August 2009

Man taken for $26,000 by con artists
1. Federal Way police made contact with complainant Jason K. Choi, who relayed information regarding a confidence scam of which he had been a victim. The incident took place at the victim's bank, located at 31827 Pacific Highway South. The report states that Choi was approached by two Asian males claiming to be from a charity. They convinced Choi to withdraw money from his accounts. The vicimt told officers that he gave the two suspects $26,000 as a collateral for a promised $1,000,000 to be distributed as a charity to local churches. The suspects disappeared after he gave them his money. Choi told Federal Way officers that he initially met the suspects in Tacoma. Federal Way police told Choi that he needed to file a report there, because Tacoma is the point of origin for the crime. Choi removed the money from his account around 3:30 p.m. on the afternoon of August 12. No additional suspect information is listed in the report and officers have closed the case pending new leads.

Roommates concerned after friend doesn't return from giving blood

In February 28th of 2001, a magnitude 6.8 earthquake hit the Puget Sound region at 10:54 a.m. There were fewer than 400 injuries and no deaths reported in the quake.
Dubbed the 'Nisqually Quake', the epicenter was located about 35 miles northeast of Olympia, but it's effects were felt over hundreds of miles across the state, and a second, smaller quake rolled through the area 13 miles west of Tacoma the following day.
Because of my building contractor experience, my family calls me whenever they have questions about their homes. Eerily, my brother rang me up the night before the February quake to ask me to inspect the basement supports in his 1905 bungalow.
He claims now that he had no innate sense of impending doom, but that morning, when I saw that the posts supporting the main floor beams under his living room had no positive connections other than a couple of nails, I told him that that he was right to be concerned, some retrofitting was needed.
His timing turned out to be fortuitous.

There will be several community and sports events this week, which could impact traffic, as the summer winds down.

Monday through Friday, Aug. 24 through 28

Mariners Games: Safeco Field, 7:10 p.m. each night this week.

Saturday, Aug. 29

El Carnaval: Street fair at Holy Family Parish in West Seattle. 20th Avenue Southwest will be closed between Southwest Roxbury Street and Southwest 98th Street from 9 a.m. to 11 p.m. Event is 10 a.m. to 10 p.m.
Expected attendance is 750.

Sounders Game: Qwest Field, 1 pm, 34,000 fans expected.

Mariners Game: Safeco Field, 7:10 p.m., 20,000 fans expected.

Sunday, Aug. 30

El Carnaval: (See description above.) Street closure is 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Event is 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.

March for Youth: March begins at 3 p.m. from two separate points; one begins at Martin Luther King, Jr. Way South and South Walker Street. The other begins at 23rd Avenue South and South Jackson Street.

There are many aspects of education that are quite like that of manufacturing and assembly.
Only in a few Socialist countries are there any "automobile manufacturing" plants. In the Western world we have "automobile assembly" plants.
These plants "manufacture" nothing. They assemble parts from many manufacturers. The Boeing Company is now trying to do this and has learned some very significant lessons that the "subs" often have different priorities than the assembler.
What Boeing is learning, and others could have told them, was that you have to have a very close, and constant, relationship with your suppliers.
For several years I worked for a company that "made nothing," but assembled about 1,800 end products. It was the leading company in the market by a significant margin and the competitors products were often called our products and often had the same model numbers as ours.
When I first went to work for the company they sent me off to the assembly plant for a day to see what happened there.
I was aghast when I first got there by the number of people who were involved in "inspection."

Rich Dryden of HomeStreet Bank's Federal Way branch recently dropped by the Friends of the Hylebos office to deliver a $500 check from the local bank to support the Friends' upcoming Ruby Dance. Friends' Director of Development Laurie Austin and Executive Director Chris Carrel accepted the check on behalf of the organization. The annual benefit dinner raises funds to support conservation and restoration of Hylebos creek and wetland habitat. HomeStreet has a long history of supporting Hylebos conservation, having sponsored the event for several years, as well as raising funds for Hylebos tree planting through the 2008 HomeStreet Bank Tree Challenge. Rich Dryden and branch staff have also participated in past Friends of the Hylebos restoration projects.

