CleanScapes picks up Issaquah garbage contract
October 25, 2011
The next hauler for Issaquah garbage is CleanScapes.
In a unanimous decision Oct. 17, City Council members selected the Seattle-based garbage hauler to serve Issaquah neighborhoods other than Greenwood Point and South Cove. CleanScapes offered additional curbside recycling options, a local storefront, wildlife-resistant containers and other features to land the $3.8-million-per-year Issaquah contract.
Consumers could experience a rate decrease as the city transitions from the current hauler, Waste Management, to CleanScapes in early summer.
The rate could decrease from $13.43 to $12.74 for a residential customer putting a 32-gallon cart out for weekly curbside pickup — although a recent rate increase from the King County Council could dilute the proposed drop.
The contract runs from July 1 through June 2019.
“The public should realize that the staff of the city of Issaquah didn’t just put it out there and say, ‘Tell us what you can offer,’” Councilman Mark Mullet said. “They actually wrote the proposal saying, ‘This is what the city needs to have. These are the minimum, baseline service requirements that we’re going to ask for the citizens of Issaquah.’ Then, the different vendors were able to come back and say, ‘We’ll provide those at this price,’ and they could offer things on top of that.”
Council Utilities, Technology & Environment Committee members met representatives from CleanScapes and the other candidates, Allied Waste and Waste Management, Oct. 11 and sent the contract to the full council for approval.
Zombie dancers shuffle, step to ‘Thriller’ for record attempt
October 25, 2011
Chandler Osman, 12, an Issaquah Middle School student, strikes a ‘Thriller’ pose Oct. 22 during rehearsal for Green Halloween Festival performances. By Greg Farrar
The undead shuffle across TV and cinema screens. Zombies chomp across bestseller lists. Even the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention created a droll guide to surviving a zombie apocalypse.
The zombie zeitgeist is ceaseless. Just like a horde of the undead on a mindless search for brains.
The pop culture phenomenon reaches Issaquah on Oct. 29 as revelers dressed as the undead shuffle downtown and in the Issaquah Highlands just before Halloween.
The most able-bodied zombies plan to inch to the Green Halloween Festival and the Issaquah Library to duplicate the complicated choreography from the 1983 Michael Jackson epic, “Thriller” — a 14-minute MTV masterpiece from “An American Werewolf in London” director John Landis.
Zombies plan to re-create “Thriller” at 2 p.m. for festivalgoers and at 4 p.m. at the downtown library. Then, zombies around the globe plan to gather for Thrill the World, a simultaneous attempt to dance to “Thriller” and set a world record. In Issaquah, 6 p.m. is the designated hour for the Thrill the World attempt.
Issaquah economic development manager departs for Burien
October 25, 2011
The top economic development official at City Hall departed Oct. 21 for a similar post in Burien.
Economic Development Manager Dan Trimble traded a decadeslong plan to redevelop the Issaquah business district for a chance to join a yearslong effort to redevelop downtown Burien.
“I think a great majority of the job of an economic development person is building relationships with people in the community and people in the business community, and being there as a good resource for them after you build the relationship,” he said before the transition from the Eastside to South King County. “Projects come and go, but to me that’s the most important.”
Trimble started at City Hall in July 2007, after a community economic vitality task force outlined strategies for city leaders to retain businesses and encourage other entrepreneurs to settle in Issaquah.
The post in Burien opened after Economic Development Manager Dick Loman retired last month. Trimble served in similar roles for cities in California and Maryland before the Issaquah appointment.
“I was the first one in, so I’m just proud to have launched it in the right direction and gotten things going here,” Trimble said.
Mayor Ava Frisinger described the position as “a growing role” for Trimble and city leaders.
Issaquah Chamber of Commerce to spotlight nonprofit groups at leadership summit
October 25, 2011
Rob McKenna
Issaquah Chamber of Commerce leaders plan to showcase local nonprofit organizations at a summit dedicated to the groups’ efforts in the community.
The chamber is hosting a Nonprofit Leadership & Civic Service Summit on Nov. 2 to spotlight nonprofit organizations and encourage business leaders to foster closer ties to the nonprofit sector.
“It’s a tough time for everybody,” chamber CEO Matthew Bott said. “If there are ways we can work together and partner, that’s what the chamber wants to help do.”
The chamber lined up Issaquah Mayor Ava Frisinger, Leadership Eastside President James Whitfield and state Attorney General Rob McKenna, a Republican candidate for governor, to speak at the summit.
(U.S. Rep. Jay Inslee is the Democrat in the gubernatorial race.)
