January 2006

The Seattle Monorail Project is selling its property to pay off debt and end the Motor Vehicle Excise Tax but several neighborhood groups in Ballard are asking state legislators to change that process.

The Ballard District Council, Loyal Heights Community Council and Crown Hill Business Association have all either drafted a formal letter or are asking their members to lobby state and city legislators to compel the Seattle Monorail Project to consider selling property on the basis of factors besides highest bid.

The sale of properties from the aborted monorail project will end in mid-March, when sealed bids are opened.

None of the now-surplus properties have been sold yet, said Jonathon Buchter, chief of operations and one of four remaining monorail staff members.

The staff of the Seattle Monorail Project set a deadline of March 17 for potential buyers to submit bids to buy the properties.

The goal is to maximize the price of each parcel to pay off the monorail debt and stop collection of the motor-vehicle excise tax, Buchter said.

In an effort to get the hi

After a poor first half performance, the Ballard Beavers came out of the locker room with a fresh attitude and the result was a 55 to 52 win over the Bothell Cougars last week.

Playing in front of a home crowd, Ballard shot poorly and lacked the intensity it has shown in previous games this season, during the first half.

Fortunately for South Sound theater fans, Alan Bryce has friends in high places.

Places like England's Royal Shakespeare Company and the Royal National Theater in London.

Bryce, the artistic director of Centerstage, Federal Way's resident professional theater troupe, is now in the enviable position to invite colleagues from his past to join his productions here at the Knutzen Theater.

Karen Archer is one such friend.

Archer is known to millions of English television viewers as the female lead in ITV's series "The Chief," and for her numerous stage an

Thief kidnaps pregnant Chihuahua

A woman contacted police to report that a male in a white Oldsmobile saw the dog running loose and picked up her pet, Mommas, for his daughter. She did not get a full read on the license plate. The woman said that Mommas was a two-pound black long-haired Chihuahua with a graying chin that is currently pregnant.

"You never see animals going through the absurd and often horrible fooleries of magic and religion._ Only man behaves with such gratuitous folly._ It is the price he has to pay for being intelligent but not, as yet, intelligent enough."

- Aldous Huxley

State Representative Dan Swecker (R-Rochester)had his picture in the daily paper last week as the point man for the senate Republican caucus's thrust to disallow any sort of rights to gay people in this state. His motivating force?

Ben Franklin turned 300 last week, and Mrs. Anthony said, "That's dumb!"

What's dumb, honey? "Saying someone is 200 or 300 years old...why? They've been gone for all that time, you know...not alive."

I thought about it and I have to agree.

It is a bit silly to think of people that way. I surmise that it is because we wish they were still alive.

Throughout the incredible changes in the area over the past thirty years, Daniel L. Graham has been a constant. If he seems as dependable as the U.S. Mail, it's because he is the USPS.

A letter carrier for the Marine Hills neighborhood for the past 28 years, Graham is retiring at the end of the month after delivering mail to generations of Federal Way residents.

"I've seen it all," said Graham, looking back on a career that spanned nearly three decades.