The View From Here

A bill making its way through the Washington state Legislature is aimed at limiting a city or county’s ability to restrict visits by Tent City – currently residing in Issaquah.
<a href=”http://www.king5.com/news/local/State-lawmakers-take-on-Tent-City-laws-84701642.html”>King 5 News reports that earlier this month</a>, Mercer Island began a new an ordinance that prohibits neighboring temples and churches on the island from hosting the homeless encampment Tent City more than once every year and a half.
In response, State Representative Brendan Williams drafted House Bill 1956, which limits the amount cities or counties can restrict or interfere with a church or temple’s ability to host the homeless.

On Wednesday evening, Jan. 13, the City of Sammamish will hold a public meeting during which it hopes to gather residents’ input on what is needed to make the 244th Ave NE corridor more accessible to pedestrian and bicyclists.
The city’s <a href=”http://www.ci.sammamish.wa.us/projects/244thAveNE.aspx”>244th Ave non-motorized improvement project</a> is scheduled to enter the design stage in Spring of this year, before construction in Spring of 2011.
Wednesday’s meeting, which will be held from 5:30-7:30 p.m. at Rachel Carson Elementary School at 1035 244th Ave. NE, will discuss non-motorized improvements between NE 8th Street and NE 20th Street, including a sidewalk and bike lane on the west side of road and widened shoulder on the east.
For more information about the meeting, contact Colleen Rupke of the city’s public works department at 425-295-0565, or e-mail crupke@ci.sammamish.wa.us

Church groups and volunteers are getting ready to welcome to Issaquah the second visit of Tent City 4.
<a href=”http://www.mrsc.org/Subjects/Housing/tentcity/tentcity.aspx”>Tent City</a> is a temporary village which houses up to 100 homeless men and women, offering them a roof over their head and some of the many facilities most of us take for granted, such as a place to shower and store belongings.
<a href=”http://www.pnwlocalnews.com/east_king/iss/opinion/81027772.html”>It is also a place of community</a>, providing homeless people with some stability in their attempts to get back on their feet through employment, treatment for addiction, or reconnecting with family and friends.
On Saturday, Jan. 23, Tent City 4 will pack up its current digs at the Bellevue First Methodist Church and move to the grounds of the <a href=”http://www.commchurchiss.org/”>Community Church of Issaquah</a> at 205 Mt. Park Blvd SW. There they will stay until April 24, when Tent City 4 will move to the grounds of another Eastside church.
The Issaquah City Council, local residents and businesses have demonstrated a great welcome for the small community of otherwise homeless people.
But, as important as it is, goodwill will only go so far, and there is still work to be done to ensure the success of this vital, yet unfunded, service.
The Issaquah Sammamish Interfaith Coalition, which, as the name suggests, is a group of people from many different churches, was formed to coordinate the massive volunteer effort needed to move the village of tents from Bellevue to Issaquah, and provide food, equipment and other provisions for the 80 or so residents.
At a Tent City coordination meeting at Bellevue First Methodist last week, The Reporter met with representatives of the various churches as well as residents of Tent City, in order to provide timely and accurate information about what resources and supplies are needed.
For the move-in day on Jan. 23, up to 20 volunteers are still needed to assist with work that could involved loading and offloading pallets and heavy equipment, or helping with organization.
In addition, the Interfaith Coalition has released this list of needs:
• 30 lbs. 3” nails for nailing plywood to pallets
• twine
• 500 ft. of a quarter inch nylon rope
• rolls of duct tape
• 300 ft of a quarter inch hemp rope
• 2-3 pickup trucks to make run(s) to First United Methodist to haul supplies
• one truck to haul TC4 shower trailer. Needs hitch and 2 inch ball. Weight less than 1000 lbs.
• help to setup Tent City computer network
If you are able to supply any item, or part of an item on this list, contact Elizabeth Maupin at elipeter@juno.com., as soon as possible.

There is also an opportunity for families and large groups to provide an evening meal for the residents.
Church and sporting groups, groups of friends and office teams have all taken part in meal provision at Tent City, and attest to it being not only personally very satisfying but also a great way to learn more about your friends and your community.
There are a number of vacancies on the meals calendar. To view the calendar go to <a href=”http://prem.calendars.net/tcmeals”>http://prem.calendars.net/tcmeals</a>. If you want to sign, or just know more, e-mail Steve Burk at TC4meals@gmail.com.

