PURELY HEALTHY Vegan café works to fill a niche on Vashon. Page 4
NEWS | State grant will create loans for septic repair. [3] ARTS | Annual music festival features 20 acts. [10] ENVIRONMENT | New group will vet Glacier site’s future. [20]
ROWING FOR AMERICA Teen rower heads to world competition again. Page 15
BEACHCOMBER VASHON-MAURY ISLAND
WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 8, 2012
Vol. 57, No. 32
www.vashonbeachcomber.com
75¢
Some want to save the historic crossroads; others voice concern
$2 million grant to fuel restoration at Maury park
By LESLIE BROWN
By NATALIE JOHNSON
Center nominated as historic district
DANCING ON AWARM SUMMER NIGHT
Staff Writer
Staff Writer
The King County Landmarks Commission is considering a proposal to declare Center — the four-corner intersection two miles south of town — a historic district, a move that would make it the first such district on Vashon. If approved, the district would recognize eight structures at or near the intersection as historically significant, a move, proponents say, that would help to ensure the buildings remain protected and intact over time. Duane Dietz, an Islander who has spent months researching the properties at Center, made the nomination. According to his 45-page report, which he submitted in February, Center “contains Vashon’s largest surviving concentration of vernacular wood-frame commercial buildings pre-dating 1947.” “For me, it’s an aesthetic issue,” he said Monday. “It’s one of the last remnants of the rural-agricultural experiences that we have left in Western Washington. If you want to get a sense of what farming was like, of what the scale of buildings was like, you can see that at Center.” A public hearing on the proposal was initially scheduled for Aug. 23 but just this week was postponed to Sept. 27 for technical reasons. It’s likely that the nine-person Landmarks Commission will make a decision about the nomination at that September meeting, according to Julie Koler, who heads the county’s historic preservation program. Her office will make a staff recommendation, either in favor of the nomination or not, she said. “We welcome letters from the community,” she added. The nomination comes at a critical time for Vashon SEE CENTER, 19
owned by Vashon businessman Tom Bangasser about a mile south of town. George Brown, VIFR’s assistant fire chief, said the partnership would serve the fire department well. The building was donated to the agency three years ago when the Firemen’s Association, a holdover from the days when Vashon had an all-volunteer department, folded. Since then, VIFR officials have used the structure for occasional drills and long-term storage, Brown said. But it largely sits empty, and VIFR has wanted to find another use for it, he said.
Thanks to an infusion of state money, the Maury Island Marine Park will soon see a major restoration effort. The large, county-owned park, a former mine site near the old Glacier property, was recently chosen as one of several sites across the region for a yearlong habitat restoration project by the Puget SoundCorps — a division of the Washington Conservation Corps that employs young people and veterans. The project, funded to the tune of $2 million, will employ 24 people full-time to continue restoration efforts that have already begun on a smaller scale at the park — removing invasive plants, improving soil, planting native foliage and building trails. Greg Rabourn, Vashon’s basin steward for King County, said he believes the undertaking represents the largest restoration project to take place on the Island. The county, which purchased the property in 1994, has long hoped to restore the native ecosystem at the site, an ecologically valuable shoreline habitat that has been marred by years of mining. “I can’t think of any (project) we’ve approached on this scale before,” Rabourn said. “It’s just a tremendous boost for an important habitat.” Rabourn and other county officials were quick to credit People for Puget Sound, an organization that has done significant restoration work at Maury Island Marine Park’s shoreline in recent years. But People for Puget Sound, they noted, has been limited by tight funding and relied heavily on volunteer workers, who are sometimes hard to recruit. The SoundCorps, which will begin work at the site
SEE SERVICE CENTER, 5
SEE MAURY PARK, 20
Leslie Brown/Staff Photo
Joel Savoy from the Cajun Country Revival plays at Ober Park Monday night, while Islanders danced, picnicked and listened to the foot-stomping music. The event was the first in a series of free concerts. See page 11 for information about next week’s offering.
County plans to move service center to Vashon town By LESLIE BROWN Staff Writer
King County plans to relocate the sheriff’s office, courthouse and other regional services to a little-used building in Vashon town owned by Vashon Island Fire & Rescue. If approved by the King County Council, the county would remodel the former Firemen’s Association building across the street from VIFR’s main station, transforming it into a multipurpose rural service center with room for emergency response exercises and community meetings. The building would also
serve as an operations center during an actual disaster. The move, county officials say, would save money, consolidate services and better serve Islanders. Under the proposal, the county would spend around $700,000 to wholly makeover the 2,600-square-foot building, turning it into a courthouse and satellite sheriff’s office that VIFR or community groups could use as well. The fire department, in turn, would not charge the county rent for the first five years; after that, the rent would be below market. Currently, the county and sheriff’s office rent space at Courthouse Square, a complex