Your locally-owned newspaper, serving North Bend and Snoqualmie, Washington
June 30, 2011 VOL. 3, NO. 26
First annual fun run debuts at Centennial Fields Park Page 12
School board: Impact fees are too low By Sebastian Moraga
Rules change Discover Pass required for state parks, lands July 1. Page 2
Fees hike King County considers garbage rate increase. Page 3
Snoqualmie Valley School Board member Scott Hodgins has said impact fees don’t solve anything. “Impact fees don’t even come close to the cost of building a new school,” he said. And yet, Hodgins and the rest of the board bristled, again, at the Snoqualmie City Council’s oppo-
sition to increasing impact fees. Impact fees are assessed on new development in order to defray additional costs the development causes on public services. “We have a city of Snoqualmie, whose mayor says its one of the fastest-growing cities in America,” board president Dan Popp said. “And yet the city is not supporting the schools that will house
the children of that community.” Popp called the Snoqualmie City Council’s decision “a misjudgment. “If the increase had happened in January, that’s $500,000 that would have been collected for schools,” Popp said. The increase has been approved by North Bend, Sammamish and King County. Snoqualmie City Council
member Robert Jeans, present at the June 23 school board meeting, said the next day that he would like to take a new look at impact fees, an issue creating “mutual frustration” among the city, the builders and the schools, he added. “Growth in Snoqualmie has slowed down to little or nothSee IMPACT FEES, Page 7
Police blotter Page 9
EFR sets summer burn ban By Dan Catchpole
Help from his family
with the shovel, he walks 10 feet to a freshly carved cedar dugout canoe that sits waist high and is full of water. He dumps the stone in. Steam rises in the air, and the water hisses. Eight stones are added to the canoe, one every couple feet.
In anticipation of a warm, dry summer, Eastside Fire & Rescue introduced its annual burn ban in mid-June. The ban runs through Sept. 30. While the spring was wet, the area’s dry summers create a great deal of fuel for fires. The wooded suburban communities in EFR’s area create what the agency calls a “wildland urban interface,” which can put homes at risk of wildfires. Between May 1 and June 15, EFR responded to 14 brush fires, according to a news release from the agency. EFR includes North Bend and most of unincorporated King County in the upper Snoqualmie Valley. All outdoor fires are prohibited, but some are allowed with a permit. All fires using wood are also subject to burn bans enacted by the Puget Sound Clean Air Agency. Cooking and recreational fires are allowed with a no-fee permit. The fires must be in a fire pit, use seasoned wood, and cannot be larger than three feet wide and two feet tall. The size restrictions apply year round. “People can still cook, they can still have their campfire this time of year, but they need to get a permit for it if its not in a barbeque pit,” EFR Deputy Chief Bud Backer said.
See CANOE, Page 7
See BURN BAN, Page 3
Teen gets community support during recovery. Page 10
Relay for Life Wife remembers the life of funny, loving husband. Page 11
Signing day Mount Si shortstop signs to play for Texas Tech. Page 12
Prsrt Std U.S. Postage PAID Kent, WA Permit No. 71 POSTAL CUSTOMER
By Dan Catchpole
John Mullen, Snoqualmie Tribe woodcarver, drops a white-hot lava rock into a new dugout cedar canoe. The hot rocks and water help Mullen make the canoe wider, but the process takes two days to complete.
Tribal woodcarver applies finishing touches to canoe By Dan Catchpole John Mullen begins stoking the fire Sunday night. He and fellow Snoqualmie Tribe members add thick logs to the blaze outside the tribe’s woodcarving workshop. Once the fire is roaring, he adds lava stones. They sit in the flames until they are glowing hot. It’s Monday morn-
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ing by the time the stones are ready to come out. Mullen digs a shovel into the fire and pulls out a stone the size of a bread loaf. Carrying it