Your locally-owned newspaper, serving North Bend and Snoqualmie, Washington
May 16, 2013 VOL. 5, NO. 19
Girls track wins KingCo Page 10
Community works to save theater
Intruder stabbed in North Bend
By Dan Aznoff
Man may have robbed home the day before By Sara Jean Green Seattle Times staff reporter
Daredevil artistry Local students earn state recognition.
Page 2
Child is safe Preschooler falls from window. Page 3
Slow going Road projects are coming to North Bend. Page 6
Police blotter Page 9
Diamond champs Baseball team wins KingCo. Page 10
Prsrt Std U.S. Postage PAID Kent, WA Permit No. 71 POSTAL CUSTOMER
As her husband struggled with an intruder inside their North Bend home early May 13, a young mother grabbed a knife and fatally stabbed the man, who may have been the same person who had attacked her hours earlier in a home-invasion robbery. “From what I understand, it was a pretty brutal battle,” neighbor Steven Vadjinia said. “It’s tragic for the person (who died), but it was a fight for their lives.” The intruder apparently targeted the home shared by three generations of a family at random, according to the King County Sheriff’s Office. No one in the home knew the intruder, she said. “The whole scenario is terrible,” sheriff’s spokeswoman Sgt. Cindi West said. “It seems totally random. We don’t see any indication of why this house would’ve been targeted.” According to the sheriff’s office, the 26-year-old woman, her mother and her 7-month-old daughter were inside the house owned by the woman’s parents when a man in his 40s entered through an unlocked back door a little after 1 p.m. Sunday. The man punched the younger woman and dragged her by her hair. “He had a hold of her by her ponytail, so she didn’t get a real good look at him,” West said. The woman gave the intruder some cash and the man fled, she said. The woman and her mother called 911, but a sheriff’s K-9 team was unable to track down the intruder. Then, a little after 1 a.m. Monday, deputies responded to another 911 call from the home in the 10100 block of 420th Avenue Southeast after an intruder had been stabbed. He See STABBED, Page 5
By Mary Miller
The theater owners have diversified beyond movies, such as hosting acts during this year’s Blues Walk.
The tranquil image of the small-town business Cindy and Jim Walker imagined when they purchased the North Bend Theatre has crashed head first into the business side of Hollywood. The proprietors of the singlescreen movie house on Bendigo Boulevard were told they must invest in digital projection equipment to meet the requirements of distributors or lose access to the latest film releases. The owners of the 72-year-old theater have turned to the community to save their beloved movie house. “We quietly hoped that the North Bend Theatre would escape the digital revolution and continue to exist in the world of 35mm film for years to come,” Cindy Walker admitted. “But, such is not the case. Film is rapidly disappearing as movie distributors ramp up their complete conversion to digital distribution and projection of movies.” See THEATRE, Page 3
Snoqualmie Valley School Board will hold focus groups about possible bond By Megg Joosten After five failed funding measures in recent years, the Snoqualmie Valley School Board will go to the people to hear what they want in a bond measure for schools. At least, a few of the people. The board at its May 9 meeting set the dates for two public focus groups that will look at school bond options. At least three board members will attend the focus groups, and each board member will invite members of the community to participate, according to Carolyn Malcolm, public information coordinator for the school district. “They are by invitation only,
because they want to get a representative group,” Malcolm said. “People have been more likely to come if they get a personal letter or call.” Although participation in the focus groups is by invitation only, the public is invited to observe, Malcolm said. Anyone who is interested in serving on a future focus group can go to www.svsd410.org to fill out a volunteer form. The proposed bond will help alleviate the growing population at the middle school and high school levels, Popp said. At the focus groups, the three scenarios for the bond will be discussed. Scenario one will be to expand Mount Si High School
and bring it up to 21st century standards, Popp said. In doing that, the freshman campus opening this fall would be returned to its original state as a middle school. A massive high school renovation would be the fastest way to return the high school to a four-year campus, but it requires a larger, upfront investment, Popp said in a phone interview. Scenarios two and three include improving the high school in phases that would take longer than scenario one, Popp said. That would require a third middle school to be built because the freshman campus would then need to remain as See BOND, Page 6