Letters

Traffic safety

Red-light runners are posing a hazard

I know that this is not the first time you have had letters complaining about the current traffic issues in our community, but what are we actually going to do about them?

Last night as my husband, daughter and I traveled from Edmonds to the Alderwood Mall, we watched as a white pickup truck drove through a four way stop without so much as a pause. When we made our way home at the intersection of 44th Ave. W. and 188th, not one, but two cars ran a solid red light when we already had the green light to proceed!

I know that the police cannot witness all these infractions and when they do monitor intersections and roads everybody drives as they should!

I am a parent who has a 17-year-old in his first year of driving independently and this is stressful enough. Witnessing the drivers who choose to ignore the rules of the road and it becomes downright frightening!

Perhaps we need more unmarked police cars effectively hidden to catch traffic light violators and an increased presence of police cars effectively hidden to catch traffic light violators and an increased presence of police at intersections well known for drivers who run red lights. As we wait for an effective method of monitoring intersections I hope that we can make this as much of an issue as the campaign to wear your seat belt!

CATHERINE POWERS

Edmonds

Thanks

Donations will help fire department

The Edmonds Fire Safety Foundation is very grateful to the people of Edmonds and the surrounding communities for the many donations of quality goods for our annual garage sale. The sale held on July 19-20 vas a huge success.

Special thanks to the fire department for all its efforts and donations, to the newspapers, TV Channel 21 and KSER Radio for the great publicity. A very special thanks to Armadillo Self Storage on Highway 99 for its generous contribution of storage units several weeks before the sale.

Because of the tremendous generosity in terms of donations of items and eftort, we are able to continue to work towards our goal of providing special firefighting and fire safety equipment to the Edmonds Fire Department.

It is indeed a privilege to live and work in this caring community.

BETTY RUNNING

Edmonds

Parks

City employees keep Edmonds beautiful

You’ve gotta love those guys! No, we’re not talking about the Mariners this time – we’re talking about the Parks Department people who do such a wonderful job keeping Edmonds in bloom all summer long.

Arvilla Ohlde, head of the Parks and Recreation Department, and her staff are to be commended for making Edmonds the most attractive and colorful city we’ve ever been in. And what makes that so special for us? Because we are so fortunate to live here and can enjoy our beautiful city all year round.

To all of you responsible for making our streets so beautiful – thank you! Your capabilities for creating beautiful flower beds on the many street corners plus all the attractive hanging flower baskets are truly appreciated by all of us living in Edmonds. We’ve often commented to others that living in Edmonds is like being on vacation all the time and your colorful flower displays certainly have much to do with our feelings.

So, to you people in our parks department – take a bow. You deserve it!

NANCY and DON OLSEN

Edmonds

Brightwater

Leaders don’t trust local communities

Sixty percent of Brightwater sewage hookups (about 300,000) will be in south Snohomish County. That is perhaps a million new people.

Investments to match will be needed in each and every community in the range of tens of millions to billions for roads, water mains, electrical lines, schools and other infrastructure that inevitably follows sewage capacity.

A serious problem with an argument focused on what one man (Ron Sims) wants, is pre-emption of an all-out, no-holds-barred discussion that should be had by community people actually participating in basic decision making. Snohomish County will undergo the most profound period of change in its history. Is Brightwater more cause or effect? Is it wise at all?

For example, why are we not looking at 21st Century treatment technology? Tertiary, the hightest state of the art, associated with local scale and decentralized facilities, would seem to be a smarter way to go.

Perhaps the real issue here is that top-down executives don’t trust local communities, and citizens must mobilize to change the governance pattern before this large scale billion dollar expense creates a large scale disaster as the wrongful product of a lack of trust between citizens and public leaders.

STUART HEADY

Edmonds