The mailman delivered our latest gizmo gadget (a state of the art Ultra Flip HD Camera) a few weeks back and we thought “what the flip should we do with this ding-dang newfangled thingamabob?”

Out of the red, white and blue, it occurred to us that our third President, one Thomas Jefferson, who loved new gadgets and devices and inventions and discoveries, would have gotten a kick out of this powerful little digital camera, the size of a deck of cards, not much smaller than a hand-held booklet-sized copy of what is  known as the Declaration of Independence.

It was 234 years ago right now, that our Founders were “cutting and pasting” their final draft of what became known as that treasured and precious document, the Declaration of Independence, whose primary author was the then 33 year-old future President Jefferson.

So someone said:

“Let’s take our camera around Burien and Des Moines (and Normandy Park and White Center) and ask our fellow neighbors and friends and passersby to read aloud the Declaration into our new little camera, piece the quotes together into one colorful video, and release it to the nation and world on our various neighborhood news blogs.”

And so we did – well actually Mark Neuman did, then Scott Schaefer edited it – see if you can find yourself, or a friend or two:

(…at the end of the video, look for some amusing outtakes as well as terrific “Happy Birthday USA!” salutations)

HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAY B-TOWN!

by Mark Neuman

Diana Toledo is a self described “proactive” person. That particular proactive quality may have preserved her young candidacy for a seat on the Metropolitan King County Council.

Toledo, a former King County employee, told The B-Town Blog that “my blowing the whistle on gross mismanagement and waste of taxpayer money” in King County government resulted in her being laid off May 1 after 15 years of county employment.

“I was no longer included in policy-making meetings and I realized I was being pushed out,” she said. “My position in management was cut in fake budgetary reorganization. I was told about the position cut while I was on fully protected family medical leave after the birth of my baby.”

Shortly thereafter, Toledo decided to run for Dow Constantine’s former seat, now held by the appointed Jan Drago, who has opted not to run for election.

Toledo, her husband Jerry and brother David, and “lots of grass roots supporters” spent the recent three weeks collecting signatures of about 1,500 voters to get her name on the August 17 primary ballot.

“I lost my voice collecting signatures,” she said.

A minimum of 1,277 valid signatures had to be turned in by 5pm this past Friday, June 11, to qualify for the ballot. The signatures would waive the necessity of paying a filing fee, which, Diana Toledo said, is $1,277.47.

Before filing “we crossed off about 30 signatures due to coming from voters outside the 8th District,” she said. “We turned in about 1,467 signatures on Friday (June 11) at about 10am.”

Four hours later, three hours before the filing deadline “the lady from the county elections office called to say we didn’t make the cut due to signatures not matching” original voter signature cards.

“They only went through 900 signatures. The look of someone’s signature can easily change over, say, 20 years,” Toledo said.

“I am a proactive person. We’d been told anywhere from ten to twenty percent of signatures get tossed out for various reasons. So I left a check with the elections office to cover the filing fee in the event we didn’t make the signature cut.”

Leaving that check kept her name on the ballot.

Diana Toledo began working for King County selling pet licenses door-to-door while a student at the University of Washington.

“I worked my way up the system,” said Toledo, whose work involved business license inspections.

“In 2006, I was brought in to fix the the animal cruelty investigations program and to repair the county relationship with the animal welfare community,” Toledo said.

“I would like to see what can be done to save the South Park bridge,” which will be closed June 30. “We need to be fiscally responsible. Twenty thousand cars will be diverted daily and many small businesses will be impacted,” she said.

“When I was a baby we were just a stone’s throw from the South Park bridge. My brothers used to fish from under the bridge.”

King County Council District 8 includes Normandy Park, Burien, parts of SeaTac and Tukwila, North Highline, West Seattle, and Vashon and Maury Islands.

Also running for the non-partisan council seat are State Senator Joe McDermott, Normandy Park City Council member Shawn McEvoy and South Park resident and professional carpenter Tim Fahey.

The all mail-in primary election ballots will be sent to voters by July 28. The two candidates receiving the most votes will advance to the November 2 general election.

by Mark Neuman

Receiving about two-thirds of the votes cast, Marcee Stone earned the endorsement of the 34th District Democrats last night (May 12), in the race to replace Sharon Nelson as State Representative, Position 2.

The 34th District covers most of Burien, and all of Vashon and Maury Islands, White Center and West Seattle.

Contender Joe Fitzgibbon came in second with the remaining votes.

Candidate Mike Heavey, in the early minutes of the meeting, surprised many by withdrawing his name from contention for the coveted endorsement.

“I am still in the race,” Heavey told The B-Town Blog. “With respect to the 34th District Democratic organization, I could see I did not have the degree of support that Marcee and Joe had. So to streamline the (endorsement) process and keep the meeting moving, I took my name out.”

Heavey said he has more “cash on hand” than each of his opponents have and that he intends to advance into the general election.

The primary election is August 17. Mail-in voting begins in late July.

Fitzgibbon told The B-Town Blog “I wish we’d gotten the endorsement. But this is just one of many endorsements I am seeking. It’s onward and upward. I’ll be knocking on doors and working to win the primary.”

Regarding Heavey’s removing his name from endorsement contention, Fitzgibbon said “Mike made a very practical decision. The 34 District organization is a group who has known each other a long time. He knew it would be an uphill fight for him (to win the endorsement).”

Stone told The B-Town Blog Wednesday night “I am very happy to have won this endorsement. I could not have done this without the help of many wonderful supporters and volunteers.”

A fourth candidate in the race is local businessman and Navy veteran Geoffrey “Mac” McElroy. He is running as an independent.

Contacted by The B-Town Blog Thursday (May 13) McElroy said “I congratulate Marcee on her endorsement. I welcome her as the top contender, and I’d like to express my enthusiasm for lively debate and the opportunity to serve the people of the 34 th District through the democratic process.”

State Rep. Sharon Nelson is running for the State Senate from the 34th District.

Some updates on recent Burien business news:

We had a chance the other day – Opening Day, as a matter of fact – to visit new Burien neighbors Donatelli’s Market.

The Donatelli family has created Burien’s newest enterprise, where you’ll find a wide variety of terrific fresh fruits, vegetables and other food items.

They are located on the west side of Ambaum Boulevard SW at SW 135th Street, in the building formerly occupied by Ike’s Burgers & Teriyaki.

B-Town Blog staffer Mark Neuman was on his way to another event with camera in hand. By chance timing, Mark became Donatelli’s first customer ever, snaring two bananas plus two perfectly ripe avocados, leaving behind Donatelli Market’s “first dollar we ever earned” (see photo at right).

They’re open seven days a week from 10:30am to 7pm. Open hours will lengthen as summer approaches.

And soon, Donatelli’s will be offering catering … Italian style!

Don’t forget to check out the north side of the nicely renovated building – it’s drive-through Espresso starting at 6:30am every morning.

Also, we’ve seen evidence of construction work on the Red Fish Grill, to be located where the former Keg Restaurant was at 180 SW 148th, across from the Transit Center in the Safeway mall:

Our fave namesake women’s sports team, The Rat City Rollergirls (RCRG), kicked off their 2010 season opener recently to raise money for various charities, including;

• Old Dog Haven, a small nonprofit group using a network of foster parents to provide a loving safe home for abandoned senior dogs.
• The Pin Up Angels, who send care packages to our deployed servicemen and women serving in Iraq and Afghanistan with the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, and Coast Guard.
• The Lambert House, a center for Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender and Questioning youth that encourages empowerment through the development of leadership, social and life skills.
• Fisher House, who supports military and their families while recovering from illness or injury.

The first bout of the season Jan. 31st was an exhibition bout, which was set up like a mini-tournament. Our own Bart Bryan and Mark Neuman braved the dangerous sidelines of the bout to shoot this video, which was edited by Gina Bourdage:

This was a bout RCRG played for charities, and will not count toward their regular season team standings; however, at the end of the night the standings were

1. Sockit Wenches
2. Grave Danger
3. Throttle Rockets
4. Derby Liberation Front

Here are the points:

• Period 1, 1st Players: TR 62, SW 97
• Period 1, 2nd Players: GD 88, DLF 51
• Period 2, Grudge Match: TR 97, DLF 43
• Period 2, Champs: GD 66, SW 70

On March 6th, the RCRG set new records with attendance reaching 5,158 fans, the top attendance for a modern roller derby bout, packed KeyArena to watch the first regular home bout of season 6.

The Throttle Rockets smashed the skates of Derby Liberation Front, while Grave Danger drew first blood against the Sockit Wenches. Word on the street (direct from KeyArena folks), is that Rat City Rollergirl fans drink more beer than ANY sporting event at KeyArena! For more information and tickets visit www.ratcityrollergirls.com.

Ever wonder what it takes to be a Rat City Roller Girl? It’s more than a pair of skates and some lip gloss. To even be considered you need to commit to three 2-hours practices a week, work six committee hours a month and “Have a ton of chutzpah, sweat, determination, and a nice smile” just to name a few.

Beyond the eye-catching outfits these girls take some serious hits. Don’t believe us? Just check out the Hall Of Pain section of their website (there is a reason a disclaimer is posted to this page, this is no joke).

RCRG’s next bout is Saturday, April 10th, with Derby Liberation Front vs. Grave Danger, and Sockit Wenches vs. Throttle Rockets.

by Mark Neuman

The gavel came down hard last night (Thursday, March 4) in a spirited meeting of the North Highline Unincorporated Area Council in White Center.

The prospect of annexation with either Seattle or Burien focused the minds of the approximately 50 citizen attendees at the meeting, held at the headquarters station of the North Highline Fire District on SW 112th Street.

“You’ve had your chance to speak, and the public comment period is over,” council president Gregory Duff told one member of the audience as he hit the table twice with his gavel. That audience member at least three times tried to question invited speakers who were officially addressing the council.

Some attendees, almost all residents of North Highline, voiced dissatisfaction that the public comment portion of the meeting preceded the arrival of Kenny Pittman, Senior Policy Analyst for the City of Seattle.

Twenty citizens addressed the council during the comment period, all speaking about the annexation issue.

Fifteen spoke in favor of annexation with Seattle, three in favor of joining Burien, and two spoke in general terms without clearly stating a preference.

Barbara Dobkin favors annexation with Burien.

“I can call (King County Deputy Sheriff) Jeff Hancock on his cell phone, and he answers it,” Dobkin told the council. “There was a house fire a few doors down from me recently and the fire department was there in about two minutes. I see the high density of Seattle. I don’t want White Center to look like Delridge.”

Liz Giba, of a group called “People for Burien”, addressed the council.

“I would like to have an educated vote,” Giba said. “Seattle will focus on their affluent neighborhoods.”

Mercedes D’Antona has lived in White Center for about five years. She told the council:

“I get a little emotional about annexation. I am Hispanic. Seattle is a huge, humongous beast. Seattle has huge demand (on its services). We would not benefit. I like the laid back lifestyle we have here. I do not want to be suffocated.”

Brad Truesdell, a twelve-year resident of White Center said “Seattle is the best choice. They have three times the gang unit” than is currently available.

Truesdell, who envisions Ambaum Boulevard blossoming from time to time into a “multicultural open air mall,” said that White Center, once annexed with Seattle “could become the real International District of Seattle.”

Stephanie Dotson, who opposes annexation with Burien, told the council: “I have lived here forever. I find it extremely distressing that this council and audience have very few people of color.”

Mark Ufkes, who heads the White Center Homeowners Association, illustrated with placards that Seattle’s list of services to the public exceeds services provided by Burien.

“All we want is a chance to vote (on annexation),” Ufkes told the council.

One man who did not address the council was Gill Loring, a homeowner in White Center since 1998. He told The White Center Blog following the meeting that he favors annexation with Burien.

The newest member of the King County Council, Jan Drago, said at the meeting she will “not oppose” North Highline annexation. Drago recently completed four terms as a member of the Seattle City Council.

Pittman, of the City of Seattle, said North Highline District firefighters who might be temporarily displaced in the event of an annexation with Seattle would immediately go to the top of a re-hire list for firefighter jobs that open up at any fire station in Seattle.

King County Deputy Sheriff Jeff Hancock introduced nine members of the Sheriff’s gang unit. They reported that during 2009, the number of street gangs attempting to do business in and near North Highline was reduced from 21 to 15.

More information on the NHUAC is available at their website.

(Graphic courtesy North Highline Unincorporated Area Councils website)

[EDITOR'S NOTE: This is the final segment of our interview with Inga Isakson (read Part 1 here), one of two people seriously injured in a beating and animal attack last summer in the Sea-Tac neighborhood. Snaps, the Pit Bull that had been abused by four juveniles before biting Inga and another woman in the attack, is being cared for at Olympic Animal Sanctuary in Forks. Following the attack, Inga and many others lobbied to save Snaps from being euthanized. A 16-year old girl was sentenced this past fall to 14 months in a juvenile detention center, having pleaded guilty to single counts of second-degree assault, third-degree assault and being a minor in possession of alcohol.]

by Mark Neuman

Inga Isakson told The B-Town Blog previously how she attempted to free Snaps, a Pit Bull, from the beating four young people were putting him through one sunny Sunday evening this past June north of SeaTac airport.

The oldest of the children, a girl who was 15-years old at the time, turned on Inga, hitting her repeatedly, then siccing the Pit Bull on her, as well as on another woman who came to Inga’s aid.

Inga attended the girl’s sentencing hearing this past October and addressed the court, speaking directly to the girl, who had subsequently reached her sixteenth birthday.

“At the sentencing I just stood and spoke from my heart,” Inga told us. “I told (the girl) I was beaten horribly as a child.

“When the girl was beating me it reminded me of  my childhood. It all came back to me.

“I told her in court that I come from a broken home. I had terrible stepdads, six of them. It (the girl’s actions) brought it all back to me. All that horror of being beaten.

“And (the girl) just fell apart in court. She just started sobbing and sobbing. She couldn’t stop crying. It was real, true crying.

“‘I think that your parents should be going to jail for this,’ I told her. I said ‘I wish they could go to jail for you. But you need to learn that what you did was wrong.’

“I said to her ‘I think there is a beautiful person in you. You just snapped that day. I’d like to be an advocate for you.’

“And then they had her talk. And she was crying so hard.”

Inga told us that the girl said in court that every night she would pray that Inga would forgive her, and that she knew what she did was terrible.

“She has been a kid raising herself. She was lost,” Inga said

The girl wrote a letter to Inga a few weeks after sentencing.

