I think Ray and his team are doing a great job and Ray is always very responsive to residents’ concerns.

All I have to say is Bravo! I agree with your perspective 100%. You are not alone in your thinking. Each of us is responsible for our own well-being. The City has responsibilities too, however, individuals need to be prepared precisely for when the system breaks down and services are not at ordinary levels. We, as individuals and neighbors helping neighbors, are the only true and reliable safety net.

Those who do not prepare for emergencies and think that someone else will be take care of them will always be left wanting. Self-reliance is the key. It always has been so and only in the past few generations have some of us, as a society, been willing to abdicate that responsibility.

Thank you for your comments.

Your description makes it sound like some sort of secret, nefarious plot to take over our city. And makes you sound a bit kooky.

Perhaps you’d prefer another coffee shop, hair salon or Thai restaurant? This will be a fun place that will bring people downtown, and keep downtown people from heading elsewhere.

Just one persons thoughts and I know there will be those that totally disagree but that is what I love about America and opinion columns.

Steve

The past ‘Founders’ Weeks’ were premised on both highly questionable research and scholarship, particularly the statement: “WHEREAS, Peter Kirk, Walter Williams, John Kellett, Leigh Hunt, Reginald Collins and Joshua Montgomery Sears are recognized as the founders of Kirkland.”This collection of names in the old proclamations appears an attempt to credit some investors and officers in the various c.1888 Peter Kirk enterprises with ‘founding’ Kirkland, but since Kirkland was not incorporated until 1905 it seems the claim is that Kirkland was ‘founded’ by those associated with the 1888 Kirkland land plat which consists of today’s Market and Norkirk neighborhoods. I find this odd, there is zero documentation that absentee Bostonite investor Sears, a financial speculator, so much as ever once set foot in Kirkland! Collins, according to all records including recorded statements by his son, came west after being promised a job at the mill by Hunt, but no job was forthcoming when Collins arrived here he promptly left the area for years and he did not return live in Kirkland until well after the Kirk steel enterprise had failed, though he did become its (second) mayor in 1905. So, there seems no historical record to support his inclusion as a ‘founder’ if the focus is the c.1888 Kirk period. Added to this, there were numerous other individuals just as deeply connected, if not more so, to the enterprise, such as Seattle co-founder Arther A Denney, who were excluded for KHS’ previous ‘founders’ list! Denny and Kirk met frequently and it was from Denny’s mines that mill planners hoped to obtain the needed iron ore. Though 1920-30′s newspaper stories credit Denny as co-founding Kirkland and his son, Orion, created Finn Hill’s very popular O.O. Denny Park, Denny was completely ignored, quite oddly.          For KHS to have created an inaccurate portrait photograph altar of sorts on Heritage Hall’s main floor to these six men and inaccurately deeming them Kirkland’s ‘founders’ is, I think, unfairly exclusionary to the many of today’s Kirklanders who are living descendents of Kirkland’s pioneer families, both homesteaders and ‘town’ people who came during Kirk’s time but remained here during depression years and struggled for years to carve out a town, unlike many of those previously considered ‘founders,’ like Peter Kirk himself, who scattered to other areas after the venture’s c.1893 collapse. While all this might seem trivial to the average reader, I believe that the historical record should be accurate, especially when the City of Kirkland is endorsing it. The city does not have historians on staff, nor does it have the resources to fact-check historic proclamations, so it is really up to KHS to double check its work product and related scholarship when involving the city in a public way. Especially since inaccurate information always seems to have a way of working itself into what is presented to children, so I think it is important that kids today get accurate historical information and stories, as I did as a AG Bell Elementary student in the early 1970s. The City of Kirkland really needs to be able to rely on KHS as a source of accurate information which contains conventional academic citations to authority upon which the city can rely without embarrassment or reservation. Kirkland is the Eastside’s MOST historic community and I think this fact should be celebrated and its accurate story actively disseminated, especially since so many longtime Kirkland families have generously donated to the PEOPLE of Kirkland, with KHS as mere steward, their family photos and other resources over the past two decades for this very purpose.     I commend KHS on its (hopefully) change of course and endorse heartily Kirkland History Month!             

In the rush to make sure they would be the group that could lay claim to being the Council that bought the trail, the Council threw all logic and good sense about the issue out the window.  They ignored the fact that the City had never put together the long-term plans for purchasing, developing and maintaining this property, even though it has been something the City has talked about for years. And I find it hard to believe that the fact that our City Manager was deeply involved in this trail during his time with King County is a coincidence.

So cast your vote however you want, but realize that no matter what the City does, they will be coming back to ask for more money or reductions in other projects.  And it is a neat trick to pass funding for this project one step at a time, so it isn’t clear to anyone the overall financial burden in the end. 

But, that is clearly an indication that something moving. Maybe the new development on the other side of 98th triggered it…