Post Office lobby hours improve

Following the closure of the Vashon Post Office lobby at night and on Sundays to reduce vandalism and theft, some relief is coming to post office customers looking for more flexible hours to pick up their mail.

The post office’s normal retail window hours (interior or retail lobby) are 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday through Friday, and 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Saturday. The post office is closed on Sunday.

The post office may open earlier and stay open later, however, as staffing allows, according to United States Postal Service (USPS) spokesperson Kim Frum.

The USPS announced earlier this month that the lobby, which had previously been open 24/7, would be closed outside of retail hours in order to reduce vandalism and increase security.

The Beachcomber previously incorrectly reported the hours of operation at the Vashon Post Office due to inaccurate information received from the USPS. A USPS spokesperson said the website hours previously listed for Vashon were incorrect and will be updated. We regret the error.

VIFR awarded $800k+ grant

Vashon Island Fire & Rescue Fire Chief Matt Vinci announced Monday that the agency has been awarded almost $825,000 from the Staffing for Adequate Fire and Emergency Response (SAFER) program.

The grant, administered by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), will fully cover the wages and benefits for two new career firefighter positions for three years.

The SAFER program is designed to provide funding directly to fire departments to help them increase or maintain the number of trained, front-line firefighters available in their communities.

“This successful grant award will allow us to fulfill one of our core goals in our strategic plan, which is to staff all four shifts with six career personnel,” Vinci said in a prepared statement.

VIFR currently stands at 22 firefighter/EMTs on staff, though one is on medical leave and the other soon will be attending the academy. The agency operates on a minimum of five staff per shift currently, Vinci said.

The funding will bring VIFR’s staffing up to 24, Vinci said, and he hopes to have the department capable of fielding six staff per shift as much as possible next year after the new hires graduate from the academy in June.

Having six staff on a shift is crucial, he said, because it means a team of two personnel can respond to an incident even if both other aid cars are tied up waiting at the ferry dock.

VIFR identified staffing as a priority in its August 2023 levy lid lift, stating on its website that with the additional revenue, the agency would increase staffing to a minimum of six full-time firefighter/EMTs per 24-hour shift, guaranteeing two teams of two at the Bank Road station and another team cross-staffed at the Burton Station.

“Could we get up to six [immediately] when the levy was passed? No,” Vinci said. ” … We’ve been working incrementally to get up six. … It was: We have a plan to get to six, the levy’s part of it, grant funding is part of it, (and) we have other major needs we’ve got to balance as we’re administering the new levy funds.”

VHS grad, UW student joins The Beachcomber

Aspen Anderson, a 2020 graduate of Vashon High School and recent journalism graduate at the University of Washington, joined The Beachcomber this week as a reporting intern.

At The Beachcomber, Anderson will write and report stories through mid-late October. Her time here is made possible through a collaboration between The Beachcomber’s parent company, Sound Publishing, and the Washington Newspaper Publishers Association.

Anderson is a young journalist who has already proved her mettle with bylines at Cascade PBS, The Beachcomber and other outlets. She has just returned from an internship at the Bangkok Post in Bangkok, Thailand.

We are excited (and more than a little relieved) to have Aspen join our team and help The Beachcomber share the stories of our island. Please give her a warm welcome!

Low-flying jets make for a noisy morning

Did aircraft noise wake you up early Thursday morning last week? It may have been due to a busy night at and around Joint Base Lewis-McChord.

The news was reported by the Tacoma News Tribune, which reported that between 6 p.m. Wednesday and 6 a.m. Thursday last week, residents in the Taoma and Lakewood areas were exposed to a confluence of different missions, according to 62nd Airlift Wing spokesperson Joe Kubistek — including tanker (refueling) aircraft, C-17s from the 62nd Airlift Wing and a pair of tired fighter crews.

“The noisiest was probably the pair of fighters that arrived around 5 a.m.,” according to the News Tribune.

At least one Vashon resident was awoken by the noise and wrote in to The Beachcomber about it, sharing that at least one aircraft, at one point, flew low heading north over the island.

Retired Triangle route ferry to be recycled in Ecuador

Two retired Washington State Ferries (WSF) vessels, one of which served Vashon for decades, will soon be pulled to South America to be recycled at an Ecuadorian steel mill.

Selling the ferries frees up docking space for WSF to focus on maintaining its current fleet, according to WSF Assistant Secretary Steve Nevey.

The vessels are the Elwha and the Klahowya, the latter of which served the Triangle route on Vashon for many years. Both were scheduled to begin being tugged to South America on Monday before equipment malfunction temporarily scuttled those plans, according to WSF.

The 144-car Elwha is one of four Super-class ferries built in the mid-1960s, according to WSF. It mainly served the Anacortes/Friday Harbor/Sidney, British Columbia route before being retired on April 8, 2020. Built in 1958, the 87-car Evergreen State-class Klahowya mainly served the Fauntleroy/Vashon/Southworth route. It moved to the San Juan Islands interisland run in 2014 and was decommissioned on July 1, 2017.

The vessels’ departure has been delayed due to a malfunction of towing equipment used by the prospective buyer, according to WSF. The vessels have returned to Eagle Harbor Maintenance Facility on Bainbridge Island for now.

The retired vessels sold for $100,000 each to Nelson Armas of Ecuador, according to WSF. The new owner plans to transport the ferries by tow for recycling at a clean, green steel mill facility in Ecuador.