Tradesmen and handymen also have an opportunity to do their part. If you can assist with electrical or plumbing hook-ups, or have questions about labor or equipment for the move, contact Earle Jones at ehjonz@yahoo.com.

Tent City is operated by <a href=”http://www.sharewheel.org/”>SHARE/WHEEL</a>, an organization of homeless and formerly homeless men and women. Their meagre budget covers some basic costs such as sanitation, refuse pick up, and bus pass allocation to some of the residents, though does not cover many basic needs, including food.
Rather than representing a drain on residents’ resources and a negative impact on the city, Tent City instead offers the people of Issaquah and Sammamish an opportunity to learn more about homelessness on a social, political and economic level, while at the same time contributing to a valuable social program.

A gold Christmas tree ornament has been found attached to one of the trees which was left out for Sammamish Boy Scout troops to recycle on Saturday.
Luckily, Boy Scout leader John Evdemon and his wife Deb rescued the ornament from the chipper, which was where the trees were headed.
Deb told The Reporter that the ornament was a sleeping baby angel, engraved “Bryan Edward 1-15-85.”
“That puts the child at 24 years old – but a mom somewhere in Sammamish is missing it,” she said. “John saved it because he knows how upset I would be if I lost one of our kid’s ornaments.”
If you think the ornament might be yours, e-mail Deb at devdemon@rocketmail.com.

Teachers, parents and students from the Issaquah School District will come together on Tuesday tonight to discuss what is often a source of mystery and misunderstanding.
The District PTSA will present an educational seminar “What Are Teens Really Doing Today?”
All three high schools have teamed with their local police officers for a discussion to help parents understand the world of teenage alcohol, drugs, and driving—and the legal consequences.
The seminar is based on the booklet “Parent & Teen Survival Guide,” and will be held between 7 and 8:30 p.m., Tuesday, Jan. 12, at Issaquah High School.
The booklet can be downloaded at <a href=”http://www.issaquahptsa.org/parented/index.htm#teens”>www.issaquahptsa.org.</a>
For more information, contact Stacy Smith at 425-392-7294.

I didn’t realize it at the time, but my mum was pretty awesome. Like most kids whose parents actually take an active interest in their lives, I thought she was mostly just pretty lame, and only came to all my rugby and cricket matches, and BMX meets and tennis tournaments and athletic and swimming meets because she didn’t have anything better to do. Apart from raise a kid by herself and hold down a career.
One of my clearest memories is every Saturday morning she would drive around half the city in our yellow Ford Econovan, picking up a bunch of my teammates on our way to footy, or whatever was the sport of the season.
There would always be five or six of us in the Econovan. I never thought much about why I never saw their parents – my mates were usually standing out  in the front yard by themselves, boots in hand, waiting for us to swing by.
But as mum was the chauffeur, she would then usually become the nurse, water runner and nose wiper too.
As the Sammamish City Council begins to consider options for the future of Beaver Lake Park, I have been thinking of these Saturday’s of my youth. One of the biggest concerns with plans for the park center around parking – will there be enough to accommodate visitors, particularly the junior sports teams that will come to use the playing fields?
Ideas such as staggering game times to avoid crossovers, creating parking along 244th or at the intersection of that road and Southeast 24th, have all been floated as temporary solutions to what is looming as a big, permanent problem.
People in Sammamish and Issaquah are starting to get really mad about traffic in their cities, and I am constantly hearing why we should expand this road or that, add a right of way here and a turn lane there, to solve the blockages on 228th and many other spots.
Talking with Kamuron Gurol last week, the Director of Community Development at the City of Sammamish admitted that traffic, roads and parking are the biggest problems facing the city. And they are not likely to go away.
I had an appointment with Kamuron up at city hall at about 1 p.m. I pulled out of our office on Gilman Boulevard, and straight into a near traffic jam – the lunch hour rush.
Lunch hour rush? Why on earth would traffic increase so dramatically around lunch hour? It doesn’t make sense.
It’s people choosing not to walk to a restaurant, or bring their own food to work, but drive a few blocks to a drive-thru or some other place. In America, one out of every three meals is eaten in a car.
It’s behavioral. Bad roads aren’t causing the traffic, bad lifestyles are.
Earlier this year I wrote a story about a group of senior students at Issaquah High School who developed a carpooling program to cope with the loss of parking spaces at the school during construction. Researching the program, they looked around for other high schools in the country who had gotten into carpooling. Guess how many they found? Nationwide? Zero.
Wonder why 228th looks like it does at 8 a.m. and 3 p.m.? One parent dropping off one student (usually in a machine that is at least three times bigger that it needs to be). Or one student driving themselves. I know there are plenty of exceptions to this, but there are still more than enough propelling the single occupancy disaster to make it the single biggest human characteristic defining our landscape.
And I am sure that should a rotating carpool system make its way into the everyday parlance of junior sporting teams and their parents, it would go a long way to solving the issue of parking near the fields at Beaver Lake Park.
As Kamuron told me, the city recognizes that more than half of the battle is behavioral and must soon act upon it, encouraging work and lifestyle routines that keep people off the roads during peak hours.
Reducing congestion in this manner doesn’t necessarily involve cramming into a standing-room only bus, van-pooling, or slogging across the I-90 bridge like Lance Armstrong.
Sammamish and Issaquah have a high percentage of top level executives and managers, people in creative jobs, IT programmers and designers – people who can bring a little more flexibility into their work day by going in later and coming home later, or vice versa.
There is also an enormous opportunity for the city and local businesses to encourage telecommuting, common areas for online meetings, shared resource hubs. Some Eastside businesses give free bus passes to their employees, but also gym memberships to encourage them to do something else after work before driving home at 5:30 p.m. and joining the gridlock.
What is miraculous about these lifestyle decisions to help us all stay out of traffic jams, they make great “life.” Like six kids in the back of a yellow Econovan, reaching out to our neighbors, teammates, schoolmates and colleagues is about more than traffic sense; it’s about community.

