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Inglemoor ends Mount Si’s soccer season Page 10
Your locally owned newspaper, serving North Bend and Snoqualmie, Washington November 6, 2015
Snoqualmie, North Bend receive minor flooding after last week’s storm By Dylan Chaffin dchaffin@snovalleystar.com The city of Snoqualmie experienced some minor flooding in last week’s storm, but didn’t have to take any emergency measures, other than a small and brief road closure by Meadowbrook Bridge, said Joan Pliego, the city’s public information officer. Pliego said the Snoqualmie River did not overflow riverbanks within the city, and the road closure was due to the rain, not the rise in the water levels. Significant flooding happened mostly north of the cities of Snoqualmie and North Bend, such as Carnation. The city of North Bend closed Northwest Eighth Street and the park and ride across from the Pour House Bar and Grill for flooding, and urged people to clear their own storm drains, gutters and downspouts on their properties to ease
flooding, according to a city news release. Flood crews worked to clear debris from culverts and storm drains, the news release said. Mark Rigos, North Bend Public Works director, said that at their highest points, the middle and south forks of the Snoqualmie River were about 4 feet away from breaching the levies. “It’s good training,” he said. “We’re closely watching the flows, seeing how they rise before they come up.” North Bend did not have to open its emergency operations center, he said, and the city did not have to use any sandbags. The city works closely with Snoqualmie and King County to address flood dangers, he added. It helped that the snowpack was minimal at this time of the year. Adding snow melt to the equation might have made the situation worse, he said.
Snoqualmie School District files eminent domain petitions By Dylan Chaffin dchaffin@snovalleystar.com Snoqualmie Valley School District officials have filed two eminent domain petitions against property owners who have continued to refuse buyout offers for the expansion of Mount Si High School. No court dates have been set, as the district still hopes to come to a working agreement between officials and those property owners, who have raised concerns over being shorted value on the offers for those properties said Ryan Stokes, the district’s assistant superintendent of business services. The homeowners who have reached an agreement with the school district will stay in their homes until Feb. 1, giving them time to find other homes, Stokes said.
“With each of the property owners there have been unique circumstances and different concerns, and we’ve met face to face with each of them,” he said. The district has offered to pay the cost of independent appraisals and relocation fees. Stokes said the district would much rather pay those relocation fees in lieu of condemnation. But there have also been some other miscommunications, he added. According to a list of questions and answers published by the district, Ken Barnes, of McKee & Schalka — a Seattlebased company — was hired to complete the appraisals of the seven parcels located on the southwest corner of the development. See PETITIONS, Page 5
By Sam Kenyon
Volunteer Nels Melgaard saws through a two-by-four Oct. 24 to make the roof rafters for the tiny house being built for the homeless in Seattle.
Tiny homes make big impact By Sam Kenyon skenyon@snovalleystar.com What a difference 96 square feet makes. By the end of this month the Low Income Housing Institute will have completed construction on 15 tiny homes that will be used to create a small living community for people without homes in Seattle. Nickelsville is a self-managed homeless village in Seattle that periodically relocates around the city as necessary. They recently partnered with the Lutheran Church of the Good Shepherd. The church will allow Nickelsville to set up a permanent location at 22nd Avenue and Union Street, where the tiny houses will be arranged into a community. “We’re trying to help them survive, basically,” said Melina Nichols, Low Income Housing Institute’s board president Each home is 8 feet by 12 feet with a window and one light. The homes will be arranged together near communal bathroom facilities. The hope is that two or possibly three people can stay in each home, and the village will organize a democratic miniature society for the people who live there.
By Sam Kenyon
Mount Si is framed in the window hole of the unfinished tiny house. “One of the goals is to build the houses; the other goal is to build the community,” Nichols said. Several different organizations have volunteered to build the individual houses. Often Nichols will have a school or a community college apprenticeship program build the homes so that students can learn about building from the experience. The Tulalip Apprenticeship Program in Marysville has built four homes alone. Nichols is also a member of Sallal Grange and she told her
fellow members about the tiny homes project. “I was talking to friends here about it and they said ‘Oh, See TINY, Page 5 Prsrt Std U.S. Postage PAID Kent, WA Permit No. 71 POSTAL CUSTOMER