Quit crying; fix the problem

The removal from service of the Steel Electric ferries on the Keystone run continues to illustrate our tendency to overuse the proverbial crying towel “woe is me” syndrome.

We’ve seen this from about everyone believed to be impacted by the degraded Keystone ferry service route. Enough is enough of this negative reaction to what should have been a preventable crisis that average intelligence should have seen coming, yet many in our community chose to ignore.

Let’s look at the positive side of the removal from service of the Steel Electric ferries on the Keystone run. First and foremost, no loss of ship, crew, or passengers to catastrophic hull failure on the ferry system’s most environmentally challenging route.

Secondly, it forces us as a community to actively address the ferry replacement issue head-on rather than wait for someone else to come to our rescue.

Lastly, it gives the local business community the opportunity realize that Coupeville is not a destination but rather a town that sits at crossroads to someplace else and loss of traffic on those crossroads has an impact.

Public officials, both local and state, are perceived to have dropped the ball in regards to the continued operation of the Steel Electric ferries on the Keystone route. If this is true, as so many folks have expressed on these pages, then I suggest we, as constituents, are as culpable for not demanding action from those same public officials.

Adversity is said to be the mother’s milk of opportunity. Will our Island community use this adversity we allowed to happen, as an opportunity to create replacement ferry vessels adequate to operate on the Keystone route well into the future?

Will our island community discard the crying towels and roll up its collective sleeves and go to work on this issue or compound the inaction of the past by waiting for other folks to come to our rescue?

Consequences are paid because of choices made.

Thomas F. Strang

Coupeville

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