If you have a 7-year-old child in Kirkland, he or she has never known a July without a parade, a cool picnic and spectacular fireworks. And chances are your child has participated in the kids' parade and is now ready to "graduate" to the big parade. Similarly, the Kirkland 4th of July celebration needs to graduate from a fledgling event to a sustainable annual celebration of our entire community. In 1999, a group of us organized a town meeting to plan for our millennium event: a revival of Kirkland's Fourth of July celebration from years ago. At that meeting neighbors were asked to imagine what the Fourth could be like. On July 4, 2000, everything we envisioned became reality. That was the beginning of a celebration which has captured the heart of Kirkland, not to mention the surrounding region. Over the past six years the parade, community picnic and fireworks display has grown, matured and enriched the fabric of our town. Many believe that the Fourth is put on by the city of Kirkland. Not so! To be sure, the city helps but we receive grant funding annually which covers about one-third of our costs. The fact is we formed a non profit organization, Celebrate Kirkland! Inc. in 1999 to organize, fund-raise and put on the day. The mission of Celebrate Kirkland! is: "to build community through an annual celebration that brings all aspects of Kirkland together."
Kirkland's Planned Annexation Area (PAA) has been a topic on the table for the past eight to 10 years. During this time, the topic has ebbed and even has been tabled as the city sought (and failed) at finding solutions to the potential $5 million annual operating deficit - the difference between delivering Kirkland services to the PAA and the revenues realized from the PAA in property and sales taxes.One of the city's underlying principles has maintained that there could be no progress towards annexation if the financial burden from annexation would be placed upon the current residents.Now, however, the annexation topic has become a top priority for Kirkland, due largely to Gov. Gregoire's recent signature to SSB6686, allowing annexing cities to collect an additional portion of the state's sales tax to be used for paying transitional services to the newly annexed areas over a 10-year period. This legislation, placing no additional burden on the taxpayer, effectively closes the deficit gap for cities like Kirkland, enabling us to live up to the goals of growth management and to good governing principles.
Gunner is salivating, beside himself with anticipation. His eyes are glued on Carl, waiting what seems an eternity. Finally, Carl chucks the rubber toy from the dock towards the pool. Gunner gallops at top speed, hurtling and pawing through the air - with nary a strand of black fur out of place on his 85-pound body. A few seconds of hang time. Successful grab. Huge splash. Applause. Finally, the wet doggy head emerges. Gunner's got the catch and possibly another ribbon.The 3-and-a-half-year-old muscle-bound black Lab is already a seasoned leaper, having been jumping off Northwest docks for the past two years. In fact, Gunner has gotten so good that if he pulls off another 20-foot jump, he'll be jumping with the pros, according to Carl Lewis, his owner. Already a champSince his first event two years ago in Portland, Gunner has been placing in both extreme verticals (going for height) and big air (going for distance). They competed at the DockDogs regional championships last year at Marymoor Park (seventh in verticals) and the Northwest Challenge in Elkton, Ore. last July (second in verticals).
Complaints were circulating that the hours of the Kirkland Wednesday Market - which is open from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. - weren't long enough. So at its May 9 meeting, the market board - comprised of a food processor, downtown retailer, jewelry vendor and two farmers - brainstormed and ultimately decided to honor the market's roots."It's a produce-driven market," says Kellie Jordan, secretary on the market board and also part of the Kirkland Downtown Association, the market's governing body. "Produce by 5 o'clock in the afternoon doesn't look very good," she says. "You have to worry about shade, refrigeration - we don't want to lose our farmers." In addition, health department regulations limit hours of operation for food vendors.The Kirkland Wednesday Market organizers know that it's not the only game in town. Both Redmond and Woodinville run markets - but both are on Saturday. For this reason Kirkland chose Wednesday.At one time, the 6-year-old market's hours were 11:30 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. But the farmers weren't happy - they wanted to start earlier and end earlier.
