In the past few weeks there have been disturbing reports about violence in our nation’s schools — specifically the murder/suicides in Colorado and in the Amish school. We have had our own share of recent incidents here as well. You may be asking the questions: How safe are we and what measures have we taken as a community to prevent violence in our schools? I would like to reassure you that we do have strategies in place with many people in our community working together to ensure the safety of our young people and our staff. Here are some examples:
Today a study team from the University of Washington will present a newly completed map detailing the Island’s precarious position atop a couple of active geologic faults. A presentation for Islanders to hear and see more about the map will be held at noon today at Mercer Island City Hall.
It has been a dreary, endless rainy November, bringing wind, gutters and drains blocked with leaves and debris, sluiceways on the streets, wet basements and leaking roofs.
I want to address the PEAK project. This proposed facility, 50 feet from 86th Avenue S.E., is an out-of-scale community-center-sized building that is proposed to be placed smack in the middle of an already extremely busy neighborhood. It will overwhelm us.
The Christmas season has arrived. Throngs of people are already at the malls to get a head start on their gift lists. It’s also the time of year when street-smart con-artists take advantage of holiday guilt so you can expect to see an increase of panhandlers at intersections, freeway off-ramps and anywhere else they can get attention.
There is a venerable local organization that has been in business longer than the City of Mercer Island has been a city. The volunteers produce a useful product that is mailed to every household and organization on the Island and is prized by its recipients. This praiseworthy effort is in the “business” of raising money for an honored Seattle institution.
I am truly honored to be chosen by my colleagues in the House Democratic Caucus to chair the Transportation Committee.
As the year draws to a close, a new chapter is beginning for the Mercer Island Reporter. The Reporter has been purchased by Black Press, a Canadian newspaper group. It owns newspapers in the Puget Sound region through its subsidiary, Sound Publishing. Black Press has purchased all 10 papers in the King County Journal Newspaper group: the daily King County Journal; two weeklies, the Mercer Island Reporter and Snoqualmie Valley Record; and seven Reporter papers published every two weeks: the Auburn, Bellevue, Bothell/Kenmore, Covington/Maple Valley, Kent, Redmond and Renton Reporters. Our new owner plans to increase the frequency of publication of the bi-weeklies, to weekly and twice-weekly.
Sen. Brian Weinstein
It was one for the record books. A fierce windstorm that followed a rainstorm of biblical proportions. The damage to the power system was severe. It was cold. The Island was black for days. Hundreds of Islanders remained without power for up to a week.
On December 14 we endured a storm that initially flooded the streets of the business center and left us adrift without heat or technology. The entire island was without grid power. Houses went cold. Some of us couldn’t cook or take a shower. We went loopy when our electronics faded as batteries drained. We are thankful to the dedicated public employees and utility workers who have worked long hours, in dangerous conditions, to provide for our safety and comfort. Many millions of dollars will be spent getting us back to “normal.” And sadly for some in our region, the loss of power, flash flooding and downing of trees was deadly and not just an expensive and uncomfortable experience.
From the inception of Mercer Island government, the city has worked hard to keep utilities up to date, beginning 50 years ago with the installation of a municipal sewer system. However, as the storm of the past month reminded us, the infrastructure here is tied to that of the region and to entities whose workings are largely out of our control — entities that must look after hundreds of thousands of customers as well as Islanders.
PEAK could be an admirable community asset with a teen center, a new Boys & Girls Club, childcare and gyms. What PEAK does not offer is a high school-integrated facility as once envisioned and sold to the community in Spring 2005. For a project that neither offers educational value nor reflects funding priorities, PEAK will soak up $1,000,000 in precious school funds and scarce school district land, while incurring ongoing costs and headaches for the Mercer Island School District. For this reason, PEAK should not be sited on MISD land, but instead nurtured elsewhere by community — not school — funds