YWCA Family Village at Issaquah opens for tours
October 25, 2011
The community outreach for YWCA Family Village at Issaquah started long before backhoes sliced into soil at the Issaquah Highlands site.
The outreach effort continues Oct. 29, as YWCA of Seattle-King-Snohomish hosts a public open house on the $53 million campus. The event and the annual Green Halloween Festival coincide.
The open house is meant to introduce guests to Family Village residents, spotlight “green” design details, and highlight a daycare center, meeting space, playground and other features open to the surrounding community. Guests can participate in a scavenger hunt on the Family Village campus.
Woman, 17 Scouts scale Mount Adams
October 25, 2011
Maria Faires, with members of Troop 636 in the background, stands at the summit of Mount Adams. Contributed
Personal trainer, registered dietician and clinical exercise specialist Maria Faires seems a natural to also just happen to be a mountain climber.
However, what might not seem as natural is that Faires also is a leader of Boy Scout Troop 636 of Issaquah.
In late summer, Faires led 17 members of the troop to the summit of Mount Adams, which at 12,276 feet is the second highest peak in the state.
“It was 17 guys and one girl,” said Faires, who added this is not the first time she has taken Scouts up local mountainsides. On her own, Faires said she has reached the top of every major Washington summit.
“It was really the culmination of a lot of work,” Troop 636 Committee Chairman Ed Steenman said.
He added he always was pretty sure his troop of 13- to 15-year-old boys would make it to the top. As a self-professed member of the “over 50 crowd,” he said he wasn’t too sure he personally would be with them when they did.
Ballots’ journey juggles security, transparency
October 25, 2011
Odyssey leads from Everett printer to voter to Renton office
King County Elections places a huge mail order each year.
Officials must secure enough ballots for more than 1 million voters spread across a county larger than Rhode Island. Then, the elections office is responsible for ensuring a secure — and hassle-free — process to distribute, authenticate and tally ballots on a strict deadline.
Matthew Chan uses a practiced flip of the wrists to levitate voter ballots from a tray onto a sorting machine at King County Elections in Renton during the August primary. By Greg Farrar
The complicated process starts on a printing press in Everett and ends in a tabulation machine in Renton. The voter is situated in the middle, black ink pen at the ready.
The job to print almost 1.1 million ballots is delegated to a commercial printer. The elections office oversees the process as Everett-based K&H Election Services prints and inserts ballots into envelopes.
The printer creates ballots for King County and jurisdictions across the United States. Then, ballots stacked on pallets await shipment to voters.
“At any given time, you can see boxes that are shrink-wrapped with ballots that go to all different kinds of counties,” King County Elections spokeswoman Kim van Ekstrom said.
About 20 days before Election Day, as TV campaign advertisements reach cruel-and-unusual-punishment status, the U.S. Postal Service starts to mail ballot packets to voters.
King County Elections relies on census data to determine languages for ballots
October 25, 2011
Law requires elections office to offer materials in Vietnamese
King County is often celebrated as a melting pot and, reflecting a demographic shift recorded in the most recent census, ballots should soon start to include another language spoken in the community.
Under a provision in the U.S. Voting Rights Act, King County is required to create and offer election materials in Vietnamese.
The county is home to about 28,000 Vietnamese speakers — enough to trigger the federal threshold for election materials in Vietnamese. Data collected in the 2010 Census determined King County needed to add the language.
The elections office already produces instructional election information and ballot packets in English and Chinese.
Kiwanis Club of Issaquah seeks coat donations
October 25, 2011
The Kiwanis Club of Issaquah is holding a coat and shoe drive throughout November.
The drive runs from Nov. 1-30 and donations benefit the Issaquah Food & Clothing Bank.
Coats and shoes — in adult and child sizes — should be clean, and new or gently used.
Donation sites include The Issaquah Press, KeyBank, AtWork!, Eastside Audiology, Hilton Garden Inn, Sammamish Club, Columbia Athletic, Liberty High School, Footzone and Starbucks by Safeway.
Oct. 31 is last chance to register to vote in November election
October 25, 2011
The deadline for people to register in person to vote is Oct. 31.
People can also register in person at King County Elections from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. weekdays at 919 S.W. Grady Way, Renton. Or register in person at the Voter Registration Annex in the King County Administration Building, 500 Fourth Ave., Room 311, Seattle. The annex is open from 8:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. and 2-4:30 p.m.
In order to register as a Washington voter, a person must be a U.S. citizen, a Washington resident, at least 18 by Election Day and not under the authority of the state Department of Corrections.
In Washington, voters do not register by political party or declare political party membership to vote in primary or general elections.
Learn more about the process at the King County Elections registration website, www.kingcounty.gov/elections/registration.
