Farmer wants to make deal with county

Published 2:48 am Friday, October 3, 2008

Many of the old timers in the Upper Snoqualmie Valley will remember the Charles Dahlgren 65-acre farm on the east side of Mount Si Road before the bridge. Cattle were run on the property along the south bank of the Middle Fork of the Snoqualmie River. King County has now purchased this farm for a park, which will be known as Tanner Landing Park.

The Keith and Scott Christmas Tree Farm is across the Mount Si Road from this old farm. King County will be taking our kids’ tree farm through the condemnation process for a new bridge access. It would make a lot of sense to exchange our 3-acre family tree farm for 3 acres of the old Dahlgren farm so no agricultural land would be lost. We have proposed this to King County with no dollars exchanged.

Here are two examples of where the county likes to take farm land out of production and away from stewards of the land. Did you know farm land is the cheapest land in King County? This is one reason why farms like ours are disappearing. Whether we will continue after 36 years of farming here is uncertain.

You may have purchased a Christmas tree from a portion of the Middle Fork S Ranch known as the Keith and Scott Tree Farm for it is the oldest tree farm in the Valley. A family trust was established whereby 100 percent of all sales funded the university education of Keith, Scott and Heather. Now we are working on the grandkids’ education.

For more information, contact Gwen Lewis, Project Manager: (206) 296-6572; or Eric Thompson, Senior Environmental Engineer: (206) 296-8747.

Ewing Stringfellow

North Bend