Starbucks CEO to sign books at Issaquah Costco
March 23, 2011
NEW — 8 a.m. March 23, 2011
Starbucks chief Howard Schultz is due at Costco early next month to sign copies of a book about navigating the coffee titan through a successful turnaround.
Shultz, Starbucks’ president and CEO, is scheduled to appear at the Issaquah warehouse at 1 p.m. April 8. The book is “Onward: How Starbucks Fought for Its Life Without Losing Its Soul” — a frank account of how the Seattle-based company reached out to customers and battened down to weather the recession.
Schultz joined Starbucks as director of marketing in 1982. In 2000, Schultz stepped down from daily oversight of the company, but returned as CEO eight years later as the company foundered.
City offers another honor to former councilwoman
March 23, 2011
NEW — 6 a.m. March 23, 2011
Former Councilwoman Maureen McCarry received double honors Monday, as she accepted a major honor and the city proclaimed the day as Maureen McCarry Day.
Mayor Ava Frisinger and Swedish Medical Center issued the proclamation for McCarry’s efforts to bring a hospital campus to the Issaquah Highlands. The hospital is scheduled to open in July.
The proclamation called on residents to thank McCarry for service to the community.
The mayor announced the proclamation Monday after McCarry received the top environmental honor in Issaquah, the Ruth Kees Environmental Award for a Sustainable Community.
Family turns to Facebook to help find missing Issaquah girl
March 22, 2011
NEW — 7 p.m. March 22, 2011
Jamie Gilbert
The friends and family of 14-year-old Jamie Gilbert turned to social media tools Tuesday to help find the missing teenager.
The freshman at Issaquah High School has been missing since between 10 p.m. and midnight March 18. On a Facebook page created to alert people to Jamie’s disappearance, posters said she attended the Getting Lucky 5 rave in Seattle and has not communicated with family members or friends since then.
Jamie is 5 feet, 3 inches tall, has blue eyes and blonde hair dyed red, and could be wearing plastic beads on her arm. Jamie also uses the name Kate Harmata.
Issaquah School District summer school registration opens
March 22, 2011
NEW — 7 p.m. March 22, 2011
Students can get a jump-start on their studies this summer at Elementary Summer School, an Issaquah School District program for first- through fifth-graders.
Classes, which cost $375, are held on weekdays from 9 a.m. to noon July 5-29 at Clark Elementary School, 500 Second Ave. S.E.
Summer school teachers will use GLAD training — Guided Language Acquisition Design — a strategy of teaching that appeals to all students, especially English language learners.
Summer school subjects include language arts, content area reading and math. Classrooms are limited to 22 students, and students on free and reduced lunch may be eligible for partial scholarships if money is available.
Download scholarship and registration forms from the school district website.
Maureen McCarry receives city’s top environmental award
March 22, 2011
Maureen McCarry smiles March 21 as her husband Tom Knollmann and the City Hall audience applaud her for receiving the Ruth Kees Environmental Award. By Greg Farrar
The latest recipient of the top environmental honor in Issaquah acted as a guiding force — in public and behind the scenes — in the long-running effort to shape neighborhoods and preserve undeveloped land.
Leaders elevated Maureen McCarry into the pantheon alongside other important conservation activists, and bestowed the Ruth Kees Environmental Award for a Sustainable Community on the former councilwoman at a City Hall ceremony March 21.
Change is coming soon to many schools
March 22, 2011
Carpenter Alfredo Arreola vacuums dust as he grinds and finishes concrete steps in the seating area of Issaquah High School’s new Performing Arts Center. By Greg Farrar
The voter-approved $241.8 million construction bond from 2006 is in full swing, sending two-story buildings high into the sky and installing sewer systems deep into the ground.
Several schools across the Issaquah School District are receiving money for construction updates or remodels. Four projects are slated to begin construction June 20, after school gets out:
• Briarwood Elementary School will get a new building, slated for completion in fall 2012.
• Liberty High School will undergo a partial modernization and expansion, with most areas complete by August 2012, and final completion by spring 2013.
• Maywood Middle School will be modernized and expanded with new classrooms and science labs with completion in August 2012.
