Issaquah’s only locally owned newspaper
THE ISSAQUAH PRESS
117th Year, No. 18
Thursday, May 5, 2016
issaquahpress.com
$533 million school bond passes easily By David Hayes dhayes@isspress.com The vote on Issaquah School District’s bond was not even close. At the April 27 Issaquah School Board meeting, Superintendent Ron Thiele could hardly wipe the smile off his face. “People support us and that feels really, really good,” he said. He thanked the community for supporting education and praised the efforts of Volunteers for Issaquah Schools organizers Dawn Peschek and Alicia Veevaert.
Peschek and Veevaert, leaders of the nonprofit promoting the measure’s passage, widened the organization’s audience reach this election season, presenting the bond information to groups across the district. Issaquah’s bond committee, which has a greater success rate of passing its bond proposals, put forth a list of district needs that would be addressed with a $533.5 million bond. “They really stepped up to the challenge, “ Issaquah School Board President Suzanne Weaver said.
The bond will now pay for the construction of four new schools — two elementary schools, one middle school and a fourth high school. District spokesperson L. Michele said the bond has a seven- to nineyear build-out, so the priority will be to acquire new land to build upon. “We can start right away on the expansion work, such as the complete reconstruction at Pine Lake Middle School,” she said. In addition, to accommodate the growing student populations and
provide for state funded full day kindergarten, Discovery, Endeavour, Sunset, Cougar Ridge, Maple Hills and Clark elementary schools will all be expanded or modernized by four to eight classrooms each. Having the voter’s approval to move forward with the project had many excited when the initial returns were announced. “I may have screamed, I don’t know,” Weaver recalled when seeing the first vote returns.
THE VOTE Issaquah School District bond APPROVED
71% 16,322 votes REJECTED
29% 6,547 votes
Reporter Christina Corrales-Toy contributed to this story.
PUTTING THEIR BEST FOOT FORWARD
Preservation group: Providence Heights campus ‘most-endangered’ By Scott Stoddard sstoddard@isspress.com
Scott Stoddard / sstoddard@isspress.com
YWCA Family Village Issaquah hosted an event in the Issaquah Highlands where 250 new pairs of shoes from the nonprofit group Soles4Souls were distributed for free. Volunteers from Acer America and the YWCA helped with sizing and fitting at the giveaway. VIEW MORE PHOTOS AND VIDEO AT ISSAQUAHPRESS.COM
Proposed East Sunset Way project worries business owners By Tom Corrigan tcorrigan@isspress.com Business owners on East Sunset Way are worried. “This is going to cost us thousands and thousand of dollars,” said Thomas Flintoft, one of the owners and operators of Flintoft’s Funeral Home. The potential elimination of all on-street parking along East Sunset from First Avenue to Sixth Avenue is part of the rebuilding of the thoroughfare proposed by the city’s traffic task force. The 11-member group created by Mayor Fred Butler proposed nine projects in all.
“I recognize the need for change,” said Flintoft’s son, Allen. “But you have to do it the right way.” “We are all going to be negatively affected,” said Mark Sherwood of Sherwood Chiropractic. As proposed, the project would add a 17-foot-wide multi-use trail on the south side of the street, with three 11-foot travel lanes and landscaping and sidewalks on the north side. The estimated cost is $10.5 million. Deputy City Administrator Emily See PROJECT, Page 3
Tom Corrigan / tcorrigan@isspress.com
Thomas Flintoft is one East Sunset Way business owner who is concerned about a proposed makeover of the roadway that would eliminate street parking.
The Washington Trust for Historic Preservation on April 25 named Issaquah’s Providence Heights divinity school campus — including its centerpiece chapel — as one of the state’s seven most-endangered properties. The entire campus, including its architecturally significant midcentury modern chapel, would be razed and replaced with approximately 140 single-family homes if a developer’s preliminary plat filed with the city is approved. The chapel features 14 33-foot-tall sculptured stained-glass windows by French master artist Gabriel Loire, who died in 1996. Loire’s work appears in religious venues around the world. Poised to purchase the property from a megachurch, Bellevue developer Brixton Homes LLC last month filed additional plans with the city for the subdivision, which has been named Madison Pointe. A key figure in the development is George Reece, who is not only the managing partner of Brixton Homes but also was a high-ranking official in Kirkland-based The City Church, which through a limited liability corporation is the current legal owner of the property, according to King County records. Reece has served as vice president and later as treasurer of City Ministries, a charitable organization associated with The City Church, since at least 2010, according to tax records. The president of City Ministries during that time was Gini Smith, who is one of the founding pastor’s of The City Church. Reece and Smith also serve together on the board of directors at Northwest Univeristy in Kirkland. Diane Reimer, who attended college on the campus when it was operated by the Lutheran Bible Institute of Seattle, was incredulous the chapel would meet its demise at the hands of someone affiliated with a religious organization. “I don’t know if it’s illegal,” Reimer said, “or just immoral, but it’s hard for me to imagine that a good Christian man would think it’s OK to destroy this property for profit.” Reimer, of Joseph, Ore., described the deal between The City Church and Reece as “short-sighted greed.” Reece also co-authored a book, “Marketplace Ministries,” with Smith’s husband, Wendell, who founded The City Church shortly after moving to Issaquah in 1992. The book is summarized on Amazon as “the vision for a God-ordained partnership between business See ENDANGERED, Page 2
Relay For Life team leader is on front lines in battle against cancer IF YOU GO Issaquah Relay For Life Noon to 8 a.m. May 14-15 Issaquah High School, 700 Second Ave. SE Sign up or donate online at bit.ly/1NrQJZI
By David Hayes dhayes@isspress.com As the battle against cancer continues, the statistics are staggering. According to the cancer.gov website, in 2016, an estimated 1.6 million new cases of cancer will be diagnosed in the United States and nearly 600,000 people will die from the disease. And about 39.6 percent of men
and women will be diagnosed with cancer at some point during their lifetimes. For Julie Siefkes, those numbers are not surprising. She’s Julie Siefkes on the front lines of the battle against cancer as a team leader for the American Can-
cer Society’s annual Relay For Life fundraiser, returning to Issaquah High School on May 14-15. Her team of Girl Scouts, aka The Cancer Kickers, has grown from five members when they first started six years ago to 15 this year. The team formed to honor one of the troop dads. “Sadly, one of our dads passed away from melanoma,” Siefkes said. “In honor of him, we said
we’re going to do this relay.” Siefkes said every one of the girls is affected by cancer, ticking them off. “One lost a mom to brain cancer, I had melanoma, one troop mom had breast cancer, another troop mom had breast cancer, another had a cancer scare,” Siefkes said. See RELAY, Page 2 FOLLOW US ON SOCIAL MEDIA
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