This fall the Nordic Heritage Museum will be presenting its first solo exhibition in the Northwest of Swedish photographer and video artist Maria Friberg.

The exhibition will be open to the public beginning Sept. 18 through Nov. 15. Friberg will be present at the preview reception the evening of Sept. 17.

“Friberg’s large-scale photographs and video works are visually arresting and chronicle such contemporary themes like human relations, social conventions, masculinity, power and vulnerability,” according to a press release from the Nordic Heritage Museum. “Drawing inspiration form the history of art as well as from contemporary culture, Friberg creates work that addresses the present and the future.”

Friberg studied fine arts and art history at the Royal University College of Fine Arts, Stockholm; Myndlista og Handidaskoli, Reykjavic; Nordic Art School, Kokkola , Finland; Bild & Form, Lunnevad, Sweden and Gothenburg University.

Based in Stockholm, she has exhibited all around Europe and the United States.

Lately I've been working on a theory: You can tell the quality of a city by the quality of its dog parks.
Having joined the ranks of urban-dwelling pet owners this past year, I now pay attention to these things. My work at the newspaper turned me on to French Lake Park, Federal Way's own off-leash dog area, long before the City Council officially approved the area for this purpose.
I've watched as the park transformed from a spot used by few rogue pet owners looking to exercise their dogs, to a full-blown canine extravaganza.
On any given day of the week, (during any month of the year that the rains don't keep the park underwater) you can turn loose your dog for the type of exercise it just can't get in world of passing cars and pavement.
Those of us who own sporting breeds understand the need to achieve tongue-dangling exertion as often as possible to maintain sanity in our homes. And an off-leash dog park in the city is just the ticket.
I applaud the city for its work in establishing what has turned into a fairly respectable park, with plenty of space for dogs to run and adequate safeguards to maintain a reasonably safe and sanitary facility for our pets.

Dear Editor,

I find it truly shameful that the extreme right deliberately distorts the real content of the healthcare reform bills in order to frighten people.

Scaring seniors with outright lies that threaten loss of critical care and death panels boarders on the criminal and is nothing more than a diversionary tactic misdirecting attention from the real problems of the current, broken system.

An honest conversation regarding one's end of life options is a sensible, mature and civilized procedure and should be covered by insurance as any other health care consultation is.

In the end the option would be as it is now, ours to make.

Bette Reed
Seattle

Existing-home sales in the second quarter showed healthy gains from the first quarter in the vast majority of states, and price declines have increased affordability in most metro areas, according to the latest survey by the National Association of Realtors.

Total state existing-home sales, including single-family and condo, rose 3.8 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.76 million units in the second quarter from 4.58 million units in the first quarter, but remain 2.9 percent below the 4.90 million-unit pace in the second quarter of 2008.

Thirty-nine states experienced sales increases from the first quarter, and nine states were higher than a year ago.

Lawrence Yun, NAR chief economist, explained housing’s impact on the overall economy:

“Given the need for related goods and services, each home sale pumps an additional $63,000 into the economy – that’s how the housing engine traditionally pulls us out of recession. In addition, sales are drawing down inventory and that will help stabilize home values, which in turn will lessen foreclosure pressure and boost credit availability for other sectors of the economy.”

With apologies to Grant Wood's "American Gothic," we posed Susan and Scott Stevens at the Barker Cabin on S. 348th St. with one of two 19th century hay forks they recently donated to the Historical Society of Federal Way.
The Stevens came by the hay forks via a friend of her grandmother who brought it out from North Dakota many years ago.
The Barker Cabin is a complete restoration of the cabin first built by John Barker and family when they homesteaded in Federal Way in 1883.
At that time, the U.S. Government allowed settlers to acquire 160 acres of land if they built a homestead and maintained it for seven years.
Barker's cabin was located near the intersection of S. 312th street and 8th Avenue S.
For more information or to view the Barker Cabin and the hay forks, contact the society at www.federalwayhistory.org.