Miscellaneous

I still haven’t gotten any conservative takers for a mutually respectful, ongoing discussion of common ground for political action.  In my previous column, I mentioned that I was sick and tired of the mutual demonizing by liberals and conservatives, when, in the end, we all have basically the same human wants and needs.  I am running up against a personal deadline (surgery) that will put me out of action for a couple months, so I am expecting, unless someone else wants to take the initiative to get something started, that I will put this off until sometime next year.  I will then try to figure out some other way to coax out more participants from across the political spectrum.

In reaching out to the ultra-conservative Liberty University, Bernie Sanders exhibited the kind of action we need to take to heal the political divide. There will be a workshop for Bernie Sanders supporters on the Washington State caucus system, facilitated by Mario Brown from the Washington Democratic Party, on Saturday, Nov. 7, 2-4 pm at the Land Trust Building.  Bernie can’t transform our political system without our help.  So our local precinct caucuses, on March 26th of next year, is our time to act.  If you are unfamiliar with the caucus system, come to this workshop to learn how it works.  Backers of all candidates are welcome to participate.

Zero Waste Vashon has announced that as of Oct. 5 the County has begun collecting separated organic kitchen and yard waste at the transfer station.  It is to your advantage to participate in this program because your dump fees on these materials will be almost half what you pay for the rest of your load.  There will be a separate designated area to place these materials.  I’m not sure what their procedure is if you are carrying regular waste along with your organic materials, so be sure to separate them as you load up your vehicle.  The purpose to this study is twofold.  The county wants to find out how a more vigorous composting program affects their overall costs, and they want to find out if enough waste is generated on Vashon to warrant the building of an anaerobic digester on Vashon.  You may remember that the initial goal of Zero Waste Vashon was to build a digester on Vashon to turn our waste into rich compost and methane gas.

The last item I want to discuss is the Vashon-Maury Grange Hall.  The hall was originally a North End community hall, supposedly built in the 1940’s.  At some point, it was given to the Grange for use by the whole island.  Through the 1970’s, the Grange had a large and active membership.  At some point, new members failed to join and the existing membership continued to age.  I think a large part of the falloff of membership had to do with the political positions taken by the National and State Grange.  Originally a very progressive organization, the Grange arose from the big agrarian populist revolution in the 1890’s.  It was among the first organizations to endorse women’s suffrage.  Through the years, Grangers’ values came to be more in line with big fertilizer, seed, and pesticide companies upon which farming in the US became more and more dependent.  The new people that came to Vashon in the 70’s and later were more interested in local organic farming and had little in common with the political stance of the Grange.  
Although we still can’t find any actual documentation, the story is that the hall and land would be sold to the Washington DOT to be used as additional parking space for the ferry when the Grange on Vashon closes its doors.  When I joined the Grange in the late 90’s, I was mostly interested in keeping the Grange Hall as an asset to the community.  The average age of the remaining Grange members at that time was about 85, and it was apparent to many of us that the Grange would not last much longer without new membership.  As we expected, all of the active Grange members before we came have either died or become inactive.  Of the group that joined in the 90’s and later, only five of us remain actively trying to maintain the building and keeping it available to the community.  We do this entirely with rental income and our own free labor; we get no help whatsoever from the Grange organization.

We are neither wealthy nor young, and have many other things to be concerned with.  We have made some improvements and have kept some wolves at bay, but the facts are that the building is slowly deteriorating and needs some major, costly improvements.  We would like to schedule a meeting in January for all of you that love the Grange Hall and would like to help us strategize how we can continue to have it as a community facility into the future.

Comments?   
terry@vashonloop.com,  
463 2812