Jennifer Gerend

Her job is essential for city’s businesses

I am sorry to see Jennifer Gerend leave Edmonds after only two years. While she and I have not always seen eye to eye on her ideas, I think she has done a terrific job for Edmonds. I will miss her attitude, her professionalism and her smile.

I am a downtown landlord and a member of the Greater Edmonds Chamber of Commerce. For the last two years, the economic development director has made my dealings with the city easier. I have heard the same thing from property owners, business owners and prospective new business owners. Jennifer has helped smooth the way for permit requests and other regulatory issues as well as assisting the city attract new businesses (and sales tax revenue).

I understand there are discussions among the council members about eliminating this position, or if it is kept, to require the employee to live in the city. These ideas are silly – especially the residency requirement.

This position is vital. While Jennifer has personally put her stamp on the job, she is not irreplaceable (sorry Jennifer). The mayor found her. He can find someone just as or more competent (sorry again).

As far as the residency requirement – get serious. If we had such a requirement for every city employee then I would have no issue with this. But we don’t. Suppose we find a suitable person who lives nearby. Why should that person have to sell his or her house, yank the kids out of schools and generally disrupt his or her life? What if the mayor found a candidate who had to relocate from out of state to take the job? It could be very expensive for someone to move to Edmonds instead of somewhere nearby. Both of these situations will seriously reduce the candidate pool.

What if the economic development director did have to live in Edmonds and started advocating for improvements in his or her neighborhood? These improvements might have a positive effect on property values. Some citizens have raised issues at council meetings about conflicts of interest when a council member or staffer is working on a project that might affect them personally. Do we want a cloud to hang over such an initiative?

CHRIS FLECK

Edmonds

WASL

Parents can opt kids out of subjective test

WASL testing is now over. Thank goodness. I wonder how many parents know that WASL testing is optional and there is no benefit to their child. Even though WASL is one of the most expensive tests, there has never been any proof that education is improving because of it.

Many of us that refuse to let our kids participate in this federal mandated testing do so because we are fighting for our schools to remain under local control. We don’t want to hand our schools over to the federal government and we want more choices and pathways for our children so they can be successful for life after high school. As it is now, punishments are so stiff for low test scores, that schools must spend all their time, faculty and money on improving scores, leaving little incentive to educate your child past the realms of the WASL.

The WASL is subjective; it assesses opinions, discriminates, contains unrealistic and non-knowledge-based questions, allows scoring discrepancies, wastes money, promotes test teaching, pushes poor curriculum, devours educational time, and then insults our children’s intelligence while revealing nothing useful. It is scored by a company that has been ridiculed with scoring errors and exposes our state to a class action lawsuit.

Parents that opt their children out of WASL testing usually do not have any fear of their children failing. They do not allow their children to take WASL tests because they have a good understanding of the education reform movement and the motives behind WASL. If parents care about schools and education, I urge them to say, “no thanks” to WASL testing. A good place for information on WASL is at www.mothersagainstwasl.org .

KATHY STORKERSEN

Edmonds