Would a ferry reservation system work for Vashon? The Transportation Commission, appointed by the governor, has been pushing this approach to find ways to fund the ferry system.
Washington State Ferries (WSF) was mandated to ask the question, given the traffic congestion at a number of ferry docks and the challenge of filling every boat to capacity. And how can they do this andkeep ferry tolls reasonable (which they aren’t now)?
This past week, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers determined it would permit Glacier’s proposed barge-loading facility within Maury’s sensitive shoreline. The agency refused to require a federal environmental impact statement. With the federal government having listed the chinook as a threatened species and our beloved orcas as endangered, this decision casts a major shadow over efforts to recover these species and Puget Sound.
Last week, this paper reported some of the first good news in a few years about the long, hard, Quixote-like struggle to keep Glacier Northwest at bay. Preserve Our Islands, the grassroots group opposing Glacier, had successfully convinced state regulators to hold the sand and gravel company to the highest standard possible under the state’s voter-approved toxic cleanup law.
Traditions are important. The things we do as each year follows another can be the ties that bind families, organizations, cultures and nations, to name a few possibilities. In a world that more and more crosses national boundaries, where people live in places they were not born, traditions can be strengths that hold one’s roots. They can be shared experiences that cross all national, racial and cultural boundaries and bring people together in celebrations of human ethos.
Shoulder-To-Shoulder Farm, one of Vashon’s hidden treasures, spreads out behind Vashon Cohousing on land leased from the Roseballen Community Land Trust.
t And what if they all went on strike?
I predict the next edition of Webster’s Dictionary will contain a word born from this economic period: ‘staycation.’ You’ve likely heard this new word beat to death by the media as the answer to the cost-prohibitive summer vacation of 2008. Instead of paying skyrocketing fuel costs to jet or drive off to get away from it all, many of us are planning to hunker down in our own domains for a long staycation.
“You can always tell the English. You can always tell the Dutch. You can always tell Lubahn’s class, but you can’t tell much. Thank goodness it’s Friday!”
Many plants that are maligned as weeds are actually highly beneficial, with a long history of use by humans. After hearing about a friend’s determination and challenges in eradicating horsetail from his yard and listening to his children mimic his “I hate horsetail” mantra, I felt compelled to point out the practical and important uses of this botanical oddity.
To some of us, it may seem like tilting at windmills to take on Glacier Northwest. The company is huge, rich and relentless. It also, obviously, has a keen financial interest in the tons of sand and gravel that lie beneath its arsenic-laced soil — a commodity that has proven to be quite valuable in booming Pugetopolis, where new development means new roads and new roads mean a hunger for gravel.
How would cutting 100 sheriff’s deputies affect police response times? How would a reduction of 30 deputy prosecutors impact our ability to put criminal suspects on trial?
These are examples of the grim decisions facing King County citizens and lawmakers as we confront a $68 million budget deficit for 2009 and a possible $80 million shortfall in 2010.
Mud then cobbles and more cobbles, the hike from Fern Cove south to Cove on Colvos Passage tours Vashon’s best beach forms. The first wonder is Fern Cove’s delta, then Peter Point’s salt marsh and finally the big rock before Cove.
Last August, after a brief vacation, I returned to The Beachcomber with a gift for Eric Horsting, who had steered the ship in my absence. It was a smooth, pale-gray rock with a poem on it, and it seemed the perfect token for this man who loves poetry and is rock solid and dependable.
