October 2009

Teen involved in “Snaps” the pit bull attack gets year in juvenile detention

A 16-year-old Burien girl, who pled guilty to using a pit bull to attack two women, will spend a year in juvenile detention.

The sentence came down Thursday morning in King County Juvenile Court. Both women attacked by the dog testified at the sentencing hearing, as did the teen’s mother. The mother testified she had been unsuccessful in getting mental health help for her daughter.

The teen’s father has not lived with his daughter since she was very young. He now lives in Portland. A probation officer and the prosecutor said the girl would have no chance of getting treatment if she stayed in the home and the judge agreed.

The Burien girl cried as she listened to her victims speak. Later, she apologized to both of them.

The attacks occurred back in June when a woman spotted four youths kicking a pit bull in the 13300 block of Des Moines Memorial Drive South. The woman stopped to help but was attacked by the 16-year-old girl and the dog.

In a special council meeting Thursday night, SeaTac City Council removed Craig Ward as city manager and removed him from his duties, effective immediately.

Assistant City Manager Todd Cutts was designated the acting city manager. Cutts previously served as the city's economic development manager.

The moves followed a 45-minute executive session.

A proposition to eliminate the city manager position and replace it with an elected mayor is on the Nov. 3 general election ballot.

Three council candidates, Pam Fernald, Rick Forschler and Michael Kovacs, have been highly critical of Ward's handling of city government and endorsed the measure.

Deputy Mayor Gene Fisher has also expressed support for the elected mayor proposition.

On Sept. 22, council members modified Ward's employment agreement terminating his contract on Dec. 31, unless extended by written mutual agreement.

The agreement also provided that Ward would receive all earned vacation leave and the city would pay three months of COBRA medical, dental and vision benefits when he leaves.

Mayor Ralph Shape told the Times/News the previous termination agreement is subject to further negotiation.

Volleyball

Bethel 3, Decatur 2
Decatur's Gators came up one game win short in non-league action against Bethel last Tuesday, Oct. 20.

Kentridge 3, TJ 1
Thomas Jefferson absorbed a 3-1 loss in Tuesday, Oct. 20 action.

Curtis 3, Decatur 0
Curtis got the best of the Gators in a 3-0 win Thursday, Oct. 22.

Auburn 3, TJ 0
Auburn tacked a loss on Thomas Jefferson's record Thursday, Oct. 22.

Tahoma 3, Federal Way 0
Federal Way lost a shutout match Thursday, Oct. 22.

G-K 3, Beamer 0
Todd Beamer ran up against Graham-Kapowsin Thursday, Oct. 22 and was also the victim of a shutout loss.

Girls soccer

Decatur 9, Bethel 0
Decatur blew away Bethel in a big way Tuesday, Oct. 20.

Aub.-Riv. 1, TJ 0
Thomas Jefferson was edged by Auburn-Riverside in a Tuesday, Oct. 20 game.

Beamer 3, Puyallup 0
The Titans of Todd Beamer rose up to beat the Vikings last Thursday, Oct. 22.

TJ 6, Kent-Meridian 0
Thomas Jefferson trounced the Royals in Thursday, Oct. 22 action.

It wasn’t how he planned on spending the 2009-2010 World Cup short track speedskating season, but J.R. Celski of Federal Way is making the best of it. Celski, a short track speedskater, fell on his blade and sliced open his thigh during the U.S. Olympic Trials for Short Track Speedskating in Marquette, MI, during September. The resulting injury could have been devastating, but Celski is fighting back to get in shape in order to skate during the Olympic Winter Games in February.

Immediate surgery in Marquette was followed by a trip back to Salt Lake City and a consultation with five-time Olympic gold medalist and orthopedic surgeon Dr. Eric Heiden.

“Working with Heiden was awesome,” Celski said. “It’s an experience I never thought I’d get. I never thought I’d need his help. He’s a very humble guy and I couldn’t even tell he was a gold-medal Olympian.”

The Bit Saloon, "Ballard's Quirky Quality Dive Bar Since 1947," will be closing its doors Nov. 1.

The Bit, located at 4818 17th Ave. N.W., was known for hosting hardcore, punk and metal bands, acts that did not necessarily mesh with Ballard's other music venues.

Owner Ed Konek told the Ballard News-Tribune in March that he was working to take the Bit in a new direction.

