To the editor:

If you’ve ever chased your children through the play structure at Castle Park, run the Chum Run or the Whidbey Triathlon, watched a district cross-country meet/soccer game baseball game or summer concert; if you’ve ever walked your dog through the woods, dropped your kids off at the skatepark or maybe grilled hotdogs for your cousin Lenny’s birthday at the picnic shelter. If you’ve ever done any of these things, then you have enjoyed the fruits of community.

Twenty-five years ago the property that is the South Whidbey Community Park was a blackberry wasteland with meandering un-marked trails. Today we take for granted that we have a first-class community park; a park that is both an invaluable recreational asset and a resounding declaration of how proud we are of the place that we live. We built that park. It is ours. We use it, bring our kids to it, count on it for out-of-town guests, cherish it.

We supported the development of the South Whidbey Community Park with our taxes. That’s what taxes do. That’s why we pay them. Our tax money cobbled together is mighty. It allows us to do things we couldn’t dream of accomplishing on our own. We are proud of our park. We are proud of our schools. Our open space. Our fare free bus system.

For $5 a month we could build a rec center with a pool. A rec center with a pool means that our community could offer swimming lessons, water aerobics, water safety programs, aquatic physical therapy, adult lap swim, a high school swim team, water polo, scuba diving certification, kayaking classes. It would be a year round integrated community recreation, aquatics and senior center where everyone could be a member.

Life isn’t getting any cheaper and it’s crucial to attend to the cost of things but let’s agree that it would be sweet to look back 25 years from now and acknowledge how short-sighted we’d have been if we hadn’t supported the South Whidbey Community Rec Center.

Frank Pamela and Phoebe Jacques

Langley