The deadline to provide feedback to Metro is Friday, Feb. 17. Feedback can be provided via an online survey, email or calling their message line – see details below.

“Last fall, we received comments from more than 5,000 people, and that feedback was invaluable in helping us review and revise these proposals,” said Victor Obeso, Metro’s manager of Service Development. “Now, we want the community’s help again to continue moving forward with our vision for a transit system that is efficient, cost-effective, and best serves the entire county.”

The latest changes now being considered for White Center, Burien and Des Moines include:

• Routes proposed for routing or frequency changes: 120, 123, 124, 128*, 131, 132, 156, and 166
• Routes proposed for replacement or deletion: 23, 54, 85, 133, and 134
• Routes with no change: 113, 121, 122, 139, and 140
• Route change proposal revised from November 2011

Most of the proposals support the launch of the RapidRide C and D lines that will connect downtown Seattle to Ballard and West Seattle starting on Sept. 29. For that reason, the changes primarily affect service in Seattle and adjacent communities. Some of the revisions, such as the proposed changes to the 2 (south), 10, 11, 12, 14, 123, and 125 will also improve the flow of buses through downtown Seattle, which will produce significant efficiencies for Metro’s overall system.

The introduction of the RapidRide lines and associated service adjustments will allow Metro to improve bus connections to jobs, shopping and other destinations – places in and around Seattle that have grown and changed over the years. Many bus routes serving these areas have not been adjusted for more than a decade.

People will have an opportunity to comment on the newly revised September service proposals during the second round of public review that is now underway. You can submit comments by attending one of several meetings and information tables Metro is hosting, or filling out an online survey.

Give us your feedback by Friday, Feb. 17. Here’s how:

• Take their online survey
• Email haveasay@kingcounty.gov
• Call their message line, 206-263-9768
• Connect with them:
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Have a Say
  • RSS Feeds

To learn more about the proposals and ways to speak up about the changes, visit: http://www.kingcounty.gov/haveasay.

Reduced evening hours on Metro’s Route 139 from the Burien Transit Center to Highline Medical Center will begin in June.

The change is one of many revisions to Metro bus routes that was approved Monday (Jan. 30) by the King County Council.

More than 35,000 service hours will be shifted through the council’s action to “high ridership” bus routes from underperforming routes. This will be accomplished by eliminating 10 underperforming routes and reducing service on another five routes.

Route 139 was one of many targeted earlier for elimination by Metro Transit if a $20 license tab fee to maintain service levels was not imposed on county vehicle owners.

On the plus side, Route 180 from Burien to SeaTac, Kent and Auburn will receive an additional 11,000 hours to provide more evening bus service on the entire route.

Last summer the King County Council voted to impose an annual $20 car tab fee for two years to maintain current Metro bus service and avoid sharp transit cuts.

But County Councilman Larry Phillips of Seattle, appearing on News Line with John Carlson on KOMO Radio Tuesday morning (Jan. 31), said the council was “not cutting bus service” but “was rearranging it … we will have a substantial net gain in ridership.”

Currently the last 139 bus to Highline Medical Center leaves the Burien Transit Center at 9:16 p.m. Beginning in June, there will be no service on Route 139 after 8:15 p.m. – eliminating the final three scheduled evening runs for a savings of 500 service hours.

The only other service impacted in the greater Burien area is Route 129, which serves Riverton Heights and Tukwila. It will be eliminated for a savings of 1,400 service hours.

Routes 129 and 132 will provide some alternate service, but part of Route 129 will have no bus service beginning in June.

Another 8,000 hours of service will be added to 11 other Metro bus routes, and an additional 15,000 hours “will be reallocated to help improve scheduled reliability as determined by the Transit Division,” according to county council spokesman Al Sanders.

He noted that these changes are “the first service adjustments since the adoption of the county’s Transit Strategic Plan.”

“Adoption of these service changes upholds the council’s commitment to Metro’s regionally agreeable upon Strategic Plan,” said Councilwoman Julia Patterson, whose District 5 now includes south Burien.

