TO AFRICA, WITH LOVE A Kenyan strives to help her people, with Vashon’s support. Page 13.
Holiday Guide Look inside for our annual tribute to the season — a guide filled with holiday wishes, gift ideas and more. Open House Coupons inside!
BEACHCOMBER VASHON-MAURY ISLAND
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 23, 2011 Vol. 56, No. 44
www.vashonbeachcomber.com
75¢
Facing the future: Theater braces for a new era Incentives
spur search for a public site for solar
A sweeping change is hitting cinemas, including Vashon’s By ELIZABETH SHEPHERD Staff Writer
Since Eileen Wolcott bought Vashon Theatre in 2003, she has upgraded almost everything about the landmark space, giving it a fresh lease on life with new seats, a new sound system, improvements to the concessions area and even a new 35mm projector and platter system. But now, Wolcott is about to make the biggest alteration ever to the 64-year-old theater, due to what some are calling the most sweeping change in the movie business since talkies replaced silent pictures. She plans to install a state-of-the-art digital projection system at the theater over the course of the next year or so — a changeover that will cost her an estimated $80,000 by the time she is done. “It’s a race against time. You have to do it, or you can’t go on,” Wolcott said. The average moviegoer may not realize it, but cinema presentation in the United States and throughout the world is in the midst of a digital revolution, with motion picture studios and distributors quickly escalating the phase-out
By LESLIE BROWN Staff Writer
Visiting instructor Alix Clarke nestles the baby in her arms, and the duo makes their way around the circle, stopping in front of each singing child to say hello. Thus begins what has become a monthly visit by baby Utah, as part of a program called Roots of Empathy (ROE), with similar programs in countless schools across Canada and roughly 100 schools in the United States.
In what organizers see as a race against time, two Vashon groups are looking for publicly owned sites for their ambitious community solar projects — efforts triggered in part by generous state incentives slated to end in 2020. Vashon Community Solar, a project spearheaded by The Backbone Campaign, announced its intention to launch a broadbased solar-investment project at an Earth Day celebration at Vashon High School earlier this year. The group initially thought it would place a solar array on one of the school district buildings, but engineering issues as well as the group’s need to move quickly made none of the school district’s sites ideal, said Bill Moyer, director of the Backbone Campaign. Vashon Community Solar now hopes to erect a $400,000 to $500,000 project on a sloping parcel next to the King County transfer station on Vashon’s west side, a project that would be funded by investors kicking in $1,000 or more. The group has contracted with Carol Eggen, a former airline executive who has a solar array at her own home, to try to get the project off the ground. Discussions with the county are currently under way, Eggen said. There’s a chance, she added, that the group could have its project erected by next spring, in time to begin taking advantage of the solar energy that comes with longer days. A new effort, meanwhile, is also gaining traction — this one spearheaded by Vashon architect Gib Dammann, who had initially joined forces with Moyer on Vashon Community Solar. Called Vashon Solar LLC, Dammann’s
SEE EMPATHY, 23
SEE SOLAR, 22
Lawrence Huggins Photo
Eileen Wolcott, owner of Vashon Theater, and her family — husband Gordon, her three children, from left, Raechel Ehlers, Bailey Wolcott and Jacob Wolcott, and grandchild Aidan Ehlers — often preview movies together. of 35mm print as a film format and requiring theaters to make costly conversions to large, specialized digital film projectors. The pace of the conversion is quickening. According to an April article in The Los Angeles Times, about 800 to 900 new digital projection systems are being installed
in movie theaters nationwide each month. For movie studios, the perks of the change are obvious. Each 35mm print — reels that must be shipped in heavy film cans and then unpacked and spooled through platter or reel-to-reel projectors — costs studios about
$1,000 each, while digital prints cost between $100 and $200 and can travel in a package the size of a cigar box. For theater owners, the switchover to digital will also have some rewards. Wolcott, for instance, SEE THEATER, 24
Finding empathy through babies
A new program takes root By SUSAN RIEMER Staff Writer
Susan Riemer/Staff Photo
A student holds Utah, while father Brian Lowry smiles and looks on.
It is Friday morning, and the students in Tara Brenno’s second-grade class at Chautauqua Elementary School are standing in a circle, singing around a soft blanket spread on the floor. Their voices drift into the hallway, where a mother stands just outside the door with her 5-monthold infant. “Hello, Baby Utah,” the children sing. “How are you? How are you?”