Bayview: Neighbor saves man living on boathouse from drowning
Steve Plancich has a special reason for giving thanks this holiday season. He should have died last Saturday, but didn’t.
Plancich lives on a boat, moored in a covered slip in the Scenic Bay Marina. Saturday, after a bout with several drinks, he wandered home, a little worse for wear. Stumbling around, trying to unlock his boathouse, he fell into the 46-degree water. Nobody was around. Bundled against the cold, Plancich was weighed down so heavily, he couldn’t climb back out.
When he next surfaced, he had traveled under the dock and appeared at the side of his boat. Realizing he wasn’t going to get out in the deep water, he struggled toward shore, his body becoming numb with cold. Just as he was about ready to succumb, a neighbor from a float house across the way, Detmer Kruger, spotted him and pulled him out.
Plancich’s body temperature was down to 85 degrees. He was raced to the hospital, where he was rewarmed, then released. Miraculously, his glasses were still perched on his face, when rescued.
“It’s a good thing, too,” he told us. “I just bought them.”
Three people have drowned at Bayview in recent years.
Developers share their vision
With all of the rumors, code violations, evictions and such, someone finally thought of inviting developers to speak to their vision of what Bayview should become, and their role in such growth. The Bayview Community Council decided to try it, and every developer asked responded, either with a representative, a letter or a personal appearance.
First on the program was Dennis Scott, engineer, representing the Waterford Group. He admitted right off, that prior to his arrival as an adviser, there were many abuses of the rules, and vowed that won’t happen on his watch. He spoke of numerous proposed developments, including eight duplexes on the upper level of Vista Bay Marina, and three duplexes with under-house parking to be built against the hillside.
Another proposal calls for Boileau’s RV park, adjacent to the Button Hook Restaurant, to become a three-story parking facility, with parking spaces allocated to the various condo and boat slip customers. Scott said one story would be half underground, thus lowering the view restrictions for those behind. Most of the docks and boat sheds would also be rebuilt.
Harborview Marina, formerly Bayview Marina, would sport a three-story, eight-unit condominium project, according to Scott. All of the projects are subject to planning and zoning approval.
The new owners of the old Bayview Trailer Park, James Darling and Brian Main, also spoke, saying their plans for the property haven’t yet jelled. One plan is part condo, part commercial. Another is hotel/commercial.
It should be noted that Darling and Main stepped up to assist some former Bayview Trailer Park residents move. An unrequired, but humanitarian gesture. Darling, who was raised in Kettle Falls, Wash., is new to the development business and left most of the presentation to Main, an experienced builder/developer with 17 years’ experience in real estate. Main spoke of the displaced, as a caring person, and is still worried about how everyone is doing.