“Would you consider running for public office?”
Every few years, We break out this old chestnut, taking the above question to the streets for our “Person on the Street” poll.
Results, as you can see to the right, vary. A little more than half the time, folks say no. But sometimes, we meet people who might step up.
This year, we tried a new tack, specifying an office, and got a couple of folks to ponder civic involvement. It’s a way to plant the seed of an idea.
After police found and demolished two transient camps, Snoqualmie Police Chief Steve McCulley says the time is right for the city to bring its own books up to a Valley-wide standard.
With neighboring North Bend banning outdoor camping in public places in January, Snoqualmie City Council is considering a similar ordinance this month.
Mount Si girls golf has had the best season in years. Going into the league tournament, the team holds a 6-1 record. Freshman Caitlyn Maralack and senior Danielle Burns and the number-two and three-ranked players in the league. Junior Tabitha Dorn is the number-six player in league.
Burns has overcome injury to bring her scores down into the high 30s this season and nurture her hunger for delayed state glory.
Maralack, the experienced young player, has consistently shot in the low 40s or upper 30s all season, and Dorn is busting into the lower 40s.
Some years back, Valley artist Richard Burhans and his wife Sallie explored the timeless art and scenery of Europe.
Now, the artistic visions that Burhans brought back from Italy, Austria and Germany have a new purpose, enlivening Sinacia Yovanovich’s Euro Lounge Cafe and crepe restaurant in downtown North Bend.
Yovanovich was born in Romania, emigrated with his parents to an Arizona refugee camp at age 7, and grew up in the Puget Sound area. Now a Fall City resident, the cafe that he opened in 2011 is his dream come true.
Over the last few years, Heidi Dukich has given out countless pieces of paper and pens, advising her clients at the Mount Si Food Bank to write down their goals and resources, and visualize a pathway out of poverty, toward success.
She points them in the direction of the library, where anyone can book two hours of Internet time and find more resources, or classes.
Helping people is about a lot more than food. But the act of giving food can be the pathway to changing lives permanently and for the better.
Mount Si baseball is battling hard for a shot at league glory, using a team dynamic of all-for-one.
Fresh off pitching a shut-out last Monday against Sammamish, pitcher Connor Swift shared his thoughts on where this season is going.
“To have a good team, everybody has to be equal,” Swift said. “Everyone has everyone’s back. We’ll pick up anyone who needs to be picked up.”
Mount Si is closing out a regular season that saw a very strong start, but also a few speedbumps lately.
It was late in the day last September when Mark Wood answered the phone.
The caller was a mother. Her son was unconscious, and she needed help. Wood, an emergency dispatcher, was the first, life-saving voice she heard.
While emergency medical technicians rushed to the woman’s Eastside home, Wood, a dispatcher at North East King County Regional Public Safety Communications Agency, or NORCOM, calmly walked her through the steps of CPR. His instructions, working through the mother’s actions, helped save the son’s life.
The foundation of the home was blown out. The result: A tunnel open to any rat who wanted the good life, nesting in a bed of home insulation. Enter Alan LaBissoniere, who runs his own varmint-removal business, Frontier Pest Control.
Down in a crawlspace, LaBissoniere was on a mission to stop the intruders.
LaBissoniere’s been in pest control for eight years. He started with the big companies, then went out on his own two years ago, and never looked back.
“This is the best thing I’ve done yet,” LaBissoniere said. However, there’s a lot of work, a lot of study and plenty of tests when it comes to being an exterminator. That’s because the chemical that LaBissoniere handles is highly regulated
Tamarra Crowe’s biggest fan—her little niece Mia—jumps into her arms following the big game.
Mia and her parents, Ryan and Jamie Hildebrand, camp out on the other side of the fence at every Mount Si girls softball game, rain or shine, though a downpour may send them back to the car for a dashboard box seat.
Now raking the field, shortstop Crowe had just had a big game, contributing a homer to help Mount Si keep its dreams of glory alive for her senior year.
“This puts us in a good spot,” says Crowe. “We have a lot more energy. We’re batting more and we’re getting a lot of hits. Fielding is good.”
Here’s a simple exercise. Take out a pen, and a sheet of paper, and write out something—your name, your favorite band, the name of the closest restaurant—in cursive.
How’d you do? I’ll bet it wasn’t easy.
I tried to write the word “abstract” in cursive script the other day. I’d just met Joe Monihan, this week’s letter writer, and I wanted to see whether I still had the muscle memory from ages ago, when I still wrote in cursive. It had been a long time. The “r” was a wave, neither “t” matched, and the less said about “b” the better.
It started with an anonymous note.
An e-mail from a fictitious address let me know on March 27 that North Bend Mayor Ken G. Hearing had been arrested. It didn’t take long to confirm that an arrest on suspicion of domestic violence had indeed happened. And it didn’t take much longer for the story to break.
I’ve covered mayors when they’ve gotten in trouble before. But a domestic violence case involving a public official was something new.
After consulting with some of my professional colleagues, it was clear to me that basic guidelines hadn’t changed. We wanted the facts. We wanted the police report. And we wanted to see if the mayor had been officially charged with a crime.
Rain comes off Tom Kirby’s nose and chin in rivulets.
The Mount Si senior was soaked, but still in high spirits, after winning the mile race in a downpour during the Wildcats’ home track meet, Thursday, April 4, with the Juanita Rebels.
Kirby, who also placed fifth in the 800-meter race on this cold day, is one of a big group of Mount Si teens totally immersed in motion. They won’t stop moving, despite rain or setbacks.
Kirby loves the adrenaline that comes in a race, as well as the broad team-oriented mindset.
“You set all these goals,” Kirby said. “You prove you can do it.”
We’ve been doing Best of the Valley for enough years now to know the drill: Put the ballots out in February, wait several weeks, rush to count the results and put together an entire section letting folks know the annual winners.
Locals, business owners and officials take this stuff pretty seriously. The plaques often take a place of pride in offices and restaurants.
We took the contest online a few years ago, in an effort to prevent ballot-stuffing. It now takes us about two days to tally all the votes.
