism. They relax and open up and their individual personality appears.Adoption and fostering are very rewarding… These animals bring joy, laughter and companionship into your home.

Thank you Vashon for support of VIPP and the animals taken in.The animals are cared for by the organization.

More animals and information at www.vipp.org. Give a Pet a Home!

Advertising written and photographed by Cindy Koch, who fostered Hank the Beagle

and many other VIPP animals.

Happy Tails: Hank the BeagleThis 30 lb. pistol immediately announced his stature was NOT small, and to

demonstrate he dove right into the 130 lb. masti� ’s food bowl and grabbed him by the lip! Ooops! World War III right in my kitchen. Ok, no serious injuries, let’s try this again.

Cute as a bu� on, this li� le guy starts ge� ing calls right away. One came from an athletic young woman who loves beagles and wanted a hiking companion. Wonderful! She has a small fenced yard with a doggie door and a roommate with a dog, so Hank won’t be lonely. We go for the home visit and out dashes a huge pitbull to greet him. She has no collar and nothing to grab onto, but she does have a heavy cast on one leg from an injury. My hands are full with Hank, and I feel him sti� en and see his li� le lips start to twitch, � ashing his pre� y li� le white teeth. I instinctively stick my leg out to protect the pitbull, and am immediately knocked over, smacked soundly with the cast, kissed in the face by this friendly pitbull named Angel, all the while holding a snapping li� le beagle at arm’s length away from her. So much for positive � rst impressions!

We dusted o� , reorganized, showed Hank the toy basket which he loved, and turned him loose to explore. Jenny assured me she could work through the “introduction” and “food issues”, and she wanted to keep him for a trial. Thirty days later they are inseparable, he and Angel are good friends…and life is oh so good. Whew! You go Hankster!

ability. While the simulated Seattle Fault tremor would no doubt wreak havoc on Vashon, recent research has shown that a similar fault poses an even greater threat to Vashon due to its close proximity to the Island.

A study completed by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) in April simulated an earthquake on the Tacoma Fault. While both the Seattle and Tacoma faults run close to the Earth’s surface and are capable of producing large quakes, the Tacoma Fault has strands that run directly through south-ern Vashon and Maury Island. Researchers found that in the event of a magnitude 7.1 quake on the fault, Vashon, along with parts of the Kitsap Peninsula, would experience the region’s most severe shaking.

Joan Gomberg, a USGS geologist who took part in the study, said that although the fault looks as though it has broken several times in the past, the last known quake it experienced was 1,100 years ago. And although earthquakes are dif-ficult to predict, it isn’t likely to shake again anytime soon.

When it does, however, the sub-sequent damage on Vashon would likely be far more extensive than that of a Seattle Fault quake.

“If there was an earthquake on the Seattle Fault, you’d certainly get shaken up, but you wouldn’t be quite smack in the red zone,” Gomberg explained. Shaking

from the Tacoma Fault, however, would be strong enough to topple buildings on Vashon.

William Steele, a spokesman for the Pacific Northwest Seismic Network, compared the Tacoma Fault scenario to Vashon’s most recent large earthquake, the Nisqually quake of 2001. He said shaking from an earthquake cen-tered on the Tacoma Fault near Vashon would be stronger than Nisqually and last for about three minutes instead of 20 seconds.

“Vashon looks clobbered,” he said as he referenced a shake map that shows the Island as one of the hardest hit areas. “If you’re in cen-tral Vashon, you’ll be very close to the rupture when it does break. You’ll get very strong shaking. … There’s going be a lot of damage.”

Steele said the Tacoma Fault earthquake is certainly a worst-case scenario for the Island. However, like the Seattle Fault quake simu-lated in the SoundShake exercise, it’s not a likely scenario. “The probability of that occurring is a 5 percent chance in the next 50 years,” he said, something to pre-pare for but not to count on.

The chance that the Island will experience a less severe, Nisqually-like earthquake in the same time period, however, is 87 percent. “That’s almost a sure thing,” he

said. Unlike a tremor from the Seattle

or Tacoma faults, a Nisqually-style quake occurs deep below the Earth’s surface. Thus, while the magnitude can be high, like the 6.8 Nisqually, its waves are sup-pressed by about 30 miles of rock, resulting in far less shaking and damage on the surface.

