July 2006

The Times/News of June 21 contains a statement by Burien Mayor McGilton regarding a "contentious city council and city manager that rammed through an annexation process and built a lot of distrust of that council" - to paraphrase the quote.

Maybe it's time for the members of this council to acknowledge that nothing was "rammed through" and our duly elected council representing all of us worked hard to deal with a thorny problem that was really hard for the community at large to grasp.

Please Madam Mayor, let the past go and use your talents to keep working the problem wit

I decided to visit the Burien Strawberry and Art Festival on June 17. But to my surprise the Art Galley was not put into the fair's advertising. In fact, walking around the fair, in my viewing there was a feeling of separateness.

This fair is a family fair, children with their parents, the fair closing about 6 p.m. My question is why is the city of Burien selling cocktails in the middle of the day? Time, it's really spinning a different story (being a day fair).

Americans are crying out for culture.

History will be made this weekend as two Normandy Park sisters compete for the title of Miss Washington.

When Miss Burien 2006 Melody Gilbert and Miss Burien 2005 Amelia Gilbert walk on the stage Thursday at Tacoma's Champions Centre, it will be the first time in pageant history that two sisters have vied for the state crown in the same year.

The winner, who will move on to compete for Miss America, will be selected Friday.

Amelia, who is competing as Miss Emerald City 2006, downplays rivalry at the pageant.

"It doesn't enter in being competitive wit

First-degree murder charges were filed last week against Velma Ogden-Whitehead, 48, the wife of murdered Des Moines resident Ron Whitehead.

Ogden-Whitehead's 18-year-old son John Ogden and his 17-year-old friend Wilson Sayachack were also charged with first-degree murder for the March 18, 2005, shooting death of Whitehead.

Investigators with the King County Sheriff's Office initially believed the murder was a random carjacking after Whitehead, 61, was murdered and his body was pushed from his Ford Mustang and left in the intersection of Eighth Avenue South and South 188th

World Cup fever is here.

With the international soccer matches winding down to the final teams in Cup competition, Dan House, co-owner of the Tin Room Bar in Burien -- and a former world-class soccer player, is going the extra mile to give his customers a chance to catch all the action.

Opening his bar at six in the morning to showcase the early games is one of the many signs of his passion for the game.

No one knows the extent of House's skill and love for the game better than his close friend and former competitor, Pete Fewing.

Fewing and House wou

SeaTac lawmakers decided June 27 to delay setting interim design standards around South 154th Street light-rail station that is under construction.

But city council members instructed Planning Director Steve Butler to do more negotiating with developers planning a Starbucks with a drive-through window and a "park n' fly" lot at the location.

The delay will give the SeaTac Planning Commission time to restudy the proposed interim standards. Chairwoman Linda Snider told lawmakers the planning commission previously endorsed the standards.

Kinniebrew was killed June 23 around 11:30 p.m. at the Willow Lake Apartments, 3002 S.

A row of banners lines the main hallway at the Youngstown Cultural Arts Center.

When you visit the center you will probably stop to get a closer look-to gaze across the decades into the faces of generations of local school children. Silk-screened on each banner is a class photograph from a different decade, all bearing witness to the building's earlier incarnation as Cooper Elementary School (it was first called Youngstown School, after the original name of the neighborhood around the steel mill).

On June 8, 2006, the Wall Street Journal ran an article promoting a ban on nitrogen fertilizer (ammonium nitrate). The author, Russell Seitz, argued that garden centers around the country are supply depots for terrorists. Europe has already banned selling the fertilizer in pure form.

Homeland Security mania is beginning to permeate the lives of ordinary gardeners. The poison ricin is made from Castor beans so we shouldn't grow them. Opium is distilled from bread poppies and we could be charged with intent to distribute if we grow them.

Editor:

In response to the letter written by Barbara Schloredt in the Ballard News Tribune dated 6-14-06 concerning the yellow school buses. I agree with her 100% and I would like to know who owns the lots where the buses are parked? Many times I have driven past these lots and there are always buses sitting there. I sure wonder what we, as taxpayers, can do about this. I would like to see our children's neighborhood schools maintained, and not closed.