vashon island child
TAKING JABS AT SEATTLE Acclaimed writer reads from a novel that skewers Seattle. Page 12
a guide to education on Vashon inside this issue!
BEACHCOMBER VASHON-MAURY ISLAND
WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 22, 2012
Vol. 57, No. 34
www.vashonbeachcomber.com mberr com
Park district A GRAND MONTH FOR PLAY AT THE POOL throws a party for the fields Portage Fill, food and silent auction will provide funds, add energy
Staff Writer
Staff Writer
SEE FUNDRAISER, 18
A hotel in town? Developer eyes options By LESLIE BROWN
By NATALIE JOHNSON
As the Vashon Fields project sits at a standstill — its grass under-watered and its coffers empty — the Vashon Park District hopes a large fundraising event this Park district’s weekend executive will renew director is let go in surcommunity prise move. interest in the project Page 4 and generate enough money to get it back on track. The district’s fundraising goal for the event, $10,000, seems small in light of the approximately $300,000 needed to finish the fields complex by The Harbor School. But every bit matters, and the district considers the event a kick-off to introduce the partially finished fields to the community and reinvigorate fundraising, said Jan Milligan, the park district’s executive director before her termination was announced Monday. “All summer we’ve been looking at late summer as the start-up of a community campaign again,” she said. “We’re hoping that the community rallies around the project this fall, for the next two to three months, and we can continue some work up there.” The Friday event — booked as a dance party replete with
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Leslie Brown/Staff Photo
The Vashon Pool has been a busy place this summer, and especially this month. A recent spate of hot weather brought swimmers to the park district-owned pool by the hundreds, setting record-breaking days for pool revenue. The pool has already brought in more than it did last summer, said Scott Bonney, the pool’s manager. However, Bonney doesn’t attribute the pool’s success entirely to the sunny weather. In spring, the park district put out a call for Island support of the cash-strapped pool and got a huge response in the form of advance sales of discount passes, lessons and pool rentals, Bonney said. The park district is tentatively planning to keep the pool open until Sept. 23 this year. “I think the community has really responded amazingly to the pool by supporting it, and we are continuing to see good numbers,” he said. Pictured above, clockwise from top left, are Hannah Pickett, Sue Bell, lifeguard Lizzy Schoen, Mitchell Boles and lifeguard Tazi Flory. “It’s the best job in the world,” Schoen said of her stint at the pool this summer.
Church of Great Rain considers its future After a few intense years, members say ihey need a break By LESLIE BROWN Staff Writer
Church of Great Rain, Vashon’s homegrown variety show, started off four years ago as a modest and almost off-the-cuff affair, playing to small, diehard crowds at the Red Bicycle Bistro. “We’d have a script in one hand, a beer in the other,” joked Jeanne
Dougherty, one of the group’s actors. Full of Vashon humor and Island talent, the show grew in popularity — ultimately moving to the cavernous Open Space for Arts & Community, where it routinely filled all 600 seats, making it the biggest event of the Island. It also grew in complexity, becoming a much more polished and seamless series of skits, musical performances and monologues. Now, those involved in the popular show — Vashon’s edgy version of Prairie Home Companion — say they’re taking a hiatus and won’t
launch a fifth season with their usual September premier. With their growing popularity has come a growing workload, several members of the company said, a workload that has proven tough for the all-volunteer crew, which would finish a show on Sunday night and begin discussing the next one three days later. According to a statement issued by the Church’s publicist Richard Rogers but crafted by many of the company’s members, “Each performance of Church of Great Rain SEE CHURCH, 10
A Seattle developer with ties to the Island plans to purchase Vashon Village and build a 16-room hotel or another kind of accommodation in the grassy field behind the commercial park. Scott Shapiro, managing director of Eagle Rock Ventures, a Seattle real estate and development firm, has signed a purchase-andsale agreement to buy the 4.5-acre site from Dan McClary. The deal is expected to close in November or December, McClary said. Shapiro, in an interview last week, said he plans to build a 16-room hotel that could accommodate up to 48 people behind Vashon Village, a cluster of small, colorfully painted buildings across the street from the Vashon Library. “We’re just in the process of working out the plans and permits,” he said. “We don’t have anything to share right now, but we will this fall as plans continue to solidify.” In a preliminary meeting with King County planning officials in May, however, Shapiro described eight freestanding buildings and two additional buildings that could serve as a small conference center. According to tenants at Vashon Village, he and his wife have said they plan to build what they’re calling a small retreat center. Asked if he plans to build a retreat center, Shapiro said: “There would definitely be people having retreats out there. … They could use it for their birthday, a wedding, a family reunion or a getaway weekend.” “I really think there’s a need for a great lodging establishment that SEE DEVELOPMENT, 15