USGS geologist Brian Atwater said these earthquakes, which are comparatively small but still cause millions of dollars of dam-age, are the most common in the Puget Sound region. Before the Nisqually quake of 2001, similar ones occurred in 1965 and 1949.

“The most frequent threat is the most tolerable, … and it’s the one for which society has more or less taken precaution,” he said.

However, Atwater said, either type of earthquake could trigger another problem that would be of particular concern to Vashon. The shaking from a quake or sub-sequent landslides could trigger a tsunami in the Puget Sound.

“Not just any earthquake will succeed in making a tsunami, ... but it’s important for people to know that is in this area’s history,” Atwater said.

In the USGS’s Tacoma Fault earthquake simulation, research-ers estimated that a magnitude 7.1 quake on the fault could generate a tsunami that would raise water as much as 12 feet in some parts of Vashon in a matter of minutes, with the swiftest waves rushing into Quartermaster Harbor.

Rick Wallace, vice president of VashonBePrepared, said the organization takes the threat of

tsunamis seriously. However, the multitude of variables involved in a tsunami makes its effects more difficult to predict than that of an earthquake.

A tsunami could damage one or both of Vashon’s ferry docks and even take out facilities the Island depends on, Wallace said. However, he believes the biggest concern are the many waterfront homes on the Island that would be struck by a giant wave and float-ing debris. “Anybody who lives on the water would be concerned about that,” he said.

Wallace said VashonBePrepared volunteers learned of USGS’s recent findings related to the Tacoma Fault as it was preparing for this year’s SoundShake exercise.

The facts that SoundShake par-ticipants worked with, such as the percent of Island homes dam-aged and the number of residents injured, were based on a 2005 study in which USGS geologists helped the organization estimate the effects that four different Puget Sound-area earthquakes could have on Vashon.

Wallace said the damage from the newly studied Tacoma Fault earth-quake scenario would be at least as severe, if not worse, than the earth-quakes that VashonBePrepared examined. “If you had a 7.1 that basically was centered across the middle of the Island, the shaking we be so devastating, we would have horrific consequences on the Island,” he said.

Wallace said the organization would consider the USGS’s find-ings in its future planning. He said the organization could even

use the scenario in a future pre-paredness exercise, although he believes Vashon’s response would be very similar to the one it just practiced.

Fire Chief Hank Lipe said some of the greatest challenges in any earthquake scenario are the huge task of assessing the damage to the Island’s infrastructure and the possible need for the Island to be self-sustaining until it received aid from King County.

“I think we made tremendous progress in our resource acquisi-tion, supplies request and identi-fying supplies we’re going to be needing if we become isolated and how to acquire those supplies. … If we’re cut off from the mainland we’re going to have to be pretty self-sufficient on the Island for three to five days,” Lipe said.

The fact that Vashon is an island has driven its residents to consider the real possibility of being cut off from the mainland in the case of an earthquake and to take disaster preparedness seriously, Lipe said. He is comforted by what he sees, from the multitude of volunteers with VashonBePrepared and sim-ilar organizations, to the families that have equipped themselves to better withstand an emergency.

“Historically, disasters play havoc on any community,” Lipe said. “The communities that are most prepared tend to recover quicker.”

earthquakeCONTINUED FROM 1

To learn more about emergency preparedness on Vashon, visit www.vashonbeprepared.org.

“If�you’re�in�central�Vashon,�you’ll�be�very�close�to�the�rupture�when�it�does�break.”

William�Steele,�spokesman,�Pacific�Northwest�Seismic�Network

Page 8 www.vashonbeachcomber.com� Wednesday,�October�20,�2010�•�Vashon-Maury�Island�Beachcomber

Animals come to us… Abandoned, insecure, fearful and sometimes injured or sick.VIPP provides… Protection, love, stability, strength, structure, positive reinforce-ment and positive training.Animals go out to their new homes… with love, con� dence and optimism. They relax and open up and their individual personality appears.Adoption and fostering are very rewarding… These animals bring joy, laughter and companionship into your home.

Thank you Vashon for support of VIPP and the animals taken in.The animals are cared for by the organization.

More animals and information at www.vipp.org. Give a Pet a Home!