Phillips said on KOMO Radio that these changes will give Metro “more productive hours” of service on its bus routes.

He added that rider fares pay 25 percent of Metro’s overall operating costs for bus service, which is the national average for public bus transit.

McDermott, whose District 8 includes Burien and North Highline, will lead the county council’s 2013 budget deliberations.

“Tough choices and a true commitment to reforming county government have placed the County on sound financial footing,” McDermott said. “Sound fiscal management will continue to be my priority as budget chair.”

The Budget Committee maintains oversight of the current year’s budget, and is the lead decision-making body during the adoption of the 2013 budget.

“Unfortunately, the county’s coffers will be facing many challenges this year as cuts from the state are absorbed. In all likelihood, we will be forced to make many more tough choices,” McDermott said.

McDermott joined the King County Council in 2010 after serving nearly a decade in the state Legislature. He was a Senior Budget Analyst with the Seattle School District and worked for former Pierce County Prosecuting Attorney John Ladenburg.

Follow these important steps for reporting damages to personal property and registering for financial assistance:

Step 1: Assess and document the damage
Identify and make a list of all the damages.
Take pictures of the damages.
Estimate how much you think it will cost for repairs or to replace your belongings.

Step 2: Call your insurance company
Locate your insurance policy documents (if available) and call your insurance company.
Report damages. Your insurance carrier will advise you on coverage and additional steps to be taken.

Step 3: Call the King County Damage Reporting Hotline or file your report online
Complete an online damage report form -OR- call the King County Damage Reporting Hotline: 1-800-523-5044.

You will be asked several questions including the estimated damage to your home and belongings, as well as your insurance coverage. This information will be used to establish a county-wide damage assessment which will aid us in obtaining federal assistance. Even if you have suffered only minor damage and do not expect to need assistance, you should submit a report. Information you will need includes:

• Contact information
• Address of the damaged property
• Name of the owner or renter
• Estimated pre-disaster value of the property
• Estimated structural damage
• Estimated personal property loss
• Primary cause of the damage
• Insurance coverage for the flosses and the amount of your deductible
• Is the property habitable?
• Is the property accessible?
• Is the damage major or minor?
• A description of the damage

Reporting forms:

Residential:
The purpose of this form is to collect information from primary residences affected by this the January snow and ice storm in order to make a preliminary assessment of damages following a disaster. Detached garages and storage buildings, secondary homes and recreational homes should not to be reported. After filling out this form, click the “Submit” button. You may want to print this form before submitting via e-mail and keep it for your records.

• Your submission is not a guarantee of eligibility for assistance.
• Please note: it may 30 days or more to process your submission.
• Form for primary residences

Business:
The purpose of this form is to collect information of businesses affected by this incident in order to make a preliminary assessment of damages following a disaster. After filling out this form, click the “Submit” button. You may want to print this form before submitting via e-mail and keep it for your records.

• Your submission is not a guarantee of eligibility for assistance.
• Please note: it may take 30 days or more to process your submission.
• Form for businesses

Since 2008, volunteers in Walker Preserve have removed large amounts of invasive plants and planted many native trees and shrubs. Walker Preserve is in the City of Normandy Park, along Walker Creek, and has spawning coho and chum salmon each fall. Restoring native vegetation along the creek benefits salmon and other wildlife.

“Please join us this Saturday, January 14, to continue this work!” said Elissa Ostergaard, Miller/Walker Creek Basin Steward. “We also have several monthly community weeding projects scheduled through the winter to remove ivy and other invasive weeds, and plant native trees and shrubs along the trail and stream in Walker Preserve and other areas in the basin.”

This stewardship project is a joint effort of the City of Normandy Park, and the Miller and Walker Creeks Stewardship program.

Here are the details:

WHAT: Walker Preserve Invasive Plant Removal work party.

WHEN: Saturday, Jan. 14, 9:30 a.m. – Noon.

