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RECENT RATE INCREASES GET INVOLVED First place The Issaquah Press,General Excellence — Nondaily Newspapers Laura Geggel,Environment and Science Reporting — ‘Windy and wet: Snoqualmie Valley’s weird weather’ Second place Ari Cetron,Environment and Science Reporting — ‘Local invention deployed to Gulf oil-cleanup effort’ Laura Geggel,Education FROM PAGE A1 FROM PAGE A1 FROM PAGE A1 Email thoughts or suggestions about the proposed 2012 bond to [email protected].
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Superintendent Ron Thiele said. In another instance, the com-
mittee added a remodel of theMaple Hills Elementary Schooloffice, costing a projected$35,000. The remodel would giveoffice staff a view of the frontdoor, helping the school’s safetymonitoring.
The committee unanimouslyapproved the bond proposal April26, allowing the bond to move toits third phase: the superinten-dent’s review.
Superintendent Steve Rasmussenattended all of the committee’smeetings, and he will spend thenext month analyzing and possiblychanging the proposal before hepresents it to the school board inJune.
Rasmussen, with a team ofadministrators, will examine theoriginal springboard, the commit-tee’ proposal, the feasibility ofvoters’ approval and the taxpay-ers’ burden.
He will make a recommenda-tion to the board, which willreview the proposed bond thissummer. By fall, the board willdecide whether to put the bondbefore voters, likely in Februaryor April.
In the fifth and final step, voterswill have their say. The bondneeds a supermajority of 60 per-cent to pass. Voters passed themost recent district bond with a68 percent approval rating in2006 for a bond of $241.8 million.
The more the district can collectin voter-approved bond money,the less it has to rely on its gener-al fund to pay for maintenance,Rasmussen said. Bond money canonly be used for school construc-tion or repair. On the other hand,the general fund pays for itemsincluding teacher salaries andschool supplies. If the district doesnot have bond money, it will haveto dip into its general fund to fixmalfunctioning buildings.
“We want to make sure we havequality schools for kids,” he said.
No matter the state of the econ-omy, parents and the communityexpect Issaquah to have the bestschools, programs and teachersfor students, and the bond canhelp the district do that, he added.
Items on the listThough still fluid, the commit-
tee’s bond proposal adds a num-ber of renovations to the district.
Apollo Elementary School andBeaver Lake, Maywood, PacificCascade and Pine Lake middleschools would each get a new arti-ficial-turf field, costing $1.3 mil-lion apiece. All of those schoolshave muddy fields in winter, mak-ing them temporarily unusable.
Although an elementary school,Apollo was added to the listbecause few schools in the south-ern part of the district have a syn-thetic field, and the district want-ed that community to have equalaccess to fields when school wasnot in session, Thiele said.
The artificial fields will helpfinances in the long term, savingmoney on custodial work andmaintenance, such as mowing,watering, fertilizing and aerating.
The proposed bond alsoincludes new rubber floors forareas in 10 schools across the dis-trict. The rubber — alreadyinstalled at the new IssaquahHigh School — lasts longer thancarpet, is quieter to walk on thanvinyl and is easy to clean, Thielesaid.
The proposed bond would alsoimprove Skyline’s athletic space.Many of the benches on theschool’s homeside bleachershave snapped at the base. Schoolstaff members have removed thebroken bleachers, meaning fanshave to stand during games. Thebleachers also have no raincover.
With the bond, Skyline wouldconvert its homeside bleachers tovisitors’ seating, receive a raincover for its new homeside seat-ing and get a larger press box,more bathrooms, concessions andweatherproof storage, costing$6.8 million.
The project would make Skylineon par with the other highschools, one of the missions of thebond.
“There was a big discussionabout equity,” Thiele said. “Youshould have equal facilities.”
Laura Geggel: 392-6434, ext. 241, [email protected]. Comment atwww.issaquahpress.com.
“We’ve got ratepayers living inProvidence Point,” he said.“They’re not seeing an increase intheir Social Security payments —they’re living on a fixed income.”
To raise rates “in one fell swooplike this is a little bit much,” hesaid.
Hike lays foundation for replacementsOfficials said more than one-
third of the increase is for the dis-trict’s replacement fund — a 4-year-old account aimed at bankingmoney for the replacement ofaging infrastructure.
The district has pipes approach-ing 40 or 50 years old in someolder developments on theSammamish Plateau. Officials aimto make current ratepayers shoul-der future costs.
“The commissioners believe it’stheir responsibility to set some ofthese funds aside … so that thatburden is supported by the sys-tem’s current users rather thanshifted to future users of the sys-tem,” Krauss said.
In addition to rising gas andelectricity prices, Krauss said thedistrict also has numerous employ-ees approaching the higher end ofthe district’s salary ladder —meaning increases in personnelcosts. The cost of health care hasalso been rising at about 6 percentper year.
Barton said 2 percent of thewater rate increase and 1.6 per-cent of the sewer rate increase isdue to rising operating expenses.
The district is also feeling acrunch from the downturn in con-struction due to a drop-off in devel-opment fees.
Krauss said the district’s operat-
ing budget is affected by the slow-down, because the district mustplan ahead in making capitalinvestments to accommodatefuture growth.
The down economy also meansthe district is getting less of areturn on its investments throughthe King County Investment Pool.The fund handles cash reservesfor nearly 100 school, fire, andwater and sewer districts in thecounty.
Harman said investing in thereplacement fund is good policyin order to avoid the potential ofeven larger and more sudden rateincreases as the district’s infra-structure starts needing replace-ment in the coming years. But hesaid the agency could find waysto trim costs in next year’s budg-et.
“We’ve got to find some cost-cut-ting,” he said. “We just can’t sus-tain these types of rate increases.”
