Vashon’s liquor store has a new owner and has moved to the southern edge of town.
This issue of The Beachcomber is a bittersweet one for me — it’s my last. After five years as both a reporter and editor at the newspaper, I’m moving on.
Vashon’s school board recently passed a no-cuts budget for the upcoming school year that includes modest teacher raises, the elimination of some fees and added funding for some school programs.
Though some may think of librarians as stern, bookish and bespectacled, this is not the case with Jan Riley, head of the Vashon Library. Even as she is set to retire this Friday, Riley has exemplified the new model librarian, devoted to public service, adept with the latest technology for information gathering and flexible.
Temperatures reaching into the 90s last weekend didn’t stop hordes of island residents and visitors from heading to town for the Strawberry Festival, the annual celebration that typically draws 40,000 to 50,000 people.
A year after Vashon’s fire board approved an overhaul of the island’s paramedic program, the changes have not yet happened and there are growing concerns that the plan might compromise public safety.
Vashon’s north-end ferry will go to a two-boat schedule next Monday through Wednesday, as other boats in the state’s fleet undergo emergency repairs.
Local real estate broker and community activist Emma Amiad has been selected as the grand marshal for this year’s Strawberry Festival.
As a group gathered last week to celebrate a flurry of recent conservation purchases on Vashon, State Sen. Sharon Nelson (D-Maury Island) announced that she has secured another $2 million for environmental preservation on the island.
Vashon’s land trust will give tours this weekend of a swath of property near town that it plans to purchase as its first-ever farmland preservation project.
The Washington State Transportation Commission is asking the public to weigh in on a proposal to raise ferry fares over the next year, with car fares increasing slightly more than passenger fares.
Caleb Johns, the current unofficial mayor of Vashon, announced last week that he will run for reelection to the faux post.
Rob Kearns remembers shooting hoops at the Vashon High School gym when he was a kid. Standing in the same gym last week, Kearns, who is now 46 and a basketball coach, said he thinks it’s past time for a new one.
