Neary-Sighted

Lots of interesting articles this week, mostly in today's TNT. But first, for a worrisome chuckle, you should check out a story in Seattle Weekly about a new law familiar to people in Pierce County but probably news to anyone in King County.

Seattle Weekly has a story about the bill that is supposed to require counties to hold on to felons who are released from prison. You may recall that this was big news here in Pierce County, where King and Snohomish and other counties have been exporting their people released from prison for years.

Here's a line from the story: "An ex-convict, she was trapped in Tacoma by a new law that requires former prisoners to return to the county where they were first convicted, and stay there, while under Department of Corrections supervision, for one to two years."

Expect more stories and tales that will try to make the new legislation sound like a bad thing. Imagine what you would think if you live in Seattle, and this is the first you had heard of this subject: "The requirement to return prisoners to their "county of origin" is one little piece of the bill. Under that provision, newly released inmates must return to the county where they were first convicted—even if they've had multiple convictions since—regardless of where they were last living. It came about because of a pet peeve on the part of Pierce County, namely a feeling that Tacoma and its environs were a dumping ground for ex-cons."

You had to figure that at some point, people in King and Snohomish and these other counties would realize they would be seeing more felons because of the legislation. I think everyone has been a little nervous about what might happen when the other counties do realize they are being asked to keep their fair share; King County can outvote Pierce County in a heartbeat and could easily vote to send King County felons to Pierce.

The Seattle Weekly story puts a human face on the tale, and cutely uses a Pierce County victim to tell the story as if it was Pierce County that was being hurt. The short version is that felons want to leave the counties they came from because that was where they got into trouble. This same reasoning, of course, could be used to explain why every single felon in King County ought to be relocated to Pierce County, and nobody should fall for such reasoning. Since I worked in Thurston County for three years, I found the paper's story quite funny, because it is just entirely possible that the one felon will find out there are people in Thurston County who use drugs as well. I believe I saw one, maybe two such people, downtown one day. Anyway, check out the Weekly story, and be ready for other attempts to unroll the sensible legislation that requires communities to take care of their own.

But let's have a backup plan. If the reasoning does catch on, more and more people in King County will say that it makes sense to put a felon in another city far away from home so that he or she does not spend time with the 'friends' who got them into trouble. If that reasoning does catch on, our fallback position should be that every county - King, Pierce, Snohomish - and everyone else - simply authorize the Department of Corrections to put every single released felon on a bus to Portland. That way, the felons would be away from the 'friends' who got them into trouble, and crime will drop radically since the source of our problems is not our own individual choices we make, but the company we keep.

Right.

So anyway, on a more informative note, the TNT has tons of interesting news. There's an editorial with a completely different view of the legislation we just discussed.

The status of the Russell company is hugely important, because if Tacoma loses Russell corporate headquarters, it will cause a lot of devastation. Dan Voelpel got a lot of space to write a very detailed look at the situation; Russell is apparently going to decide by the end of next year if it will be moving its HQ.

Finally, I personally found the stories about real estate sales to be extremely interesting because I used to work in newspapers and know there is more to the story that you might see in print. It is a truism that newspapers will never write stories about how to sell real estate or automobiles on your own, because newspapers get a huge chunk of advertising sales from real estate companies and automobile dealers. Years ago, in another state, I wrote stories about an auto parts dealer who had got arrested for something, and his boycott of the paper cost us a small fortunate in advertising. But we had to write the story because he had been accused of a crime. Newspapers have a choice about whether to write stories about how consumers can use alternatives to new car dealers and Realtors. And most newspapers don't.

So for the TNT to take on this subject showed a lot of courage. As it is, the story seems to come down in the right direction, namely, you get what you pay for. So I doubt if there will be a lot of backlash. But it still look a lot of guts to take on the topic.
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You would be amazed at the stacks of paperwork you can pick up if you run for office and try to do other jobs at the same time. We have a backlog, so let's try sharing some information in quick bursts. With more to come.