WHERE: SW. 168th St. and 2nd Ave. SW. in Normandy Park, up the road from Normandy Park City Hall.

If driving, your parking options include:

• Three spaces in the small lot at SW 171st St. and Second Ave. S.W.
• On the street along SW. 168th St.

IMPORTANT NOTE: This park does not have a restroom.

Stewardship Purpose:

• Improve habitat along the stream by removing non-native, invasive plants

Activities:

• Seek out English ivy and remove it from trees and pull roots out of the ground.
• Seek out Himalayan blackberry plants, cut them back, and then dig out the root balls.

What to bring:

• Your enthusiasm
• Clothing that will protect you from the rain and blackberry thorns
• Filled water bottle
• Gloves if you have them

We provide:

• Gloves
• Tools
• Donuts!

Sign up and questions:

• Elissa Ostergaard, elissa.ostergaard@kingcounty.gov, 206-296-1909 (Saturday, January 14 only: 206-707-6549)

This volunteer event is an opportunity to visit a pleasant park along Walker Creek. The City of Normandy Park recently rebuilt the footbridge over the creek, and neighbors and other volunteers have made a lot of progress restoring the native plant community in this park. This work will help create areas for native plants to go in later this winter. Please sign up if you can, or decide to show up at the last minute!

“To protect residents from worsening air quality, the Puget Sound Clean Air Agency is issuing a Stage 1 burn ban for King, Kitsap, Pierce and Snohomish counties, effective at 4:00 p.m. January 11, 2012, until further notice,” reads a press release.

High pressure over the Puget Sound region will bring cold temperatures and calm winds, according to Clean Air Agency forecasters. Air quality is expected to deteriorate at least through Friday, especially in communities where residential wood burning is common.

Clean Air Agency staff follow a protocol set by state law to determine when and where to issue a burn ban, and when to lift a burn ban.

During a Stage 1 burn ban:

• No burning is allowed in fireplaces or uncertified wood stoves. Residents should rely instead on their home’s other, cleaner source of heat (such as their furnace or electric baseboard heaters) for a few days until air quality improves, the public health risk diminishes and the ban is cancelled. The only exception is if a wood stove is a home’s only adequate source of heat.
• No outdoor fires are allowed. This includes recreational fires such as bonfires, campfires and the use of fire pits and chimineas.
• Burn ban violations are subject to a $1,000 penalty.

It is OK to use natural gas, propane, pellet and EPA certified wood stoves or inserts during a Stage 1 burn ban.

The Washington State Department of Health recommends that people who are sensitive to air pollution limit time spent outdoors, especially when exercising. Air pollution can trigger asthma attacks, cause difficulty breathing, and make lung and heart problems worse. Air pollution is especially harmful to people with lung and heart problems, people with diabetes, children, and older adults (over age 65).

The purpose of a burn ban is to reduce the amount of pollution that is creating unhealthy air. Puget Sound Clean Air Agency staff will continue to monitor the situation.

For more information:

• Frequently asked questions about burn bans
• How can one tell if their wood stove is certified, and OK to use during a Stage 1 burn ban?  Age matters – if the stove is over 20 years old, it is likely uncertified and prohibited for use during a burn ban.  Uncertified wood stoves are no longer legal to sell or purchase in the State of Washington due to the significant pollution they generate.  A certified stove will have an EPA label on the back.

Debra George, Director of CARES.

by Jack Mayne

The business of animal control in Burien has been roiling for the past several months, first over the city eschewing King County Animal Control because of cost, then over the new non-profit chosen to take over animal control responsibilities.

On Monday (Jan. 9) Debra George, director of the city’s new non-profit contract animal agency, CARES, said the former full-time animal control officer, Mike Snyder, was gone.

“We let him go,” on Monday. George said she would have no comment on the circumstances of Snyder’s departure.

“Ray Helms is our new animal control officer,” she said. “He has been trained at the National Animal Control Association (NACA). He has a great love for animals and serving the Burien Community. He brings also great organization and communication skills. We are excited for him to be part of our team.”