City of Sammamish volunteer coordinator Dawn Sanders has put together a great resource for non-profit and community groups – a regular monthly meeting to discuss best practices, trends to be aware of, as well as presentations from successful community organizers like United Way and the Seattle Foundation. I get to the meetings whenever I can, and it seems those involved are really benefiting from practical advise on how best to manage their volunteers and achieve their aims.

For more info, contact Dawn at dsanders@ci.sammamish.wa.us.

Here is something I have been meaning to do for the group for a while – a “how-to” guide on the best way to present information for publication in local papers. This is pretty nuts and bolts info, and there is obviously more to it than this. But these are some important basics.

How to get information about your non-profit or community organization
printed in local papers.

It is good to remember that the editor of your local paper receives many notices from community groups each day. While editors are really amazing people with funny jokes, who are really in quite good shape for their age too, they are always looking to save as much time as they can where possible.
What decides between that information that regularly gets printed and posted online, and those that get pushed to the back of the line is:
1. Is the information ready to go? How much work do I have to do to it to get it ready for print?
2. Is it local? Is it timely?
3. Can I get the key points in, if I only have a little room? But is there more info (or a photo) if I have a bit more space?
4. Can I get a hold of someone to answer any questions I might have?

Here’s an example of the kind of notice I always like seeing…
• Get straight to the point – what is happening? What is the purpose of this notice?
“The Pygmy Survival Alliance (PSA) is hosting an information session and open house, between 6 and 8 p.m., Thursday, Jan. 16, at their headquarters, 1595 Gilman Blvd, NW, Issaquah.”

• Next, a bit more info about the event…
“The PSA will present the results of their fact finding mission to Rwanda this past June, including a short film on the trip by team leader Jimmy Smits. Admission to the event is free and all are welcome to attend.”

• Before you lose them, give them the info they need…
“RSVP is not required, but for more information on the PSA and their members, contact Karate Joe at 425-655-6565, e-mail karatejoe@pygmysurvival.com., or visit www.psa.org.”

• I’d like to know a bit more…
“The Pygmy Survival Alliance is a group of Seattle-based doctors and public health workers aiming to reduce infant mortality rates among the native people of Central Africa, and improve their living and working conditions. The PSA was formed in Seattle in 2005 by Dr. Karl Weyrauch, in response to the imminent extinction of these native people due to their forced displacement by the Rwandan government.”
This is sometimes called a boilerplate – not sure why – but it’s a few lines outlining what the group is about. It’s a good idea to include these on the bottom of all your communications. Like a letterhead, only at the bottom. A letterbottom, then.

