June 2007

State gets it right - and wrong, too

By Don C. Brunell

Washington lawmakers are considering a "connector" bill that emulates efforts in Massachusetts to attain universal health care coverage by requiring every person in the state to get health insurance. Nice idea, but Massachusetts officials are having a difficult time turning their dream into a reality. The plan is not yet implemented, and the monthly premiums have already doubled.

The costs are much higher than anticipated, increasing the need for taxpayer subsidies.

The Seattle Department of Transportation will go ahead with plans to "skinny" up a portion of 24th Avenue Northwest in the name of pedestrian safety, reducing four lanes of traffic to three with a center turn lane.

The city proposed this "road diet" with bicycle lanes on both sides of the arterial between Northwest 56th and 65th streets last year.

Lawmakers of the 36th district touted a successful legislative session that incorporated record funding for public education and answered questions about local housing and transportation during a recent town hall meeting.

Reps. Helen Sommers, Mary Lou Dickerson and Sen.

After several weeks of contentious community debate over public art, the Burien City Council rejected a "screw" for the centerpiece of Town Square on a 4-3 vote June 4.

"I'm very sorry," Mayor Joan McGilton told artist Dan Corson following the council's rejection of his concept for a 40-foot high, tilted screw-like sculpture.

"You certainly have caused our community to become more aware of art."

McGilton and council members Sally Nelson and Gordon Shaw voted to approve the $80,000 sculpture that Corson said would "serve as a 'beacon' for Burien."

This year's all-Seamount League teams are chock full of Highline Times/Des Moines News talent.

It starts right at the top in Seamount League fastpitch, where Karli Merlich of Kennedy was named as the Most Valuable Player and Lancers coach Dino Josie was named as the Coach of the Year.

Merlich, a junior, also made the Seamount League first team as a pitcher along with Lisa Anderson of Evergreen.

JFK's Deavonnie (Dew) Spadoni was selected to the first team as a senior catcher along with teammate Brittany Montgomery.

Highline's Randi Dry was named as a

Good times and performances were turned in, one last time, for area fastpitch seniors that came in and helped their team of three leagues in the Senior All-Star Challenge at Starfire in Tukwila Wednesday.

Softball fast pitchers from around here were Highline's Randi Dry, Kennedy's Dew Spadoni, and Mount Rainier's Kelly Parsons.

Des Moines

Exploring bear 'Columbus' nabbed, released into wild

May 31-A 205-pound black bear that swam two miles across Puget Sound from Maury Island to Des Moines was captured in Federal Way.

State Fish and Wildlife Department officers had nicknamed him "Columbus" because "he is quite an explorer."

Columbus swam to Saltwater State Park in just an hour, then wandered throughout Southwest King County for almost a week, eluding capture after being spotted several times before he was trapped on the Weyerhaeuser campus in Federal Way.

Shortly

A proposed $6.9 billion Roads and Transit ballot measure will include a comprehensive study on linking the Burien, SeaTac, Tukwila and Renton by light rail.

An amendment by King County Councilwoman Julia Patterson, D-SeaTac, which recently was approved by the council, added the study to the Roads and Transit plan.

Funding for the road improvements plan would come from a one-tenth of 1 percent sales tax and a vehicle license fee of eight-tenths of 1 percent.

Proposed road improvements over the next 20 years are coordinated with a transit plan for investment

Burien City Manager Mike Martin emphasized to Highline School Board members at a recent meeting with the council the importance of a partnership between the district and the city.

"Our residents are your students and that's why we think the partnership is so important," Martin said.

The Department of Ecology has fined Sound Transit and PCL Construction Services $79,000 for water-quality and permit violations along the Tukwila section of the Central Link light rail line.

Ecology staff documented numerous violations from October 2006 through March of this year during construction of the light rail route between Sea-Tac International Airport and Seattle.

The most significant of these, accounting for $40,000 of the penalty, was the project's lack of an adequate stormwater pollution prevention plan, which the state requires.

Had such