The community council, while well-intentioned in its hope to update the Vashon Town Plan, should think carefully before taking on the task. The council should nail down how much help King County will provide and consider what it realistically will be able to accomplish by 2016. An out-of-date town plan that was done well 20 years ago would be better than one updated with changes that were not carefully considered and fully vetted by Vashon residents.

In 2008 a group of islanders took on the task of updating the town plan as a committee of Vashon’s community council. As members attest, the job turned out to be huge. The 1996 town plan is long and complex. Over four years with limited help and funding, the group put together some updates to the plan but entirely skipped over other parts that the volunteers simply couldn’t get too.

It’s not clear why the approved amendments from a couple of years ago never actually made it into Vashon Town Plan. But it appears King County dropped the ball somewhere, either by not putting Vashon’s submissions before the county council or by not communicating well with islanders about the timeline and the final outcome.

Though it still seems the county owes those who worked on the town plan for so long an explanation, the community council understandably wants to move forward and try to submit something to be considered in 2016. After all, the plan is 20 years old, and islanders likely have some different ideas about what growth and development on Vashon should look like. Tim Johnson and other volunteers who have helped hold the community council together since it was stripped of its official status would likely approach the process thoughtfully and incorporate the 2012 ideas. But with few people currently attending community council meetings, little funding and online feedback methods yet to be designed, gathering broad community input in a short time  —much less drafting changes — would certainly be a challenge.

King County may add a new staff person to help small communities across the county update their plans, but officials have yet to say if and how much that person would work with Vashon or when the position would start. Significant county attention could put the community council’s goal within reach, and perhaps the group could choose a few important areas to focus on. But without that help and without funding to hire help, the council would be no better off than the group that took four years to come up with even limited updates to the town plan. Only this time they don’t have four years.