• Challenger Elementary School will be modernized with a relocated central office, improved heating and air controls and separate bus and car traffic areas.
Duvall farmer Eric Nelson elected to King Conservation District board
March 22, 2011
King Conservation District voters elected Duvall farmer Eric Nelson to the board of supervisors in a pioneering online election last week, although turnout dropped sharply from the last district election in 2010.
The contest concluded March 15, and conservation district officials announced the results March 17.
Eric Nelson
Nelson bested Kent farmer Bruce Elliott, Redmond real estate agent Teri Herrera and Sammamish retiree Preston Prudente to secure the open seat for a three-year term. Nelson is scheduled to assume office at the Washington State Conservation Commission meeting in May.
The election attracted 2,299 voters — a decline from 4,232 people in the last district election in March 2010. Officials had hoped the option for voters to cast electronic ballots online, instead of traveling to polling locations scattered throughout the county, might boost turnout.
The district offered a traditional polling site in Renton for 12 hours March 15.
Lawmaker asks residents to list budget priorities
March 22, 2011
State Rep. Glenn Anderson is asking residents in Issaquah and elsewhere in the 5th Legislative District to rank budget priorities in a brief survey to gauge how the cash-strapped state should spend.
The legislator launched the survey after the chief state economist said the state is projected to collect almost $700 million less in taxes through 2013, increasing the budget gap to about $5.1 billion.
Glenn Anderson
“We simply cannot continue this death spiral of poor decisions every time another hit to tax collections is announced,” Anderson wrote in a message to constituents March 18, a day after the dismal revenue forecast announcement. “It’s time for politicians to change their mindset from one of figuring out gimmicks that keep the status quo of overspending, over-promising and under-delivering to one of being proactive and realistic.”
The longtime lawmaker also heard from Issaquah residents March 12 about the budget shortfall at a town hall meeting in Issaquah.
Schools foundation awards grants big and small
March 22, 2011
It’s grant season for the Issaquah Schools Foundation.
Skyline High School teacher Courtney Bede holds a copy of ‘Classical Mythology,’ a book she plans to purchase for her students after receiving an Issaquah Schools Foundation grant. By Laura Geggel
This past February, dozens of teachers across the Issaquah School District applied for grants big and small — either for a classroom enrichment grant, worth up to $1,000, or a Kateri Brow big idea grant, valued at $10,000.
Ten teachers from seven schools won a 2011 classroom enrichment grant March 11, including Clark Elementary School Principal May Pelto, who wrote a grant request titled “Preparing all kindergarten students for academic success.”
With her grant, Pelto and Clark staff members will help teach incoming kindergarten students about letters, numbers, shapes and colors.
“Our students who did not know letters or numbers will receive a letter and sounds book, as well as number and adding puzzles, hopefully helping these students be more ready for kindergarten,” Pelto wrote in an email.
The grant will also pay for teachers to spend time in August placing students and planning instruction based on the students’ levels.
Pelto said she was grateful when she learned she received the grant.
Sammamish balks at $500,000 EFR headquarters remodel
March 22, 2011
Eastside Fire & Rescue is considering remodeling its Issaquah headquarters to add office and storage space.
But with Sammamish’s future involvement in the agency in question, that city’s representatives were skeptical about paying for a remodel that could cost the agency about $500,000.
The details of the proposed remodel are still being ironed out, but the project would add seven offices, a small conference room and a copy room to the building, which was built in 1981 as a response station for King County Fire District 10, Deputy Chief Jeff Griffin said in an interview.
The district only had about 10 full-time firefighters at the time, but the building has now been partially converted into an administrative office for an agency that employs hundreds and covers three cities and dozens of square miles.
Griffin said there is no women’s bathroom on the second floor of the building, no elevator for disabled access and many offices designed for one employee house two. The upstairs copy machine sits in the hallway.
“It’s not an ideal use of the space,” Griffin said. “In some offices, one person has to leave the room while the other uses the phone.”
The project would also include a separate storage building behind the main building. Griffin said many of the agency’s backup vehicles and other equipment sit outside, which makes them depreciate in value more quickly.
