NEWS | Tackling ivy at Wingehaven. Page 4 COMMUNITY | Vashon Solar lines up its investors. Page 9 ENVIRONMENT | A new ‘Land & Water’ page debuts. Page 32
A MUSICAL AT VHS Girls get the spotlight in ‘Legally Blonde.’ Page 10
Inside this issue
BEACHCOMBER VASHON-MAURY ISLAND
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 21, 2012
Vol. 57, No. 12
Turn to pages 13-24 for our special section
www.vashonbeachcomber.com
75¢
Schools foundation embarks on fundraising drive The organization is starting earlier and hopes more families will contribute to the Island-wide effort
By NATALIE JOHNSON Staff Writer
The Vashon Island Public Schools Foundation will kick off its campaign early this year in hopes that it can raise half a million dollars in pledges in time for the school district to avoid issuing layoff notices to teachers. It’s the third year volunteers have undertaken a large fundraising
campaign to help fill the school district’s budget deficit, and the second year they’ve done so under the auspices of the foundation. In past years the school district, faced with a funding shortage, has been forced to issue RIF — or reduction-in-force — notices to half a dozen or more teachers and create a “worst case scenario” set of programatic cuts, only to restore the teachers and programs after pledges
Modular goes trendy
came in from the community. “We’re really trying to shift it to a sustaining campaign,” said Superintendent Michael Soltman, “rather than a fire drill where we lay off teachers and reduce programs.” This year, foundation members say, if they raise $500,000 in pledges by May 1, the school district can set its budget with the added funding in mind. Soltman said the district would
Home & Garden special feature: Green living on Dilworth
By NATALIE JOHNSON Staff Writer
I
slander Richard Mintz’s new home is from East Springfield, Mass. Four huge semi-trucks drove 3,000 miles over 10 days to cross Puget Sound and deliver the home to Vashon. And Mintz says he couldn’t be happier with the delivery.
The 2,000-square-foot home he now shares with his wife Diane McGaha in Dilworth is a high-end, super-green manufactured home. Everything in the so-called Glidehouse, from the large clerestory windows to the ventilated crawlspace and airtight insulation, was designed to conserve energy and cut carbon emissions. The structure itself, from the recycled steel frame to the bamboo floors and nontoxic paint, is built from healthy and sustainable building materials. “Some people call it the bleeding edge,” Mintz said, sitting in his new home last month. “I call it the leading edge of what everyone will be worried about in 10 years.” The couple fell in love with the Glidehouse almost a decade ago when the design premiered on the pages of Sunset magazine. They lived in a small home on outer Quartermaster Harbor at the time, but also owned two acres of property perched above the water on Dilworth Point that
likely face a $600,000 to $800,000 budget shortfall this year, assuming no added cuts are made during the Legislature’s current session. Some of the gap, he said, will be bridged by increasing off-Island enrollment and continuing to reduce operational costs. “It’s pretty clear that at a sustaining level we’re going to need SEE FOUNDATION, 31
Park board proposes new fees for fields, theater By LESLIE BROWN Staff Writer
Leslie Brown/Staff Photo
Richard Mintz (above) and his wife Diane McGaha recently moved into their 2,000-square-foot Glidehouse. they planned to one day move to. The stylish and cutting-edge green house with an entire wall of windows seemed like a dream home for the spot, Mintz said. The dream didn’t become a reality, however, until last year. Mintz, a former U.S. Air Force pilot and retired Boeing engineer, and McGaha, a lawyer, had given up on the Glidehouse after the housing market crashed and the home’s original designer
stopped selling it. They were looking into other options in green home building when they learned the Glidehouse design had been purchased by Blu Homes, a Massachusetts-based builder of eco-friendly prefabricated homes. “People already think I’m a loon. That would probably confirm it if I bought a house from Massachusetts,” Mintz, recalling his thinking, said with a laugh.
When the couple, who was considering purchasing a similar manufactured home from a Seattle-based designer, found it would cost about the same to ship a Glidehouse from the East Coast, there was no question, Mintz said. They still loved the Glidehouse. “It has worked out, knock on wood,” Mintz said. SEE GLIDEHOUSE, 25
The Vashon Park District has proposed new fees for the use of sports fields, the Vashon High School theater and other public facilities in an effort to make such costs more equitable among user groups. The new fees would also simplify the way the program is administered and how fees are collected, said David Hackett, a commissioner on the park board who has spearheaded the effort. Under a proposal issued last week, theater or dance groups that want to rent the high school theater would pay $150 per performance, rather than a complex set of fees based on hourly use. Sports teams — from soccer to lacrosse to baseball — would pay around $20 per season per player rather than an hourly and per-game fee that Hackett said was complex and hard to collect. And drop-in gym use at the public schools — nighttime basketball, for example — would require each player to have a $17 season pass, rather than the $3 fee kids are expected to pay at the door right now. SEE FEES, 12