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A bill making its way through the Washington State Legislature and the House Transportation Committee could reinstate the legitimacy of Vashon’s ferry advisory committee.
If passed, House Bill 2745 would allow the county to appoint the members of the committee, which has been operating in a sort of limbo since the island’s community council folded in 2012. State law calls for ferry advisory committee (FAC) members to be appointed to four-year terms by county councils in cities, and by community councils in rural areas, but Vashon no longer has a governing body to do so.
Vashon’s FAC has a Facebook page with more than 500 members, most of which have been carrying on with the responsibilities of keeping ferry system officials aware of issues.
Vashon FAC member Jan Stephens said he hopes that the bill is a “no brainer” for the legislature to pass.
“We would be the only non-represented community with the ferries, and I’m not sure where we’d go from there,” he said.
Stephens said the bill is a “mere technicality” and that Vashon’s FAC has been operating normally despite its inability to appoint new members.
“The committee itself didn’t really change when the community council folded,” Stephens said. “(FAC head Greg Beardsley) said that we had to get this fixed. We’re still pushing forward, and I’m quietly hoping this takes care of business.”
FACs are legally mandated by state law. Washington State Ferries (WSF) is required to gather feedback from FACs about problems being experienced.
Vashon FAC head Beardsley said that while the committee has continued oversight operations and meets with WSF, Vashon’s committee has lost some legitimacy because of the community council fallout.
“As a result of the fiasco with unincorporated councils being defunded, Vashon’s is no longer in existence,” Beardsley said. “One of the last things I had (the community council) do was to re-appoint the committee members. That was, give or take, about three years ago.”
Realizing that the FAC’s members were coming to the end of their terms and that there was no authoritative body legally able to appoint members, Beardsley met with 34th Legislative District Representative Joe Fitzgibbon and Sen. Karen Nelson over the summer.
“I said, ‘Well, what are we going to do? By law, it has to be appointed by a council that doesn’t exist,'” Beardsley said.
The conversation spurred the bill which, if passed, will amend the current state law to allow the county to select Vashon’s FAC members.
As of Tuesday morning, the House Committee on Transportation had passed the bill. It will now move on to the Rules Committee, the Senate and the Governor’s Office before becoming part of the law.
Judy Clibborn, chair of the Transportation Committee said that the bill will “likely pass,” though there is no exact timeline on when that will happen.
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