February 2006

Students and parents at three Highline high schools should have a better idea in a few weeks about what will be offered in the district’s planned small learning communities.

“By the end of the month, we will have clarity,” district spokeswoman Catherine Carbone Rogers promised last week.

The district is breaking up its high schools into smaller learning communities within the larger campuses.

District officials believe the reform will make instruction more personal, leading to higher academic success and fewer dropouts, especially among low in

Charles Momah is truly a man with two faces.

At first encounter, his patients saw a seemingly kind and caring obstetrician-gynecologist who later morphed into an abusive monster.

Momah operated clinics in Burien and Federal Way until 2003, when his medical license was suspended.

And his identical twin brother, Dennis Momah, a Tukwila physician, allegedly would pose as Charles and see patients in a horribly creepy echo of the 1988 movie Dead Ringers.

Charles Momah, 49, was sentenced by King County Superior Court Judge Michael Trickey on Feb.

Local businessman Eric Aasness has been elected to serve as the President of the Board for Highline Schools Foundation for Excellence.

Aasness, a senior loan officer for Washington Mutual Home Loans, heads a group of 14 volunteers committed to developing community resources to help all Highline Public Schools students succeed.

“As a resident, banker and parent, I see the needs of our schools on a daily basis,” said Aasness.

King County Council members Julia Patterson, D-SeaTac, and Dow Constantine, D-West Seattle, said recently the county's list of transportation projects awaiting funding is "truly overwhelming."

Patterson and Constantine were among the public officials speaking at a King County Council roundtable on transportation issues at the Aerospace Machinists Industrial District Lodge in South Park.

On St. Valentine’s Day, Burien lawmakers and community residents planted a cherry tree at city hall.

The local ceremony one of many cherry tree-planting events conducted simultaneously on Feb. 14 in cities throughout Washington.

Burien Parks Director Michael Lafeniere explained the significance to council members on Feb. 6, noting that in 1923 a sizable earthquake hit Tokyo.

found in Burien woods

The body of Nicole Pietz, 32, of Lynnwood, who had been missing since Jan. 28, was found in a wooded area near Des Moines Memorial Drive and South 144th Street on Feb. 6.

Pietz disappeared after leaving her home in Lynnwood to meet friends.

A 30-year-old Tukwila double-murder case is closer to being closed with last week’s arrest of a suspect in Oregon.

James B. Braman Jr., 56, was charged with two counts of first-degree murder Feb. 7 for the shooting deaths of Frank Hinkley, 45, and his girlfriend, Barbara Rosenfield, 42, at The Bear Cave.

Shortly after midnight on Dec.

The Seattle Monorail Board nominated a West Seattle man and a Ballard man to fill board vacancies.

Gatewood Hill resident Vlad Oustimovitch is a former member of the Seattle Monorail Review Panel, former president of the Southwest District Council. An architect, Oustimovitch also served on the West Seattle Design Review Board and is currently on the board of directors for the West Seattle Chamber of Commerce.

Oustimovitch runs his own consulting business.

I admit that I am a little nervous when Elsbeth gets behind the wheel. This doesn't happen often, but sometimes is necessary, like right now, while I am recovering from minor eye surgery for cataracts. (See her commentary about this in her own words below.)

I feel funny, like the I am being chauffeured by one of the Seven Dwarves. But she has never had an accident and only got stopped one time for going the wrong way on a one way street in downtown Seattle.

I'm already 17 years old and I still don't have my driver's license. Ever since I turned 15 I've said that I would take Driver's Ed ASAP, and each go around something in my schedule would conflict. So I put it off. My mom kept pushing me to learn how to drive and I kept worming out of it.

Now I finally am taking Driver's Ed (to the chagrin of my high school junior pride) and am out driving nearly every night, urgently trying to make up for lost time. Why the sudden change of heart?