"We want to turn it from a real dive bar into a dive bar with a legitimate live music venue," he said.

More information on the the Bit Saloon's impeding closure coming soon.

The Department of Neighborhoods is hosting workshops to inform and educate community groups on developing Neighborhood Matching Fund project proposals.

Topics covered will include the new 2010 Neighborhood Matching Fund guidelines and applications, successful outreach strategies, and coordinating with other city departments and government agencies.

The Neighborhood Matching Fund provides funding to neighborhood groups for community projects.

Two of the workshops will be held in the Ballard area.

The first is from 6 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. on Nov. 17 at the Ballard Public Library, located at 5614 22nd Ave. N.W.

The second meeting will focus on large projects, those ranging from $15,000 to $100,000, and will take place from 6 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. on Jan. 12 at the Phinney Neighborhood Center, located at 6532 Phinney Ave. N.

The fund currently allocates $3.2 million per year.

Officers feel that freshly applied beauty bark, softened by the rain, was the saving grace in High Point last week when two small children fell from a third-floor window of a residence. They landed in the landscaping but suffered no apparent broken bones or head injuries according to medics on scene. The children were transported to Harborview for further evaluation.

An Admiral resident driving westbound on the West Seattle Freeway made the mistake of passing an officer at 78 miles per hour. (The officer generously noted that the driver “slowed down to 75” as he took the Admiral Way exit.) He provided an out-of-state license (though he's lived here for the past year) and an expired insurance card. And it turns out that the Arizona license had been suspended. He was cited for speeding, no proof of insurance, and driving on a suspended license—for which his vehicle was impounded.

A shoplifter at the Morgan Thriftway ran from store security, knocking a mother and child to the floor and damaging the store's doors before managing to escape. He had been caught hiding packages of rib-eye steaks beneath his jacket.

When Diane MacDonald got her miniature Schnauzer Max around 10 years ago she had no idea what his favorite thing to do would be.

He's a normal, people loving dog, very social, she said.

"When we have people over to the house he makes the rounds from lap to lap and If you start petting him he's your friend for life," MacDonald said.

But he has a peculiar habit. He eats Kleenex.

"He likes to go into the waste basket in the bathroom and pull out the Kleenex and pull it out," she said. "He really eats it."

He's also a very loyal friend. The family had an 18-year-old cat who passed away last year.

"We had Bernie set up in the living room, he was in his little bed by the window and Max just came over and sat with him the whole time, until he passed," MacDonald said. "Max and Bernie were great companions. Max is by breed a 'ratter,' so he likes to track things. There were times when Bernie would be sitting in the middle of the living room floor and you could see Max tracking him all around the house, walking around the cat, going all over the house and coming back and saying 'There you are!' It was like something out of a cartoon."

The intersection of language and public policy can be a strange place, I decided while sitting through the equivalent of school detention in a library meeting room.

"I got sent to traffic calming school," I kept thinking, interspersed with, "When do we get to use the radar guns?"

In a nutshell, I moved last year from a narrow street in Ballard to a wide street where there have already been two car accidents requiring medical attention in the last nine months. To research options, I entered into the alternate world of the Seattle Department of Transportation’s Traffic Calming Program.

As a lapsed English major, I still have a problem with using the already dubious word “calming” as a noun. Calm means tranquil, the absence of agitation, winds under one mile per hour. Music or lotions might be described as having calming effects, but what is traffic calming? (It’s a process! according to the SDOT presentation).

To quote Doug Bandow, senior fellow at the Cato Institute, “[Government entitlements] have become the worst sort of fool's bargain—at least for everyone but the politicians who take credit for handing out money to a pliant population.”

This past September, I finally got hear our Congressman Jim McDermott speak on healthcare reform, and his vision of the ‘public option.'

He stated at that time: “My druthers – the public option would be a single-payer option."  In defense of instituting a public option, he referred to Medicare and its successes as an example of how the government got it right. 

My question to him is, “OK… at whose expense?” 

Congressman McDermott is either ignorant of the facts or dishonest about the burden which entitlement mentality places on us and future generations.  But I seriously doubt the former. 

Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, SCHIP and the Prescription Drug entitlement have already dragged this country to the brink.  In my opinion we are already doomed if how the federal government operates, and how Americans perceive its role, are not radically changed.