November 2007

The district has been doing a lot of construction recently and that has placed a burden on the very community we serve. We have been busy completing the new higher capacity sewer outfall. This construction, which was tidal dependant, made noise that kept people up after normal work hours and had temporarily compromised the public use of the very beautiful Des Moines Beach Park.

While this construction may have been inconvenient, one thing I have noticed is how understanding and cooperative most people have been.

I am writing you because I have long sat back and digested the words used to describe White Center by Burien residents. It sickens me to hear that I must be less than human and definitely less than they (Burien residents) are because of my geographical location. It is appalling to me to hear about how they think of me, my family, and my neighbors.

Burien residents have a holier then though attitude that they are better than we are. Burien residents are making it us versus them mentality. I have news for those in Burien that feel this way, you are worse then we are!

As a park advocacy group of North Highline neighbors who live near Hicks Lake, Friends of Hicks Lake/Lakewood Park (FOHL) is dismayed that a testing process completed by the University of Washington this past summer identified E. Coli pollution in our lake.

This report, entitled Fecal Coliform Pollution Testing - North Creek and Hicks Lake, BIS293 - Coastlines and Estuaries, completed by the University of Washington, Bothell Campus, used eight samples from Hicks Lake. These samples all showed consistently high levels of Total Coliform and Fecal Coliform (E. coli) in the water.

I lived in my beloved apartment for over 15 years. However, when I had a leaking toilet for over 8 months and a non-working dead refrigerator for over 2 months I knew I must move because my landlord refused to fix things.

I contacted the City of Burien's James Bibby and a landlord/tenant lawyer to get some help and all I got was the "run around."

The apartment I'm living in now on 156th Street isn't any better. I had heavy debris behind the stove, refrigerator, washing machine and dryer-a fire hazard.

The board of the King County Ferry District has adopted a plan, budget and financing for the operation next year of the West Seattle Water Taxi and the Vashon Island passenger-only ferry.

Besides the Vashon ferry and year-around Water Taxi, the council also approved five "demonstration routes."

"The Elliott Bay Water Taxi and the Vashon passenger-only ferry are proven successes, taking cars off our roads and giving commuters better choices to get where they need to go," said ferry board member Dow Constantine.

If I were king I would use my vast power to make it illegal to allow the blueberry packagers to use those clear plastic boxes. Invariably I meet disaster when I try to get the box open and sprinkle some on my puffed hay when I fix my breakfast.

I did it again this morning. The flimsy box defies opening as it has a snap open and close system. The box itself is like holding a squirming live tamale and, as usual this morning, it popped open and the blue pellets cascaded to the kitchen floor.

Through the years our family has periodically downsized. As my husband often has said to me, "Dear, before you buy any new clothes, better throw out the clothes that you never wear." Research has brought out that people wear only about 20 percent of the clothes that are hanging in their closets and I certainly am no exception to that statistic.

Our daughter had been urging us to re-locate to a new senior housing development just two blocks away from her home. She finally settled for helping me bring her father home from the care center once more.

There is a story I promised to tell you a while ago, and here it is, the Charleston mystery. The mystery first reared its ugly head on a bus ride a year ago. The driver was one of those who announce the name of each intersection. And as we neared the stop at Charleston and California, he said "Charlestown."

Did I hear right? What did he say?

Then he said it again. "Charles-TOWN."

I thought he must be a new driver, someone not from these parts. I was about to correct him when I noticed the street sign. I was aghast.

Camp Long's original purpose was to teach outdoor skills to young people. It started with a telephone call from Archie Phelps to Judge William G. Long in the year 1937. Archie was a member of the Seattle Board of Park Commissioners, acting as liaison representative of the City in the construction of the West Seattle Golf Course by the Works Progress Administration of the U. S. Government.

Judge Long thought it had great possibilities for a camp for the kids of the entire city.

We now enter the long winter of transportation chaos with very little to hope for. Proposition 1, a messy conglomeration of taxes to do a bunch of things part way, was dumped hard by voters who simply did not like the smell of the thing.

We admit we supported it, but only because it was the only thing that could be of any value to the people who live on the west side of the city. But voters took a look at the vastly different projections of its cost and said no, even though those estimates were largely politically inspired nonsense.