George said Helms went to Kansas City for his training, the same training his predecessor had.

Leaving King County
Meanwhile, there have been repeated public demands that Burien immediately go back to service from King County. Because of a contract with various cities around the county, it would be impossible for the city to return to county animal control until at least 2013. The county cannot open the current contract until it has expired.

Additionally there is a contract with CARES and George that does not expire for 28 months – April 2014.

The city terminated its contract with King County in 2010 because the county charged $250,000 a year for its service that promised one day a week service, availability of its animal shelter in Kent and emergency service when necessary. We will look more deeply into their services now and possibly in the future in another story soon.

First, Burien contracted with the operator of a Normandy Park veterinarian, Dr. Leslie Kasper but she left in January 2011 over disputes with the city.

Burien City Manager Mike Martin.

City Manager Mike Martin said the city then put out a request for proposals and George was the only respondent.

The contract with the newly formed Community Animal Resource Education Society (CARES), headed by George, took control of Burien animal care and control services last June 15. CARES will be paid $10,000 a month under its contract with the city – a total of $360,000 through the end of the contract in April of 2014.

She formed CARES as a non-profit 501 c(3) corporation “to encourage responsible pet ownership and enforce the animal laws and ordinances in order to protect the health, safety and welfare of people and animals in Burien.”

Martin said that would save the city “$10,000 to $13,000 a month over the county’s charge would have been.

“There was definitely the issue of cost and there was the issue of performance that we didn’t feel we were getting a product that we were paying for (with King County),” Martin said in an interview. “There was also the attractiveness of taking something that was in the public sector and putting it in the private sector. That was very attractive to me – taking $120,000 out of the public sector and putting into the private sector.”

George a “total volunteer”
“I don’t get paid, I’m a volunteer,” she said in a recent personal interview. “For years, I’d talked about starting a non-profit and because of my love for animals I could really get behind this particular opportunity.”

She says she does believe in the CARES program and the process.

“I am very passionate about animals and animal welfare. Some people think I am not, which is interesting to me.”

She said she researched other groups that did non-profit animal control and care.

“It is fairly new as a structure, but seems to be working. I really thought that this could work in our community and (would give) us better services than King County and ultimately serve our community.”

But is $10,000 a month enough?

“It is, right now,” George says. “This program gives better service. We have a fulltime animal control officer who does nothing but work on Burien. We have a fulltime office manager who does nothing but work on Burien and getting animals adopted out and taking care of the animals.

“On top of all that, we really do supply a good service,” she says. “We work within our budget, but like every non-profit we will be assertive in our fundraising efforts. We are coming out with out 2012 calendar of events to raise money for our organization.”

The city contract money pays for a full-time animal control officer and an office manager, plus the rent of the interim office and cat holding space in the back alley at 145 SW 153rd Street.

The money also paid for new animal control officer Ray Helms to train at the National Animal Control Association.

Everything else has to be paid for with animal adoption fees, donations and fund raising events or seeking grants, she says.

She pays for some things herself.

“People don’t realize how much money comes from my personal pocket,” George says. She said she personally paid for most of the start-ups cost of insurance and supplies for CARES, which had to be in place before the contract with the city had been signed. She said she has been reimbursed for half of her cost with the rest is still owed to her.

“Expenses like cat litter and things like that usually come out of my personal pocket,” George says.

Dogs are temporarily housed at PJ’s Pet Ranch in SeaTac owned by P.J. Seidenstricker. George says CARES houses only a few cats and kittens in the 153rd Street alley location.

CARES “took a lot of blows in the beginning” of because it did not take in cats right away because it was feeling its way on setting up a system,” she said.

“We try to keep the cats at a manageable number so that we don’t get overwhelmed.”

Euthanasia policy
She says the CARES’ policy in not to euthanize an animal unless it is necessary for medical or behavior reasons.

“Any (animal) that is healthy and adoptable” will be kept until it is adopted or transferred out, George says. “Out of the 264 animals we have taken in during the first 6 months we had to euthanize a 29 – 11 from a dog hoarding situation – due to illness or aggression. It is a case-by-case basis.”

