A lot of people in Kirkland would like to do something special for Leo Milkin, who was serving in Iraq last July when his wife, sister-in-law and two young sons were allegedly murdered by Conner Schierman before he burned their house down to cover up the crime.
That includes Kirkland resident Cindi Wood, who came up with the idea of trying to get ABC's Extreme Makeover: Home Edition to rebuild Milkin's home.
She set up an e-mail petition to nominate him for the program and gathering around 2,000 signatures from people all over the country and as far away as Austria.
MILKIN TOUCHED BY GESTURE
Wood met with Milkin in November and told him about her effort, but while Milkin was touched by the gesture, Wood said in an e-mail to the Courier, "he felt there were many more needing and deserving families who would benefit from Extreme Makeover."
So Wood and other supporters such as Kirkland Realtor Neal Christensen shifted gears. Taking the lead in the project, Christensen said he'd like to see the Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT) wetlands mitigation project on the east side of Forbes Lake expanded to include a blacktop road to the lake and a T-shaped fishing dock for children and the handicapped.
It would be a memorial park named for Milkin's murdered family members, a project Milkin approves of, Christensen said. There is currently a road made of crushed rock that winds around the newly restored wetland, but the road stops short of the lakeshore.
"All I need is a road large enough for the Department of Wildlife to stock the lake with fish," Christensen said. "My original concept was to put a cement walkway with rails around the lake," he added.
But Christensen - who lives just a couple blocks away from the lake - remembered the walkway wouldn't work because water lilies that grow in the lake would be make it impossible to cast a fishing line into the water.
That's when he came up with idea of a floating dock that would be 20 to 30 feet long with a 15- to 20-foot-wide T-shape at the end, Christensen explained.
Christensen said he guesses that the project would cost between $20,000 and $25,000, but Christensen doesn't want taxpayers to foot the bill. "I would like to do this with no public money at all," he stressed.
Christensen said he knows of a company that builds docks on lakes, and he hopes the company would donate the time of in-house experts who could help get the necessary permits.
The Kirkland Downtown Association is willing to help handle donations, but that will happen sometime in the future, he said. "I'm not taking any money until we get further along," said Christensen, who can be reached at (206) 909-4684.
DETAILS, DETAILS
Christensen has enlisted the aid of State Representative and Kirkland resident Larry Springer, who said the Department of Wildlife would be happy to stock the lake with fish. That's the easy part.
The hard part is dealing with state wetlands regulations that would make the project impossible, he said. Extending the road all the way to the lake would wipe out some of the wetlands at the site, and there is nothing to replace the loss, said Springer, who held a series of talks with WSDOT officials in February about the issue.
The wetlands project at Forbes Lake is tied into work on widening I-405, said WSDOT's I-405 deputy project director Denise Cieri. The project eliminated a lot of wetland, she explained.
"We are required through permit agencies to replace it at a somewhat higher rate," Cieri added. "That was the problem we encountered when we talked to Larry [Springer]."
The specific problem is that state regulations require buffers around wetlands, and while replacing the lost wetlands by Forbes Lake might be possible, the move would eliminate the buffer, she explained.
Springer, however, has an idea that might work. WSDOT bought two pieces of property, including the one Christensen is interested in, and once the wetlands are established, the WSDOT property will be turned over to Kirkland's Parks Department.
The transfer originally was expected to take place after 10 years, but Springer is suggesting the property be handed over to the city earlier. The thinking, he explained, is that Kirkland land-use regulations might be less stringent than the state's and would allow the memorial project to proceed.
That's OK with WSDOT, Cieri said. "When we had worked with the city originally ... they had contemplated public access in the future," she said. "We did what we could do to leave the door open for them."
The ball is in the city's court right now, according to I-405 project director Kim Henry. "We're willing to sit down and chat with anybody about the (property) transfer," he said. "We would be happy to support the city if they chose to move forward with this."
Jeremy McMahan, a supervisor with the city's Planning Department, said he didn't have enough details yet about the proposed memorial project, and he declined to comment about its feasibility.
However, Springer sounded cautiously optimistic that Kirkland could pull it off. But he added a caveat about the project: "It's a great idea, but all great ideas have pitfalls."
Staff reporter Russ Zabel can be reached at rzabel@nwlink.com or (206) 461-1309.
[[In-content Ad]]
