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
Six Mercer Island School District teachers have earned National Board Certification bringing the total number of nationally certified teachers in Island schools with this distinction to ten. The always-growing number of teachers in the school district who hold advanced degrees and are working to continually improve their skills, is a reflection of to the values held by Island educators and parents alike.
Just four days after Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was killed by a sniper’s bullet on a terrible April day in 1968, legislation was introduced to create a federal holiday to honor him. When the bill became bogged down by political maneuvering, petitions containing six million names endorsing the holiday were submitted to Congress.
People will inevitably differ in their interpretations of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s legacy and in their assessments of “how far we’ve come.”
The focus of the 35th Annual Economic Outlook conference at the downtown Seattle Convention Center last Wednesday was on giving money away rather than making it. Instead of focusing on the usual indicators of employment growth or jet aircraft orders, the conference of business leaders and economists centered on the role of philanthropy as not only an engine of social change but also a tool of profound and growing impact on the world and the local economy.