- If you missed the Bill Cosby appearance in Lakewood, it's now showing - and I mean that literally as I type this and watch it at the same time - on TV. It was filmed by Clover Park Technical College Television and will repeat at 8 a.m., 4 p.m. and midnight for the next several days. You can see it on channel 28 with Comcast and 89 with Click! Definitely worth watching.

I grabbed the photo from Picasa, from an album by Ben ... presumably Ben Sclair, and thanks to him for recording so many photos of the community.

- Next month, the Landmarks and Heritage Advisory Board will consider whether to declare the home at 11012 Interlaaken Drive SW as a city landmark. The formal designation would prevent any future homeowners from changing the building without the Landmarks board's OK. That is totally fine with the present owners, Becky and John Huber, as Becky is the president of the Lakewood Historical Society and John is the president's aide-de-camp. There are only a handful of buildings so designated, so it would be great to have one in the Interlaaken neighborhood so protected.

You'll recognize the house right away; it's the red two-story home set back on a forested lot and not that far from Idlewild Elementary.

The home belonged to contractor Fredric Cole Smith, who built it on what was then a 10-acre lot in 1914. Becky has a copy of Fredric's obituary from 1940. It's interesting that something the newspaper chose to emphasize in the obituary was that Fredric's father was Edward Slade "Skookum" Smith, an extremely prominent Tacoma businessman who worked for the Nothern Pacific Railroad. So the Smith house, now the Huber house, is yet another example of how Lakewood got built up by Tacoma's rich and famous (and their children).

- In one pile of papers was an amazingly detailed report on the 40-year history of Pierce College. There's a little bit of the info on the Pierce College Web site, but I will see if I can track down a PDF of this document, if you were like me and missed it in the mail.

There's a lot of interesting history and good photos, but what impressed me most were some comments about the future, namely, 2009: the report says that in that year, the college will see completion of a "$30 million Science and Technology Building ...featuring three pods connected by glass-covered winter gardens." And with a view of Fort Steilacoom Park, Lake Waughop, and when the weather allows, Mount Rainier. Wow!
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Hey gang, one of my wife's co-workers at Madigan is taking a class outside work where they have to write detailed reports about community subjects. Her group chose community policing, which certainly has Lakewood's name written all over it. But they need some survey participants to report on.

If you have a second, can you fill out this survey about community policing? It's anonymous and pretty quick (especially when compared to the infamous Neary surveys!)

If you want to forward the link to anyone, it's http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=tobc_2fiVCAGSVo2KYyplkvA_3d_3d
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One of the odd little byproducts of how the city of Lakewood developed is that every two years, people start to ask very earnestly, 'Who is going to be the mayor?' And they ask the question out of more than just idle curiosity. The seven council members choose a mayor and deputy mayor from among the ranks at the first meeting in January. The last two cycles, the council has had a couple of very bitter and divided votes on that question.

For those of you new to town, here's some background on why the question is exaggerated in Lakewood and comes up so often. First off, you have to consider the real role of mayor. The job actually differs from city to city even though the term 'mayor' stays the same. In some cities, mayors have real power. They hire and fire. In some cities, the mayor is elected directly as mayor by citizens. And the term mayor has a lot of mystique (think how often you have heard the phrase, "Mayor Guiliani...")

But Lakewood is typical of cities where a city manager actually runs the city. The elected council sets policy and supervises the city manager. The chief role of the mayor in such cities is to set the agendas for meetings and preside over the meetings.

Some cities rotate the role of mayor every year. In Lakewood, the city's founding fathers and founding mothers created a two-year term, elected by the council. For the first eight years, they kept electing Bill Harrison. Now, Bill is a great guy, and the city has a lot to be proud of for those eight years. But there were two unintended effects. The first unintended effect is that Lakewood did not get a lot of experience with having different candidates for mayor. And the second unintended effect was that by giving the same job to a charismatic guy for eight years, the council exaggerated the role of mayor.

