At The Beachcomber, we’re often asked what went wrong at the Vashon Park District’s fields project. When the district announced the ambitious fields renovation in 2010, it estimated the project would cost $1.1 million, with just $125,000 coming from tax dollars. To date, the agency has spent about $1.9 million — with the total cost to taxpayers at $1.05 million — on fields without all the amenities originally planned. To put the figures in perspective, the park district’s entire operating budget has been around $1 million per year. The cost overruns, combined with falling tax revenues, have forced the district to cut some of its other services and programs and take on thousands in debt on top of what it’s already spent to complete the fields.

Over time, it’s become clear that mistakes were made — commissioners have admitted as much, and state auditors have taken issue with the fields management as well. But the details have been elusive. Many park officials who started the project are no longer with the district, and our small newsroom, despite being asked, simply hasn’t had the resources to pore over incomplete fields records, trying to piece together the past. When Janet Quimby, an Oversight Committee member with a background in public works laws and contracts, produced a five-page document outlining her research into the project’s history, we thought it was worth taking note.

Quimby says the fields’ costs likely wouldn’t have gotten so out of hand had the district followed commonly known state laws and best practices and not ordered hundreds of thousands of dollars of work without proper contracts. In 2012, she says, the agency couldn’t even produce a project budget, calling it a “moving target.”

While the report sheds some light on the past, Quimby herself notes that many questions are still unanswered. Why were laws and best practices apparently blatantly ignored, and who should have known better? Like many we’ve interviewed, we don’t believe there was ill intent on behalf of any of the commissioners, project supervisors or the three directors who have managed the district during this project. But it is becoming more and more evident that they took on more than they could handle when they opted to manage the project themselves — rather than having a knowledgeable general contractor do so — and now we’re paying for it, literally.

A representative of the state auditor’s office noted recently that public agencies aren’t fined or punished when they are irresponsible with taxpayer money or fail to follow state law — unless, of course, a criminal act such as fraud or embezzlement is involved. If citizens feel there’s been wrongdoing, he said, elections are an opportunity to act. With new management in Elaine Ott, the district has already righted many of its procedures and seems to have learned from some of its mistakes. Whatever the outcome of this week’s election, we hope that new or reelected park board members live up to campaign promises they’ve made and exercise due diligence, transparency and financial restraint with future district projects.