Officially a centenarian, Kirkland still knows how to party.For the sixth straight year, our 100-year-old city is hosting a Fourth of July celebration and parade, and is packed with two parades, a huge picnic and, of course, a grand fireworks display.The festivities kick off at 9 a.m. with a kid-decorating activity (tattoos, flags, pinwheels, feathers) to stoke the celebratory mood. The children's parade starts at 11:30, followed by a military flyover, main parade, community picnic and fireworks display. All festivities are, obviously, on Tuesday, July 4.Schedule
John Gilday is steamed. Following a major windstorm last February, he thought he had Kirkland's OK to cut down a bunch of damaged cottonwood trees on land he leases for his restaurant-design business and for his non-profit Waterfund organization.Gilday was wrong, according to an April hearing examiner ruling, and he had to pony up a whopping $6,000 in fines. Plus, he has to plant 28 credits worth of new trees on the lot at 299 Eighth St. S. to make up for the loss. Tree credits depend on the size of a tree: Bigger ones get more credits than smaller ones, according to new regulations that went into effect last January. And it's those new regulations that landed Gilday in hot water.Caused primarily by development in Kirkland, the tree canopy in the city has declined to 32 percent, and the goal of the new regs is to bump that up to 40 percent, said city arborist Elizabeth Walker last winter.Gilday says he wasn't aware of the new tree regulations, although they were included as an insert in utility bills last November and December, according to Walker.Still, Gilday works with the city's Planning Department on a regular basis because of his restaurant business, and he knew enough to check with the department before he started up his chainsaw. The planning staffer he talked to steered him wrong and told him it would be OK to cut the cottonwoods, according to Gilday.
Efforts are under way to preserve a unique part of Kirkland's history. Located at 640 Eighth Ave. in the Norkirk neighborhood, the Kirkland Cannery was built in the 1930s as part of the Public Works Administration (PWA) efforts to jumpstart the economy during the Depression."I think it's probably one of the most historically significant buildings in Kirkland," said Bob Burke, president of the Kirkland Heritage Society. The building provided a way for people with gardens to preserve their crop, he explained. "During the Depression, they could take it to the cannery and get it canned." In exchange, they would give the cannery a percentage of the food, which would be handed out to people who didn't have a garden or any money, Burke said.The cannery was part of the social-services network in the 1930s and the state owned it for a time, he added. But the Pound family bought the building in the 1940s and turned it into a fish cannery, Burke said.The Pound family sold the fish-cannery operation two or three years ago, but members of the family still live in the building and would like to see it preserved, he said.
unior High School students ranked at the chapter level in their division for the Washington/Alaska chapter of Le Grand Concours, a national competition that draws more than 100,000 students K-12 nationwide on an annual basis. Eighth-grader Milda Zizyte ranked fourth; eighth-grader Anna Lakunina ranked sixth; Celina Bridges (seventh grade) ranked eighth; Kati Noll (eighth grade), ranked ninth; and Grace Olsen (ninth grade), ranked tenth. Thirteen other Kamiakin French students also ranked in the top 20 in the chapter.The top-ranking students received book prizes and all received certificates. The students began their French study in the fall of 2005 at first weren't sure about entering the contest. But by January, 18 had signed up. In March, they took the actual exam. Not only did they meet expectations, they exceeded them. All 18 ranked in the top 20 in their chapter division.
"Has anyone seen my balloon?" "Do you want to race with me?" "I'll be the judge, ok guys? On your mark, get set, GO!"It is science day in my daughter's class and I work with a group of 10 children to make balloon rockets. They are studying air, learning that although we can't see it, it is there. For an hour we fill balloons and talk about air pressure, make predictions and test them with balloon races. I see my child interacting with her classmates: They are a delightful crowd. As a parent volunteer at an alternative school, I am getting to know each one of them.Alternative schools are free public schools that that are open to all students. They follow the same curriculum as other schools in the district but have the freedom to operate differently. According to the Lake Washington district website, "Choice schools offer innovative approaches to education. Many classes are multi-age and emphasize project based learning. Parent involvement is encouraged and expected." My daughter's school, Community School in Kirkland, has three classrooms with two grades combined in each one. The entire school can fit in one yellow school bus.