She says local veterinarians do all euthanizing so they have to agree that it is the appropriate way to deal with an animal. It is decision by her, the animal control officer, and a vet and they all must agree to it.

“We use experts who know animals,” George said. “We use South Seattle Veterinary Hospital and we use Burien Veterinary Hospital to examine and take care of everything for animals left in our shelter. Before it goes any place, it goes to a local vet where it is looked over and evaluated and it is given shots. They have to have shots before they are sent into any general population. We have to know what we are dealing with.”

CARES pays for this and for spaying and neutering from the monthly contractual fee paid by the city.

Two of the 38 dogs rescued from an animal hoarder in Burien.

Thirty-eight small dogs were found in cages in a Burien basement in October and 11 had to be euthanized due to the conditions that been held under. The rest remain in foster care, she says. There were “significant unanticipated costs” for boarding the dogs and for veterinary expenses in that case. We reached out and received grants and donations to cover expenses.

CARES continues to work with a cat-hoarding situation from September. “We try to be as sympathetic as possible,” she says. “We have to abide by the laws of Burien – that is what we are here to enforce. So we can’t just go in there and take all the cats without proper documentation, without proper warrants or getting the owner to surrender. ”

George said CARES has a “really good” dialogue with the homeowner who was releasing some of the cats to them on a week-by-week basis and they are still working to have her release more animals this is an on going active case and we will continue to monitor the situation even after the cats are down to a manageable level.

George says that the previous board of directors had two volunteers who did not agree with how things would be done in her organization.

“We didn’t see eye-to-eye on everything. They are great people, they have been friends of mine,” she says. “Currently we don’t talk but I hope over time we will mend that fence. I think we have the same goals in mind. The process we are on to get to that goal is a little bit different process than they’d like to see. I know they are very big animal advocates.

“I don’t think we ran them out” as some claim. “We asked them to step back a bit and take a break.”

Public criticism hurt
“When I took this challenging role of animal controller, running CARES, I knew it was going to be tough,” she says but following a B-Town Blog story and photos on Nov. 16 about CARES’ new proposed new shelter there was a deluge of comments.

Of 105 comments, many were bordering on the hysterical and often showing extreme anger. George says the tone of the comments got to her – “even my thick skin can get penetrated.”

“I stopped reading the blog, and I asked a new board member to monitor (the comments) and after a day they couldn’t even take it. It is disheartening,” she says.

“We are trying to do a really good thing for this community,” she said. “We are handling the animals with as much dignity and respect as we can possibly give them, no different than King County – just as good services and in some cases better. And, yet it is hard for the community to see that and they kind of want to hang their hat on negativity and not take the time to really see what we are doing.”

“We are open five days a week from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.,” George says, so people can come by and see how the operation runs. We make sure to monitor our phones 7 days a week.

“Anyone can walk in any time and see our cats in our office. With our dogs we have to respect P.J.’s because it is not an open facility where you can just come as you want. We call ahead and we make arrangements for people to see that location. Keep in mind that P.J.s is a kenneling facility that you would take your dog to when you go in vacation.”

Both the CARES cat facility and the dog quarters at P.J.’s are regulated by the Seattle King County Health Department.

“We continue as an organization to grow. We are a young organization – we are not going to open up on day one and have every luxury in the book. It would have been nice to have our own facility when we opened up, but Burien did not and we are making it work with what we have.”

Regarding the newly rented 7,500 square foot building at 909 151st, George says the city has our plans for permits and we should get them back this week. All money for our shelter will come from donations and volunteers. Once done the shelter will house all our dogs and cats for adoption under one roof. We will also have a holding area, exam room and retail.

George says the city zoning laws permit the facility just a half block from Olde Burien. She says they hope to start the building work soon and to open it in February.

Please exercise your fiduciary responsibility before proceeding any further down the road to financial disaster that annexation of Area Y will ensure (see below and attached).