Advertising written and photographed by Cindy Koch, who fostered Maddie

and many other VIPP animals.

Happy Tails: MaddieSweet, sleepy, lovable 9 year old Maddie came to us

when she lost her owner to an illness. She didn’t realize this foster home was actually a spa, but she quickly and happily joined our routine of daily romps on the beach, followed up with baby shampoos, conditioners, topped o� with towel massages and naps in the sun. Ummmmm!

Still, she was thrilled to go home with a loving couple who wanted an older dog to love and care for. I hear she is still ge� ing her long walk every day and she doesn’t have to share her “people” with anyone but a cat. Truly, I think she does resent the cat a li� le, but they seem to be working it out. All the best to you li� le Maddie!

Thomas�F.�BangasserAge: 67Occupation: Business consultant

What should Vashon Island look like in the year 2050? What we do today, as a community, will become the legacy that we leave to our children and grandchildren. Will our forests, farms and shorelines sur-vive; our educational systems be first rate and adequately funded; our seniors appro-priately cared for; our water potable; our town economically viable/sustainable; etc?

Here on Vashon, our unincorporated area community council is our local gover-nance and is primarily responsible to iden-tify, analyze and reconcile those economic, social and environmental challenges that face us. Currently our council lacks any cohesive community-based agenda and operates without a board of directors (con-trary to both state law and our bylaws). It is the prime responsibility of our elected board of directors to: 1. identify and set

our agenda(s); 2. recommend appropriate priorities and committees to accomplish those objectives; and 3. operate in an open, transparent and accountable manner.

As your new community council-man, the Bangasser agenda will be quite simple and inclusive: Identify the critical issues facing this community through the “Vision 2050 Campaign” (see www.ban-gasser.org), present pro/con findings to the community through committee reports at general meetings, allocate the neces-sary resources (time, talent and treasure) necessary to thoroughly vet and resolve each issue and annually prepare a written “State of the Island” report. Recently many have become distracted with “governance;” however, the real challenge is to focus our vision towards the future — be inclusive and proactive while conforming with the open public meetings, public records, growth management and nonprofit corpo-ration acts.

Vote Bangasser for community council-man. He has lived here for almost 20 years, owns his own business, was past president of the Chamber of Commerce, serves as trustee/treasurer of Vashon College, is a member of Rotary and has served on numerous community council committees.

Hilary�EmmerAge: 60Occupation: Tax preparer, community activist

I have served on the board and have been the treasurer since 2008. I am also a member of the Outreach Committee. Since 2009, the Outreach Committee has strived to keep the community informed of all council business. We now have an e-mail list of more than 325 people. We

arranged for the Island-wide free recy-cling at McFeeds. This was so successful; 25 24-foot trucks left the Island with our computers, metal and appliances.

I helped organize the four forums for the council. Because of the “Talking Trash” forum, our newspapers have become part of the “mixed” paper. This actually makes it easier for us to recycle and saves money for the county.

But to me what was best about each of the different forums was that real conver-sations that took place. People were ener-gized. The way our general meetings are currently run, we have no conversations on issues other than the motions before us. I hope to change that. I would like to see the forum style be part of our regular council meetings. We need the space and time to discuss whatever is important to us Islanders at the time.

I would like to see the community council go back to our roots and be really independent of King County. We need to take more control of our Island concerns. While I agree with the importance of the Public Records Act, I do not believe that volunteers of a non-profit should be held to the same standards as government entities with paid staff. I feel that being subject to this act has kept many good people away from the council.

I would like the opportunity to be part of the group that helps form our new direction of goals and governance.

Jake�JacobovitchAge: 50Occupation: Engineer

I am running for a position on the Vashon-Maury Island Community Council board to help right the ship and have it

sailing smoothly again. I am a straight-forward, plain-talking, hard-working, and problem-solving “everyman” who focuses on being accessible, responsive and accountable. During my 34 years liv-ing on the Island, some of the boards that I have served on are the School District, Park District, Vashon Youth Baseball & Softball, Vashon Island Junior Basketball, Washington State Ferry Advisory Committee, Puget Sound Regional Council Growth Management Policy Board, Island (Arsenic) Remediation and Public Participation Center, as well as on King County Council task forces on cell tower proliferation and code enforcement.

