HOT AUGUST TUNES World music bands perform outdoors. Page 10
NEWS | Farmers Market tries a Wednesday farm stand. [3] COMMENTARY | County council grapples with bus cuts. [6] ARTS | Film at theater is based [10] on local UFO sighting.
NO HORSING AROUND Islander competes in top dressage competition. Page 5
BEACHCOMBER VASHON-MAURY ISLAND
WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 6, 2014 Vol. 59, No. 32
www.vashonbeachcomber.com
75¢
Permitting effort sees mixed response
WALKING TO FIGHT CANCER The football field at Vashon High School transformed last Friday into a camping scene, as around 100 islanders on a dozen teams set up tents and prepared to spend all night walking around the track in shifts. “Every year I say ‘How am I going to stay up all night?’ and then I get here and I get it,” said Jeannette Smith, who attended Relay for Life with a team from Sawbones. This year’s event raised more than $19,000 for the American Cancer Society. Those who participate, however, say Relay for Life does more than raise much-needed funds for cancer research and patient services. Julie McCormick-Saathoff said it brings islanders together behind a common cause. The all-night event, with the slogan “Cancer never sleeps, so neither do we,” includes a gettogether for survivors, games and a Luminaria Ceremony, where paper bags honoring those who have died from cancer are lit all around the field.
Half who did shoreline work have responded By NATALIE MARTIN Staff Writer
In 2009, Rodney Hearne refaced his bulkhead at Sylvan Beach, something he said he and his family members have done many times since 1928, when his grandfather built their walk-in home. In June, however, Hearne received a letter from King County informing him that he may be required to seek a construction permit for the work he did. After following up with the county’s Department of Permitting and Environmental Review (DPER), he learned that he did in fact need a permit, and that obtaining it would cost about $1,900. “I’m not very happy about it,” Hearne said last week. Hearne’s property was one of 72 on Vashon identified in a study completed last spring as
McCormick-Saathoff lost both parents and several other relatives to cancer and has been participating in Relay for Life for half a dozen years. “It’s a great way for all the community to get together and do something for the greater good of humanity,” she said. See page 11 for more photos of Relay for Life.
having had shoreline changes in the last decade that could require permits. Unpermitted changes around the shore of the island include bulkhead repairs, bulkhead installations, clearing of vegetation, and the construction of docks, stairs or other structures. Two houses were found to have been built entirely without permits. Since then, 40 homeowners have responded to letters sent out by the county, according to Jim Chan, DPER’s director of permitting. DPER staff have investigated each case, and of those who responded, 32 homeowners must now seek construction permits. Six people didn’t actually make changes or did work that was too minimal to require a permit, and two people will be required to remove structures they built. This fall the county will send another round of letters to those who didn’t respond, this time including a deadline and an explanation of what action the county will take next. SEE PERMITTING, 20
Brewing success
Islander took a risk with beans and built a coffee empire By JULI GOETZ MORSER Staff Writer
In his kitchen overlooking Quartermaster Harbor, Jim Stewart, the founder of Seattle’s Best Coffee, grinds coffee beans from his farm in Costa Rica. The kettle whistles. Stewart pours the steaming water over the grounds, using the drip-brew method to fill a narrow, well-worn thermos. There’s not an espresso machine or coffeemaker in sight. Stewart takes his coffee black, in a demitasse. While today Stewart is known on Vashon and beyond as the man who brought fine coffee to Seattle, 44 years ago he never drank the dark beverage. Ice cream, not coffee, was the name of Stewart’s first retail game.
Stewart sold 18 flavors of ice cream at The Wet Whisker, a shop he opened in Coupeville in the summer of 1969, between graduating from the University of Washington and starting optometry school in California. As Stewart tells it, the path to Seattle’s Best Coffee began with the two women who did The Wet Whisker’s taxes. “At the end of that first summer, they said we have this donut recipe — to hear them talk it was going to save the world — and there are these great coffees in Monterey, California,” Stewart recalled, shaking his head with a humorous glint in his bight blue eyes. The women said that if Stewart added SEE COFFEE, 19
Juli Goetz Morser/Staff Photo
Jim Stewart at his former shop, now the Vashon Island Coffee Roasterie.