Park District passes 2025 budget, mulls Tramp Harbor Dock future

With an outgoing executive director, evolving grant landscape and a revitalized Vashon Parks Foundation at its side, 2025 promises new challenges and opportunities for the Vashon Park District, which passed its 2025 budget in mid-December.

Here’s what that budget contains, and what else the Park District is looking ahead to this year.

2025 budget

The park district intends to collect about $1.985 in revenue in 2025, a modest increase from its $1.92 this year. It will carry over $800,000 in cash from 2024.

The district’s 2025 budget is largely similar to last year’s, though a few recategorizations — causing changes in total spending for some categories — are worth explaining.

“Generally speaking, from the budget, there’s nothing really new,” VPD executive director Elaine Ott-Rocheford said. “We are implementing a 5% rate increase … and a 10% increase in our lodging fees. … Otherwise, operations and maintenance is very much the same.”

Maintenance spending will increase from $574,000 in 2024 to $749,000 next year, much of which reflects maintenance at the Point Robinson and Fern Cove lodging facilities now being tracked under the maintenance category.

“We’re putting it all under general maintenance so that we can isolate how the lodging business is going without the maintenance piece in there,” she said. “As a result, our maintenance budget has increased substantially, and the Point Robinson budget has gone down substantially.”

Meanwhile, the district’s budget more than doubles its capital project spending compared to last year — from roughly $143,000 to $336,000.

That partially reflects hiring an engineer (budgeted for $70,000) for planned work at the community pool over the next few years, which will include replacing the pool liner; raising the gutters; redoing the deck; and upgrading the electrical system — work that will refresh the pool for both casual and competitive swimmers and make it more energy efficient. Eventually, the district hopes to replace the pool’s domed “bubble” roof with a retractable roof.

“The largest expenditure [is] … hiring an engineer to get started on the pool infrastructure improvements,” Ott-Rocheford said. “Along with that, we’ll be applying for grants. … But we need the engineering work done in advance on that. … That’s a big deal to the pool community in particular. It’s been a long time coming. That need has been pretty great.”

Other capital work includes replacing Park District equipment, including the district’s F250 truck ($52,000); work on the Fern Cove roof and gutters ($35,000); and invasive species remediation ($24,000).

Looking into 2025 and beyond, the biggest-ticket items for Park’s capital improvement plan are the Tramp Harbor Dock replacement ($3.2 million); pool renovation ($2.1 million), work at Point Robinson totaling more than $350,000; installing pickle ball courts at the BARC ($360,000) and renovating the BARC building ($300,000).

Grant funding and community fundraising will cover the cost of the pickle ball courts, Ott-Rocheford said, and the BARC project will be covered by a King County Parks Capital grant. Grant funding will make up the majority of the money raised for the Tramp Harbor Dock and pool projects, too.

The budget also reflects a 3% cost of living adjustment in wages. The new minimum wage in King County — which will apply to VPD as $18.29 — will raise the wage of BARC staff, who make $17 per hour in 2024. The new executive director’s salary will start at $135,000.

Parks will also work with Vashon Nature Center to use the old carriage house at Fern Cove as a nature center featuring the ecology of the area, Ott-Rocheford said.

Tramp Harbor Dock

Restoring the historical Tramp Harbor Dock has for years sat near the top of many islanders’ wish lists.

The dock’s history spans many decades. The first automobile ferry dock to Vashon was built at Tramp Harbor, though only its pilings remain today.

King County built a dock between Portage and Ellisport after finishing the new Seattle-Des Moines highway in 1916; that dock facilitated ferry service from Vashon to Des Moines. To access it, Dockton Road S.W. was built along the waterfront from Portage to Ellisport.

But that ferry route was abandoned for the Triangle Route, which today serves the island along with the Tahlequah-Point Defiance route. The old ferry dock was sold in 1923 — it began to deteriorate and was eventually removed.

Standard Oil built a new dock in 1921, and it was reconstructed in 1939 — that new dock being 340 feet long with a landing platform near shore. Standard Oil stopped using in in the early 1980s, King County converted it into a public fishing pier in 1982, and in 1995, the county gave the pier to the Park District, which renamed it Tramp Harbor Dock.

But in 2019, the dock was closed to the public, following a 2015 engineering assessment report that found many of its pilings were “compromised” and six were “approaching failure.”

”The rebuild would save an icon for today and future generations,” said island photographer Ray Pfortner, who has supported community efforts to rebuild the dock. “It would allow handicap access for fishing, dreaming, breathing it all in … The new pier can add viewing telescopes and underwater cameras to make the rich diversity of life under and around the pier visible to landlubbers.”

The pier is a beloved community fixture, but replacing it has proven dauntingly expensive.

In 2022, estimates based on research from a consultant for VPD found that repairing the existing dock would cost $4.3 million; replacing it with a similar-sized but shorter dock would run $4 million; a narrower replacement would run $2.7 million; and demolishing it without replacing it would have cost about $424,000.

Park District commissioners voted unanimously in January 2023 to replace it with a narrower and slightly shorter dock. That decision came after two years of work, in 2020 and 2021, to negotiate a new tidelands lease with the state to address shellfish harvest concerns — an agreement that stipulated the somewhat shortened dock as required by non-negotiable treaty rights between the Puyallup Tribe and the State of Washington.

If necessary grant and community funding pulled through, the district hoped to finish the rebuild by 2027 with the project totaling $3.2 million, Ott-Rocheford said.