“I wrote her back and told her she is going to run into every kind of person (at the juvenile center) and to try to find her passion, and find people who could help her find the beautiful person that is inside her,” Inga said.

In her letter Inga told the girl “she’s going to be challenged every day and to try to hold up under it. I tried to give her advice and be friendly.

“I told her ‘to do what you’re supposed to do.’”

The girl, in her letter to Inga, said she was embarrassed about what had happened and that she has been praying that she would be forgiven and that she still can’t believe that Inga was willing to forgive her.

“She wrote it with a pencil, a full page letter. I really liked her thinking. She obviously is a smart girl.”

The girl’s father spoke at the hearing.

Inga quoted him as saying: “I am (the girl’s) real father. I lost contact with her when she was six months old. I take as much responsibility as anybody in this courtroom as to why she is the way she is because I have been a completely absent father.

“I want to try to be with my daughter. I know it’s really late, but I want to see what I can do.”

“I hope that her dad does what he says he’s going to do,” Inga said. “Maybe he can go to her. I can’t imagine her going back to (her original) school after being in juvenile detention for a year. She’d just get taunted and torn apart.

“I want to know how the story goes for her.

“People have got to step up,” Inga Isakson told us. “Our communities are going downhill. But I believe if we all take a step to make our communities better, that’s all it takes. It’s just one step at a time.

And I’ll do it.”

Story and Photos by Mark Neuman

I sat down recently for an exclusive interview with one of the survivors of a beating and animal attack last summer in the SeaTac neighborhood.

The attack has made famous a Pit Bull named Snaps (read our previous coverage here), and resulted in a teenage girl being sentenced to over a year in jail.

To begin to understand what happened that June 21, a sunny Sunday evening, one must realize that Inga Isakson has been, informally, a rescuer of abused dogs for some time.

“In the past, I have offered to BUY dogs from people when it’s obvious they’ve been mistreating them,” Inga said over coffee in a Burien restaurant.

“I have rescued dogs for about ten years all by myself. I have taken many of the dogs to a halfway house in north Seattle where a kind and wonderful elderly gentleman takes care of them.

“June 21st was Father’s Day. It also happened to be the longest day of the year,” Inga said. “It was really hot and really light out. I was going to run my (two) dogs at around 6pm or so. I was in my car driving” southbound through the Sea-Tac area, north of the airport.

“I noticed movement to my right. All I could see were silhouettes behind a tree covered with ivy.”

The silhouettes, as it turned out, were those of a then 15-year old girl and three younger boys. The were kicking and beating a Pit Bull, about a year old.

“So I understood these kids were hiding. If I were an artist I would draw the silhouettes because the image is stuck in my mind,” Inga recollected. “These four silhouettes images were bent over. Eight fists and eight feet pounding and pummeling some living thing on the ground.

“And so I slowed down to get to the other side of the tree to see what was going on. I did not know if they were beating up a child or what.”

Inga pulled her car closer to the four young people.

“I realized it was a dog and I realized I needed to think fast. I did not want to seem to be challenging them. I knew they were doing something wrong.

“I rolled down the passenger side window about ten inches. The door was locked.

“I needed the dog to not be with them. I also knew there were four of them and one of me.

“I called out: ‘Are you kids okay?’ Really, I wanted to say something else. I did not want them to feel they were in a fight with me,” Inga told us. “The oldest, who was a young woman (fifteen years of age), came so close to my car window, she was in my space, that close.

“And it bothered me. I felt challenged, which I tried to avoid. I was trying to be nice.

“Her face was right in my window. She said ‘What do you want, bitch? This is none of your business. I can kill my dog if I want to.’

“She was screaming at me: ‘What are you, the cops?’

“‘I could be,’ I responded. ‘Would you like me to call them?’

“She reached in through my passenger window and unlocked my door. Oh boy!

“She just jumped in my car and grabbed me by my hair. Started ripping my hair out and screaming at me: ‘You bitch! You bitch! I wish you were dead!’

“I had my cell phone in my left hand. I extended my left arm away from her and tried to dial 9-1-1 with my left hand.

“She was yanking at me. My seat belt, which was still fastened, was kind of hanging me.

“But she saw the cell phone in my hand so she let go of my hair and grabbed the cell phone out of my hand.

“She had ripped a lot of the hair out of the right side of my head. She started hitting me on the right side of my head with my cell phone, while pulling my hair with her free hand.

“The attack  seemed to last two minutes. I was able to unfasten my seat belt and was able to elbow her with my right arm.”

Inga ran from her car and managed to get to middle of Des Moines Memorial Drive screaming “call 9-1-1! Call 9-1-1!” over and over.

“I thought it (the attack) was over. Then she (the girl) ran around the back of my car and attacked me again.

“The girl kneed me. I put my hands up to cover my head.

“Meanwhile, my brain said there are cars stopped. Someone has GOT to help me!” Inga said.

“There were about seven cars, three or four stopped” in both the northbound and southbound lanes.

She estimated the attack in the street lasted seven minutes.

The people in the seven cars watched, apparently doing nothing to help her. This was in a residential area with houses set back from the road.

“I’ll never forget this one woman in a grey sedan, just her, no passengers in her car,” Inga recalled. “She was about in her mid-50’s with blondish or grey curly hair. She just sat there and watched and did nothing.

“She seemed embarrassed! Like a wimp! She could have honked her horn or driven slowly into the gang. She just sat there.

“I had my arms over my head to protect myself while the girl was hitting me on my head and I looked down to my left. And there was the dog, just looking up at me with his tongue hanging out, panting the way a dog does. It was like he had a smile on his face and he just wanted to play.

“The girl was yelling at me: ‘I wish you were dead!’

“The dog had a clear shot at my face. I thought ‘this dog could bite my face off.’

“Then one kid kicked the dog three times really hard until the dog bit me in the leg.

“I think the dog was just confused. He was just happy not to have all four beating on him.”

A red pick up truck appeared, driving along the shoulder. The driver got out.

“A guy in his forties started yelling ‘The cops are here! The cops are here!’ He meant the cops were on their way, but that was enough to get the four kids running off along with the dog into a park.

“Then this wonderful lady drove up in a van, right at the time the kids ran away with the dog into the park,” Inga said.

“This lady (in the van) had such a look of conviction on her face. I saw that she was not going to let this happen. She was not going to let these kids get away.

“She took her van and drove it right across the park and into the woods. I didn’t see it, but she confronted the kids.

“She was not going to let them out of her sight. I was told later that this woman got out of her van. She said to the kids: ‘I won’t approach you, and don’t approach me. You’re not getting away with this.’”

Meanwhile the paramedics had arrived and were treating Inga. “I was kind of ‘shocky.’ My left arm was bleeding from the girl scratching me,” Inga said.

“I looked over, and here comes the woman (who had driven up in the van) walking towards us through the woods. She just kind of ‘appeared,’ and she was covered with blood.

Moments earlier, in the park, with the woman’s teenage daughter watching from inside the van, she, too, was attacked by the girl and the dog.

“I saw her and I said to the paramedics ‘Leave me! Go help her! I’m okay!

“That woman was my hero. That wonderful woman made the mistake of getting out of her van.

“She did the mother thing in the woods. She said ‘You kids stay right there.’ The girl jumped up and head butted her and broke her nose.

“The kids all kicked and beat her and kicked the dog until he finally bit the woman’s arm bad, clear through to the bone.

“I called her later,” Inga said. “She has lots of family and support and wants to keep to herself. Her daughter was in the van and saw her mom beaten and attacked.

“I step up always,” Inga said. “I would do the same thing again. That group of kids could have killed somebody another time.”

Next: Inga speaks at the sentencing hearing and, later, corresponds with the girl.

Read Part 2 of our exclusive interview with Inga here.

[EDITOR'S NOTE: A lovely lady named Heidi won the “Win a Date With Bart Bryan Contest” last week. Bart Bryan is The B-Town’s Blog’s single Sales Guy and frequent video Host. Heidi and Bart enjoyed dinner and dancing this last Saturday night at the Burien/White Center Rotary Club's annual dinner and auction fundraiser. Here is Bart’s report:]

Story by Bart Bryan
Photos by Mark Neuman

I was pretty nervous as I waited at South Seattle Community College for my date Heidi to arrive for our big night.

I anxiously waited at the valet parking area when she pulled up.

Heidi looked beautiful in a purple dress as I helped her out of her car. We walked into the ballroom and found our table right in front of the stage.

We sat down and instantly hit if off. We then took Fox Trot lessons from a professional dance instructor, the enthusiastic Courteney Lynn. We had a blast as we, well, Fox Trotted across the floor.

We then had a wonderful dinner, prepared by the culinary students at South Seattle Community College, as we chatted with our tablemates as the evening unfolded.

The auction and raffle drawing began at 8 o’clock, and to my surprise my name was announced. After absorbing good natured ribbing, courtesy BTB Advertiser Tami Greene, Heidi was then introduced, whereupon she randomly selected the first winning raffle ticket out of a hat.

“Every year the auction and dinner supports several community programs and scholarships within the Burien and White Center areas,” said Tami, who is also the Public Relations person for the Rotary Club.

After the auction, Heidi and I danced the night away to the classic Rock and R&B stylings of the great local band Uncle Ernie.

And before we knew it, the night came to an end.

As I walked Heidi to her car I asked “Do I get a second date with you at the Mark Restaurant?”

She laughed and said “Well, I guess so!”

We hugged goodnight and after the embrace I looked in her eyes, and…

I’ll leave the rest up to the reader’s imagination…

For more Rotary information go to: http://bwcrotaryclub.org.

Here’s a Photo Slideshow of the evening, as shot by Mark Neuman:

Click to View Mark Neuman’s Photo Slideshow

[EDITOR'S NOTE: We are re-posting this column (originally run Nov. 2, 2008) in honor of the late Dr. Martin Luther King, whose life and work we celebrate today:]

“When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, militarism and economic exploitation are incapable of being conquered.”

– Dr. Martin Luther King,
from a speech delivered in 1967

by Mark Neuman

Contemplating the Giant Triplets
I am embarrassed to admit that, at age nine, I knew more about Forrest Tucker and Larry Storch and a TV situation comedy called “F Troop” than I did about the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

I know this because I was watching a syndicated repeat of that silly show on the afternoon of April 4, 1968, when a news bulletin cut into regular programming to announce that Dr. King had been shot and killed earlier that day.

I did not know who he was.

I quickly got to know, in part, on the strength of my third and fourth grade teachers at Holy Rosary Elementary School in West Seattle, and then I never forgot.

Our recent handful of years
With an over half-trillion dollar burden set firmly on the backs of Americans not yet born, the powers-that-be recently bailed out the powerful who failed us.

And some number of millions of everyday Americans participated as well, in the pursuit of a piece of the glittering illusion: unbelievably rapidly appreciating equity.

Any number of common desk working brokers and agents just “did what the boss told us” to earn fast, fat commissions.

Regulators, overseers are somewhat difficult to blame. They, too, like the profits, were largely imaginary, nonexistent. Those who existed sat by, quite silent.

Today, a Senator from Illinois engenders, through no fault of his own, racist sentiments from various pockets all about our country.

And this is seven score and three years after the end of the Civil War.

And meanwhile another chunk of trillion has been thrown at a conflagration, a quagmire, in the Middle East that, inarguably, Dr. King would have opposed.

A great speech
And so I bring to you today words earnestly delivered by Dr. King, less than a year before he died. Officially it is titled: “Why I Am Opposed to the War in Vietnam.”

It could quite well be subtitled: “The Giant Triplets Speech.”

It could also be called: “Please Don’t Make Our Country Look Like This in the First Decade of the 21st Century.”

If only all we Americans had recited or read, daily, his powerful words, spoken forty-one years ago:

“When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, militarism and economic exploitation are incapable of being conquered.”

In our modest blog offices it was suggested: Should we post and highlight this speech two days before Election Day?

We “Woodwarded and Bernsteined and Bradleed” this about. Would some be offended? Might some misunderstand?

Perhaps some will.

Some always do.

Any complaints? Send them to me.

Any credit or compliments? They go to Dr. King.

Here is a recording of, in my opinion, a stunning and timeless speech from the greatest and most courageous leader of my lifetime.

When you hear Dr. King’s words, spoken less than a year before he passed, does your heart beat fast?

I should expect and hope it would.

Perhaps your eyes water at certain points.

You’re in good company if they do, I assure.

Never heard this speech before? You are not to blame. We live in a “forget the past” society. Additionally, Dr. King’s other stunning and courageous works, including “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” happen to overshadow his own genius, literary and oratory greatness and prescience displayed at other times in his life.

Does the speech seem familiar? Please give it a listen again, in the relative stillness of this, the day most often set aside for meaningful thought, then send a note to that Social Studies teacher from grade six, your History professor from college, your Speech Coach and thank her or him for the initial introduction.

Send the links to your nephew in the Navy, your sisters from the old sorority, your Aunt in Auburn or Alabama, your boss in Bellevue, your kid in college.

Move it along the internet line to your favorite State Rep or least favorite Congressman, the most ethical attorney you know, or maybe even the least trustworthy scumbag Wall Street suit you are glad you never met, or, perhaps, are sorry you ever did.

Print out Dr. King’s words (we’ll get that link to you soon), fold it up and send them along with warmth in your Holiday greetings later this Autumn.

And so, on this Contemplative Holiday
Let us all, now and in these crucial near years, stare down those Giant and Ugly Triplets and knock them off their high perch for good.

Thanks.

–Mark Neuman
mark@b-townblog.com

And in case you haven’t heard it in a while, here’s Dr. King’s classic “I Have A Dream” speech:

We know there are no excuses for posting this video so late, as the event took place last Sunday (Jan. 10th), but, um…we left our Flip camera in our other pants, and since we weren’t wearing any to begin with…

Actually, we hate to just throw up lame raw video, and editing takes time, and um…there’s that whole “other pants” thing again.

But first, a little interesting behind-the-scenes backstory:

Two days before the pantsless prank, we received the following email from Emerald City Improv‘s Kelsey Wildstone:

First, please remember that we’re trying to be inconspicuous here.

If you’d like to film the event with a motion camera, try to find a way to disguise your camera in a box or something to make it a sort of “hidden camera”.

Use some creativity here, but the point is that we’d like to avoid people seeing you openly point a camera around.