Members of the Burien City Council –

Yesterday, I received a document from the King County Assessor’s Office regarding Area Y/White Center/North Highline.

While it was only a preliminary draft, it shows Area Y as decreasing in taxable land value by $126,295,650 for the year 2012. This is significantly lower than Berk or the City of Burien projected the value of the land to be in the report and the application. Of course, this means less monies coming into Burien should they annex the area. The Assessor’s office anticipates that the Fire District will receive $189,443 dollars less next year to operate in Area Y. Area Y land values dropped by 17% and remember that Berk projected in its report that land values would continue to rise by 2% annually in the area-that is a difference of 19% from the report to the reality of the situation. I am still waiting to hear the approx. amount less of total dollars this will bring in to operate the area in 2012.

You will recall the the Assessor’s office notified Burien that the City will receive approx. $467,000+ less monies to operate the City in 2012 due to the declining land values in Burien-the core area of the City dropped by 8.+% and the newly annexed area dropped by 12 to 17%. Again Berk assumed that values in the city would increase by 2% in Burien.

Clearly, the City will receive a significantly lower amount of revenues than anticipated. The assumptions about revenues in the Berk report draft are no longer valid and will not be valid for a number of years-if ever. This is a point that will be made about the Draft Berk Report and the assumptions for revenues that the report is based upon-to the Boundary Review Board.

Please see attached the document from King County .

Also, I received a letter that clearly states that the Highline School District would receive more monies for the north end schools, if Area Y were to annex to Seattle.

Sincerely
John and Linda Poitras

Here is a screenshot of the spreadsheet referenced in this letter; you can also download a PDF here and an .xls here.

Click image to see larger version.

[Have something you'd like to share with our Readers? Please send us your Letter to the Editor via email. Include your full name, and, pending our review, we'll most likely publish it.]

King County on Friday (Dec. 16) announced that they are warning of an apparent email scam.

“The county has received calls from people and businesses within and outside of King County, including individuals from other states and countries, who have reported receiving false confirmation of an online property tax payment made through the King County e-commerce system,” reads their website. “These emails were not sent by King County, and the county’s e-commerce system has not been compromised.”

Here’s more from the county:

“It appears that someone copied our standard payment confirmation email and altered the header in the email so that it appears to be from King County,” said County Chief Information Officer Bill Kehoe. “These messages did not come from King County, and the recipients have not made any payments with us.”

Kehoe added that King County’s e-commerce system is safe. “We have robust protections on all of our information technology systems. The email addresses did not come from our database. Residents can rest easy, knowing that their personal information is secure.”

King County encourages everyone to practice safe computing habits. If you have not made a King County tax payment via the online system, but received an email notification from KingCountyEcommerce@kingcounty.gov, delete it, and do not open any attachments.

More information available at the county’s website here.

King County Prosecutor and local resident Dan Satterberg at the Oct. 21 press conference on the 'Operation Center of Attention' crime bust in White Center.

by Mark Neuman

King County Prosecutor Dan Satterberg stopped by the B-Town Blog office in Olde Burien for an interview recently, at our invitation.

We covered several topics, including Operation Center of Attention, the future of capital punishment in Washington state, the toughest decisions a prosecutor must make, and even George Harrison and the Beatles.

When we first sat down with Satterberg for an interview a couple of years ago (read it here), he made us laugh summarizing his days playing for the Highline High School football team as a teenager.

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

He got a similar chuckle this time around when we asked:  What advice do you have for anyone planning on committing a crime in King County?

“Go to Pierce County,” was Satterberg’s obviously tongue-in-cheek  response. He continued with a more serious completion of his answer.

“That’s my simple advice. We actually have a good, strong public safety system here even though we have all suffered cuts across the board. But we’re never too busy take one more case.”

Capital punishment and its future
We asked Satterberg to comment on the recent announcement by Oregon governor John Kitzhaber that executions will not happen there as long as Kitzhaber is governor.