But a major grant application didn’t succeed.

In 2024, the district applied for two state Recreation and Conservation Office (RCO) grants: A $500,000 ALEA grant, which they appear to have earned (but which won’t be disbursed until this spring) — and a $1.6 million Washington Wildlife and Recreation Program (WWRP) grant, which they did not earn.

Missing out on that $1.6 million “puts a big hitch” in their ability to start building by 2025, Ott-Rocheford said, and it appears likely that rebuilding the dock will be pushed back about two years.

The district has many possible directions for the future of the Tramp Harbor Dock, but only two that board members deem feasible.

Building the dock elsewhere, such as at Lisabeula — as was suggested in a Nov. 21 Beachcomber letter to the editor — isn’t feasible, Ott-Rocheford and board members said.

Nor is repairing the existing dock, which Ott-Rocheford said would be more expensive and less structurally sound than tearing down and rebuilding.

And the board expressed no interest in simply tearing the dock down without a plan to rebuild it, which would disappoint many islanders.

During the district’s Dec. 10 meeting, Ott-Rocheford and commissioners discussed one approach: Tear the dock down now and aim to rebuild two or more years later — taking advantage of money on the table now, but risking future headaches and doubling “mobilization” costs from having to work on the dock twice.

The district could use that $500,000 ALEA grant (which is not a “gimme” — it requires a $250,000 district match for a total of a $750,000 project) toward tearing down this year, and apply for and receive that same grant again when it’s time to rebuild.

DNR and the Army Corps of Engineers appear willing to support the district if it pursues this plan, Ott-Rocheford said. But that route carries risks and may not be as financially advantageous as it seems.

“I’m really leery of this idea of tearing it down and then not immediately starting reconstruction,” board member Joshua Henderson said. “It’s … more likely for there to be complications that prevent construction. So I’m not ready to deviate from that plan. … I think when we do work on that site, it needs to happen at the same time.”

Hence their other possible approach: Do the work of tearing down and rebuilding all in one project — hopefully, starting in 2027 after a better grant season. The district could also spend this year’s ALEA grant on a smaller-scale side-goal, like improving the picnic area or parking, or replacing the bulkhead, Ott-Rocheford said.

The board is still mulling over their options and will take the matter up at future board meetings.

“The board is leaning toward applying for the WWRP grant again in 2026, which could possibly mean a rebuild beginning in 2027 and completed in 2028,” Ott-Rocheford said. “There is some discussion around using the ALEA money to improve parking and replacing the bulkhead and stairs in the near term.”

That near-term work with the ALEA money could start as soon as this year and finish by 2027, she said.

Looking ahead, the district is very likely to earn the ALEA grant again, Ott-Rocheford said, and would find out around July 2026 whether they secured the bigger WWRP grant on their second try.

If it secures the funding it needs, the district could start construction in August 2027 and finish around February 2028 — with the cost likely increasing (due to inflation) to about $3.3 million. That’s still well below the full-size dock price estimated in 2022.

Given laws around salmon spawning seasons and other ecological factors, “that is the magic window that we have to do construction during that time,” she said.

“It has to be a thoughtful process,” Ott-Rocheford said. “We’re just too small an agency to not be really careful and really scrupulous with how we fund a project of this nature. … We’re looking at levy dollars [in 2025] of $1.9 million. On a $3.2 million dock, that doesn’t go very far. … But I’m absolutely confident it can happen.”

No matter what happens, the board does not intend to use Vashon Parks Foundation funds for the necessary basic step of tearing down the existing unsafe dock, she and board members said.

“I don’t imagine asking the public to fundraise for tear down or parking lot enhancement,” Park District Commissioner Hans Van Ducen said. “We’re not going to spend our public ask resources on that, I imagine.”

The sooner the district removes the dock, the better for the environment; the old dock is built on wood pilings treated with creosote, a wood preservative that can leech into the water and harm organisms.

Coast guard contract at Point Robinson

In the meantime, the Park District is still working on renegotiating a license with the U.S. Coast Guard at Point Robinson Park.

The Park District owns the upper part of the park, which includes the new troll installed there last year. The Coast Guard owns the lower part of the park, which the Park District manages through a license with the Coast Guard.

But that license expired in 2019, Ott-Rocheford said. (Both parties are still operating under the terms of the license.)

Efforts with the Coast Guard to renew the license are finally picking up some momentum, Ott-Rocheford said, and “we’re in the process of negotiating the new license.”

The license requires the Park District to maintain the facilities in the lower area with their own money, if they wish to use the structures for public purposes like lighthouse tours or vacation rentals. (In general, she said, the vacation rentals at the park generate the revenue used to maintain those facilities.)

But the structures, which date back to the early 1900s, are aging and require more and more upkeep, she said. In 2023, the septic system failed and needed to be replaced; exterior re-painting of the houses revealed “considerable dry rot,” which had to be remedied; replumbing had to be done and windows had to be replaced.

The dollars are adding up, and the Park District wants the Coast Guard to kick in more for the major upgrades needed to maintain those structures.

“It was a very, very expensive year for us in 2023, just related to Point Robinson,” Ott-Rocheford said. “So we are challenging the requirement that we are solely responsible for the capital improvements, and the upkeep of the houses. … That’s what we’re negotiating.”

No matter what, the Park Board is unanimously committed to keeping the park open for the community’s benefit, she said: “That is their number one priority.”