Considering that we respect the fine art of successful pranking, and that our Publisher used to work on a hidden camera TV show (“Totally Hidden Video,” Fox), we wanted to abide by this request (unlike some local TV news stations who just showed up and shot with their huge cameras and “Reporters”). The end result was that our shooter Mark Neuman went out of his way to “disguise” our Flip camera thusly:

Okay, so here it is (finally!)…with video shot by Neuman, featuring Bart Bryan, edited by Scott Schaefer and featuring the groovy public domain hit “Midnight Special” recorded by some long-dead dude named Bill Cox in 1933, ironically during the last Great Depression when not wearing pants wasn’t a prank, it was a way of life:

Also, we were very curious to find out what the MuckyMucks at SoundTransit thought of this pantsless prank, so we sent an email to Andrew Schmid, Sound Transit Media Relations director –here’s his response:

Q: Was ST aware beforehand that this was going to happen?
A: No, we were totally caught with our… (unless you lack internet access, it was almost impossible to not know about this event).

Q: Did ST security goes pantsless?
A: No.

Q: Was security worried about this prank at all?
A: Slightly – our security is worried about everything.

Q: Did this event increase ridership? if so, by how much? (have any estimate on the # of pantsless?)
A: Yes, but the infrared technology on Link’s Automatic Passenger Counting machines is not designed to distinguish between the pant-sed and the pants challenged.

Q: Will ST tolerate future events like this?
A: So long as folks follow our code of conduct (read it here).

Q: Will ST ever sponsor future events like this?
A: No.

Q: How about creating some ST underwear for folks to wear?
A: Sorta already been done – see this.

Q: Did you, or any other ST officials, attend?
A: NO COMMENT

And in case you haven’t seen the other videos, here they are:

by Mark Neuman

We had a regularly scheduled staff meeting at The B-Town Blog’s dorm room-like offices Wednesday morning, where a non-regularly scheduled question was asked.

“Hey Neuman. Can you do a review of the dress rehearsal of the comedy ‘Snowbound’ at E.B. Foote Winery (BTB Advertiser) tonight?”

“Well, uh, I’ve never actually reviewed an actual play before,” I stammered.

“Good,” said Blog Editor Scott Schaefer. “I’ll expect your review in the morning.”

Great. What do I do now?

Honesty is the best policy I reminded myself, so hours before I arrived at the winery, home of many Breeder Theater’s productions over the past several years, I “pre-wrote” my opening review paragraphs, which I now present, for the reader’s approval:

In the spirit of full disclosure it should be noted that, first of all, in addition to never having reviewed a play before, I met ‘Snowbound’s’ author, playwright T.M. Sell, almost a third of a century ago, while hanging out at the Highline Community College newsroom, where my pals would, late at night, put the school newspaper, The Thunderword, to bed, as they say in the biz.

Second, I intended the above paragraph to be as run-on-ish as it appears.

Third, I was lucky enough to have made the pleasant acquaintance of ‘Snowbound’s’ director, Michael Brunk, last year. He is a brilliant Photographer, and we work together with Schaefer on the blog.

Michael’s skill with the camera is amazing. He reaches the summit on his photographic mountain climbs so amazingly frequently that we blog staffers just stare skyward and declare: ‘Good Brunksmanship!’

And fourth, speaking of E.B. Foote Winery, I actually know THE E.B. Foote. The Footes were among my best friends growing up, going way back to first grade. Chris Foote and I visited his parents as they were just finishing building out their first winery, in South Park, also about a third of a century ago.

Okay. Full disclosure is out of the way.

At the winery Wednesday night, minutes before the house lights did what house lights do just before a play is about to start, I looked over and Thank Goodness there was my blog colleague Gina Bourdage, with her friend Jack, who reminds one of a quiet and calm Jack Black.

“I’ll be doing the review of the play tonight,” said Gina, confidently. Wisely, Schaefer had recalculated the assignment.

“And I’ll just tell the story of a Regular Joe such as myself who never sees theater,” I responded.

“Fine,” smiled Gina as she and Mr. Black moved on.

Relieved, to say the least, that Ms. Bourdage would handle the rough stuff, I felt free to muse over and note such things as the jar full of multicolored M&M’s at the table of hors d’oeuvres.

“M&M’s at the hors d’oeuvres table!” I said to myself, because, well, no one else was within earshot. “Clearly Sell’s and Brunk’s contracts demanded the confection. And just as clearly, the winery refused to be limited to just one color, Led Zeppelin style. Or was it The Who? Lynyrd Skynyrd? Well, anyway.”

Gina will provide details of the play under a different headline, but let me give you a thumbnail of “Snowbound”:

Dean Martin plays an airline pilot who has an affair with a beautiful flight attendant, played by Jacqueline Bisset…

Then…oops, sorry…those are my notes from the first film I reviewed, “Airport,” for the Lafayette Elementary School Gazette back in 1970.

Let’s see here. Lemme get a little better organized. Okay. Here we go:

“Snowbound” is a mirthful production that concerns a group of unique personalities stuck in a lodge near the pass, just off I-90, in a wicked snow storm. The roads are all closed for the foreseeable future. And wouldn’t you know it? An inmate has escaped from the state pen in Monroe. A killer, perhaps? Is he among those stuck in the lodge?

What will T.M Sell think of next? See the play (it starts this Friday, Jan. 15th), and find out. It’s terrific, especially for the $20 price, which includes wine tastings, hors d’ouevres and of course, a great and entertaining play chock full of lots of Sellishness and Brunksmanship (you can buy tickets online here).

Stage Manager, Andrew Pogue, when asked before the show what advice he gives to anyone about to stage manage their first play, said: “Don’t start out with ‘Annie.’ And use checklists. Lots and lots of checklists.”

When asked after the dress rehearsal by this reporter what advice he had for anyone wanting to write their first play, T.M. Sell said “Know what you want to write, and stick with it. The initial writing part is relatively easy. It’s the rewriting process that can be difficult.”

He then said “Now Neuman, please go away and don’t contact me again for another third of a century.” (Just kidding, folks.)

Nancy Warren arranged the music and sang beautifully. Word is that regular Breeder Theater goers complain if Nancy does not sing somewhere during a performance.

An audience member, who I will refer to as “Becky” because, well, her name IS Becky, said “Of the four Breeder Theater plays I’ve seen, ‘Snowbound’ is the funniest. I laughed repeatedly.”

Kelly Johnson, who plays Glenda, the mother of Binky, has been acting since childhood. She has advice for prospective actors about to read for their first part: “Go bravely,” said the auburn beauty.

Go, ready to enjoy yourself, to “Snowbound.” I heartily recommend it. It runs through January 31st.

PREVIOUS COVERAGE:

• PHOTOS: Behind-The-Scenes Peak At Breeders Theater’s “Snowbound”
• The Pass May Be Closed, But Tickets Are Now On Sale For Breeders Theater’s “Snowbound”

[EDITOR'S NOTE: This is the first in a series of reports on Sunday's "No Pants! Link Light Rail Ride," where Reporter Gina Bourdage was brave (or foolish) enough to ride public transportation and drop trou. Look for more reports soon, including a first-hand video from Bart Bryan and Mark Neuman]

by Gina Bourdage

Most days being in your undies in public would be the nightmare we just woke up from.

Today is not that day.

After a frenzied Internet campaign via Facebook, the NYC group Improv Everywhere convinced people nationwide, myself included, to ride public transit today in their skivvies.

I have had that little voice in the back of my head ask me numerous times “What the heck are you thinking?!” and to be completely honest I have tried to talk myself out of participating.

In hindsight of the type of year 2009 turned out to be, most of us could use a little more light-hearted humor in 2010.

According to the Improv Everywhere website, “not taking life too seriously” is exactly the reason behind the nationwide “No Pants!” rides on buses, trains and subways all over the country today.

So relax, take a deep breath, drop trou and enjoy life…

Yep, actually getting out of the car and taking off the pants without the little voice telling me i am officially crazy was impossible. If it weren’t for the other twenty or so fellow pantsless participants I might turn and run. It is a little odd with children pointing “Hey mommy?!” but thank goodness everyone is “decent” and there’s nothing here you wouldn’t see on a beach.

After the first stop half the train is pants free. Who knew it was so easy to get people to rock their undies in public?

Oh boy this went to another level when i just saw a pantsless family.

I am impressed with the level that we, the pantsless mob, have pulled this off. Never have I seen so many strangers be so friendly with a smile and supportive silent acknowledgment that there really is something bigger going on here.

The confused and bewildered looks of the unsuspecting other riders is worth all the initial butterflies.

I encourage everyone to be a part of something that brings people together the way this has.

Here are some pics of the event (more to come so keep checking back, and if you participated and have some, please email us!):

Here are some pics sent in by Readers “xtina” and “hollywood,” who added:

“The ride was great…So much fun we got off and on at different spots … ending at Westlake and walked to Fox Sports Bar where we enjoyed a cold one in our undies… Way fun”

Read Report #2 here.

by Scott Schaefer
Publisher/Editor

As 2009 (and the first decade of the 21st century) winds to a close, we’re taking a few moments to reflect on a very interesting year, full of new beginnings, tragic endings, a drunk city manager, record-setting temps, an innovative art installation, a fake news issue, an expanding city and much much more.

Not only was 2009 a very exciting year for the area, it was also an outstanding year for The B-Town Blog, as our Readership rocketed from around 10,000 per month to nearly 50,000 in November (THANKS EVERYONE!).

Herewith, we proudly present what we consider to be the Top 11 Burien Stories of 2009 (Top 10 lists are soooo 2008), in reverse order:

11. The B-Town Blog’s Fake April Fool’s Day Issue: You can blame this idea entirely on me – as a former comedy Writer who has loved “fake news” since the 1980s (anyone out there remember HBO’s “Not Necessarily the News“?), I thought it might be kinda fun to do our own hyperlocal version on April Fool’s Day.

Who knew that it’d really fool people into believing that a new nightclub with Strippers on Segways was moving into the old Office Depot space?

Oops.

The most rewarding aspect of this online prank was the slew of Comments, emails and yes, even a couple of inquisitive voicemails – one from a local businessperson asking for more info on the “new strip club,” another from a man whose business monitors the internet for “terrorist news” (he was very interested in the interview with the laser pointing culprit, and he found the story through searching the keywords “laser” and “airport”).

Here’s a short collection of some of the best gags & comments:

BREAKING: Ex-Office Depot Space To House Strip Club

Dona Forrester: “I hope this is an April Fools Joke also? This would be terrible for Burien!”

Christine: “Gosh I hope this is an April Fools joke too…yikes….empty space beats a strip joint any day.”

BREAKING: King County To Fence In North Highline Area

too embarassed 2 say: “I didn’t fall for Google’s, or UW Daily’s, but then I saw this title in the RSS feeds, and for a second I was totally wondering…”

Several blogs linked to our “Strippers on Segways” story, including Nerve.com out of New York City:

10. Is The New Nude Female Sculpture At B/IAS Too Explicit? Take Our Poll…: After reading a Comment left in one of our Forums about a new, “naked female statue” at Burien’s Interim Art Space, we took some pics, posted a story and a poll, then sat back and watched as 140 people Commented (read ‘em here) on this “controversial” sculpture called “Paradigm Shift” by artist Mike Magrath. Soon, even mainstream media picked this story up, including a blog at the LA Times and a right-wing “news” source called Breitbart.

Soon, our own Mark Neuman and Bart Bryan were out interviewing people, asking “Whaddaya Think?” Of Burien’s Controversial Nude Female Sculpture? in this video that was viewed by nearly 2,400 people:

9. Burien’s Interim Art Space’s Fiery One-Year Life: The innovative Burien Interim Art Space, conjured up and co-curated by residents Kathy Justin and Dane Johnson, brought a taste of “Burning Man” to the city, with unique art pieces ranging from Dan Das Mann’s iconic “The Passage” to a way-cool (or rather, hot) computer-controlled “Fire Pod” sculpture that shot fire out to techno music, and sadly, was only lit up once (on opening night) due to fire regulations.

Like many residents, we were sad to see B/ IAS dismantled, but luckily we have lots of media to re-live its short but interesting and inspiring life in B-Town:

Here’s Photographer Francis Zera’s time-lapse of the installation of “The Passage”:

Here’s our photo slideshow recap of that opening night (w/pics by Maureen Hoffmann and Scott Schaefer):

And here’s a video of opening night shot by Steven Bradford:

And finally, here’s Photographer Michael Brunk’s Photo Slideshow of the B/ IAS “de-installations”:

Click to View Michael Brunk’s Photo Slideshow

8. HOTPOCALYPSE ‘09: Burien Has Its “Hottest Day” In Recorded History: the mercury hit 104-degrees in Burien on July 29th, and it was all anyone could talk about. The city turned on sprinklers to help people cool off, while some creative residents like Carrie Rasmussen baked cookies (yes, cookies) in the back window of her Nanny Gloria’s car:

From Reader Candice Packer came this pic of a truly-retro Honeywell thermostat showing that the day’s temp was totally off the chart:

Our own Mini Cooper Blogmobile recorded the following 104-degree temp whilst overheating in downtown Burien:

BTB Photographer Francis Zera won the “hottest place” contest with this shot of his thermometer hitting 106.2!:

7. Burien Man Stabbed To Death Outside Good Time Ernie’s: Tragedy struck Burien when Mark. K. Ebinger (25, pictured left) was stabbed to death outside Good Time Ernie’s in an “ambush” that also injured his brother Peter, 24.

The incident occurred around 1:40am on Nov. 12th. Sheriff’s detectives interviewed bar patrons and witnesses, but no one has yet been arrested, the investigation is ongoing, and a $5,000 reward has been offered.

If anyone has any information on this case, they should call the King County Sheriff’s Office at (206) 296-3311 or Crimestoppers at 1-800-274-6313.

Here’s a Photo Slideshow of the crime scene taken the morning after the incident:

Click to View Scott Schaefer’s Photo Slideshow

6. King County’s Stealth Attempts To Sell Puget Sound Park May Postpone Official Annexation: King County stealthily attempted to sell Puget Sound Park to the King County Library System out from under Burien.

Puget Sound Park is located in the unincorporated area of North Highline that is to be annexed by Burien early next year.

This is an ongoing story, and we’re proud to have been the ones to break this news, including publishing numerous letters from new King County Exec Dow Constantine showing his support for keeping the park, to our upcoming coverage of Burien City Councilmember Lucy Krakowiak’s role in the issue (she serves on our city council as well as the board of the King County Library System, and our records show she never informed the council on this possible deal nor recused herself – more to come on this soon).

5. Burien City Manager Mike Martin Arrested For DUI: City Manager Mike Martin was arrested for a DUI on April 19th after his vehicle left the road and struck a ceramic pot in the yard of a house.

