I don't know what can be done to make White Center more valuable.

The City of Seattle does not want her. Burien does and this makes me question the motivation of the alliance.

The roads are okay; they have libraries, a swim pool and plenty of low-income housing? I have owned the (White Center News) newspaper since 1952. In 1962 we got the county to build garden beds full of flowers that looked great but became traffic hazards and are now long gone.

I asked former King County Commissioner Ed Munro what he thought back then. He said, "Rezone much of the residential area within half a mile of Roxbury Street and build apartment houses."

The idea was to bring density to the area. The business people were thriving and ignored him. They did not see the future coming in the form of a newly developed Burien and the eventual shopping center in Tukwila by 1967.

In 1954, the area had blossomed. We had five chain groceries, three dress shops, several shoe stores, a couple of drug stores, a paint store, three or four restaurants, and three hardware stores. We had three banks and two television stores.

It was the heyday for this town. Sadly, White Center growth stopped by 1964. The newspaper mounted a campaign to change the name of the area to Westwood. Maybe a name change would stir things up. It failed but Westwood Village rose out of the swampy lowland off SW Trenton St and gave us chain drug stores, a hardware store and a Marshalls department store. It was not enough to stop other merchants from fleeing the area.

White Center businesses relocated to Burien. The population began to shrink. The skating rink closed. The Red Shield swim pool closed. Yes, the rink re-opened in recent years but it was too late.

There have been very few private dwelling units built in White Center, except for replacement public houses in White Center Heights, now called Greenbridge.

In 1968, Burien came alive with a three men's stores, four banks, four dress shops, a bunch of eateries. Later the airport strip was developed with some hotels.

Largely, I suspect, due to the development of Southcenter Mall in 1967, Burien began its own downsizing by the late '70s. Merchants were fleeing this town too for the environs of Tukwila and the I-5 corridor.

So why has the county been so anxious to get rid of White Center? Obviously they can't get enough money from the businesses or the homeowners to cover the cost of police, firefighters and street maintenance.

The state is offering Burien millions of dollars to cover the cost of annexing White Center. That will make County Executive Dow Constantine happy. The county would be free of the burden of support for White Center.

Is the Burien City council smarter than Seattle's or former county executive Ron Sims? Are folks suddenly going to revitalize downtown White Center because of annexation?

What can Burien do to attract customers away from shopping meccas like Southcenter, the Junction, Fred Meyer, Marshalls, and Macy's? Not much I fear.

Hey!, can we get Macy's to build a store in the old White Center News building on 17th and 98th? It has been empty for thirty years. It is just a block away from the JP Morgan Chase bank. They wouldn't have to go very far to deposit the millions of dollars Burien hopes to get from the state for taking on a White (elephant) Center.