Burien council members honored on April 16 retiring city resource manager and clerk Jan Roegner, who has served as since incorporation in 1993.

Roegner has trained many of the current staff, negotiating the contract that allowed council meetings to be covered on cable Channel21, and produced the city's newsletter.

"It's amazing how Jan has done all of these jobs and done them so well," Councilman Gordon Shaw observed.

"I'm overwhelmed and close to speechless," Roegner said in response to tributes from the council. "I just want to tell you I appreciate the opportunity to work with you all and thank you for always putting the community first."

Nextel, the city's wireless provider, informed lawmakers it will improve communications in the area and apologized for interruptions in service in the aftermath of December's windstorm, which left thousands of residents without power for days.

Nextel will "harden" its transmitter sites in the area by upgrading the current transmitters and adding more. The company said it has invested $8 million in the upgrades, which should be completed by the end of May.

City Manager Mike Martin said indications from Olympia were that House Bill 1139, which would give Seattle a significantly larger amount of money than Burien would receive for annexing that the North Highline unincorporated area, would not win Senate approval before the end of the session last weekend.

He added that the Senate has set aside $1.6 million for Burien's Town Square Project. But Assistant City Manager David Cline said a recent meeting with legislators suggested the city is likely to see only a third of that amount, if anything at all.