Letters

Echo Lake

Site left no room for hall expansion

Harley O’Neil should not be pitied because he “spent too much money” was the point of my earlier letter. Nor should he try to look to the city of Shoreline for recovery of money spent. He has been financially affected by the decision, but if he had agreed to sell the entire site at Echo Lake to the city as they asked, undoubtedly we would have a city hall on Echo Lake.

Jim Abbott wrote two weeks ago: “Secondly, in fact the city of Shoreline insisted on closure of Midvale at 185th and re-routing the roadway to align with Midvale north of 185th.” Minutes of the Shoreline City Council meeting of June 28, 2004, include statements from both Abbott and O’Neil. The staff report says; “The developer of Gateway Plaza would like to close Midvale Ave. N. so that they can coordinate more direct access to their site from N. 183rd Street and Aurora Avenue North and create more parking in the Midvale R-O-W as well as on the Seattle City Light property.” These statements would seem to conflict.

Under the Echo Lake scenario proposed by O’Neil, the city would have spent money buying a lot of “common area” and owned only the land under the footprint of the building. Under the current plan the city owns the land outright.

The Echo Lake City Hall left no room for expansion. Lynnwood and Mountlake Terrace are proposing central campus areas for their cities — the current site could accommodate an arts or convention center.

Shoreline shouldn’t cast away its potential to become the anchor tenant of a development that may come to look like the Gateway Plaza project — the project that limited traffic flow and gave us a beautiful expanse of parking in exchange for $13 a square foot of the land where Midvale once existed.

TRACY TALLMAN

Edmonds

Community

Historical museum triggers memories

Last week I had the privilege of helping the Golden Wheels Fraternity show a 1950s-era midget race car, recently restored by Art Waller, who became enamored with racing when, as a teenager, he first heard the sounds of roaring engines from the Aurora Speedway wafting on the summer evening breeze. In those days the Aurora Speedway was located at North 132nd and Aurora Avenue North, well within the borders of present-day Shoreline.

Forwarding to the present, the occasion was the Celebrate Shoreline Festival’s Cruise-In Car Show. Our signage mentioned that this car had competed at the Aurora Speedway. Beyond the usual “What is it? How fast will it go?” interest in the car, we were surprised by the 50 or more questions and personal remembrances from the viewing crowd about the racetrack itself.

It points out how director Vicki Stiles at the Shoreline Historical Museum (the car show organizer) is touching the minds and memories of today’s Shoreline citizens, of all ages, and underscores the relevance and value of the museum to the city.

VICKI WESTBERG

Shoreline

National

Fear-mongering is losing effectiveness

I’m beginning to wonder if Chicken Little hasn’t cried, “Terrorist!” one too many times when the elections are coming up again.

The public is growing weary of the fear-mongering tactics used by the Republican politicians to manipulate voters.

After Iraq and Hurricane Katrina, I am skeptical of the Republican promises to protect America. Quite simply, I am disgusted with the way the politicians are trying to politicize the recent terror threat to distract the country from their failures – failures that have left us less safe now than the 9/11 attack five years ago.

REBECCA ROSMAN

Shoreline