Here's an example: Four years ago, when I ran for office, I asked a lot of people what they thought of the city. Maybe about a quarter or even a third of the time, people would respond by telling me what they thought of Bill Harrison.

People can do a lot with that gavel. The second mayor, Doug Richardson, was able to dramatically re-shape and improve how the council relates to the public and how city staff responds to the public. Our current mayor, Claudia Thomas, has used the power of the title, for example, to effectively create an arts commission and to get the entire city involved in the recent appearances by Bill Cosby. In both cases, Claudia and Doug used or use both the gavel and force of personality to wield real power.

But at the end of the day, the mayor has one vote out of seven on the council. Claudia got caught in this early on when she gaveled off a citizen who was speaking negatively about someone. I don't remember the exact vote, but a majority of the council overruled her because we let such people speak in Lakewood. It was a very healthy event because a mayor can't always be right; and by Claudia's gracious acceptance of the majority, we saw that a majority on the council can define a mayor's role to what is written on the page.

In summary, the role of mayor in Lakewood is exaggerated, and yet exaggeration makes the role more powerful than one would expect.

But that's enough on why everyone cares. Took awhile to set the stage, so let's keep moving. This month I've had a lot of people asking, for the reasons above and other reasons, 'Who will be mayor?' The last two sessions, there were pretty narrow and divided votes. It's wasn't fun to be in the middle of it. There were a lot of bruised feelings right when a new council was emerging from the gate and setting the tone for the next two years. And, of course, there's lots of interest because individual citizens have their favorites for the leadership positions.

I think people wonder if we'll have the same bitterness over the term that begins in January and ends in December 2009.

The answer is, at this point, I am pretty sure it will be bitter and divided.

Here's why:

The council members quarrel a lot. And we have a lot of strong wills in Lakewood. I could be incredibly wrong - and if I am, I bet someone will tell us - but I don't think any combination of mayor and deputy mayor has the four votes they need to win in any sort of automatic way. Take a look at the individuals.

If you look at what we have now on the council field of seven, you have two original council members who already have been mayor and know the potential of the role, Doug Richardson and Claudia Thomas.

And, you also have the Lakewood CARES bloc, Ron Cronk and Pad Finnigan. Now, given how CARES did in the last election and their track record on the council, you may think it is odd I am bringing them up. But as I list names, do a little math in your head. Two votes gives you 50 percent of the four votes you need to be mayor.

I should quickly add of course that you've got Doug's former deputy mayor, Helen McGovern, you have me, and then we have our new member, Don Anderson.

So that's a total of seven chess pieces on the field that, unlike actual chess pieces, can move diagonally, forward and backward.

One of the bargaining chips that people have is the question of who will be deputy mayor. That was the role Claudia held prominently for those first eight years when Harrison was mayor. So there remains much mystique about the role. And if you as potential mayor can find someone to be potential deputy mayor, well, there again, you have two votes or 50 percent of what you need to get elected. And maybe that deputy mayor can bring in another vote or two.

Don't even get me started on the question whether all this should be going on without public discussion about the candidates and their qualifications. The vote just happens in January as if it came from nowhere. If the question has occurred to you, congratulate yourself, because it is a darn good one. But the problems are self-evident, and this posting is long enough.

So as for January: I suppose someone might announce in advance who the mayor will be ... but then that would also let citizens know who the slate will be and who they might propose or oppose in advance of any vote.

So will a mayor logically emerge before we vote in the first meeting of January? Could happen. But unless it does, people who ask me, 'Who's going to be our next mayor?' are in for a pretty long answer.
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Lots of people have been working on the question about what to do, if anything, with publicly owned street ends and other city properties that dead-end at the edge of a lake. I wanted to give you an update.

At the Nov. 27 meeting of the parks and recreation board, staff and volunteers put up different slides showing property lines and photographs for 14 different city-owned properties. Many individuals among a large audience discussed each street end, sometimes to enormous detail. It took about three hours to go through the slides and some interesting discussions. And while that sounds like a lot of time, most of us felt when the meeting was over that we had just skimmed the surface.