According to King County Sheriff’s records, Martin was found outside his car, “leaning forward and swaying side to side.” His breath allegedly smelled strongly of alcohol, his speech was slurred and he admitted to drinking a couple glasses of wine and two beers.

This was not Martin’s first run-in with the law – previously he resigned as Chief Administrative Officer for the city of Kent after a 2005 hit-and-run incident. Martin has been city manager since November 2006, and his yearly salary is $135,180.

We took a poll of our Readers, and of 223 responses, 53% thought Martin should “Resign immediately, get treatment and move on.“

However, Martin entered a “Not Guilty” plea, and remains in his position, with an amended contract:

(click to view PDF of entire contract)

4. Over 1,000 Witness Burien Town Square Grand Opening: On June 13th, Burien’s brand-spankin’ new Town Square opened, including a new City Hall, Library and Condos which, sadly, sits mostly empty some six months later.

The Highline High School Pirates marching band kicked off the grand opening ceremonies by marching (and boisterously playing) down SW 152nd to the main podium at the Town Square where numerous local and state dignitaries spoke to a crowd estimated by local police as “well over 1,000.”

The day’s celebration served as the culmination of over 12 years of the city’s planning for the $193 million “town square as the central focal point for the downtown core” as first approved in 1997, then developed and built beginning in 1999 until construction began in 2004 to Saturday’s festive ribbon cutting ceremony.

Click to View Michael Brunk’s Photo Slideshow

3. Sound Transit Opens Light Link Rail Line July 18th: Although the nearest stations are located in Tukwila and SeaTac, the fact that South King County is now part of the northwest’s first mass transit system is huge news.

For just $2.50, riders can get to downtown Seattle from this area in around 35 minutes and not have to worry about parking or traffic.

Reporter Ralph Nichols wrote I Rode Link Light Rail & Lived To Write About It. Have You?

2. Burien Nissan Loses Entire Inventory, Closes: Over a few nights in March, several large 18-wheeler haulers pulled up and took away all of Burien Nissan’s new car inventory.

After the business’s “flooring” (financing) fell through, at least 100 new cars were removed, with an estimated value between $2 and $3 million, leaving the once-bustling car lot looking like a ghost town:

At the time, Sales Manager John Antonelli said:

“it’s business as usual – we’re still open for business in service, parts and sales. When we get our new financing we’ll re-open in a couple of weeks.”

Because the flooring could not be re-established, at least 35 employees were laid off, and in May, the business closed for good despite a recent $5 million remodel.

After one false attempt to re-open the dealership by a new owner, nothing materialized and the lot still stands empty, a beacon to 2009′s weak economy.

Because auto dealers account for a significant portion of tax revenue for Burien, Dick Loman, Economic Development Director for the city, said:

“This sorry economic downturn is just hurting everybody.”

1. Voters Decide To Approve Burien’s Annexation of Southern North Highline: On Aug. 18th, voters in the southern portion of North Highline voted by a 56% to 44% margin to approve Burien’s annexation of that area.

With this annexation (once set for March 2, 2010, but now delayed pending to the above-mentioned Puget Sound Park issue with King County), Burien will become the 21st largest city in Washington – just above Olympia – with a population of about 45,000.

Currently Burien ranks 31st in the state, but look out Richland – you’re next!

So…what do YOU think the Top Story of 2009 was? Please take our Poll, or leave a Comment below…

Happy Holidays from all of us here at The B-Town Blog!

We’ll be taking time off to spend with our friends and families, so unless there’s a *huge* news story we probably won’t be posting any updates until after we conclude our celebrations. Then we’ll probably be busy tearing apart and recycling all the different elements from our kids’ gift packages (grrrrr…).

But in the meantime, here’s a virtual toast to you and yours, and a big ol’ “Thanks A Bunch!” for your continued support!

Oh, and here’s a bigger pic of us all in case you want to squelch your holiday appetite:

Two years ago today (Dec. 11, 2007 to be exact), on a dining room table in a home in Burien, your B-Town Blog came unto this planet, chock full of hopes and dreams of informing, entertaining and enlightening a community, and initially only as a part-time hobby.

HAPPY 2ND BIRTHDAY TO US!

But be warned folks, ‘cuz we’re entering our “Terrible Twos” and we aren’t going to stop until WE GET WHAT WE WANT! (SOUNDFX: WAAAAAA!)

It’s been an amazing two years too, from humble beginnings as a hobby to now, a full-blown full-time job with an office, numerous Contributors, over 40 Advertisers and nearly 50,000 Readers per month (November set a record…so far)!

And now, for trivial and archival purposes, are the two stories we posted on our very first day:

• Welcome to the B-Town (Burien) Blog!
• Video of One of Your Uglier Neighbors

Of course, as we’ve grown, we’ve gone from just one sole Publisher/Editor (me, Scott) to a staff of 12+ regular (and irregular) Contributors, including:

• Janet Grella, Sales Director/Diva joined the LOL Dudez team last July. Not only does The Diva sell Ads, she also writes stories, takes pics and much more to all our community blog sites. With Janet on board, The B-Town Blog has enjoyed incredible growth in both Readers and Advertisers. Janet knows the future of advertising is online, not in newspapers.
• Ralph Nichols, Reporter/Writer. A former Editor of The Highline Times, Ralph specializes in covering local issues, including political, community, business, news and much more. Ralph has many years’ experience as a reporter for numerous daily newspapers, and has made the transition to this newfangled online world quite well.
• Mark Neuman, Writer/Sales: former real-world Journalist, TV Host, Producer and Marketer, Mark is an old friend of Scott’s going back to when they worked on their high school newspaper together (West Seattle High’s “Chinook”). Mark sells Ads and Writes for the BTB.
• Michael Brunk, Photographer/Code Guru. An amazing Photographer with a great eye for “the shot,” Michael not only brings his artistic talent (what we call “Brunksmanship“) to our sites, but his technical know-how as well. Need a great shot of something, or some WordPress, PHP, CSS or other code fixed ASAP? “Call Michael!” is our immediate response.
• Bart Bryan, Sales. Another old buddy of Scott and Mark’s from their high school daze, Bart is a happy, friendly, gregarious man who loves to learn, “conversate” (as the kids say), sell Ads and of course, sing killer Karaoke.
• Gina Bourdage, Artist/Reporter: graduate of Washington State University with a B.A. in Communications, Gina is a native who currently resides on the cusp of the proposed annexation area. She does our Ad artwork, writes stories and much more.
• Amy Bouska, Video Producer. Amy Produces, Shoots, Directs and Edits original video interviews for us, and she does them quite well, especially since she serves as on-air Talent as well.
• Theresa Frasch, Sales. Theresa is an all-around talent, with the ability to sell Ads as well as fix the world in her spare time.
• Jack Mayne, Reporter. Jack Mayne is an experienced old-world Journalist who has worked with The Seattle P-I, The Journal American in Bellevue and Valley Daily News in Kent and many others. He brings not only his vast Writing experience to us, but his deep knowledge of the News Business as well.
• Shawn Underwood, Humor Columnist: Twenty-five years of living in Burien gives this Humorist much fodder for her writings. All of her stories are true, or at least have a grain of truth with no added embellishments. Or something like that.
• Danielle Burton, Artist/Illustrator. Danielle is not only a recent graduate of Western Washington University, but she is an amazingly talented Artist who brings a touch of original, artsy class to our sites.
• Bryan Charles, Intern. Bryan is a budding Artist and Animator who attends Highline’s Big Picture High School in SeaTac. He brings his twisted sense of humor to us through his cartoons and more.

We could go on and on about how great we are, but in the end the real reason we’re posting this is to thank YOU, our Readers and Advertisers, because without either of you we wouldn’t exist!

Thanks, and we look forward to an even better third year!

by Mark Neuman

We touched base this week with friend of The B-Town blog, Burien’s first mayor, Dr. Arun Jhaveri, and he’s as busy as ever.

He’s planning a trip to Copenhagen this month, interviewing for a position on the Metropolitan King County Council this week, and just recently accepted a position as Executive Advisor with One Million Lights, a Palo Alto-based group determined to bring light to the world.

Literally.

“Two billion people in this world of a little over six billion, one third of the world’s population, do not have electricity,” Dr. Jhaveri said.

One Million Lights, a year-old non-profit group, “provides rechargeable solar handheld lights to poor children and adults in developing countries,” he told us. “They can use these in lieu of kerosene lamps, particularly at night so children can study in their huts.

“These solar batteries last forever. And the children don’t have to be exposed to the (kerosene) fumes or the fire hazard while they do their homework.”

The organization has delivered 30,000 lights worldwide with a goal of one million.

Anna Sidana, One Million Lights’ founder and CEO, is “thrilled to have someone of Arun’s caliber on our board of advisors. He brings depth of knowledge and contacts that are invaluable to us.”

Dr. Jhaveri recently announced his interest in filling the seat left vacant when King County Councilmember Dow Constantine took over as County Executive.

“I meet Thursday afternoon (December 3) with the advisory committee for an interview,” he said. The committee will recommend “three or four candidates” to the eight sitting members of the council, who hope to make a final selection by December 14.

“I am interested only in an interim one-year term,” Dr. Jhaveri said. “I am not interested in campaign financing or running for election (beyond 2010). I want to focus my attention on helping the council on the priorities such as the budget and county services.”

Dr. Jhaveri is planning on attending the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen December 7 through 18.

“If things move forward with respect to the vacancy on the council, I might have to cancel or postpone my trip to Copenhagen.”

Dr. Jhaveri was recently in Washington D.C. signing copies of his new book, “Carbon Reduction: Policies, Strategies and Technologies” (Fairmont Press, Georgia) which he co-authored with long time colleague and fellow engineer, Dr. Stephen Roosa.

“The book is something I believe in. There is a lot of interest in it.” Dr. Jhaveri’s book can be ordered through Amazon.com or Barnes and Noble’s website.

For more information on One Million Lights and how to offer help, here is their website: www.onemillionlights.org

And here’s a video:

PREVIOUS COVERAGE:

• From Bombay To Burien: Meet Dr. Arun Jhaveri
• Dr. Arun Jhaveri: From Bombay To Burien To…Obama?

On this Thanksgiving 2009, we here at The B-Town Blog are ever-so-thankful for all our Readers, Advertisers and Contributors, and we send our heartiest, cranberry-soakiest, stuffingist, yammiest, Tofurkeyturdukenist wishes to everyone!

Unless something big happens, we’re all taking the day off to engorge ourselves with our dysfunctional families and friends.

Here are some of the things us B-Town Bloggers are thankful for this year:

“I’m thankful for the diverse range of people who call this area their home. I’m thankful for the smiling faces I see at local businesses that I frequent. I’m thankful for the gorgeous views and beaches of Three Tree Point. I’m thankful for the eagles I see circling in the skies above and that osprey I saw dive and catch a fish this summer. I’m thankful that there’s always something going on here, which means we’re never at a loss for content. I’m thankful for everyone who helps with this blog, which is growing every day. And last but not least, I am thankful for my family and friends!” – Scott Schaefer

Thankful that the farmer’s market is finally in its new home; and back where it started at when Lamont’s was sitting there empty. Thankful that there were only two beavers that had to be euthanized. Thankful for the new library, city hall & town square park and the vision that business and government leaders had way back when. Thankful that Discover Burien got a new exec director. Thankful that Scat the cat lived through his attack by the deranged man. Thankful for our customers at BTB. Thankful for our readers at BTB. - Janet Grella

“I am thankful we live in a nation with a free economy and a strong and indefatigable First Amendment, where an upstart neighborhood blog such as The B-Town Blog can birth itself, thrive and grow. This simply is not the case in many other parts of the world.” - Mark Neuman

The stuff I am thankful for are the people and staff that contribute to the blog and their genuine care and involvement in our communities.
The growth and progress of the amazing small business owners we have. We are lucky they are here.  The readers!!! I couldn’t be more excited to hear of our numbers and see that people really care about the stories we are able to provide. I am thankful for the growth Burien has seen over the last year.. agree with the direction or not… the progress has been well achieved. - Gina Bourdage

I am thankful for family and pets, for good friends, for good health, and for work even in this recession. And for a suburban city like Burien that fosters a sense of community, and looks to the future with optimism. And for the men and women of the King County Sheriff’s Office/Burien Police Department and our firefighters who help protect us. And for the men and women from the Highline area who serve in America’s armed forces. And for the B-Town Blog, which provides a real source of news and information for the community. And for all the little things in life that matter a lot. - Ralph Nichols

“I’m thankful for all of the parks and beautiful trees (especially during the fall) that make Burien so very pretty and easy to enjoy. Happy Thanksgiving!!” – Amy Bouska

“I am thankful for everybody who contributed to our food bank fundraisers, knowing that everything they did will help the less fortunate in the area. I hope to see everyone at our next one at Tin Cellars on Tuesday, Dec. 8th!” - Bart Bryan

“I’m thankful for the ability to do whatever the hell I want – I’m going backpacking in Costa Rica soon! I’m also thankful for my youth and my irresponsibility! – Danielle Burton

Here’s some Turkeyday artwork to enjoy from our youthful, irresponsible artist Danielle Burton:

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

What are YOU thankful for? Please leave a Comment below…

by Mark Neuman

All of us at The B-Town and White Center Blogs would like to offer a huge Turkey Day “thank you” to everyone who donated this past weekend at our 2nd Annual Turkey ‘N’ Diapers Drive at Albertsons in White Center.

Over $800 in donations was collected!

The food items will be distributed to those in need by the White Center Food Bank.

Baby related items will go to WestSide Baby, located in White Center.

Team leader Bart Bryan, who often hosts “Whaddaya Think?” on our six neighborhood blogs said “It was very, very cold weatherwise, but the hearts of our neighbors were warm.”

Example: two men, both fighting cancer, arrived three hours apart and, not knowing each other, donated food. Each did so with giving smiles.

One of the most touching moments of the day was when an elderly man donated all he could – 24 cents.

A Sarah Palin look-alike stopped by and contributed food.

A casino dealer set his 52 cards down and gave away a box of 168 diapers.

A grandmother waved and left a grocery bag of pasta and sauce.

A man named “Joe,” who did not want his picture taken, gave four bags of Top Ramen for “starving college students.”

Darla Green, from Skin Perfect Aesthetics in Burien, was the first donor of the day, bringing in a paper bag full of canned goods.

Mike, from an up and coming spot in White Center called Proletariat Pizza, donated three pizzas for the volunteers.

We’d also like to give a big shout out to the good folks at the White Center Albertsons!

Thanks, everyone!

