By AMELIA HEAGERTY

Staff Writer

The community could eventually have a new high school theater and gym, if a committee headed by former Vashon Island School District board chair Susan Lofland and Vashon Park District board chair David Hackett has its way.

The committee was impaneled to work out the kinks between the two districts regarding publicly owned and community-used facilities — such as the Vashon High School gym, the McMurray Middle School field and Agren Park. These shared facilities, the Vashon Commons, are co-managed by the schools and the parks.

The committee’s report, issued last month, stated that the high school theater is little more than a “lecture hall with a stage,” lacking many fundamentals of a modern theater. The theater has a “highly limited backstage work and storage area,” limited wing space, no dressing rooms or backstage restrooms and no sound and light booth, the report added.

The ad-hod committee suggested a “functional high school theater,” with seating capacity similar to the existing theater, to be constructed on the south or west side of the current theater building. The report said it would not be feasible to remodel the existing theater. The new theater’s operational costs would be split by the school district and the arts community, most notably Vashon Allied Arts.

This is not the first time the arts community on Vashon has clamored for a higher quality theater. In fact, it’s been a decade-long battle to expand the performing arts space on Vashon.

Jason Everett, who headed Vashon Allied Arts (VAA) from 1998 to 2005, said he pushed for a better theater throughout his tenure at VAA but never saw the plan come to fruition.

“We just hadn’t convinced the community there was a need (for a theater),” Everett said. “If you’ve performed on that stage, you know what the problems are with it. If we made it look hard, then we wouldn’t be doing our job. That’s part of the challenge in making the case. But the artists — they absolutely understand.”

He said he’d still like to see the community pursue the construction of a new theater, or perhaps the transformation of existing space into a performing arts space. He said he’d love to see the newly proposed K2 Commons project take off, with a theater in its plans.

“I still think one of the best ways to do it is a partnership with the schools,” Everett said.

But the proposal comes at a difficult time for the school district, which is grappling with ongoing budget problems and a laundry list of needed repairs and enhancements to its aging buildings. And some question the legitimacy of the report’s recommendation, noting that the school district has far more immediate needs than a state-of-the-art community theater.

“I think more pressing issues are making sure there’s adequate classroom space and also … making sure we take care of what we have,” school board member Dan Chasan said. “I think focusing on what will be the most cost-effective rather than making an architectural statement is most important.”

The school district has also addressed this issue before. In 2005, the school district planned to take out a $73 million capital bond to make great structural strides, including a new theater, but the proposal lacked support and was never set before the voters, said Chasan, who chaired the board in 2005.

“The community really didn’t like the idea, nor did the board,” he said.

Hackett, who wrote the ad-hoc committee’s report, said the committee went through a months-long process before agreeing to the recommendations in the 19-page report and issuing it on Nov. 20.

“The whole point was to get the viewpoints of those who use the facilities and see where they stand, see how they viewed the operations and the agreement and the efficiency of the facilities,” he said. “These are ultimately community assets, and assets that we are all charged with stewarding and keeping in good condition.”

The committee, made up of representatives from the school district, the park district and various Island nonprofits, organizations and clubs, made recommendations both on the management of existing facilities and facilities yet to exist in the community.

“What was really neat about the whole process is people were all looking at it from a larger viewpoint as opposed to a narrower viewpoint of the specific group they were coming from,” Hackett said. “Everyone that was from the school district knew all sorts of kids or had kids that participated in the club sports or theater.”

Other than a new theater, the community also needs upgrades at the high school stadium and a new high school gym, the report noted.

The committee suggested the stadium’s grass be replaced with “field turf” or a similar synthetic playing field, which can be played on every day of the year, unlike grass, which requires “rest.” Additionally, it recommended upgrading the stadium’s lighting and replacing the red cinder track with a rubberized surface, thereby allowing the Vashon track team to hold home meets again.

The report recommended the construction of a gym connected to the existing high school gym, one with a wrestling room, expanded weight room and four locker rooms. With double the floor space of the current gym, this new facility would have an all-purpose floor to better serve a variety of sports. As with the theater, the maintenance costs would be split, this time between the school district and the park district, according to the report.

The committee did not have the time or resources to look into the financial aspect of these proposals, but Hackett said there are school district committees that will do so in the coming year.

“I think that’s going to be the topic of some discussion in the community over the next year: what should our high school campus look like,” he said. “And the commons and K2, all of those things are somewhat wrapped together.”

School board chair Bob Hennessey agreed, adding the next step is to “have a discussion about whether there is broad commmunity support for these projects, what we can afford to pay and who will pay for what.”

Hennessey was not a part of the ad-hoc committee but said he looks forward to working with the park board.

“There’s no reason we can’t start right away,” he said.

The ad-hoc committee also found the interlocal agreement, which outlines how the school district and park district manage Vashon Commons, is vague. This leaves both districts with the blame but neither with the jurisdiction to take charge quickly when an operational problem arises, according to the report — something that has happened in the past.

The report recommended a new interlocal agreement be

adopted by June 2008 — an agreement that would place the responsibility for outdoor facilities maintenance squarely on the park district, thereby eliminating any such confusion.

The committee’s report also intimated that someday the park district might share maintenance responsibilities for indoor facilities, now supervised solely by the school district.

Hennessey said this would be a good idea.

“It makes sense to have a single entity responsible for maintenance,” he said.