The staff put the PowerPoint presentation in PDF form on the city's web site. It's worth looking at if you are interested in this topic. One caveat: the information is preliminary because the process is just starting. If you see a building jutting into the street end, it doesn't mean someone built a structure into public property; it might mean the lines are wrong on the map. We heard at the meeting about a couple examples of this.

There's a separate file you can look at which has measurements and elevations for each of the sites. The same caveat applies. The idea of the measurements was to provide a starting point for discussion, not a detailed blueprint.

As you might imagine, lots of people were squirming during the meeting. These would be the folks who own homes next to those street ends - or their immediate neighbors. I don't blame them. Some people imagine lake access as being a picnic table where a couple could hold hands and watch the sunset. Some people imagine lake access as a small spot where someone might quietly slip a kayak into the water. But other people will imagine lake access as a place where gangsters can gather at night to drink and shoot into the air.

Obviously, nobody is particularly in favor of that last option. But you can’t necessarily blame people who have lived in quiet areas for decades for assuming the worst, particularly in the absence of solid information.

The question now is, will people listen to each other? Will the people who want lake access understand the concerns of neighbors who have lived in quiet and isolation for as long as decades? Will the people who live at or near street ends understand that the lakes belong to every one of us, and that makes the need for access worth some change?

And then there’s a whole question of cost. There are a lot of poor children in Lakewood who don’t live within walking distance of, for example, Fort Steilacoom Park or Lake Steilacoom. These children need parks and recreation too. You could argue that a lot of the kids who live near Fort Steilacoom Park have access to more recreational opportunities because they have more access to transportation options than kids who live in some other parts of town and whose parents don’t own a car.

In fact, after the meeting, I walked from the room wondering what would have happened if we had spent those three hours talking about a very different subject: ways to bring more poor kids in touch with parks.

But that’s sort of another subject. I should have said at the outset that the next meeting to discuss lake access will be 6 p.m. this Tuesday, Dec. 11, in the council chambers at City Hall. I will have to miss this meeting for another obligation, so if you go, feel free to let me know what you thought. Another meeting just about Lake Steilacoom, where the larger share of street ends is located, will be held in January. And it will take some time for recommendations to get to the council. You can get an overview of the process at this site.

As you might imagine, I took a lot of notes during a three-hour meeting with dozens of citizens present. I was going to share some notes about each of the 14 properties, but this post is already long. I’ll be sure to do that at some point. One thing I found interesting is that many of the street ends are much narrower than one might think by what we've all heard so far. For example, the two properties on Gravelly Lake are each only 25 feet wide. Both involve a steep climb to the lake that would make a mockery of any handicapped accessibility requirements.

So many of us at the meeting, including at least one proponent of widespread lake access, were mentally crossing those properties off our list for much further consideration. But that itself makes for an interesting question. Gravelly Lake is widely known as 'the place where the rich folks live.' Is it fair to consider expanded lake access at, say, Lake Louise and Steilacoom Lake just because by historical accident they have wider street ends than Gravelly Lake? I’m having trouble putting into words why this concept bothers me, but it does bother me.

I should quickly note that this is not the final word on the subject; future meetings may involve some brainstorming that might come up with possibilities even for the many narrow properties among the 14. I don't mean to close anything off, just to let you know what some folks might have been thinking during the meeting.

There is a lot to this subject. I’m just glad we all finally summoned the fortitude to consider these questions, instead of pretending as most of us have for many years that the street ends did not even exist. That's one good thing you can say about the current Lakewood City Council. I'm glad we are approaching this proactively rather than waiting for someone to float an initiative that might send people into a panic.

We owe everyone - whether they want more lake access or want no changes at all - the chance to explore these questions together as a community. We owe it to ourselves to come up with some answers.
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