• Make it as easy as you can for the editor to get in touch with the right person, if he or she wants to follow up.
MEDIA CONTACT: Debbie Doughnut – 425-611-1116, e-mail ddoughnut@gmail.com
In my experience, it is better to have just one “go-to person,” rather than three points of contact who um and ah and refer you back to one of the others. Never good to have to make three phone calls and leave two messages and send four e-mails just to find out whether it is June 26 or June 27.

Important notes:

• Time, Date, then Place. 4:30 p.m., Tuesday, Aug. 18, at the Oddfellows Arms, 21 Munchkin St., Sammamish.

• Jan., not January. Dec., not December. May, June.

• Don’t include the year, unless it is a few years out. If the person reading it isn’t sure what year the event will be, you probably don’t want them for your group anyway…

• DO NOT WRITE ANY WHOLE WORDS IN CAPITAL LETTERS ANYWHERE IN THE INFORMATION YOU WANT PRINTED, NO MATTER HOW MUCH YOU ARE TRYING TO EMPHASIZE IT!! OR EXCLAMATION POINTS!! The key to getting your information printed is making it easy for the editor to cut it into the right style. Having to retype sentences written in capitals into normal text is a hassle.

• Send the info in a text (.txt) file, and in the body of the e-mail too. Don’t send PDFs, or scanned images of flyers – it’s hard to extract the info.

• Always good to send an interesting, relevant photo that will draw attention to the piece (e.g., of the PSA working with the Pygmies), and make sure you include a caption at the top of the body of the e-mail. Send pics as JPGS, somewhere around 1mb is good. Don’t send 20 – three at the most.

• Find out your local paper’s schedule. The Issaquah and Sammamish Reporter gets put together each Wednesday – anything received after Tuesday at noon is going to have a slim chance of running. Make sure you get in two or three weeks ahead of your event/deadline.

• Give the editor a call after you have you e-mailed it, just to check they got it. Don’t ask them to promise you when it will run, because it can’t be done, but explain the timing of the event or why it needs to run before a certain date.

With the groundbreaking scheduled for this coming Monday, I’ve been looking into just how the YWCA affordable housing project in the Issaquah Highlands came about.

Turns out its a pretty remarkable story – The Block 9 Deal – involving some determination on behalf of the City of Issaquah, and also a good bit of “back room dealing” (in the words of one city staff member) between the city and master developer Port Blakely in 2004/05. As they emerged from the back room, Port Blakely had agreed to give the city a piece of land worth between $4 and 6 million bucks.

What did they get in return? Well, I’m not sure I’ve been able to get to the bottom of that yet, and no one is talking. All they’re telling me is the city relaxed affordable housing requirements for Blakely elsewhere in the Highlands. Was that worth $6 million? Probably not, so I’m sure there were some other sweeteners in there somewhere. What I do know is that neither mayor Ava Frisinger or administrator Leon Kos at the city were keen to tell me anything, passing the buck back and forth to city staff who didn’t want to say anything either. Councilors of the time have selective memory loss. And the minutes for a couple of meetings of the Urban Village Development Commission  in 2006 are mysteriously missing.

But, perhaps the ends justify the means? The YWCA is planning a really cool development that wouldn’t have been possible if they had to pay for the land, providing housing for families at 30 – 50 percent of median income rather than the 80 – 100 percent of most other affordable housing developments up there.

I was stoked to see that Tuesday night’s budget discussions at Sammamish City Hall proved to be a historic moment for the beleaguered Sammamish Heritage Society.

Following our story last week on the lack of support the society receives from the city, I heard from a number of residents outraged at the situation, and deciding to make financial contributions of their own.

Heritage Society co-President Helen Baxter approached the council Tuesday night with a request for $5,000 to support their activities, in light of the number of other groups in the city which receive regular financial contributions. There she stood, waving a copy of The Reporter in her hand.

Maureen Santoni backed her up too, pledging her own contribution and suggesting the council open their own checkbooks.

