Staff photo/Ian Gleadle
The Northshore School District School Board will consider closing Woodin Elementary.

Other elementaries could be impacted

The Northshore School District School Board will consider closing Woodin Elementary.

The school, located at 12950 N.E. 195th Street, Bothell, has about 452 students and roughly 60 full- and part-time teachers and staff. The board will make a final decision about the closure in May.

“My sense is that the community was taken by surprise,” said School Board President Cathy Swanson. “If the community goes online (http://schoolcenter.nsd.org/education/components/docmgr/default.php?sectiondetailid=45420&fileitem=41668&catfilter=9174) and looks at all of the eight criteria the district considered – all eight of them – they will understand the rationale for why Woodin Elementary was picked. It’s been a really, really hard decision.

Photo courtesy of City of Woodinville
A rendering of the sports field renovation in downtown Woodinville

“We have a very good project that competes well for state funding,” said Lane Youngblood, Woodinville Parks and Recreation Director, about the city’s sports fields renovation project.

“So far, we received one grant from the Washington Wildlife Recreation Program for $300,000 in the category of ‘Local Parks.’”

The grant application ranked sixth of 69 applications from around the state based on criteria such as benefits to the public.

“That’s quite an honor!” said Youngblood. “The projects that rise to the top demonstrate a high level of community need, excellent design,?community partnerships, and ‘readiness to proceed,’ meaning the project sponsor is committed to the project.”

The book jacket shows a group of Seattle-area women lined up in anticipation of a day’s skiing at Snoqualmie Ski Bowl in 1939.

What better time than this, the winter of the Big Mountain Snow, to curl up with a book on the history of Snoqualmie Pass.

Long-time Alpental residents John and Chery Kinnick, who authored “Snoqualmie Pass” together, have mined the area’s rich and fascinating history, skillfully compiling old photos and text to create a pictorial timeline of this magnificent portion of our state.

“We had thought about doing the (book) project for a while,” said Chery Kinnick, 53, a supervisor for the University of Washington Libraries. “Our real goal was to highlight the winter recreation area and show that it is also a real neighborhood. A lot of people live up here; it’s like a small town, plus we have all the amenities of a larger city.”

But it wasn’t until she participated in a history writing seminar through Seattle’s Museum of History and Industry and met an editor with Arcadia Publishing that the couple were encouraged to move ahead.The Kinnicks began the task of rounding up the photos (there are 200 in the book) and gathering the accompanying information.

Proceeds will purchase classroom technology

Tolt Middle School’s Multi-Age Program in cooperation with King County Conservation District will be holding its sixth annual native plant sale on Saturday, March 8th from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. in front of the school in Carnation.

Around 2,000 available plants will range in price from $2.00 to $5.00 per plant. Some of the varieties available include Red-flowering currant, Indian plum, Nootka rose, Douglas-fir, Red osier dogwood, Native crabapple, Pacific rhododendron, and Western redcedar. Once again, the Northwest’s best erosion-control groundcover, salal, will also be available for purchase.

These plants are indigenous to the Pacific Northwest region. Native plants are disease and pest resistant, which reduces the need for chemicals and fertilizers that are harmful to people’s health and the health of the watershed we live in.

Duvall Fire (King County Fire District 45) is submitting a proposed levy increase of .33 cents to the voters during the May 20th election. The new levy rate would be $1.35 per thousand of assessed valuation (OAV). The maximum a fire district can collect is $1.50.

The last time Duvall Fire asked for and the voters approved an increase in the levy was in 1998. State law limits the fire district to budget increases of one percent a year. Inflation costs have been three to five percent per year in the same time period.

“We have come to the point now where we must consider raising the levy in order to continue to be able to respond to two emergency calls at once,” said Chief John Lambert.

The levy increase would cost an additional $12 per month for a $450,000 home. Duvall Fire provides fire and emergency medical services for the City of Duvall and surrounding unincorporated areas.