WestSide Baby is a nonprofit organization that collects previously-owned items for children and babies and distributes them free of charge to South King County families in need.

In 2008 WestSide Baby served more than 12,000 children.

In any given month the White Center Food Bank serves over 1,500 families.

Here’s contact information:

White Center Food Bank
10829 8th Ave SW
Seattle WA 98146
www.whitecenterfoodbank.org
Phone: 206-762-2848

And:

WestSide Baby
10032 15th Ave SW
Seattle, WA 98146
(206) 767-1662
www.westsidebaby.org

Here’s a Photo Slideshow shot by Mark Neuman and Scott Schaefer of the day:

Click to View Our Photo Slideshow

by Mark Neuman

Tomorrow (Saturday, Oct. 3rd) is your chance to attend a panel discussion with the first pilot of the Boeing 747, Brien Wygle, and the plane’s chief engineer, Joseph Sutter.

Sutter has been called “the father of the 747.”

The panel discussion, which starts at 2pm, will be in the William M. Allen Theater and is free with paid admission to the Museum.

A limited number of randomly chosen audience members will have the rare opportunity to tour the Museum’s 747 prototype – usually closed to the public – after the program.

This aircraft was the first 747 ever built – registration number 001. It first flew on February 9, 1969 over western Washington.

The growing worldwide demand for air travel during the 1960s led to the development of the 747, the first “Jumbo Jet.”

Merely recalling the early days of the 747 program “brings sweat to the palms of my hands,” Boeing’s then-president, William Allen, said years after the giant aircraft had been developed.

Aircraft Details of the first 747:

• Manufacturer: The Boeing Company
• Model: 747-121
• Year: 1969
• Power Plant: Four Pratt & Whitney JT9D, 43,500 lbs. thrust each
• Registration: N747001
• Serial Number: 20235
• Length: 231ft
• Height: 63ft
• Span: 196ft
• Wing Area: 5,500ft
• Empty Weight: 370,816lbs
• Gross Weight: 735,000lbs
• Cruise Speed: 640mph
• Range: 6,000 miles

The Museum of Flight is located at 9404 E. Marginal Way S., Seattle; Exit #158 off I-5 (on Boeing Field between downtown Seattle and SeaTac Airport).

The Museum is open daily from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Admission is $14 for adults, $13 for seniors 65 and older, $10 for active military, $7.50 for youth 5 to 17, and free for children under 5.

For general Museum information, please call 206-764-5720, or visit www.museumofflight.org.

(Photos courtesy The Museum of Flight. All rights reserved.)

by Mark Neuman

Construction continues on the new Environmental Learning Center located at the north end of Seahurst Park.

“The vision of the Environmental Science Center (ESC) is to construct a world-class, state-of-the-art Learning Center,” said Jan Glick, ESC Executive Director. “The framing is almost done. As the fall comes in it’ll be sealed up and roofed. To finish the project we still have to raise an additional $350,000.”

From the ESC’s website:

“The new Learning Center will be constructed on the former site of the Caretakers’s Cottage, and will be built to include many green features. It will be located conveniently next to a freshwater stream, .7 mile of saltwater waterfront, plus 178 acres of forested trails which all will be incorporated into ESC’s curriculum.

In addition, the Learning Center will accommodate two full classrooms (fifty person capacity) of students or community groups for environmental educational programs.”

Target date for building completion is April 2010.

“We have raised about $950,000 going back to 2001,” Glick said. “We need to raise another $350,000 to pay for the $1.3 million project.

“We are in discussions with several foundations and corporations in Washington state. We are optimistic we will be raising some significant portion of the needed $350,000 from institutional donors.”

But the probable size of those potential grants still leaves a gap between realized and needed funds.

“The other thing that is happening right now is that the price tag on the project is $100,000 lower than first estimated a few years ago. This is due to the current soft construction economy,” Glick said. “We are now receiving lower bids from various contractors.

“This combination of interest from institutional funders and the lower cost is providing us an opportunity to finish off the fundraising.”

This is where area residents can help, Glick points out.

“We are making an appeal to the community now to make donations and help open up to the public this community asset. It’s a great community asset. It will be open to the public. It will be free.

“We serve over 10,000 kids a year, mostly from the Highline School District but also from all over the Puget Sound area.

“We’ll have indoor demonstrations and exhibits. It is located right next door to the Marine Technology Center and its salmon hatchery.”

The ESC also offers naming and recognition opportunities for Learning Center donors. Contact the ESC office for further information.

The ESC is a 501(c)3 organization and contributions are tax deductible.

For online donation information go to:

www.envsciencecenter.org

Then click “Capital Campaign” on the left hand side.

Or call 206-517-5199 and talk to Jan Glick directly.

Mailing Address:

Environmental Science Center
126 SW 148th Street
Suite C100-170
Burien, WA 98166

PREVIOUS COVERAGE:

• Ground Broken For New Environmental Learning Center
• Spring Classes Starting Up At Environmental Science Center
• Learning Comes Naturally At Environmental Science Center

by Mark Neuman

We sat down recently for a talk with King County Prosecutor Dan Satterberg.

Dan joked while recollecting his days playing both offense and defense for Highline High School’s football team in the late 1970’s.

“We were a small team, but we were slow.”

The Pirates won, perhaps, four games during the three years Dan was there.

“But really, I have to say that learning to lose and learning to do so with some grace and class is part of learning to live,” he said. “I think I may have learned more by being on a losing team than I would have being on a state championship team.”

Dan went on to the University of Washington for his BA in Political Science and a law degree.

“My favorite professor in law school was the one that scared me the most. His name was Arval Morris, a constitutional law professor. He was an intellectual giant,” Dan said. “I was in awe of him because of his ability to analyze and his depth of knowledge.

“He taught us so much about constitutional law and the rules of criminal law and how the government interacts with its citizens. The contract between government and citizens is the Constitution.

“It’s a fascinating area because we continue to define what we mean by that contract. The Constitution is a living, breathing document in my office because we look at Fourth and Fifth and Sixth Amendment issues every day as we analyze cases.

“I love the law, and I see those years in law school as formative years,” Dan added. “The prosecutor has a significant role in moving law in new directions. A prosecutor can actually direct traffic.”

JUVENILES WITH GUNS
One area where Dan is directing traffic deals with attempting to separate kids from gang activity before they fire a weapon in commission of a crime.

“You would think that when a 16 or 17 year-old youth is caught with a handgun that we would bring to bear all of our resources because this is a giant red flag. ‘We better pay attention to this kid,’” Dan said. “But the truth is that current state law builds in a tolerance where literally nothing happens until (there are) five felony convictions.

“And only then the kid, by law, would go to a Juvenile Rehabilitation Administration facility, let’s say Echo Glen, for a period of time.

“So the message that we send to a kid is that gun possession is not a big deal.”

Dan Satterberg and The State Prosecutors Association want to change that. They are pressing the Washington State Legislature to make changes to the law during the upcoming legislative session such that a juvenile found in illegal possession of a handgun will “get an immediate response from the system. We don’t wait. The kid gets removed from the community and put into Echo Glen,” he said.

“And while there the juvenile can get help with tried and true programs such as Moral Recognition Therapy which helps him understand his options and the potential consequences of his future actions.”

CANINE COMPANION PROGRAM
Dan spoke about the relatively new Canine Companion Program which involves having a dog in the courthouse to help calm the nerves of those going through the legal process.

“We have a dog in our office. Her name is Ellie, a six year-old Golden Lab. Ellie’s full time job is to come in and lay on the floor and look up at you with doe eyes. She puts kids at ease. We use her with our elder abuse cases as well.

“Once we got Ellie on board we realized this is an essential part of what we need to do to put witnesses and victims at ease. We have a lot of children who come into our office to talk about sexual abuse that happened to them or some scary moment, and when they see the dog all of a sudden everything’s okay. And they want to come back to see Ellie again.

“We even bring the dog up to drug court. Ellie will put her head in the lap of someone who may be heading to prison because they screwed up.

“Ellie doesn’t discriminate. Ellie loves everybody.”

NORM MALENG AND THE JOB OF PROSECUTOR
The duties of King County Prosecutor involve overseeing a staff of about 500, including 220 attorneys. The Office of the Prosecutor has an annual budget of $56 million.

Those duties fell on Dan’s shoulders quite unexpectedly in the spring of 2007 when long time Prosecutor Norm Maleng died suddenly at the age of 68.

Dan was appointed by the King County Council to serve as prosecutor and subsequently won election to serve the remainder of the full term.

“It was a great honor for me to work with Norm Maleng for 17 years. I was just 29-years old when he selected me to be his chief of staff.

“What I learned from Norm was not so much about the law as about life in general. I started with him shortly after he’d lost his daughter in a tragic sledding accident. So he was in many stages of grief and I learned an awful lot about dealing with people in grief.

“One of the things that he taught me was that every one of the thousands of felony cases we deal with involves a human tragedy, a story of someone’s hurt or loss or suffering.

“Norm would always start out a meeting with a homicide victim’s family by reaching out and saying how sorry he was that this happened to their family. He would say ‘Tell me about your son or daughter.’ To make that case and that person alive. The case wasn’t just a file full of papers.

“I try to keep that practice alive. What makes this job so meaningful is the ability to reach out and talk to victims and their families.”

THE FAMILY AND THE BAND
Dan and his wife, Linda, have two children and live in Normandy Park.

When he finds the time, Dan loves rocking out with his pals in their band The Approximations. Here’s info from their website:

Organized by bass player and singer Dan Satterberg (aka the King County Prosecutor), the band includes harmonica player and vocalist Bill Mattocks leader of the Bill Mattocks Band, keyboardist and vocalist Michael Hepburn from the nationally known 80′s R&B group Pleasure; drummer and vocalist Rusty Fallis, guitarist Tom Pratt, guitarist and vocalist John Rankin, percussionist and drummer Fred Staples, vocalists Linda Norman and Michelle Purnell-Hepburn. Tom, Rusty, Dan and John also play and record original songs as the Treehouse Dreamers.  With such a large band and wide array of musical backgrounds, the Approximations are likely to play songs by Smokey Robinson, the Beatles, AC/DC, Savoy Brown, Stevie Wonder, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Fleetwood Mac and Kings of Leon all in the same set.

The Approximations have played their full, multi-faceted, danceable rock sets in Seattle venues such as the Showbox, Showbox Sodo, Mountaineers Club, and the Highway 99 Blues Club entertaining for private functions, special occasions, and benefits for the Domestic Violence Coalition, and the American Cancer society among others.

The band’s website is here, and you can view videos of the band in action here.

You can catch The Approximations at Mick Kelly’s Irish Pub (located at 435 SW 152nd Street in Burien), this Friday night, Sept. 18th:

by Mark Neuman

Former KIRO-TV reporter and anchor Susan Hutchison spoke with The B-Town Blog recently. She and County Council Chair Dow Constantine are going head-to-head to become King County’s next Executive.

PRIMARY RESULTS & ELECTION STRATEGY:
As of August 27th, the most recently updated election results show Susan with about 33% of the primary votes. The results also show the four office-holding Democrats in the primary race (including Dow) with a cumulative 62% of the vote.

How will you go about attracting some of that 62% your way? we asked Susan.

“Dow is so partisan. He just sees everything from the filter of his Democratic point of view. (Primary opponents) Fred Jarrett and Ross Hunter represented outsiders, as I did, and they did rather well,” she said.

“Most people looking at the vote results would say that the bulk of the votes went to outsider candidates. I would suggest that in fact the vote was very clearly for an outsider candidate.

“I think the way the voters divided us up was ‘insider versus outsider.’ And the outsiders won big.”

THE BUDGET:
“I think a ‘rainy day fund’ is absolutely prudent government management,” she said.

“In a (private sector) company, what you have is something called a cash reserve, and the finance department or board of directors is always looking at that cash reserve.

“It’s understood that you are going to have good days and bad days. Good years and bad years. You’ve got to have the capability to cover using that cash reserve. That is just a basic principle of good accounting and money management in a company. And that’s why it’s essential in government as well,” Susan said.

“We are in a budget crisis. We can project now that between this year and next we’re going to have a $110 million budget shortfall. We have to go back to first principles. That is ‘what is the county’s job?’ And the county’s job is to provide safety and protection to its people.

“It is really essential that we keep that in mind as we go through this process of trying to figure out how to make ends meet.

“This budget crisis we are now in falls directly at the feet of the county council and its chair, Dow Constantine, because the council carries the power of the purse.

“We cannot trust a politician who helped get us into this mess to get us out of it,” Susan said.

COMMENTS ABOUT BURIEN?
“Oh, absolutely. I was there recently for two (campaign) forums. Burien has that ‘Main Street USA’ feel,” she said. “It’s terrific. Oh, and there’s great access to the airport when you’re in Burien!”

Susan says she supports annexation efforts.

“I just think it’s important that the choice be given to the people. There’ve been some efforts throughout the county to annex without the residents (of the unincorporated area) weighing in on that decision and I think that’s wrong.

“I’m always with the people.”

THE KIRO YEARS:
Susan spent 20 years with the KIRO-TV News department.

“Certainly one my most treasured memories of the job I did there was to write and produce a documentary on Chinese culture and history called ‘Son of Heaven’. I spent a lot of time in China doing the shooting and research. It won several Emmy awards and had a year-long run of attention.”

Susan recounted the course of events that led up to her coming to KIRO:

After attending the University of Florida, she was working in television in Hawaii in the late 1970’s. Lloyd Cooney, who ran KIRO at the time, was visiting Hawaii and happened to see her delivering the news on a local channel. Cooney sent her a letter inviting her to consider working in Seattle.

“It was months before I actually met Lloyd, but I eventually came to work at KIRO. I just loved Lloyd when I met him. He’s an amazing fellow.

“I still have the letter he sent me. It’s very precious.”

NOTES:

• The General Election is November 3, and, like the primary, will be an all mail-in election.
• The B-Town Blog interviewed Dow Constantine the night of the August 18th primary and ran the interview the next day – click here to read it.

by Mark Neuman

We spoke with King County Council member Dow Constantine, who, along with Susan Hutchison, will advance to the general election in November in the race to become the next King County Executive.

As of Wed., Aug. 19th at 4pm, partial vote count totals showed Dow in second place with just over 23 percent of the vote compared to Susan Hutchison’s 36 percent.

“We are in a very strong position to win the general election,” Dow said from his victory celebration Tuesday night (Aug. 18th). “I am very happy with our numbers.

“The four office-holding Democrats in the (primary) race were really splitting up the vote. And now we have a chance to consolidate that.”

