Letter: Newspapers need support to continue
Published 1:30 am Wednesday, March 4, 2026
Editor,
Island County Commissioner Melanie Bacon is right about one thing: we are living through serious climate disruption.
On an island in the Salish Sea, we see it in shoreline erosion, wildfire smoke, drought stress on wells, and impacts to fisheries. Climate resilience is not abstract here; it is personal and local.
Where we need more care is not in the diagnosis, but in the tone and posture of leadership.
South Whidbey is a small, rural community. We see each other at the ferry, the farmers market, church, Little League, and the grocery store. We do not have the luxury of shouting past one another as if we live in separate ideological universes. Our strength has always been that we disagree and still remain neighbors.
Leadership through a belonging and universal pluralism lens means something different than partisan commentary. It means speaking to shared love of place before political grievance. It means recognizing that neighbors may vote differently and still care deeply about clean water, healthy forests, working farms, and their children’s future. It means avoiding language that humiliates or dismisses those who see policy differently.
When rhetoric becomes contemptuous, even in service of important issues, it narrows the civic tent. It signals that some neighbors are less legitimate members of the conversation. That may energize some readers. It does not build durable local solutions.
Belonging-centered leadership asks a different question: How do we widen the circle while solving real problems?
In a county like ours, climate leadership does not require symbolic declarations or impossible mandates. It can mean practical, place-based action: protecting shorelines in partnership with property owners and Tribes; investing in drought resilience for rural wells; supporting farmers adapting to changing conditions; strengthening emergency preparedness; and creating incentives, not mandates, for energy efficiency.
Universal pluralism does not require agreement. It requires legitimacy, the belief that people across the political spectrum remain part of “us.” It avoids false binaries. Climate resilience and homelessness are not competing moral causes. Public safety and environmental stewardship are not opposites.
Counties cannot alter global emissions alone, but we shape land use, shoreline policy and community health. Those levers matter.
On an island, we are literally in this together. The tide does not ask how we voted. Leadership worthy of South Whidbey invites participation, centers stewardship of place, and trusts that belonging, not outrage, builds lasting resilience.
Wendy Schneider
Whidbey
