As all of you should know by now, our ferry system is badly broken. The governor and Legislature should never have let it get into this condition, but they did, and it does no good to rehash what should have been done.

The questions now are what we can do to save what is left of the ferry system and how we can minimize the adverse impacts the measures proposed by Gov. Chris Gregoire will have on our lives.

The proposed measures involve reducing service, raising fares and establishing a ferry district with a new layer of bureaucracy empowered to raise our taxes. Thus, as a community that is totally dependent on the ferry system, these measures will not only force us to suffer the same severe cuts in education, social services and a variety of other areas as everyone else in the state, they will impose on us two more levels of expense that the rest of the state, outside of other ferry-using communities, will not have to share. In turn, these will, directly or indirectly, adversely affect everyone on Vashon through reduced services and increased expenses for goods and services.

Since the governor has punted this problem to the Legislature, our challenge is to determine how we can help mitigate the impact on our Island and ourselves over both the short and long terms. Over the past several months, the Vashon-Maury Island Community Council’s Transportation Committee has been working with the ferry caucus in the Legislature to develop a strategy that focuses on “One Washington,” where all of us, statewide, share in the benefits and costs of the entire transportation system. We are also working with other ferry-using communities to develop the ways and means to implement such a strategy.

The first step involved the circulation of petitions to the governor and Legislature and requesting people to write the governor with their opinions of her proposed measures. We collected over 4,000 signatures on Vashon. When Vashon’s signatures are combined with those of other communities, we expect somewhere between 8,000 and 10,000 signatures to soon be delivered to Olympia. And if all who said they would write a letter did so, Gregoire has a pile of letters on her desk.

The next steps involve lobbying individual legislators, not ours, as they are very supportive of this effort. We need to have a cadre to lobby those legislators from other areas of the state to ensure they understand the problems we are facing. We also need people who are willing to testify before the appropriate committees over the next couple of months, often on short notice. To ensure that we are conveying the same message and doing it in a proper manner, training will be offered and talking points provided.

If this effort to mitigate the impacts of Gregoire’s proposals or come up with a reasonable statewide plan is to have any possibility of success, it needs to be a community-wide effort.

Bluntly put, if the community is unwilling to step up and get involved in the fight to save a system that is vital to our personal, social and economic well-being, why should those few of us —about nine in number — who have been involved in the fight for a number of years continue to bear the burden?

— Joe Ulatoski is a member of the VMICC’s Transportation Committee.

To participate in lobbying efforts, sign up at the Chamber of Commerce office or contact Kari Ulatoski at kulatosk@fhcrc.org or 567-0587.