We asked Dow Tuesday evening: Are you, generally speaking, having a good time tonight?

“Generally? Yes. It was pretty nerve-wracking leading up to the announcement of the vote totals. My girlfriend, Shirley, and my mom and dad and I were sitting and waiting for the results to come over. And when it happened it was a big relief.”

We asked Dow about his strategy for his general election campaign.

“There are two distinctions between the two remaining candidates,” he said. “One, Susan Hutchison has a philosophy which is way out of synch with the people of King County.

“And two, there’s also the issue of experience. Susan Hutchison has zero experience at solving the kinds of problems that we’re facing in our economy (and) in our county.

“I have served in the private sector as well as the State House and Senate and the King County Council. I have a strong record of reform legislation of exactly the kind that’s going to be needed as we weather this economic crisis,” Dow said.

“The four Democratic elected officials in the primary, including myself, had a robust exchange of ideas during the campaign. These are all bright, capable people. We raised a lot of great ideas.

“We need to throw open the doors of this county to everyone’s ideas and everyone’s proposals for innovation.

“I have had conversations on several occasions with (primary candidate and State Representative) Ross Hunter about how we can work together in the future between the state and the county to solve some of these structural problems. I’m very excited about that opportunity,” Dow said.

Thoughts about Burien?

“Burien is a good example of the way in which the county has changed and how the old structures need to be retooled to reflect that change,” Dow said.

“Burien’s leaders and business community set about to really reinvent the place and make it into an urban hub that is readily served by transit and is vibrant with multi-family and commercial and job opportunities.

“There are perhaps a dozen such hubs around the county now so King County is no longer just one big city surrounded by low density suburbs,” he said.

An invitation for an interview with the B-Town Blog has been extended to the Hutchison campaign.

King County Executive election results as of 4pm Wed. 8/19/09:

• Larry Phillips 25073 11.95%
• Fred Jarrett 26045 12.41%
• Stan Lippmann 2634 1.26%
• Alan Lobdell 5397 2.57%
• Susan Hutchison 75382 35.92%
• Dow Constantine 49109 23.40%
• Ross Hunter 23222 11.07%
• Goodspaceguy 2646 1.26%
• Write-in 345 0.16%

by Mark Neuman

Picture a small boy in India, in the early 1940’s, his family’s home being personally visited by Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru themselves.

Imagine that same boy, just a few years later, on August 15, 1947, being held lovingly by his family atop the hood of a car as they and millions of others celebrate India’s independence from British rule.

Visualize a young graduate student in Amherst, Massachusetts, being utterly moved by the words and visions of a young U.S. President, “full of energy, strong in his views and personality,” delivering a 1962 commencement speech, a mere fifteen rows away.

See a trim and vibrant gentleman recently sipping decaffeinated coffee in Olde Burien, who keeps in shape by swimming several laps every day, and tending to his garden at the same house he and his wife have lived in for almost forty years.

Conjure all of that, and you will see Dr. Arun Jhaveri, the first mayor of Burien.

“Our whole family crammed into our little car, including all the kids,” he said with a smile during an interview last week with the B-Town Blog, referring to that August 1947, day. “They put me on top because I was the youngest and I remember going around the city the whole evening, fireworks going. People were just jubilant.”

When asked if politics was part of his upbringing, Dr. Jhaveri’s answer is more than a mere Yes.

“My uncle was a very active member of the Congress Party, before the independence, against the British Crown,” Dr. Jhaveri said. The Congress Party was the political party of Mahatma Gandhi and future Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru.

“My uncle looked very much like Nehru in his personality. He wore the white cap and the long white coat and everything. My grandfather, my father and my uncle had just gone to a political rally in Bombay. And after the rally   they were coming back in a horse-drawn carriage. A fanatic saw my uncle and mistook him for Nehru. The fanatic came from behind and killed my uncle with a dagger.”

The Jhaveri family was soon visited by Gandhi and Nehru, who came to express their condolences.

Young Jhaveri eventually moved to the U.S., earning his Bachelor of Science degree at the University of Washington, before moving on to earn his Masters in Physics from the University of Massachusetts in Amherst.

On that “beautiful day” forty-six years ago “President Kennedy was such a charismatic leader, the way he spoke to the students. I was extremely inspired,” Dr. Jhaveri recalled. “It was an excellent opportunity for me to see a real president just a few feet from me speak about educational and political issues.”

Dr. Jhaveri, a physicist and mechanical engineer, earned his Doctorate in Educational Leadership from Seattle University, and, early on, worked for Boeing on the development of the 727, 737 and 747 aircrafts prior to their FAA certification.

Dr. Jhaveri worked in 1992 to help earn Burien a little independence of its own, so to speak. The voters said Yes that year to Burien becoming a city in its own right, and the new City Council elected him Mayor. He served from 1992 to 1998.

In 1997, Dr. Jhaveri was one of eleven mayors from the United States to participate in the Global Climate Conference in Kyoto, Japan.

Jhaveri is co-authoring a book, titled “Carbon Reduction – Policies, Strategies and Technologies.” It is scheduled for release later this year.

He is currently an Adjunct Professor at the Argosy University, teaching two Doctoral courses, one on Educational Leadership and the other on Program Evaluation.

“I am an eternal optimist,” Dr. Jhaveri says. “The key is to educate the young people of today” about the care of the world’s environment.

“The earth’s future is truly in their hands.”

Mark Neuman is a Writer as well as Marketing Dude for The B-Town (Burien) Blog.

He has interviewed two US Presidents, cops, cooks and cartoonists, authors and artists, senators, scholars and senior citizens, and the B-Town Blog is proud to have him on our team.

Mark can be reached at mark@b-townblog.com.

by Mark Neuman

We spoke recently with Ross Hunter, candidate for King County Executive.

Ross, a Medina Democrat, managed a political miracle, if you will, seven years ago.

The 48th District (Bellevue, Redmond and Kirkland) had not sent a Democrat to the House in over 100 years. Ross got himself elected.

“That was back when it wasn’t fashionable to be a Democrat on the east side. It was hard work. I raised and spent about a quarter of a million dollars. I knocked on eight thousand doors. I worked pretty hard.”

Was there a particular selling point?

“Sure. I’m competent. And I care about public education, the paramount duty of the state legislature.”

We asked Ross about one of his opponents for King County Executive, Susan Hutchison. In a recent direct mail piece Susan said she, if elected, would establish a transportation czar.

“Susan seems to be confused about the powers the King County Executive actually has.

“For her to come in and say she is going to have a czar that takes over the functions of the cities and the state is a fundamental misreading of what the King County Executive is actually allowed to do.

“The job of Executive is a complicated one with a lot of moving parts and a $5 billion budget.

“Unless we coordinate our transportation with our land use we are making the problem worse.”

Ross recently received the endorsement of the Seattle Times.

“Of course it makes you feel good that they (the Times) share your belief that you are competent to do the job.

“Next to the Seattle Times endorsement, I am most proud of the endorsement of the Eastside Business Alliance. This is a group of various chambers of commerce who know their business doesn’t succeed if they don’t have quality education for their kids, or if they don’t have roads.

“Our economy and quality of life depends on us making the wisest use of limited transportation dollars. We are one county, one region, and we should act like it.

“The solution to improving the business climate isn’t always to cut taxes. Making the system fairer and easier to comply with could have much more impact. More service, less overhead. Simplifying and regionalizing how King County does business with its businesses is one way the county can potentially save businesses thousands and thousands of dollars.

“We can simplify the permitting process for builders and contractors. Instead of making a business owner waste time traveling throughout the county to revisit city permitting offices, King County can provide a regional office where businesses can manage their permits at one location.

“Many cities in King County are already doing this and there’s no reason we can’t provide such a service countywide.”

“I propose that King County provides a simple web service for businesses to apply for licenses and calculate and pay business taxes. One tax return, one tax bill.”

Regarding recent budget cuts Ross said “I think we probably need more prosecutors. It’s not a place I would have cut. I also wouldn’t have cut into the public defenders.

“There are normal times and there are special times. This is a special time, because of the unprecedented downturn in the economy.”

Ross said he expects voters of North Highline to approve annexation on August 18.

He supports annexation because with it “There will be somebody to answer residents’ phone calls.”

By Mark Neuman

There is a certain endearing modesty about Al Haynes, who worked for United Airlines for 35 years, and has lived in the same house near Sea-Tac airport since 1963.

One would never know from the sound or words of this neighborly and unselfish man, that he is one of the heroes, along with his crew, in a horrific plane crash that occurred 20 years ago this Sunday, on July 20, 1989:

We recently spoke with Captain Haynes as he was returning home from a luncheon and heading out to volunteer as a public address announcer at a Little League baseball tournament, something, including umpiring, he has loved doing for years.

On July 19, 1989, United Airlines flight 232, with almost 300 people on board, took off from Denver, heading to Chicago. Captain Haynes, with over 30,000 hours of flight experience, was at the controls.

Things were quite normal. The weather was fine. Nothing seemed wrong with the Douglas DC-10.

Suddenly, a foot-long, pie-shaped piece of fanblade flew off, cutting and destroying all three independent hydraulic systems.

Captain Haynes and his flight crew had only the thrust levers for the two remaining engines to work with, forcing them to make only right turns. As much fuel as possible was dumped and the crew made an emergency landing at Sioux City, Iowa.

Stunningly, 185 people on board survived the cartwheeling, fiery crash landing.

And since then, Haynes’ expertise and experience in handling in-flight emergencies, and the story of United Flight 232, have been constantly sought, with emphasis on addressing professionals in the aviation industry.

“I’ve done about ten talks this year with about four more lined up. I really have cut back.”

His speaking engagements have included instructing new astronauts at the Space Center in Houston

We asked Captain Haynes to comment on the frequently held belief by some over the years that the location of a passenger’s seat on a flight might influence that person’s chance of surviving an emergency landing.

“We had fatalities in every section of the aircraft and we had survivors in every section of the aircraft,” he replied. “It can be a matter of being in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

Al Haynes first moved to Seattle in 1957.

“The airport here was very, very small. It only had about ten gates. Seattle was very friendly and very comfortable. My wife was from Southern California and she fell in love with Seattle, and there was no question we were staying right here.”

Many people thought of Al Haynes this past January when Captain Chesley Sullenberger landed US Airways Flight 1549 on the Hudson River after that aircraft suddenly became disabled just after taking off from from New York’s LaGuardia Airport.

“He did a superb job,” Haynes said of Sullenberger. “And he did it in a very short period of time. He did an outstanding job of making those quick decisions and reacting as fast as he did. The decision was forced upon him, but to make that decision is still tough.”

While the two had never met before, Haynes and Sullenberger have spoken on the phone with each other twice since the Hudson River landing.

We asked Captain Haynes about his flight crew from that fateful day twenty years ago. The crew included First Officer William Records, Flight Engineer Dudley Dvorak, and Dennis Fitch, a United training pilot who happened to be on board.

“Everybody’s in good shape,” Haynes said. “We hope to have a crew reunion sometime this summer.

“There is a bond there, and we try to keep in contact.”

by Bart Bryan and Mark Neuman

Remember these lyrics from the 1960’s?

“The eastern world, it is exploding
Violence flarin’, bullets loadin’
You’re old enough to kill, but not for votin’
You don’t believe in war, but what’s that gun you’re totin’
And even the Jordan River has bodies floatin’”

They’re from the protest tune “Eve of Destruction,” which reached #1 on the Billboard Top 40 in 1965.

It was sung by Barry McGuire, and you can see him this Saturday (July 18th) at 2pm at the Highline Performing Arts Center in Burien. He’ll appear the night before at the Auburn High Performing Arts Center.

To refresh your memory, or if you’re younger and dig the 60s, here’s a video of Barry singing the hit:

We chatted with Barry for a few minutes the other day, in anticipation of his trip to the Northwest.

“I’ve teamed up with John York, who used to be with the Byrds,” Barry said. “We’re calling the tour ‘Trippin’ the Sixties.’”

He recalled his early influences.

“I loved the Everly Brothers. I loved Richie Valens. I loved Elvis with his rock ‘n’ roll, but when he started doing the romantic songs I wanted to stick my finger down my throat.

“When I started to hear the work of Harry Belafonte and the Kingston Trio, that’s when I bought my first guitar.”

As a young man, Barry worked as a fisherman and a pipefitter before starting a musical career.

“One day I was in a recording studio. We rehearsed Eve of Destruction twice and recorded it once. There was some other band out in the hall waiting to use the studio, so that was all the time we got.”

Within a week the tune, written by P.F. Stone, was receiving heavy radio airplay in Los Angeles.

“Absolutely, tragically Eve of Destruction is more valid now than forty or forty-five years ago,” Barry said.

We asked him to tell us about, among others, his old friend Michael Nesmith.

“Mike’s doing great. He used to be my upstairs neighbor, before he was in the Monkees. One day he came down and pitched me on a song he’d written and asked me if I wanted to be a part of it. I said ‘No.’ It didn’t line up with my spiritual take on reality.”

Nesmith gave the song to the Stone Poneys, who along with their young singer, Linda Ronstadt, recorded and released it. Called “Different Drum,” the song reached #13 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1967.

“Tell your B-Town Blog readers to bring a carload of friends to the show. It’s going to be a footstompin,’ hand clappin’ sing-along romp through the sixties.”

“Come on board the trippin’ train!” Barry says.

Barry McGuire and John York: Trippin’ The 60s:

• Friday July 17th at 7pm: Auburn High Performing Arts Center, Auburn
• Saturday July 18th at 2pm: Highline Performing Arts Center (next to Highline High), Burien

For ticket information, call Brown Paper Tickets at 1-800-838-3006.

(EDITOR’S NOTE: B-Town Blog Editor Scott Schaefer, and Mark Neuman, Reporter, first met Bill Hoffman back at James Madison Junior High School in West Seattle, when Richard Nixon was president and Jim McDermott was a freshman in the Washington State House of Representatives.)

We took some time recently to sit with our “old” buddy, Bill Hoffman.

Bill’s raising a family in West Seattle, where he grew up, returning from California where he delved into filmmaking.

And now he’s going to see if he can make lawmaking his next vocation.

“I am running to unseat Jim McDermott,” Bill told the B-Town Blog at the Burien Farmer’s Market, referring to the 7th District congressman who was first elected to the position in 1988.

Bill is getting a head start, in a way (the general election is not for another sixteen months), and he’s quite serious. He’s hired a political veteran, Bob Stout, who is a professional fundraiser, having worked on Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign and also a successful Congressional race in Idaho.

