FIRE LEVY

Thank you, Vashon!

With the passage of the fire levy lid-lift on August 1, the voters of Vashon have provided Vashon Island Fire & Rescue (VIFR) with the resources needed to invest in your safety and the safety of our dedicated VIFR members. Your support allows VIFR to improve response times across the island and better serve Vashon with modern equipment and effective staffing levels.

We have already taken several steps to implement the critical deliverables needed to invest in public safety. We have been proactively preparing for the Burton station to open no later than November 1 with two career firefighters/EMTs, and we have started the process to replace two much-needed aid cars and fire engines.

Over the next six years, our community-based fire and emergency medical services strategic plan will be our guiding document as we continue to improve our level of service to the island.

We are incredibly grateful for your overwhelming support and remain committed to providing professional and effective fire and emergency medical services to the residents, businesses, and visitors across the island.

Please continue to follow us on social media and at VIFR.org to stay updated on our projects and programs that protect you and your family.

Fire Chief Matthew Vinci

ROAD SIGNS

Apology for accidental use of offensive imagery

Recently the King County Roads Services Division became aware that signs we had posted on Vashon-Maury Island to keep people from throwing cigarettes out of cars featured an image of a hand in what is now sometimes used as a white supremacist gesture. The signs showed a hand flicking a cigarette butt with a red “X”. As director of the King County Road Services Division, I take full responsibility for our failure to recognize the offensive meaning that is now associated with the images on these signs and will address it with my team.

Our crews removed the signs over the weekend. We are committed to ensuring that our public communications and materials are respectful, inclusive, and free from any offensive symbols as we strive to make Vashon-Maury Island’s roadways safe and welcoming for everyone.

In addition to addressing this specific incident, we are taking steps to prevent similar occurrences in the future. Our entire Road Services Division is undergoing comprehensive training that includes racial imagery awareness and sensitivity. This training focuses on the appropriate use of symbols and emphasizes the importance of promoting inclusivity and furthering understanding within our teams and in the communities we serve.

Also, we are reviewing our internal procedures to strengthen oversight and ensure that all communications meet the highest standards of respect and cultural sensitivity and that reporting practices are reviewed and understood by our entire team.

I extend my sincere apologies to the entire Vashon-Maury Island community. We value your trust in us and are committed to learning from this incident to create a more welcoming and supportive environment for all residents.

If you have any concerns or questions, please feel free to reach out to me directly at 206-263-9690 or tricia.davis@kingcounty.gov.

Tricia Davis, Director, Road Services Division

King County Department of Local Services

THANK YOU

Please support Vashon’s first responders

On July 24, my wife suffered a massive heart attack at our home. I called 911 and a team of Vashon EMTs, along with two paramedics, quickly arrived there. They immediately assessed the situation and began lifesaving procedures.

A member of the team contacted air ambulance, but when it became apparent that the conditions for flying were causing a delay, they rushed her to the South End Ferry, which they were holding for her medical emergency.

The team displayed a professional, well-trained response to the life-threatening situation. We have a great first responder group on our island, please support them in whichever way you can.

Please learn to recognize the signs of a heart attack or stroke and call 911 as soon as possible. Time is of utmost importance and you’ll be enhancing our EMTs’ ability to perform.

My wife is resting safely at home, thanks in no small part to Vashon’s first responders.

Frank Schin

ART PROJECT

Beautify your mailbox

Our sunny summer is here in excess. How fortunate we are to live here on this beautiful island where we cherish our community, the beauty surrounding us, and the people who work on Vashon to make our lives easier and livable.

It is no accident that our Grand Marshals for the Strawberry Parade were our fearless post office employees, whose positive attitude made those long lines easier for everyone.

Now is the time to support our mail delivery staff, who tirelessly drive the island throughout the year, delivering our mail. Why not make their lives more interesting and fun, by painting your mailbox?

Yes, this is my annual plea of encouragement for you to paint your mailbox. Let’s lessen the number of drab, silver or black boxes and add some color, and perhaps art, to that mailbox that you visit most days. Look around: it is hard not to smile when you pass a colorful, bright yellow box, or one with trees painted on it, or in my case, red with green polka dots. It is an easy project, creative, and fun. My neighbor recently painted a picture of his cat reaching for a mouse. Anything is possible.

Think about it, get colorful, and have fun. I’ll be looking for freshly painted mailboxes this month.

Beth White

FIRE LEVY

Response to letter

Like others, I feel obligated to respond to the July 20 letter from Mike Kirk and Brigitte Schran Brown contending those opposing the Fire District Levy haven’t been involved so don’t know what they’re talking about. Let me give readers my credentials.

About two years after being traumatized by VIFR in 1992, I started monitoring their activities in a desire to keep the same thing from happening to other islanders. I attended about every Commissioner meeting or other Fire District-related public occasion for 23 years. I spent countless hours trying to make them accountable/transparent and informing others.

Starting in 2013 and ending in 2016, I was part of an intensive process to develop a VIFR Strategic Plan. The effort involved numerous internal (staff) and external (community) members. I and many others attended countless meetings – joining groups and subgroups to review Department status and develop goals and objectives.

I devoted an incredible number of hours to helping to design a strategy for comprehensive community input. In 2015, I spent considerable time working with Assistant Chief George Brown, using my professional researcher skills to pull statistical data from the VIFR system so an analysis of call type/response/location and other factors could be drawn for planning purposes.

This multi-year planning process contradicts the statement in the Fire District’s 2023 Strategic Plan claiming their one-day planning get-together with a “variety of stakeholders” “was a historical event” as “never before had [VIFR] initiated such an inclusive and transparent planning process.”

Even after saying in 2017, “I have retired from the Fire District,” I am still drawn into their affairs by my desire for accountability/transparency and to give the public the facts.

I have devoted as much time, and over a longer period, working on VIFR issues than many responder volunteers. I would say for this reason, and the fact that I am a taxpayer residing on Vashon-Maury Island, I am extremely well qualified to speak about Fire District matters.

Alice Larson

LANDSCAPING

Lawn Transformations

I’ve read the lawn-care letters to the editor with interest and can’t help but offer another perspective.

I respect the reasons to mow tall grass for sight lines, invasive control, and fire safety. And I understand the requirement for lawns over drain fields. But I question large lawns that impoverish our island’s ecological health. Lawns displace natural landscapes that better support food webs that feed bugs that feed birds and salmon fingerlings that should feed people and the orcas we love.

Lawns do little to soak up and filter toxic stormwater runoff that is the “number one polluter of Puget Sound” and a real threat to orcas. Monocultural turf lacks habitat needed by pollinators, 70 percent of which are ground nesting. All mowers pulverize pollinators and gas-powered mowers contribute 5% of this nation’s air pollution, according to tinyurl.com/4k64tser.

Air pollution is a “known carcinogen“(World Health Organization IARC report: sources cited on seedrain.org), so it would be less carcinogenic to spray grass once with glyphosate than to repeatedly mow in close proximity to engine exhaust or transport a sod-cutter that compacts topsoil. However you choose to transform your lawn, native plant habitat is many times more effective at supporting native birds, bees, and wildlife — see tinyurl.com/3tzurewv.

With 40 million acres of turf grass maintained by millions of Americans tired of mowing every weekend, our obligation in our present climate predicament is to pollute less and plant a diversity of native species and trees at a safe distance from homes and utilities.

If you would like professional tips on how to organically transform lawns to native plants, there is a free invasive-removal workshop at 2 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 12, at Burton Acres Park, 8900 SW Harbor Dr.

Steve Richmond

www.seedrain.org