How to treat 175th and Aurora Avenue

Published 6:52 pm Tuesday, March 31, 2009

As Shoreline builds the middle mile of the Aurora Avenue project, it faces a problem with the Aurora Rents store at Northwest 175th Street and Aurora Avenue North.

Widening Aurora will force Aurora Rents to move back from the street. The owner of the store wants to make up for this loss by taking up the “red brick road” behind the store.

The problem with that is the brick road has significance as Shoreline’s original paved road.

Some people worry that the cost of preserving the brick road as it is would be a loss to the city of this business and the tax money it generates.

When a similar problem happened with part of the brick road near the Walgreens store at 175th and Aurora, the bricks were removed to be pieced together at the soon-to-be-developed Interurban Park.

Bricks from both sites could go together at this or another site.

Then, the city could both preserve history and allow Aurora Rents to stay in its location and give Shoreline the need tax revenue.

Need to preserve state parks

Proposed state budget cuts could mean closing a quarter of Washington’s state parks.

There’s been talk of turning the parks over to the counties, but that won’t work because most counties have their own financial trouble.

Instead, let’s turn some parks from places for active recreation, with swimming areas, playgrounds, ball fields, etc., to places for passive recreation, such as hiking, places that need little supervision or maintenance. This would mean removing some amenities at these converted parks, but it would keep them for public use.

Remembering Bill O’Mara

When Bill O’Mara died a week and a half ago at age 92, Seattle lost its pioneer TV sportscaster.

O’Mara was the sports director at KING-TV when it was the only station in town. He did a 10-minute sports program following the station’s 15-minute 6 p.m. newscast.

His broadcast was incredibly local, devoted to the Seattle Rainiers, the UW Huskies, the Seattle U Chieftains, the Buchan Bakers amateur basketball team, the string of Puget Sound area golf champions and, of course, the hydros.

In the 1950s, hydroplane racing was the major Seattle-area sport. On race day he kept his audience abreast of engine changes between heats.

His coverage was so complete that when KOMO-TV and KIRO-TV came along, they had to match it.

His style was bland and predictable: “He’s at the thousand-foot buoy, 500 feet away; he’s over the line.”

After a decade, modern sportscasters soon made his style seem old fashioned. He went to a smaller TV station, then to small radio stations, finishing his career broadcasting high school games in Anacortes as he reached age 90.

Evan Smith can be reached at entopinion@heraldnet.com.