Bill, who has already met with Washington State Democratic Party officials, has indicated he’s willing and able to supply some of his own money to fund his campaign.

“All the research we’ve done so far tells us that a lot of McDermott’s support is not support for him,” Bill said. “He has  a core group of 15% to 20% who simply like Jim. The rest vote liberal.

“Our strategy is to make it through the August 2010 primary and take McDermott on head-to-head in the general election.

“In a place where a Democrat gets 75% to 80% of the vote, he should be running against another Democrat.”

We asked Bill: It’s January, 2011. You’ve won the election. You’re sworn in. You’ve moved in to your new Washington, D.C., office. Excluding finding out where the cafeteria is, what are you going to focus on first?

“Health care and global warming,” he said without delay.

“(The) current (environmental) legislation in front of Congress is not enough. We need to change the way we do things. We need to change the cars that we drive. We need to change the fuel that we use.

“It will be one of my absolute primary goals to do everything I can to help the country move in that direction.

“I have a strong interest in science. The (earth’s) poles are warming faster than the equator is, consequently the total amount of wind around the world has dropped ten percent in the past decades. So wind turbines are losing their ability to produce maximum power.

“Let’s create tax incentives for living near where you work.”

We also asked Bill: Who is more liberal, Bill Hoffman or Jim McDermott?

“I think in the classic definition, I am. I think (using) the definition conservatives use today, McDermott is.

“I do believe in big projects to a point. I think we have to use some fiscal responsibility.”

Bill was at one time the youngest licensed real estate agent in the state of Washington. He earned a BA in Sociology specializing in social psychology at the University of Washington.

He moved to Los Angeles where he attended USC, earning a Masters of Professional Writing degree in screenwriting.

He went on to write, produce and direct a few feature-length motion pictures, in addition to his employment in IT support and graphic design.

While living in Los Angeles Bill was elected to the South Robertson Neighborhood Council.

Unrelated to that responsibility, Bill’s next door neighbor down there for a while was Dallas Taylor, best known as the drummer on Crosby, Stills and Nash’s debut album, Crosby, Stills & Nash and their follow-up with Neil Young, Déjà Vu.

“Let’s just say that living next door to Dallas was interesting. Also, sometimes I’d see Lou Ferrigno (The Incredible Hulk) jogging past my house.”

Bill and his wife, Elena, moved back to West Seattle about six years ago.

They have two kids, Naum and Sirma, both of whom attend Schmitz Park Elementary in West Seattle.

“Schmitz Park is an outstanding school,” Bill said.

Bill will soon be serving as vice-president of the school’s PTA.

Elena is not only very skilled with software (she is an analyst for PACCAR), she’s also quite a proficient writer of Haiku, the classic five-seven-five form of Japanese poetry.

Going to introduce any Haiku into the campaign? we asked Bill.

“Not a bad idea.
I’ll have to give it some thought.
I’ll get back to you,”

Bill said, unwittingly delivering Haiku in thoughtful response.

Upon further reflection perhaps his next Haiku will read:

Twenty years of Jim
Enough already says Bill
Now is time for change

To contact Bill Hoffman, here you go:

Hoffman for Congress
PO Box 99458
Seattle, WA  98139-0458

Email: bill.hoffman@hoffmanforcongress.org

Website: www.hoffmanforcongress.org

by Mark Neuman

It was a year ago this morning (June 29th) that a fire tore through the Tara Apartments on SW 155th in Burien. The blaze, determined to be an arson by police, destroyed the Tara, jumped westward, and gutted the neighboring Jenny Marie Apartments.

More than two dozen people immediately found themselves homeless.

Three people died, including Lindy Kunimoto, 49, Ramon Cisneros Sanchez, 76,  and Ramon’s 8-year old grandson, Edgar Cisneros.

One year later, no one has been arrested or charged in the incident (read our story on the investigation here).

Burien residents and businesses immediately rallied for the survivors, raising thousands of dollars and donating food, clothing and supplies.

Mayor Joan McGilton said last week “There has never been a greater outpouring of care and support by the people of Burien for others in need.”

We recently checked in with a few of the survivors to see how they are doing.

“The fire is still on my mind,” said Sharon Howell, this past week. “I wondered why I was feeling so bad the last few days, and I guess my brain is just saying ‘Hey, it’s around that time (one year from the fire).’ Just talking about it gives me goose bumps.”

She and her roommate and friend John Miklosh escaped the fire, fleeing their unit in the Jenny Marie.

The two now share an apartment on 152nd near Highline High School, which they moved into mid-July of last year.

“We just love it here,” said Sharon, who works part time cleaning houses in the Issaquah area.

John still works full time as a superintendent in the international transport and container industry, and enjoys playing his new guitar.

“John met (country singer) Vince Gill in Wenatchee years ago before Vince got famous,” Sharon said, noting that John lost his guitar in the fire.

And Sharon and John still have their cat, Coco.

“We look at her and still see her scars. She really was hurt.”

Coco, scorched by the flames, was missing for the first four days following the fire.

“We were devastated. We thought we lost her,” Sharon said. “But some neighbors said they saw her going back and forth” to and from the ashes.

“Then she came back to us. John found her in the bathtub of our burned out apartment unit! We were so happy. She’s a rare cat.”

John Baggott lived with his wife, Jill, and son, David, in the Tara.

“Our dog, Missy, started barking and woke up Jill, who got me up and moving,” John said.

“She’s our hero,” said Jill of Missy, an Australian Cattle dog, also called a Blue Healer.

Tragically, their roommate, Lindy Kunimoto, 49, did not survive, despite the desperate vocal efforts of friends and neighbors to get him to climb out of his main floor bedroom window.

Lindy died at the scene.

The Baggott family now live together, along with Missy, not far from Sharon Howell and John Miklosh.

“David is working at a restaurant near the Seattle Center,” said John, now retired and a graduate of Highline High School.

A big day is right around the corner for John.

“This Friday (July 3) I turn 70,” he said. “If my mother had held off fifteen minutes I’d a been a firecracker!”

Moriah Marlin, was a 29-year old mother of a six-month old boy, Emerson, on June 29, 2008.

“I never, and I mean NEVER, get two days in a row off from work,” Moriah told the B-Town Blog last July at a fundraiser for the survivors.

Moriah was away camping with her friend, son and dog that fateful weekend.

By utter coincidence, Moriah’s employer, a Burien grocery store, happened to have given her June 28th and 29th off.

“We returned home Sunday morning to nothing,” she said. “Turns out there were neighbors from two buildings up the street that were breaking our windows trying to save us and we weren’t even there.”

Moriah now lives in a house in Des Moines with Emerson, now a year and a half old, and her dog, Keira.

Moriah is currently employed as a technical support representative for a computer services company.

“Sometimes things just happen that remind you of the fire,” said Moriah, who has recently met a new and special man in her life.

“He wanted to give me a ring to show his feelings for me,” she said. “But he couldn’t just go to my jewelry box to try and figure out my ring size. He had to ask me my size, because the jewelry box I used to have, and everything in it, was lost in the fire.”

Moriah broke into tears recalling little Edgar, the boy who died.

“He would come to my place every day and knock on my door to play with my dog when he was a puppy.

“People told me the flames were forty feet high in the sky that night. I don’t know how I would have escaped with the baby and dog. Somebody above was looking out for us.”

Burien’s recently-installed, controversial nude female sculpture has become a local media sensation (which we first covered on Monday), and Thursday (June 25th) our B-Town Blog video production crew of Mark Neuman and Bart Bryan dared to actually go near “Paradigm Shift,” the lifelike bronze Mike Magrath statue located at the Interim Art Space, where they shot this video:

If you haven’t yet read our original story, it’s worth a peek since the Comments are quite interesting – click here to read ‘em.

Here’s our first video from Day #1 from the 2009 Burien Strawberry & Arts Festival, produced by our video production crew of Mark Neuman and Bart Bryan, in a segment we call “Whaddaya Think?”:

Click to View Michael Brunk’s Photo Slideshow

Saturday morning (June 13th) at 10am sharp, the Highline High School Pirates marching band kicked off the grand opening ceremonies by marching (and boisterously playing) down SW 152nd to the main podium at Burien’s new Town Square where numerous local and state dignitaries spoke to a crowd estimated by local police as “well over 1,000.”

Here’s a video segment we call “Whaddaya Think?” shot by your B-Town Blog video production crew of Mark Neuman and Bart Bryan:

The day’s celebration served as the culmination of over 12 years of the city’s planning for the $193 million “town square as the central focal point for the downtown core” as first approved in 1997, then developed and built beginning in 1999 until construction began in 2004 to Saturday’s festive ribbon cutting ceremony.

Temps were in the lower 70s with a slight hazy cloud cover that made for good lighting for the politicians, developers and library folk who spoke, including:

• Burien Mayor Joan McGilton
• King County Library Director Bill Ptacek
• Congressman Jim McDermott
• State Rep. (and Burien native) Dave Upthegrove
• Dan Rosenfeld of Urban Partners (another Burien son)
• King County Council Chair Dow Constantine
• City Councilmember Lucy Krakowiak
• Judge Richard Eadie

Free tours of the new Library building, Town Square condos and city hall were provided all day, and foot traffic was busy throughout. As children explored the new kids section of the library or bounced in the bouncy houses outside, parents enjoyed free refreshments and giveaways from local Burien businesses.

We’ll have more videos and photos soon, so be sure to come back to your most up-to-date local news source right here!

[EDITOR'S NOTE: On March 17, 2009, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer published its final print edition, completing a more than 145-year run. Its online presence continues. We at The B-Town Blog, while excited about the future of neighborhood blogs such as ours, lament the folding of great US newspapers, particularly those with such rich histories and stellar legacies as the P-I.

Scott Schaefer and Mark Neuman, of the B-Town Blog, worked together on their high school newspaper, The West Seattle High Chinook, a few decades back. They were fortunate enough to have as their advisor and journalism teacher a lady who truly is one of the very best in the state of Washington, Miss Dorothea Mootafes, known a little better as Dorothy, and affectionately as Miss Moo. Miss Moo has been retired from the Seattle School District for over twenty-five years, lives in the Roosevelt area of Seattle and is quite active in her church and various teacher organizations.

We recently asked her to reflect on the passing of the P-I, and let us in on her P-I memories.

This four-part Sunday series, which concludes today, began with Miss Moo recalling taking her students to the P-I building on Sixth and Wall Street in the mid 1970s.

“In the lobby were the words of Thomas Jefferson which continue to imply what the role of the newspaper should be in a free society:

‘If it were left to me to decide whether to have a government without newspapers or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.’”]

Part Four:
by Dorothea Mootafes

When Kennedy was nominated, the Thursday July 14, 1960, P-I read “It’s Kennedy” and the front page included one of Jim Bishop’s stories in his traditional writing format, “The Day Kennedy Was Nominated.”

Westbrook Pegler was still writing his opinion column but better balanced by “On The Line” with Bob Considine, one of Drew Pearson’s “Washington Merry Go Round” columns and David Sentner of the Hearst Headline Service with “Convention Window.”

The November 10, 1960 election issue had a full-page photo of the young president-elect whose election margin was described as the “Tightest in Nearly Half A Century.” Frank Conniff of the Hearst Headline Services gave his observations on Kennedy.

Kennedy’s inauguration was the Hearst Headline Service story on January 21, 1961. His now famous words were at the top the page:

“Let every nation know, whether it wish us good or ill, that we will pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend or oppose any foe in order to assure the survival of liberty.”

The P-I of November 8, 1980 proclaimed the “Reagan Landslide.” Editorial columnists that day included Jack Anderson and Flora Lewis. OP Ed writers were Russell Baker, William Safire, and T. D. Allman of The New York Times. A David Horsey cartoon appeared, a congratulations to the new President.

Many Horsey cartoons followed including two Pulitzer Prize winners in 1999 and 2003. I recall when Horsey was an outstanding staff member of the excellent Ingraham High School Cascade.

These reflections of The Seattle Post-Intelligencer are becoming longer than the final edition of the P-I a few weeks ago. In conclusion I’ll borrow some words of the P-I headline on Wednesday, October 18, 1995, referring to the “Refuse to Lose” season of the Seattle Mariners. Etched in the minds of every Seattle fan was a front page photo of a compassionate Alex Rodriguez consoling a weeping Joey Cora. “Thanks for the Ride, M’s,” the banner headline read. We have been provided with a lifetime of P-I editorials, news stories, and features, not to mention comic strips which live In our memories, at least one of which fortunately has moved on to The Seattle Times (Blondie). There are those hoping Dennis the Menace also will find a home there. For all of the years of information, entertainment, and thought, to The P-I -“thanks for the ride.”

Even more important than the pleasure and thought The P-I and other vanishing newspapers have brought us are these facts:

• Up to the present, even other media tell us, newspapers are still responsible for 65 per cent of the news.
• A free press is a constraint on those who would impose their will on an uninformed public.
• When The P-I folded, it was said that Tim Eyman, the perennial initiative writer, would dance on The P-I’s grave. There would be one less critic of his over-zealous initiatives.
• Just before he died, Peter Jennings reported on a survey of young people which showed a large number thought a newspaper should send its stories to the government for approval before printing them. Every high school journalist would cringe at that idea of prior review!

Although history tells us that Thomas Jefferson read few newspapers himself after eight years of being criticized by them, in the end the saddest part about losing The P-I and all the other newspapers which have folded already or will soon stop publication is we may soon be left with the society the third president rejected: a government without newspapers.

- 30 -

by Mark Neuman

I spoke Friday (June 5th) with Burien City Councilmember Rose Clark, who is running for re-election, Position No. 5.

As of press time (or in this electronic era, as of “hit send” time), Clark has no opposition in her bid for another four-year term on the council:

MIKE MARTIN PROTEST
A May 20th B-Town Blog story covered a public protest by Burien resident Tai Oh concerning the April 19 arrest of Burien City Manager Mike Martin for suspicion of driving under the influence of alcohol. Martin entered a plea of “not guilty” on May 15.

In that story, Oh, who is calling for the resignation or firing of Martin, said he contacted the Burien city council as a body and each member individually via e-mail and voicemail and not a single councilmember responded to him.

“My office phone number is everywhere. I never received a phone call from him,” Clark said, referring to Oh.

“I would have been happy to talk to him if had he called me, but he didn’t.

“We did receive some emails from him over our city website.

