Edmonds Beacon - Your Hometown News Source

Encouragements to help Edmonds fight climate change

I am grateful for the hard work and sincere attempts by City employees and officials to include and consider nearly every imaginable factor impacting the healthy future environmental vision for Edmonds.

It is not easy to see the forest for the trees, because each tree is critical. And yet there is the overriding challenge of climate change.

All references to climate change mitigation/adaptation efforts in the various City of Edmonds documents must be embraced as urgent.

Some proposed climate change measures are mentioned with the wording "when" or as "feasible." It seems dollar signs rather than quotation marks might be inserted around "feasible." Costs are presumed to be high whether mitigation steps are or are not taken.

May they be taken, because we cannot afford otherwise. I naively, but with great sincerity, offer some one-sentence encouragements for following agenda items.

Tree code: Education of Edmonds citizens is paramount, and perhaps the newly proposed neighborhood street strategy events might include tree giveaways and lessons on the importance of the tremendous beneficial resources of trees.

PROS Plan: Goal No. 6 addresses climate impacts around park sustainability/management and needs to be robust in scope, emphasizing community volunteer person-power as the ultimate and most feasible green solution.

Edmonds waterfront: Acquire the Unocal property for the sake of preserving the marsh and Willow Creek, and because a 4-foot sea-level rise is anticipated, take a lesson from the Dutch and/or the New Orleans remediation efforts to keep the water at bay with proposed berms, or put everything up on stilts.

Perrinville Creek: The proposed improvements to the culverts are long overdue and need to happen around the issues of erosion and to enhance the lives of the fish, so crucial to our environment.

Barbara Steller
Edmonds

(Council written comment)

Edmonds Waterfront Center near the finish line

We are excited to announce an inspiring $250,000 capital gift to the Waterfront Center we received on June 16. This brings the amount left to raise for the capital campaign to $460,440.

The finish line is in view. As a community, we have raised an astounding $16,289 million to date to build the Waterfront Center.

Thank you.

If you were not in attendance, hopefully you heard about our May 12 official opening and "Ribbon Joining." More than 500 people braved the weather and came out to help celebrate.

The morning began with memorable native songs and blessing from Ty Juvinel and Josh Fryberg from the Tulalip Tribes. Ty is the artist who is carving a 15-foot welcoming figure for outside the EWC. Ty gifted a beautiful paddle to the EWC with an image of an eagle.

The flag was raised (for the first time) with a color guard under the command of VFW Cmdr. Carl Kurfess. Bagpipe music was provided by Patrick Downing. As people moved into the banquet room, they were treated to the rousing sound of the Edmonds-Woodway Jazz Band.

Speakers included Mayor Mike Nelson, capital campaign co-chair Gary Haakenson, board chair Julaine Fleetwood, and a wonderful keynote address by Rick Steves.

One highlight of the morning was the first-ever "ribbon joining." Three ribbons from the back of the banquet room representing (1) the countless people who helped get us to this point, (2) those present and witness to the opening milestone, and (3) the future – the potential of the EWC to transform lives.

The three ribbons, woven over the heads of the seated participants, was then tied together. The ceremony symbolized how the past, present and future are all connected, underscoring the EWC's principal objective to create social connections.

The completion of the EWC does not mark an end, but instead a beginning – the beginning of a dynamic gathering place where people of all ages can come to connect, learn, and celebrate. The community built the Center, now we are asking you to catalyze its potential by participating and financially supporting the EWC.

We are asking you to consider making a gift that you can direct to support vital programs, the Senior Lunch program (addressing food insecurity among seniors needing extra help) or the capital campaign.

Capital gifts of $500 or more will be recognized on our donor wall inside the main entrance.

We are glad you are part of the EWC family.

Daniel Johnson
CEO, Edmonds Waterfront Center

Brett Rogers the choice for Snohomish County prosecutor

We are at a critical crossroads concerning public safety in the county. We've seen our communities deteriorate bit by bit over time. Ernest Hemingway once said, "It happened gradually, and then suddenly."

Yes, we suddenly find ourselves deep in it. About five years ago, along with a group of caring folks, I helped clean up the area on I-5 by Shawn O'Donnell's. Recently, a friend did so again and found that the problem has grown exponentially – more needles, drug paraphernalia, used condoms.

It's tragic, it's pathetic. Personnel working in dental and medical offices by O'Donnell's are afraid to leave the buildings for a walk to the coffee shop, as they are often accosted.

It's time to say enough. This is not about you. It's not about me. It's about us, the collective U.S. Each and every one of us has a responsibility to ourselves, to our families, and to our community. We have a civic duty to get involved.

We can't stand around looking to our neighbor you might see as a hard worker, an involved citizen, a go-getter who is going to solve this problem for you. No, it is you who also has a responsibility to do something. Yes, "do something." Collectively, we can make a positive difference. We just have to have the will to do it.

Our children should not have to sacrifice their health and safety by going to play in their neighborhood park to find it riddled with needles. Folks out for a walk should not have to be afraid of being attacked. Folks who break the law should finally be held accountable according to the law and brought to justice.

As a nurse who has worked in emergency rooms, I've seen the devastation caused to families, to children, as a result of domestic violence – wives, husbands, children with head injuries and broken bones, and in some cases, death.

Working on a psychiatric unit, I saw what drug abuse can do to the human brain – in some cases leaving the person permanently incapable of making any type of coherent decisions. A life lost, a family destroyed.

It's time to restore public safety and get rid of the soft-on-crime policies which have done nothing to help anyone who has committed a crime against society or harmed themselves. And it has done nothing to make us a more caring society.

We have virtue signaled and enabled to the point of being criminal.

Brett Rogers worked with the Seattle Police Department for 18 years and completed law school during those years. He became experienced and knowledgeable in police tactics, crime, investigations, and law enforcement policy and accountability.

All this makes him uniquely qualified to be our next Snohomish County prosecutor.

Public safety is Rogers' No. 1 concern, as it is for many county residents. Victim protections, and stopping the present "catch and release" approach, which seems to be the new way of dealing with crime in many of our cities, is high on his list of priorities.

His vision is to restore justice, and to implement justice system accountability while being transparent with the people of Snohomish County.

Together we can be part of the solution. Join me in voting for Brett Rogers as our next Snohomish County prosecutor.

Theresa Campa Hutchison
Edmonds