You can tell by the letters to the editor that a number of Black Diamond residents aren’t happy about the forthcoming land development that just passed through their City Council. With more than 6000 new houses planned, the current residents are about to suddenly become a minority.
I am really loving this top two election style, even though voters didn’t seem as willing to oust the incumbents during this primary. Fifteen candidates on the ballot for senator? It won’t take long until the ballot is as long as the voter’s guide, with over 50 or even 100 candidates for the best offices. I might even try to scrape up the money to run next time (Ryan Ryals, Prefers All Night Party).
I don’t get out to the Maple Valley Farmers Market as often as I should. Apparently, I missed the Lyndon LaRouche supporters (yes, he is still alive) displaying posters of President Obama sporting a Hitler mustache.
Arizona’s new illegal immigrant policies took effect last week, which put the issue of illegal immigration back on the hot topics for talk radio and in the newspapers. I’ve been getting more of those Angry White Guy e-mails comparing Mexican immigrants to burglars who break into his “house” and demand free social services while accusing the angry white guy of being a racist.
The hospital wars in Covington are still ongoing, but this war feels more like an elaborate courting ritual, and unfortunately not the cutesy teenagers-in-love type of courtship. It’s more like a couple of strippers who are dressing up nicely to cozy up to Old Man Covington’s millions.
This past Tuesday was declared Carly Overhauser and Dean Kayler Day in Maple Valley, due to their heroic actions in pulling a drowning man from Shadow Lake, and administering cardiopulmonary resuscitation until paramedics could arrive.
This past weekend was a holiday for most of us, but not for a lot of door-to-door salespeople. I didn’t think I needed more magazines, dubious cleaning supplies, or bug and rat control, but these folks apparently saw my deficiencies in this area and decided to make a personal visit to help me out.
Well, Independence Day is this weekend, and you might expect to read a well-researched and carefully thought out treatise on freedom and liberty in this column. Nope, not here.
After spending last week’s column encouraging us all to shop locally, I spent the weekend getting rid of the fruits of my own shopping. Most of it was household clutter, a lot of it was books, and it ended up taking five van loads to get rid of it all. If you are in need of some truly great stuff, get to the Goodwill before it’s all sold out.
Get ready for another “Shop Local” campaign in your town. Hopefully this one will do better than they usually do.
I’m not knocking the abilities of the Chamber of Commerce folks who are putting this together. They have a lot of successful business people who are able to attract customers, but the track record for creating artificial desires in the minds of shoppers isn’t good.
For example, take the campaign from the 80’s that encouraged us to “look for the Made in the USA label”. Celebrities such as Barbara Mandrell did TV and print ads to drive the point home. It worked for a short while, but it never became a habit. Why? American factories just couldn’t compete with imports from China, and American consumers are simply too addicted to low prices to care.
During the last November election, a lot of attention was given to ballfields, and how few of them Maple Valley has (just one). At last night’s council meeting, we got to see three options for finally building ballfields on the south side 22-acre site. Oh, it’s a grand plan, with a couple of fields for soccer and lacrosse, two softball fields, plus five (really?) tennis courts.
Last week, you might have read about the developer of the Fred Meyer project at Maple Valley’s Four Corners, where he’s complaining about the high permit costs and saying that the project might be dead unless the development fees and improvement costs are cut in half.
Ouch. Half of the total fees and improvements totals about $2 million, according to his figures.
When I submitted my column last week on fireworks, I held my nose while pressing the send button. I’m normally a self-loathing type anyway, but that column smelled a lot like a “Last-Minute Deadline Special”. Well, I ended up getting more mail on that column than anything else I’d written so far.
It’s a little early to be talking about Independence Day fireworks, but it’s fresh in the minds of the Covington City Council Members.
Last month, there were two fireworks-related items on the agenda; one to ban fireworks completely, and one to consider changing the penalties. For all you fireworks lovers who aren’t paying attention, the absolute ban on fireworks only needed two more votes to become law, but fortunately it failed.
If you’re wondering why last week’s paper was so pleasant to read, it’s probably because my picture wasn’t in it.
Instead of my weekly complaining, this space was filled by a column from the head of the YarrowBay development company, (Brian Ross, CEO) who attempted to explain their side of the new law creating Community Facilities District (CFD) taxing authorities. He seemed a little peeved about my previous week’s column, but I spent most of it picking on a city councilor, and not the CFD itself.
It has the makings of an Old Guard meltdown.
Last week, we were treated to the news of Maple Valley Councilwoman Linda Johnson walking out of a meeting to protest what she believed to be illegal acts committed by the city manager and the council. But a closer look at the issue doesn’t appear to support her accusations, and the very act she is opposed to may have saved this city many millions of dollars.
The new state budget has finally been worked out, and as expected, taxes are going up. It’s going to cost you more to drink beer, chew gum, smoke or buy water in a bottle. It’ll also cost you more to get your hair done, visit the doctor, sue somebody or get your taxes done.
It is refreshing to finally see some reduced spending in addition to the tax increases.
OK, so the aggressive panhandling ordinance passed in Covington last year didn’t completely work. The icky people are still out there on the street corners, so maybe now we need a passive panhandling ordinance, right?
I use the term “icky people” with tongue firmly in cheek, but that does represent the views of some citizens, which you can read in the online comments on this paper’s Web site. Most of them think that the handouts only go towards drugs and alcohol, but that’s not completely accurate. Even hardcore junkies have to eat every now and then, and most of them can’t stand still that long.
Sometimes I wish that we scrutinized our politicians as much as we do our retailers.
For example, occasionally I’ll get a call from a customer who is furious because the item she ordered yesterday hasn’t arrived yet (at 10 in the morning). Or maybe another one is annoyed because the shipping charge is $8.95, but three years ago it was only $6.95.
But if you ask these same people to take the time to scrutinize where their thousands of property tax dollars are going, they don’t have a response. I know this because I’m crazy enough to ask.
I recently attended a fundraiser for a local organization, and it reminded me of why I usually try to avoid those kinds of things. There wasn’t anything particularly wrong with the presentation, and just like in figure skating it contained the required technical elements, while the extra points for style had to be earned.