Caleb Heeringa: 392-6434, ext. 247, [email protected]. Warren Kagarise:392-6434, ext. 234, or [email protected]. Comment at www.issaquah-press.com.
Serving the community for 111 years
Society of Professional Journalists has named The Issaquah Press the Best Non-Daily for two years running.
A great community deserves a great newspaper!
No. 1 again!
RECENT RATE INCREASESSammamish Plateau Water andSewer District customers start pay-ing more for water and sewer serv-ice June 1. The district has alsoincreased rates in recent years:�2006 — 4 percent�2007 — 0 percent�2008 — 9 percent�2009 — 7 percent�2010 — 7.5 percent�2011 — 13 percent
Source: Sammamish PlateauWater and Sewer District
RatesFROM PAGE A1
Kagarise earned secondplace in the Government andPolitics Reporting category fora piece about legislative elec-tion battlegrounds.
Kagarise also earned thirdplace for Spot News Reportingfor Lake Sammamish StatePark shootings coverage.
Star Editor Dan Catchpoletook third place in the Gov-ernment and Politics Report-ing category for a piece aboutKing County Sheriff’s Officedeputy salaries, a subject ofintense focus amid cuts lastyear.
Cetron earned third place inthe Editorial and Commentarycategory for urging Sen. CherylPflug to show up more often forvotes.
WHAT TO KNOWThe Issaquah Press earned sever-
al honors in the Society ofProfessional Journalists’ NorthwestExcellence in Journalism contest lastweek. Read the award-winningpieces in the online version of thisarticle at www.issaquahpress.com.
First place�The Issaquah Press, GeneralExcellence — Nondaily Newspapers�Laura Geggel, Environment andScience Reporting — ‘Windy andwet: Snoqualmie Valley’s weirdweather’
Second place�Ari Cetron, Environment andScience Reporting — ‘Local inventiondeployed to Gulf oil-cleanup effort’�Laura Geggel, Education
Reporting — ‘Mock crash and funeralencourage safety’�David Hayes, Health Reporting —‘Swedish teams combine efforts innew atrial fibrillation procedure’�Warren Kagarise, Government andPolitics Reporting — ‘Battleground forLegislature runs through Issaquah’
Third place�Dan Catchpole, Government andPolitics Reporting — ‘King Countydeputies’ pay rates outpace Eastsidedepartments’�Ari Cetron, Editorial andCommentary — ‘Sen. Pflug needs toshow up’�Warren Kagarise, Environment andScience Reporting — ‘City makeshistory in effort to turn restaurants“green”’�Warren Kagarise, Spot NewsReporting — ‘“All hell broke loose”’
AwardsFROM PAGE A1
GET INVOLVEDEmail thoughts or suggestionsabout the proposed 2012 bond [email protected].
BondFROM PAGE A1
Nominate Issaquah residents asthe state Department of Fish andWildlife seeks members for thePuget Sound Hatchery Action advi-sory group.
The agency is accepting applica-tions through June 3 for the newboard. Officials plan to appoint upto 12 people to the group.
The advisory group is responsi-ble for developing recommenda-tions for potential modificationsto the state’s hatchery programs.The state operates the IssaquahSalmon Hatchery downtown.
Nominations must be submittedin writing and include:�Nominee’s name, address, tele-
phone number and email address�Relevant experience and rea-sons for wanting to serve as amember�Nominee’s effectiveness in com-munication�Name and contact informationfor any individual or organizationsubmitting a nomination
Submit nominations to HeatherBartlett, Hatcheries Division manag-er, by mail to WashingtonDepartment of Fish and Wildlife,600 Capitol Way N., Olympia, WA98501. Or, email materials [email protected]. CallBartlett at 360-902-2662 to learnmore.
Join hatchery advisory group School district awardsMaywood contract
Six contractors submittedbids for the Maywood MiddleSchool addition and moderniza-tion; M.J. Takisaki Inc. wasawarded the project.
The Seattle company gave thelowest base bid at $11.8 millionin a range of base bids thatwent as high as $13.2 million.
After accepting the base bid,district staff members agreed toseveral more construction proj-ects at the school, including anew elevator and fire alarmsystem, as well as new parti-tions and music storage rooms,bringing the bid to about $12.2million. Finally, the districtagreed to a Washington statesales tax of about $1 million,bringing the final bid to $13.2million.
The Issaquah School boardapproved the bid at its April 28meeting. Maywood’s modern-ization and expansion is slatedfor completion by August 2012.
Dollars steered to economicdevelopment projects
King County leaders scrappedthe outdated EconomicEnterprise Corp. and directedfunds from the program to eco-nomic development programsthroughout the region.
The legislation approved May2 by the County Council directsalmost all of the $95,000remaining in the corporation tobe disbursed to smaller projects.
The beneficiaries include$10,000 for the Puget SoundRegional Council — the plan-ning authority for King, Kitsap,Pierce and Snohomish counties— to update a regional econom-ic strategy and $20,000 for thecounty Department of NaturalResources and Parks.
“This small investment canmake a big difference for oureconomy,” Councilwoman KathyLambert, a co-sponsor of thelegislation and the Issaquahrepresentative, said in a release.
Created in 1984, theEconomic Enterprise Corp.issued industrial revenue bondsto economic development in thecounty. The agency issuedbonds totaling more than $48million and created more than600 jobs.
State lawmakers created theWashington EconomicDevelopment Finance Authorityin 1990. The statewide agencyserved the same purpose as thecounty’s Economic EnterpriseCorp. Eliminating the countyagency eliminates duplicationand saves money.
A6 • Wednesday, May 25, 2011 The Issaquah Press
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