I also served on the VMICC for seven years at the turn of the century, two years as chair of the Land Use and Natural Resources committee, two years as vice president and three years as president. The VMICC was vibrant, relevant and addressed issues important to our com-munity, as indicated by the average par-ticipation of 81 people per monthly general meeting through my last three years as president and the fully functioning and well-attended sub-committee meetings, where the real work is done.

I have witnessed the effectiveness and influence of the VMICC in advocating for our community’s wishes as expressed by our community in an open public forum after much dialogue, education, discus-sion, negotiation, consensus and a vote. Sometimes the waters got stormy, the way dark and the stars were not out. I held the compass and helped keep us on course. We always found our way. The VMICC will have a mostly new crew coming on board in December, and I am willing to hold the compass once again, as needed.

10 candidates seek nine seats on Vashon’s community council boardeditor’s noteBallots for the 10 candidates running for nine seats on the Vashon-Maury Island Community Council (VMICC) will be mailed to Island residents Thursday, Oct. 21. Islanders can also vote online by visiting www.vmicc.org/elections/. Ballots must be postmarked by Nov. 2. Or drop ballots off at any of the three bank branches or at The Beachcomber’s office.What follows are the candidates state-ments submitted to the VMICC, edited very lightly and only for grammar or style. Every candidate submitted a statement by VMICC’s deadline except Steve Luhr. The candidates’ statements appear in alphabetical order.

Page 8 www.vashonbeachcomber.com� Wednesday,�October�27,�2010�•�Vashon-Maury�Island�Beachcomber

Animals come to us… Abandoned, insecure, fearful and sometimes injured or sick.VIPP provides… Protection, love, stability, strength, structure, positive reinforcement and positive training.Animals go out to their new homes… with love, con� dence and optimism. They relax and open up and their individual personality appears.Adoption and fostering are very rewarding… These animals bring joy, laughter and companionship into your home.Thank you Vashon for support of VIPP and the animals taken in. The animals are cared for by the organization.

More animals and informationat www.vipp.org

Give a Pet a Home!Advertising written and photographed by Cindy Koch,

who fostered Hank and many other VIPP animals.

Happy Tails: HankSometimes we adopt the dog. Sometimes it seems the dog

adopts us. Hank joined us when he kept running o� to visit with ferry-goers at Tahlequah. He was gorgeous and fun, loved running on our beach, and we loved him. Then our wood working expert, Ron Albers, came to re� nish some doors. Hank would quietly plop down to spend the day si� ing beside him. Every evening when Ron left, Hank would sit in the driveway, watching him go. The doors were nearly � nished when Ron and Hank came to talk to me. I looked from one to the other … well, what’s one to do? Hank went for a sleep over about 4 months ago and now we only see him when Ron brings him along on workdays. When asked how it was going, Ron replied, “Every day this dog amazes me. I love this dog.” A man and his dog … the best!

expected to be charged on Wednesday. The woman, 19, was released Saturday afternoon. The Beachcomber does not publish the names of people arrested until they have been charged.

Among the goods found in the home were chainsaws, hedge-trimmers, a power-washer, DVD players, computer equipment, jew-elry and leather coats. Beringer estimated that the goods represent “several thousand dollars worth of merchandise.”

The investigation into Vashon’s spate of burglaries is ongoing, he said. The man, he said, is believed to be a key player in some but not all of the break-ins. Asked if there will be more arrests, Beringer answered, “I’m surmising there will be.”

The couple had been living in a home near the Vashon Municipal Airport along with a few other people until September, when Joe Wald, a neighbor, confronted them. Wald, the son of a retired Seattle Police Department officer, called the King County Sheriff ’s Office after he had an altercation with one of the residents — the man just arrested — over how fast he was driving on the small gravel road near Wald’s home.

Two days after a deputy responded to Wald’s call, officers were back at the house with an arrest warrant on an unrelated matter for one of the residents — and, in the process, found several

items that had been taken from two Vashon film-makers a couple of weeks before.

Wald, meanwhile, knew that the owner of the house was out of the country, so he tracked down her adult son to let him know what was happening at his mother’s home. The adult son, Wald said, “was on the next ferry” and, with Wald, told the five adults in the house to leave.

