Schools

District measures will improve education

It is time to vote for schools again. Voters in the Edmonds School District have an opportunity to support quality education for our students on Feb. 7. We will vote on two measures that will continue and enhance the quality of our children’s schools.

The operation and maintenance levy is a replacement of an existing levy. This provides the difference between the state’s contribution and the true cost of education. This does not increase our taxes, but ensures the quality of programs, staffing, and activities for all students. All of this and the replacement tax rate is actually less than what we are paying now.

The construction bond allows the Capitol Projects office to utilize the surplus properties to leverage an additional $140 million for construction of replacement school buildings. The district, with input from community members, has developed a plan to leverage these properties to generate money for construction without having to come to the voters. We are fortunate to have this opportunity.

Vote yes on Tuesday, Feb. 7, on propositions 1 and 2. Vote yes for the program and operations levy. Vote yes for the construction bond. Improve education for all students in Edmonds School District.

VERN ENNS

Lynnwood

Bond measure will build needed schools

Voting yes on both of the Edmonds School District propositions is the right thing to do for our students. I am proud that our district superintendent and staff is using school district assets to leverage a 2-for-1 dollar value in matching the $140 million bond by leasing out valuable land next to Alderwood mall to drive income for years to come. The bond will cover the building of a new Lynnwood High School, Meadowdale Middle School, Alderwood Middle School, Lynndale Elementary, Madrona K-8 school along with other numerous projects that are needed.

The current Lynnwood High School is in desperate shape with pumps running continuously to keep the current building from flooding. The buildings that will be replaced with this bond have all met their intended 30-plus year life expectancy to be replaced by better buildings with 50-plus year life expectancies.

Passing the levy is also critical to keeping our community strong. The levy provides nearly 20 percent of the funding that keeps our schools open and pays for valued programs.

Please join us in voting yes on both proposition’s 1 and 2.

DOUG and CAROL SHELDON

Edmonds

Mountlake Terrace

Fire station addition unattractive, wasteful

The new fire station in Mountlake Terrace is a handsome building, with the roof line that I have long wished for: a peaked effect that fits well with the city’s name and logo, and also suits our climate. But I have a major complaint.

As the building took shape, I went through it with the permission of project boss Dale Risling, taking pictures for myself and for the historical committee. Living on 59th a block or two north, I watched the forms being built, the concrete core poured, the wall progressing, and finally the roof framework going up. Then one morning as I walked by on 232nd, there was an unexplainable growth jutting over the front entry. From the north, one doesn’t notice it so much because the ugly slab is seen edge on. This may have been the reason the design was accepted: the picture on display in the city office shows a northern view. I can’t believe the design would have been approved if the council had viewed it clearly from the east.

Now, as the crowning insult to our pleasure in having a new station, at night the monstrosity is floodlighted from below, making it even more obvious.

Because the ugly thing serves no practical purpose, destroys the unity of the design, adds needlessly to the project’s cost and perplexes the citizenry, it should be remove at the architect’s expense, and shipped collect to his address, before official acceptance of the finished building or payment of any final balance. If taxpayers are not weary of being victimized by faddish designs from architects taking advantage of public funding, they ought to be.

FRANK HUTCHINS

Mountlake Terrace

Clean up the graffiti before gangs arrive

I walk by the Shucks Auto Supply story on 220th and Highway 99 every day and have been wondering why the graffiti is still there. In December the building was tagged and it remained for over two weeks. Finally the tags were painted over, but you could still see the tags; therefore, the bangers came back and tagged it all over again. The black graffiti has been on the building for over a month now and Tuesday I noticed that new red tags had appeared.

Having lived in Los Angeles for 10 years, I know how taggers operate and if their tags aren’t immediately painted over they assume the city doesn’t care and lays the ground for gangs to move on in. It is obvious that the black tags are by one gang and the new red ones another. I personally think it is quite ugly and can’t understand why the city is allowing it to remain for all to see.

I attended the Citizens Academy two years ago and remember this issue being addressed in one of the classes. Lynnwood seems to be on top of any new tags or graffiti … is it Mountlake Terrace that just doesn’t care about the appearance of their city or what?

I think the community is wondering the same thing. Someone should write a series of articles all about tagging and what we are doing to control it … or not.

KRIS PARKER

Edmonds

Building heights

Haakenson is placing blame in wrong area

Mayor Gary Haakenson’s Jan. 13 column, “Downtown Will Change, But Slowly,” blames a moratorium on certain downtown Edmonds development for the lack of new building applications downtown. He proposes “at a minimum, the 30-foot building height that has been in place for many years should be restored.”

The mayor should know better. Edmonds Code section 16.50.020 says that the “maximum height” for buildings in downtown Edmonds is 25 feet; the same code section allows another five feet on the top of that, but for the “roof only.”

Who’s right, me or the mayor? The 30-foot building height he claims has been in place for many years was declared illegal in a lawsuit my neighbors and I were forced to bring after city planners wrongly permitted a Bothell developer to build a four-story building behind my house. The court stopped the plan, finding that the developer and the city planning department misused the code’s special five-foot incentive for decorative roof styles to add a full extra floor of condominiums.

The mayor’s claim that the current moratorium on 30-foot buildings is responsible for lack of building applications is also false. After we won our lawsuit, the City Council passed Ordinance 3492, a temporary law allowing 30-foot buildings. For the six months that this law was in place, no building applications were received. So don’t blame the lack of developer-friendly regulation for the lack of development applications.

The city is making progress, though. As you also reported Jan. 13, the city is planning to hold two public meetings to discuss development ideas for Firdale Village and Five Corners on Jan. 26 and 30. Opening up the process to let our local residents express their opinions about future development will contribute more to the future of Edmonds than will the city’s past practice of approving illegal developments.

STEPHEN BERNHEIM

Edmonds

Martin Luther King

Serving God was leader’s true purpose

With the recent anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday, I felt compelled to write in response to The Enterprise’s invitation to readers to reply.

Anyone who has studied the lives of King, Rosa Parks, Malcolm X, and Booker T. Washington, or has read novels such as Richard Wright’s “Native Son,” Ralph Ellison’s “Invisible Man,” or the civil rights essays of James Baldwin is very acquainted with the unique struggles and hardships that African-Americans have had in our nation’s history. Dr. King worked very hard and suffered long while raising his strong redemptive voice to send a clarion call to racist or indifferent people in our country at that time. Americans should be appreciative of his sacrifices, proud of his legacy, and responsive with their own attitudes and actions.

At the same time, people who only look at his relationship with his fellow man while ignoring or discounting his relationship to God are missing King’s primary purpose for being alive. That purpose? To worship and glorify Almighty God and to serve as His representative and witness to the world that God’s offer of salvation and the coming of His eternal kingdom are present and future realities.

Yes, his work regarding civil rights was extremely important, and the ripple effects of those efforts are still being felt to this very day. Yet even more importantly, as a recent Seattle Times article pointed out, King was a prophetic pastor called by God to do His holy will that had nothing to do with the exaltation of King himself. It had everything to do with the exaltation of God.

STEVE GOODMAN

Mountlake Terrace