Islanders who attended a recent Vashon-Maury Island Community Council general membership meeting voted against two motions that would have extended the town’s only sewer district.

In a 13-17 vote, Islanders defeated a motion to extend the sewer district north to 160th so that homeowners with failing septics could hook up. A second motion, providing access to the sewer lines to a handful of properties bisected by the sewer district boundary, failed on a near-unanimous vote, said Hilary Emmer, a member of the council’s executive board.

None of the homeowners affected by either motion attended the meeting, Emmer noted. Their absence, she said, “swayed the vote.”