Five years is a long time when you are measuring your life in carpool trips.
Five years is how many years it has been since I quit my "real job." I left my full-time, workaday life to try the ultimate juggling act - raising my children while running a business.
As the flipping of the calendar reminded me the other day that I am celebrating this achievement, I trolled through my old West Seattle Herald columns.
Even though the doubling of the population of Burien will cause a rather large knot of debt, the Burien City Council last week decided to go slow, but to play the game.
Instead of simply saying "no thanks" to adding another 31,000 people in the North Highline unincorporated area to its 32,000 population it says it wants to keep looking at the move.
cost Seattle
Mayor Greg Nickels wants North Highline and is not dissuaded by the fact it will cause a deficit in the Seattle over and above what we have now.
Knowing one business that is situated on a property that was taken for the monorail and now would have the opportunity to stay in business, I am truly appalled that this board would see the sale of these properties as an opportunity to make a profit, even though it could retire some of the debt.
Somehow, this does not seem ethical. These properties need to be offered to the original owners.
I understand that as a taxpayer, I'm going to pay for the mess - but then perhaps I will be more careful about entrusting my vote toward such a project.
Strange sex. Strange sex. Strange sex.
Oh, excuse me. I was just agonizing over what we should report on in the new year.
Should our coverage change now that our new Web site is receiving more page views than our print circulation?
Must this dinosaur newspaper editor adapt to an entire younger Internet generation afflicted with attention deficit disorder?
I really got nervous after reading Seattle Times columnist Danny Westneat's year-end tally of the most clicked stories on his paper's online edition.
Some South Park residents are concerned about the Lafarge Corp.'s plan to burn a million tires a year as fuel for the huge kiln at the company's cement-making plant on West Marginal Way.
An application was submitted to the Puget Sound Clean Air Agency for a two-year permit to burn whole car and truck tires. A "mid-kiln tire injector" would be installed to feed whole tires - from car tires to 18-wheel truck tires - into the kiln's burner.
The Burien City Council has taken the first steps toward a cooperative effort with neighboring cities to resolve ongoing North Highline annexation questions.
The council proposed an interlocal agreement between neighboring cities and King County that would set the groundwork for discussions between the governments and North Highline representatives on how to work collaboratively in reaching decisions on future governance of the North Highline area.
Both Burien and Seattle have been considering annexing the North Highline unincorporated area.
One West Seattle principal's approach to creating inclusive pathways from one grade level to the next is becoming a new standard for Seattle Public Schools and, possibly, elements of a solution to failing student performance in Seattle.
Jeff Clark decided it was time to start thinking about the bigger picture for his students at Denny Middle School.
West Seattle's King County Councilman Dow Constantine was unanimously named by the council last week as a member of the Sound Transit board and also to be chairman of the council's Operating Budget Committee.
"I am very pleased to be joining the Sound Transit Board," Constantine said. "My district includes large portions of the Link Light Rail alignment and I am eager to provide representation to the communities along the line.
The Seattle City Council last week unanimously chose Sally J. Clark to fill the council position vacated by Jim Compton.
Clark comes to the Council from Lifelong AIDS Alliance as director of community resources, said a council news release. She has served as legislative aid for the King County Council and has been a marketing and logistics assistant for the Cascade Center for Leadership and Public Services.