“I think the death penalty as the ultimate punishment in Washington state is applied very carefully, obviously very slowly, and it’s also very expensive,” Satterberg told us.

“There are lots of reasons to have a philosophical debate about the morality of it or the effectiveness of it.

“A governor is free to, on an individual case, grant clemency and set aside a death penalty. But you know, the people (of Washington) should have this debate. I think I’d like to see the people vote on it every 10 years: ‘Do you still want to have the death penalty?’”

Holly Washa was murdered in 1991.

Witness to an execution
Satterberg recalled serving as a witness in 2010 in Walla Walla at the execution by lethal injection of Cal Brown, who had tortured, raped and murdered 22-year-old Holly Washa of Burien in 1991.

“I volunteered to be a witness. I wanted to sit with Holly’s family who came out from Nebraska to see that and just kind of be there. We said we’d be there together throughout that whole case. It was a very emotional time for them. But I think there was a sense of relief for them.

“Now they don’t have to worry about Cal Brown anymore. They made a commitment to Holly in their hearts. It (police work, trial and appeal process) went on for 19 years. So you could argue both sides of that.

“It was a relief for them. It was also, you could say, cruel and unusual to put the victim’s family through that much. But at the end, they would have said to you ‘We are glad we don’t have to think about Cal Brown anymore. He got what he deserved.’”

Crime is way down since 1980
“The interesting thing about crime in the state of Washington in the last 30 years is that it’s actually gone down dramatically,” Satterberg told us. “I think the same is true for North Highline and Burien as well.

“The statistics are kind of shocking and I don’t know how to explain it entirely. But it goes like this: since 1980, Part One crimes, meaning murder, rapes, robbery, burglary, car theft (but excluding drug crimes), has gone down 43 percent in the state of Washington.

“At that same time, the public investment in the infrastructure that fights crime, meaning courts, police, prosecutors, judges, public defenders, jails and prisons has increased about a hundred and twenty percent.

“I think we’re doing a better job of apprehending people who are ‘in the business’ of crime: serial burglars, serial car thieves, sex offenders and we get them earlier in the process and we send them to prison for longer sentences.”

Visiting lifers in prison
Satterberg, who has served as county prosecutor since the spring of 2007, spent an evening about a year ago with the Concerned Lifers group at the state prison in Monroe.

“I was a guest and I sat in a room with about 40 men who have been sentenced to life in prison,” Satterberg said. “I just really wanted to hear from them about the system, the criminal justice system they were unwilling participants in, and ideas for reform. It was a very, very meaningful night for me. I learned a lot.

“One of the things I learned was that there are a lot of thoughtful people in prison. And there is a lot of talent behind bars who’ve done terrible things, many of whom accept the fact that they took a life or multiple lives and they know they’re not getting out, they don’t deserve to get out but they still want to be able to give back to the community.

Dan greets one of the courthouse companions.

“And one of the things they want to be able to do is to have their stories to be a lesson for young people who are just now dabbling in crime: ‘Don’t do the things that I did that led me this way.’

“So we’re actually working with some of the offenders who have been released, some of the Three Strike Robbery Two defendants who’ve been granted clemency and finding appropriate ways for them to talk to first offenders in the juvenile system.”

Tough and controversial decisions
“One of the great things about being prosecutor is that you have a lot of tough decisions and sometimes they’re internal. Who do I hire? Do I need to let somebody go? We have almost five hundred employees,” Satterberg said.

“I guess the thing that people need to know is that our office is full of really good, smart, caring, dedicated people who at some sacrifice to compensation decided to work for the public, and they love representing the people and they love coming to work and doing the right thing.

“In the last three-and-a-half years we have lost some 50 positions in our office: 36 prosecutors and 15 staff. So I had to make some tough decisions that have really kept me up at night.

“On the professional side we make death penalty decisions regularly and we decide whether we’re going to accept a plea to something less than charged. We evaluate cases and you have to make decisions on a regular basis.”

End of Part One.
Be sure to check back to The B-Town Blog tomorrow for Part Two.