“He has sent several (emails),” Clark said. “I can’t tell how many. (On) all of them the tone is very derogatory towards Mr. Martin, expressing anger that ‘a man like that’ is holding ‘that job’ (city manager). And demanding that he leave the city. On one email he called (Martin) an unkind word. I can’t even remember what the word was. But I’m not very impressed when people come on like that. They need to be a little bit more intelligent about their language.”

ACCOMPLISHMENTS:
Among her major accomplishments over the recent four years, Clark says “I was very, very gratified to have pushed emergency preparedness enough that we hired an Emergency Preparedness Coordinator (Karen Ferreira) which would have been a costly position except we share it with Normandy Park and Sea Tac.

“I think that is what I am most proud of.”

ANNEXATION VOTE:
Regarding the August 18 annexation vote, Clark said “I think the people north of here will vote to come to Burien, a small city, more able to serve their needs.”

BUDGET CUTS:
Will coming budget cuts result in the reduction of officer positions in the Burien Police Department?

“I think, yes, the possibility is there,” Clark said. “However, our Police Chief, Scott Kimerer, is pursuing grants. We might lose a couple positions, but through the grants, we might gain them back.”

MAYOR CLARK?
The seven-member council will, this January, elect a mayor.

Would Clark want to be elected mayor?

“No I don’t think I have that kind of personality. I would consider serving as deputy mayor again.”

Clark served her first term as Council member earlier in the decade. She has served as deputy mayor six times, her most recent term expiring this past February. The term of deputy mayor runs one year.

She is employed as a library tech at an area high school, and has been there since 1992.

[EDITOR'S NOTE: On March 17, 2009, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer published its final print edition, completing a more than 145-year run. Its online presence continues. We at The B-Town Blog, while excited about the future of neighborhood blogs such as ours, lament the folding of great US newspapers, particularly those with such rich histories and stellar legacies as the P-I.

Scott Schaefer and Mark Neuman, of the B-Town Blog, worked together on their high school newspaper, The West Seattle High Chinook, a few decades back. They were fortunate enough to have as their advisor and journalism teacher a lady who truly is one of the very best in the state of Washington, Miss Dorothea Mootafes, known a little better as Dorothy, and affectionately as Miss Moo. Miss Moo has been retired from the Seattle School District for over twenty-five years, lives in the Roosevelt area of Seattle and is quite active in her church and various teacher organizations.

We recently asked her to reflect on the passing of the P-I, and let us in on her P-I memories. Today we continue a four-part Sunday series by Miss Moo.]

by Dorothea Mootafes

Some columnists are associated with presidents. I always thought of Marianne Means as beginning with John F. Kennedy, but she actually wrote for 50 years for the Hearst newspapers from Harry Truman to George W. Bush. On October 5, 2008, in her farewell column, she wrote:

“It’s a new world, for someone else to figure out. So I bid you fine farewell, and I will miss you all terribly particularly my great mentors at the Hearst newspapers.”

Marianne Means was among the first women whose opinion columns appeared in The P-I. Maureen Dowd, Helen Thomas, Ruth Montgomery, Marcia Freeman, and Mary McGrory were among the others.

Men expressing their thoughts through the years in The P-I have been many: Frank Conniff, Jack Anderson, Shelby Scates. Jack DeYonge, George Will, Fendell Yerxa, Drew Pearson, Westbrook Pegler, Fulton Lewis, Jr., Jack McCoy, David Horsey, Jack Hopkins, James Reston, Paul O’Connor, Richard E. Thompson, Patrick J. Buchanan, Jack Douglas, William Safire, Russell Baker, Charles Dunsire, O. Casey Corr, Charles Sykes, Dan Coughlin, Bob Considine, Charles Osgood, Bill Prochnau, Joel Connelly, Sam Angeloff, George Dixon.

For this article of remembrance, I entered my basement with its myriad of yellowing and aromatically scented Post-Intelligencers proclaiming presidential nominations, elections, and inaugurations as well as the rare times when Seattle sports teams triumphed nationally (the Seattle Supersonics in 1979 when they won the NBA Championship and the Seattle Mariners in 1995 when they stopped one game short of playing in the World Series).

The Thursday, May 5, 1977 issue described David Frost’s interview of Richard Nixon which just last year was remembered with the Academy Award nominated movie “Frost-Nixon” based on that historical event.

“Ike New President,” a banner headline on November 5, 1952, announced the nation’s return to rule of the Republican Party for the first time since the Depression, twenty years earlier. The lead editorial that day was a full page in length by the regular editorial width with the title “It’s Ike,” written by William Randolph Hearst, Jr.

In a call for unity, the younger Hearst wrote in one section:

“The Hearst Newspapers and this writer share in the elation of General Eisenhower because we were on his side.” He quoted his father with the following: “The Hearst newspapers are not Democratic in the party sense, nor again are they Republican. In fact, they are not party organs of any kind.”

“The Hearst papers hold as their guiding policy Lincoln’s injunction to support any man when he is right and oppose him when he is wrong.”

“This was Pop’s policy.

“This is our own.”

In the logo of the editorial page that day was a thumbnail photo of the elder Hearst next to his words: “Great issues are never invented or created by political leaders. Real issues make themselves.”

I could not help but remember that the elder Hearst, because of his sensational yellow journalism, was one of those blamed for creating the issue of the Spanish-American War.

The editorial page that day in 1952 included Westbrook Pegler’s “The Republic Is Badly Damaged,” and Fulton Lewis, Jr., “Truman’s Last Order.” The man from Missouri’s flaws were tempered only by Drew Pearson’s “Bitter Campaigns of the Past,” reviewing some of history’s “hottest political campaigns.” The Op Ed page had a soothing effect with E. V. Durling’s “On the Side,” “The Mirror Of Your Mind,” “City Bred Farmer” with Clarence Dirks, and Ph. D. Richmond Barbour with “Parents’ Corner.”

The full page advertisements scattered throughout could have enticed readers in our own era to spend the country out of our recession.

[EDITOR'S NOTE: On March 17, 2009, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer published its final print edition, completing a more than 145-year run. Its online presence continues. We at The B-Town Blog, while excited about the future of neighborhood blogs such as ours, lament the folding of great US newspapers, particularly those with such rich histories and stellar legacies as the P-I.

Scott Schaefer and Mark Neuman, of the B-Town Blog, worked together on their high school newspaper, The West Seattle High Chinook, a few decades back. They were fortunate enough to have as their advisor and journalism teacher a lady who truly is one of the very best in the state of Washington, Miss Dorothea Mootafes, known a little better as Dorothy, and affectionately as Miss Moo. Miss Moo has been retired from the Seattle School District for over twenty-five years, lives in the Roosevelt area of Seattle and is quite active in her church and various teacher organizations.

We recently asked her to reflect on the passing of the P-I, and let us in on her P-I memories. Today we continue a four-part Sunday series by Miss Moo.]

by Dorothea Mootafes

Just as the other P-I departments had something for everyone, sports had a fishing expert, Ken McLeod; a hunting specialist, Cliff Harrison; a bowling enthusiast, Blaine Freer, who also covered skiing at times. The P-I sports also provided public services for young people with fishing derbies, ski schools, and swimming lessons.

John Owen also wrote sports and succeeded Royal Brougham as sports editor. The item I most remember pre-Mariners, was when he wrote that Seattle would never have a major league team until it had a major league hot dog. In his view the hot dogs either were served with a hot dog on a cold bun or a hot bun with a cold dog. A major league hot dog, he wrote, consisted of a hot dog on a hot bun. When he came as a visitor to one of West Seattle’s journalism classes, I told him how much I had enjoyed that. He was not happy with my commentary, preferring that readers remember articles in which he had taken greater pride. I hope the Safeco cuisine suited his taste.

In the 1940s, Leo Lassen, the radio voice of the Seattle Rainiers, covered the team for The P-I. Among the many other P-I sportswriters through the years have been—Angelo Bruscas, Jim Street. Laura Vecsey, Steve Rudman, Jack Smith, Mike Donohoe, Los Angeles columnist Melvin Durslag, Jim Moore, John Levesque, John Hickey, Bill Knight, Joe Mooney, J. Michael Kenyon, Bud Withers, Jack Jarvis, Ellis Conklin, Boyd Smith, Robert Browning, and Art Thiel.

Special features included columns by Emmett Watson under various names including “This Our City.” “Lesser Seattle” was his unofficial campaign to discourage people from migrating to Seattle in order to keep it a more comfortably sized community without the problems of a large city. Douglass Welch with his “Squirrel Cage” provided laughs particularly with his humorous coverage of Park Board meetings. Referring to his wife as “Green Eyes” also evoked a few smiles. Jon Hahn wrote a column on a variety of subjects. “Action,” edited for a time by Maribeth (Bunker) Morris and later Dick Young, gave readers the opportunity to solve problems and frustrations they might have. It was similar to today’s television problem solvers.

Ann Landers not only provided advice for those who asked but also occasionally gave readers more to think about. The Mike Mailway column spanned the years. It consisted of questions and answers, along with interesting facts (Example: Firefighters have the greatest incidence of heart attacks.) Billy Graham provided spiritual advice in answers to questions sent to him by readers. By now bridge enthusiasts must be great players. The lessons were interminable.

The Post-Intelligencer’s “Living Textbook,” as did The Seattle Times’ “Newspaper in the Classroom,” assisted students and teachers in improving their knowledge of newspapers, the English language, history, and geography.

The P-I conducted Christmas Fund Drives for the needy. Articles through the years showing the special needs of the handicapped and the poor touched everyone’s humanity.

Critics helped readers in determining what movies were of value (William Arnold), plays and other events (John Voorhees), the theatre (Joe Adcock)., music (R. M. Campbell).

E. J. Mitchell edited a Saturday religion page and wrote a weekly column covering churches and religious matters. Maggie Hawthorn edited Arts and Entertainment. For some years Louella Parsons provided a column of movie gossip.

Investigative reporters have included Eric Nalder, Hilda Bryant, Steve Militich and Shelby Scates among others. Stub Nelson, Charles Dunsire, Mike Layton, and Maribeth Morris covered politics. Fergus Hoffman wrote business and financial news.

The opinion pages (editorial and Op Ed), have through the years provoked thought and sometimes aroused anger over an editorial or column they carried, but they always provided the opportunity to disagree in letters to the editor. I couldn’t bear Westbrook Pegler and through the years have taken issue with other columnists and with P-I editorials.

[EDITOR'S NOTE: On March 17, 2009, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer published its final print edition, completing a more than 145-year run. Its online presence continues. We at The B-Town Blog, while excited about the future of neighborhood blogs such as ours, lament the folding of great US newspapers, particularly those with such rich histories and stellar legacies as the P-I.

Scott Schaefer and Mark Neuman, of the B-Town Blog, worked together on their high school newspaper, The West Seattle High Chinook, a few decades back. They were fortunate enough to have as their advisor and journalism teacher a lady who truly is one of the very best in the state of Washington, Miss Dorothea Mootafes, known a little better as Dorothy, and affectionately as Miss Moo. Miss Moo has been retired from the Seattle School District for over twenty-five years, lives in the Roosevelt area of Seattle and is quite active in her church and various teacher organizations.

We recently asked her to reflect on the passing of the P-I, and let us in on her P-I memories. And so today we begin a four-part Sunday series by Miss Moo.]

by Dorothea Mootafes

When Mark Neuman asked me to recall what I remembered about The Seattle Post-Intelligencer, he mentioned the visit of West Seattle High School journalism students to the P-I building on Sixth and Wall Street in the mid 1970s. In the lobby were the words of Thomas Jefferson which continue to imply what the role of the newspaper should be in a free society:

“If it were left to me to decide whether to have a government without newspapers or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.”

Jefferson’s words are also on one of the four panels in the Jefferson Memorial in Washington, D. C. The P-I always could be counted upon to investigate excesses in government when they occurred and to keep demagogues in line when the occasion arose; but in my more than a half a century of reading The P-I, it has been more than a watchdog of my rights. It has been a source of information, a means of entertainment, and, at times, a needle instantly raising my blood pressure.

No part of any Seattle-area person’s existence was untouched by The P-I. The news pages, women’s pages, sports pages, opinion pages, special features, and even the comics have affected us all. Through the years, the women’s pages were transformed from strictly society news—weddings, engagements, club news—time, date place events; who, what, where, when—into a department exploring significant and controversial issues, adding the why and how to coverage.

Nancy Hevly, a women’s page staff member, recalls it was Susan Paynter who wrote the first stories of the new type. Among the first articles were those on a woman’s right to choose and on a lesbian couple.

Sally Raleigh was editor of the traditional society page and also guided it through its changes. “Lifestyle” was one of the subsequent titles which mirrored the change in content. Sally’s staff included Laura Emory Gilmore, Jean Lunzer and Nancy Hevly herself. Edna Daw edited the club news. If there was a PTA meeting, sorority gathering, etc., members would find the time, date and place in the club column. Groups chose publicity chairmen whose job it was to send notices on their meeting, guests, speakers, or special program to the newspaper.

Prudence Penny was the early title of the Home Economics Department. Food editors later began using their own names and their food pages continued to be popular and useful. Nancy Beardsley sometimes covered special community or church events showing an ethnic or historical specialty the public might enjoy.

Gradually women’s news blended into the rest of the newspaper. Articles under Lifestyle, for example, could be on either men or women. Until World War Two, women did not cover hard news. Lucille Cohen and Eleanor Bell were the first to break the sex barrier.

The name Royal Brougham was synonymous with P-I sports. He was not only the sports editor for so many years; he was also the cheerleader and promoter of every Seattle-based team and outstanding athlete. “The Morning After,” his daily sports column, opened with sections on sports personalities or current happenings, and closed with a final “Chitter-Chatter,” sometimes with an other heading, composed of a miscellany of sports news. Everyone learned much about Husky sports and particularly Al Ulbrickson’s crews, hometown baseball hero Fred Hutchinson, and the Seattle Rainiers. Naming the street across from Safeco Field for Royal Brougham was well deserved as the P-I sports editor long touted major league baseball for Seattle. Like the rest of us, he survived the short stay of the Seattle Pilots in 1969. The Mariners began in 1977, a year before Royal Brougham’s death in 1978.

It was Royal Brougham who started the annual Man of the Year Sports Award and Banquet at the beginning of each calendar year. I attended the event in l957 because my St. Louis Cardinal hero, Stan Musial, was the special guest. When golfer JoAnne Gunderson was named “man” of the year that night, she turned to Royal Brougham and said, “Royal are you sure you’ve got the right man?” Pat Lesser, another woman, had won the award two years before. The problem was solved in recent years with the selection of one man and one woman.

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