Two left on foot, one on a bicy-cle and two in a car, Wald said. A sixth man — the one just arrest-ed — arrived later that night to collect some belongings; he, too, was told he wasn’t welcome at the home, Wald said.

Wald said he was determined to stand up to the household. “I felt I had a couple of choices. One was to be scared in my own home. The other was to make them scared,” he said.

Several break-ins, meanwhile, continued to plague the Island last week, before Friday’s arrest. Susan McCabe, program director at the Vashon Park District, said thieves broke into the Burton Skate Park last Tuesday, where they took a projector. A break-in was also attempted at the park district’s office at Ober Park.

And Gib Dammann, who heads the buildings and grounds com-mittee at the Episcopal Church of the Holy Spirit, said some-one attempted to break into the church; two doors and a window were damaged in the process.

Wald said he believes the rash is nearing its end.

“Hopefully, they’ll make a few more arrests real soon,” he added.

arrestCONTINUED FROM 1

Crime�conversation�continuesThe conversation about crime on Vashon that began at a community forum last week will continue tomorrow at another public meeting devoted to discussing the growing number of burglaries and home invasions on the Island.Dan O’Brien, who organized Monday’s crime forum, planned the next meeting, on Thursday, Oct. 28, to coincide with the regular meeting of the Vashon-Maury Island Community Council’s public safety committee. O’Brien said he has heard that many Islanders appreciated last week’s meeting, but felt it wasn’t enough. “I think we made a start in the first meeting,” he said. “I want to continue the discussion.”Sgt. Calvin Beringer, Vashon’s administrative sergeant based in the Burien precinct of the King County Sheriff’s Office, will again attend the meeting and give an update on the agency’s investigation into the recent string of burglaries on Vashon. Beringer will also continue to discuss crime pre-vention strategies. O’Brien believes the meetings themselves will work to deter crime by making criminals aware Islanders are commit-ted to keeping Vashon safe. The second Vashon Says No to Crime meeting will be held at Vashon Island Fire & Rescue’s main station on Bank Road at 7 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 28.

State�panel�proposes�2.5�percent�ferry�fare�hike

The state Transportation Com- mission has proposed a 2.5 percent increase in ferry fares.

The increase was recommend-ed by the ferries division within the Washington State Department of Transportation and forwarded to the seven-member commission, which sets ferry fares. The com-mission is currently seeking public comment on the proposed fare hike, which will extend through Nov. 15, when the commission will hold a final public hearing in Seattle. The commission is expected to take action at the Seattle hearing.

The public can comment on the proposal by sending an e-mail to the state Transportation Commission at transc@wstc.wa.gov. Residents can also call the commission at (360) 705-7070 or write to it at P.O. Box 47308, Olympia, WA 98504.

County�says�aging�road�system�is�vulnerable�

A new assessment of King County’s transportation infrastruc-ture in the unincorporated areas shows that 30 to 40 percent of the roads are at risk of failure over the next decade and 28 bridges will need to be replaced in the next 30 years.

In the assessment handed over to the King County Council last week, along with a mid-biennium supplemental budget for the Roads Division, County Executive Dow

Constantine urged councilmembers to help ensure that road services and safety are maintained despite rapidly deteriorating infrastructure and shrinking revenues.

The new budget, however, does not contain any funds for Dockton Road along Tramp Harbor, con-sidered one of the most vulner-able spans in unincorporated King County. Nor is it in the county’s $217 million, six-year capital improvement program, said Paula Norman, acting director of the Roads Division.

“We do have a real concern, because we’ve identified this aging infrastructure, and Dockton is one of those that is at high risk of fail-ure,” Norman said.

The road will continue to be maintained as needed, she added. “Dockton road is safe but vulner-able,” she said.

Airport�commissioner�to�step�down�from�panel

Al Paxhia announced last week that he’s stepping down from the three-member commission over-seeing Vashon’s small municipal airport, a board he’s served on for the last 14 years.

Paxhia and his wife Deborah are moving to Arizona on Nov. 1, he said. The couple plans to split their time between Vashon and Arizona. He could continue to serve on the commission as a part-time resident, he said, “but it’s really not fair for me to be an absentee.”

Paxhia’s last meeting will be its January one. The commissioners, he added, haven’t decided how they’ll go about filling his position.

briefs