Two Snoqualmie City Council subcommittees will hash out the best way to put a sunset clause on a sewer, garbage and water tax hike that takes effect this year.
For more than a decade, King County law has strictly limited commercial change in Fall City. Without a sewer and dependent on septic systems, Fall City businesses often face uphill battles when they move or develop. Growth is out of the question.
The gold medal that now hangs in Josh Mitchell’s room represents the Mount Si junior’s first-ever tournament win. Mitchell led the Wildcat contingent in a seventh place showing last Saturday, Jan, 8, at the 20-team Everett Classic tournament.
That a handful of farmers and business owners in the Lower Valley could band together to fight a major utility and the federal government, raising $64,000 in the process, amazes Jubilee Farm owner Erick Haakenson.
Deliveries still come to the old Snoqualmie City Hall. Last week, working from a small black counter where the old customer service desk used to be, Jan Van Liew unpacked the latest—a bag stuffed with warm coats and pairs of socks and gloves. The items, donations to Snoqualmie Valley Alliance’s Gift of Apparel clothing bank, mean a warmer winter for needy families.
The Valley link was always paramount for Frank Protzman.
As general manager of local mainstay Chaplins North Bend Chevrolet, Protzman made sure the small-town touches and connections were evident. He took pride in the retro 1950s feel of the dealership and pushed for promotions that helped local ball teams.
People who worked with Protzman, who died Wednesday, Dec. 15, at age 53 of natural causes, were stunned by his death but plan on continuing the legacy he built in North Bend.
Suppose you were put in charge of your city’s finances. What would you do? Save a job, or fix the roads? Or pay for police protection? Or support the food bank?
Debby McGrath typically connects with families through her day job as a campus manager at North Bend’s Encompass.
Last Thursday, though, she made a different kind of connection with the small family of three. She may never meet the mother and two young children listed on the sheet in her hands, but she is making their holiday a brighter one.
The city of Snoqualmie and the Snoqualmie Valley School District are agreeing to disagree over collection of a new school construction impact fee in 2011.
King County and the cities of North Bend and Sammamish have greenlighted collection of the district’s new $8,139 fee, which is $5,400 higher than the amount collected this year.
But Snoqualmie is balking on approval of the new amount, which is collected during construction to offset the impact of new development on school capacity. This year’s fee is predicated on the district’s capital improvement plan, which calls for a new middle school and elementary school in the next six years.
Snoqualmie Mayor Larson directed staff to wait until February to forward a resolution approving the fee, contingent on passage of the district’s $56 million bond. He wants to delay collection until the bond is approved by voters.
Big, colorful canvases at Boxley’s Place restaurant and jazz club in North Bend have been drawing looks and remarks from patrons.
Scenes from St. Nick’s storied visit to a different kind of Valley hang on the walls—more than a dozen canvasses from Valley artist Richard Burhans’ 1994 Valley-themed Christmas book, “St. Nicholas and the Valley Beyond,” written by Ellen Kushner.
When I was a cub reporter, the world of sports was an alien thing.
One look at my thick glasses and you can tell I never played high school sports. I was drawn to books and writing, and my career as a journalist was a natural outgrowth. I was a news reporter. Sports coverage was for the sports guys. I dwelt in a different universe.
But one of my first weekly assignments was coverage of a small town high school football game. Camera in hand, I crossed the browning grass of the exterior stadiums into a whole new environment.
Between the martial, thumping pep-band music, or the chill of the autumn wind creeping through my jacket, the smell of the homemade burgers on the grill, the roar of the crowd or the thrill of being on the sidelines in a real contest, I was hooked. From then on, I volunteered to shoot high school games.
It was only gradually that I came to understand why all those people were there.
Twenty-four years after he was murdered on a rural road near Lake Alice, Tod Berkebile’s killer is still at large.
With the 1986 Snoqualmie slaying still on King County Sheriff’s Office cold case list, family members home that an upcoming televised segment on Washington’s Most Wanted program will move viewers and spark progress.
“We need to get a lot of Valley viewers,” said Berkebile’s sister, Deborah Reed. “Someone knows something and it has gone on far too long.”
Tod’s story will air at 10:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday, Dec. 10 and 11, on Q13 FOX, and at 9:30 p.m. on Joe TV.
The 17-year-old North Bend student dreamed of becoming an engineer or a botanist. He was a hard-working student, and worked full time at the family restaurant, gardened with his mother and showed plenty of promise. But he had a dark side his family didn’t know about.
Dusk fell quietly as David Wyrick and Steve Perry took their positions inside the barn and readied their rifles. Motionless, without speaking, the men settled in their darkened blind, waiting for the perfect moment to make a kill.
Both men are master hunters, allowed to kill one cow elk this fall in a culling project approved by the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife. Their vantage point, a cow shed near the Snoqualmie River’s Three Forks, allowed them a view onto a nearby pasture. Mist-wreathed trees in the distance marked the extent of their kill zone. The men only had a hundred yards or so to make a safe shot, and as master hunters, that is the only one they are allowed to take.