This year, the International Community School sent 19 students to the Washington state competition for National History Day at the Green River Community College in Auburn on May 6.Student presented their entries reflecting this year's theme "Taking a Stand in History: People, Ideas, Events."The National History Day competition will be held June 11-15 at the University of Maryland, College Park. Only the first two place finishers at the state level win the right to go on to the national competition (unfortunately, we just missed this time).
If you haven't checked out your child's computer recently, you may be in for a shock. I did so a year ago and got a jolt that sent my husband and me reeling. We are both from technology backgrounds but nothing prepared us for MySpace. We just didn't have the parenting tools to deal with this. Since then I joined and trained with i-Safe America as a volunteer Internet safety advocate because, for me, they had the answers I was looking for. Personal information revealed unknowingly on the Internet is not just helping criminals steal identities, all this information is being bought and sold by marketeers.And then we have predators stalking both boys and girls. One in four children is being propositioned for sex online and nearly one in 30 is being bullied into meeting their "cyber friend" face to face.What can a parent do right now - particularly with summer on the horizon and many children with unsupervised free time on their hands?
It was an opportunity he just couldn't refuse. Puget Sound real estate notable Craig Shriner, who owns three Windermere offices and buildings, will move his downtown Kirkland and Juanita offices to the Powell building at 725 Market St. (next to the Leland Place complex). Effectively, this means the gallery, which he and his wife designed as part of the downtown Windermere office at 16 Central Way, will be closing."We're just too for out of the downtown core," explains Shriner.Shriner says that the move was one of kismet. "I've always loved that building," says Shriner of the 1891 structure owned by Northwest property development moguls Lloyd and Sharon Powell. "That's the only reason why we're moving." Shriner used to have his Windermere headquarters there in the late 1980s, which he leased from the Powells.Shriner says that they won't touch the outside of the building, with its hallmark brick façade, and "will do very little inside." The adjacent Aquinas Catholic bookstore at 701 Market will also be leaving, leaving Shriner with bragging rights to the entire building.
Renowned Seattle artist Bill Braun can't remember when he started dabbling in trompe l'oeil art, but it's consumed him for the past couple of decades. "I've been doing it for so long - I started as a young adult in art school," says Braun, who currently lives in the Greenwood neighborhood of Seattle. "I went to school in the Bay area and went to lots of museums. One whole room was filled with trompe l'oeil."While at art school, Braun saw parallels between trompe l'oeil (pronounced "trump l'wah") and modernism and first became hooked on painting abstract geometrics. Over the years, he began using shadows, textures and then cutouts of birds, houses and flowers. The cut outs appear to be adhered by masking tape and staples to a crinkled background of brown kraft paper. The viewer often has to look several times to realize that what appears to be a three-dimensional collage is a masterful application of acrylic on canvas.
A newborn child often brings joy and happiness to its family, and that same newborn often brings sleepless nights, a change in schedule and an upheaval of family routines. One of the routines that usually takes a backseat to a baby is that of physical fitness. If the lack of sleep doesn't make parents too tired to think about a workout, the hassle of arranging for child care can deter folks from making the effort to workout. Parents who want to maintain their physical fitness while spending time with their children were in need of an alternative solution to their dilemma. Stroller Strides of Seattle provides that solution for those parents seeking to remain fit while spending time with their babies.
A few months back, Metro Transit challenged itself to come up with a single phrase to summarize what it means to deliver more than 30 years of transit service to King County residents. It finally decided on four little words: "We'll get you there." That motto just seemed to say it all for an agency that delivers almost 100 million rides a year. Every single weekday, 335,000 bus riders depend on Metro to get them to work, to school, to the doctor, to the store and then back home. But Metro is losing its ability to keep up with the employment and population growth across King County. There is tremendous pent-up demand for more transit service. It's a message Metro hears loud and clear from its customers. They want more frequent service so they can get to and from work, appointments and shopping more easily. They need new or better transit options that will let them travel to multiple destinations. And when they board the bus at the end of the workday, they expect a place to sit.