Despite many years of disinterest in supporting the society, on Tuesday night the council had a change of heart, with a number of councilors speaking of the importance of its work and of finding the necessary funds in their budget.
“I would like to see us find the $5,000,” said councilmember Lee Fellinge. “And if we find them a space to provide free storage, then that could offset that amount. I don’t want us to increase the total budget of the city, but I’m sure we can find a little bit here and a little bit there.”
Fellinge’s comments were echoed by councilmembers Kathy Huckabay, Michelle Petitti and Don Gerend. Wonder of wonders.

All of a sudden, the heritage society is the flavor of the month, and the history of the area is super important. With any luck amidst all the pontificating there will be the check to secure the future of this vital group.

I got a closer look at a few of our candidates for city council this week. What an unpleasant and demoralizing experience it was.
For the past few months, The Reporter has been running a regular series of Q and A sessions with the candidates in both Issaquah and Sammamish. It was my idea at the beginning of the election season that this would be a clear and precise way to uncover what sort of councilors these people would make,  not to mention what sort of people these councilors would make.
It was a chance to hear their thoughts on some of the issues facing the cities and hopefully urge the candidates to state their positions on matters vital to its residents.
For our last session before the election, I wanted to bring the candidates out of their comfort zones a little – the questions to that point had, on the whole, elicited fairly dry, noncommittal, burea-speak responses – and I hoped to get closer to the core of the candidates as citizens and as humans, and present that to my readers.
So I asked them their thoughts on Referendum 71, and whether or not lesbian and gay couples and seniors in committed relationships should have the same rights and protections as heterosexual couples.
I expected a reaction. What I didn’t expect was indignation and outrage.
Several candidates e-mailed me back to say that the rights of gay and lesbian couples had nothing to do with their city. They clearly expressed the idea that the residents of Sammamish and Issaquah who believe their rights as humans are violated by any laws denying them the same protections and privileges as heterosexual couples are nothing to do with them.
Believe it or not folks, there are gay and lesbian people in Sammamish too, and they vote, and I am sure they would be interested to know what you think of this critical piece of legislation.
Referendum 71 is a statewide vote to keep the domestic partnership law that provides legal protections for lesbian and gay couples and seniors who are in committed relationships – and it is being decided by exactly the same people these candidates are appealing to for votes, here on the Eastside.
The reactions to this question varied, from “you’ve got to be joking, I’m not answering this,” to the several brief, dismissive, petulant answers you will see on page 2 of this coming edition.
I was hugely disappointed that these candidates were so eager to shirk the challenge of answering a difficult and important question that would do much to paint a clearer picture of themselves as people and citizens.
I had hoped their responses would do a lot to allow us to better understand them as real people, not just managers, accountants, or real estate agents.
As I asked Mayor and candidate Don Gerend, whose uninformative answer was about the worst of the lot, if in your 10 years as a councilor, Mayor, and elected leader of this community, no journalist has ever asked you a question that requires you to examine your personal values and morals, well, what exactly has been going on?
I was astonished that several candidates felt it so outrageous that a newspaper editor would want to know their personal feelings on an issue that is massively important to some percentage of their constituents, and, at the very least, is an important one for the future direction of the state and all its residents.
Councilors make decisions every week that demand exploration of their morals and values, not just their ability to understand property law.
For example, in Sammamish, the development of the Town Center and the city will include making decisions on the provision of social services, access to medical care for the under-insured, counseling, support services, crisis support, drug and alcohol abuse programs.
The SMP process was a constant enquiry of their environmental and conservation values. So is the fiery debate at Beaver Lake Park.
In Issaquah, the city is grappling with the importance of providing a Family Resource Center for low income families.
All of these matters, which have, or will, come before council will all be influenced by the morals and personal values of the councilors.
I, for one, am very interested to know what sort of people they are, and I am striving to present that to readers also.
I told the candidates I did not believe for one minute those who argued that statements about family and personal values aren’t a part of a campaign, when all too often they are accompanied by wives/husbands/children at public events, and their mailouts includes photos of them with their families.
Perhaps it is a generational thing, but I firmly believe the morals and values of candidates has everything to do with how they might govern at a local level, at any level.
As councilors regularly remind us, one third of the population of Sammamish is under the age of 18. By examining the importance with which they considered their answers on page 2, it is clear which candidates represent a younger generation increasingly concerned with human rights issues such as Referendum 71, and which are content to be ignorant of the values needed to lead these growing cities into the future.