Neary-Sighted

Well not me, the American Cancer Society. Yes, I know we're all hit up for money these days. The economy's beyond bad. And many of us can't give, I know that. But if you can ...

I had the honor of being present when Lakewood Police Chief Farrar spoke in front of his department after the horrible shootings. He and his wife are great people. For them to both have cancer, is horrible. And if we can raise some money to address prevention, diagnosis and treatment of cancer, at least something, some small thing, becomes positive from this story.

The team gets its name - "Show Me Your Hands" - from what the chief said at the Tacoma Dome memorial. It's fascinating how that sentence takes on even more power and urgency now.

Volunteers at the Lakewood Police Department have formed a team to walk the weekend of June 4 at the Relay for Life at Clover Park High School. My shift is 5 a.m. Saturday. You can donate to the team page here Please consider showing your credit card.
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The Lakewood City Council was an early adopter of the E-Verify program that verifies potential employees have a legal reason to be in this country. I remain proud of our early involvement in something that's really caught on. As I watch the struggles my new son-in-law has getting the paperwork approved so he can work in this country, I have greater respect for those in the country legally and abiding by the rules.

Today's News Tribune has a story about an odd effect of this policy . The Lakewood Historical Society, which is still in many ways a new organization and whose museum could use some marketing, now can't reach out to potential customers through rack cards at hotels and tourist destinations. The company in the story is widely known to have what one of our staff referred to at the meeting as a "monopoly" on rack card distribution and locations. It's been awhile since I did research on this topic, but it was well known that if you wanted your cards distributed, this was the company to do it.

If you read the story, you can see a clear exemption that the council missed (and you have to read the story to understand what I'll say next). Our E-Verify policy currently allows people to get around the intent of the law. A company that refuses to check potential employees for legal status can still get tax dollars if there's a third party involved. And sure, that could lead to a solution for the Lakewood Historical Society. The Lakewood Historical Society could pay my son $5 and a pizza to accept the city dollars in a contract with the Lakewood Historical Society and then channel the city money to Certified Display Folder Services. My son would have to abide by E-Verify, but Certified Display would not.

I think it's fair to say the council didn't expect this. We need to tighten up the rules so all parties who get tax dollars have to comply. If you read the story's reference to the Tacoma visitors' bureau, you see an even more odd exemption. The way we have the rules now, if you are an entity that gets a lot of money from taxpayers, you don't have to check if potential employees are here legally. There's no way the council intended that.

At the end of the day, it's pretty simple. We need to be consistent.
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By odd coincidence, I started working on this note and uploaded the slide presentation below right before learning yesterday of the huge challenge facing our police chief and his wife. Everyone is very upset, of course, as Bret and Cindy are wonderful people. And it's not like the Lakewood Police Department has been catching a lot of breaks lately. Statistically, they are due for some good news, which is yet another reason I suspect we'll have Bret and Cindy to see around for a good long time.

Brett helps out with many charities, and he and Cindy donated use of their vacation home a couple blocks from the ocean to the Lakewood chamber to auction off for a weekend. My own Cindy and I won that and stayed there, and were just amazed at how their home looked like something out of Sunset or the Seattle Times' home of the week. Everything was in light fabrics and Cindy and I were afraid to move lest we get something dirty! But what struck me was how Bret emphasized, insisted, we should take what we want from the frig. These are people who share - their lives, their home - and we shall all be praying for them and their recovery.

Anyway, I wanted to share the latest crime numbers that have come to the council. The good news is that crime rates are generally down, which is pretty grand considering some of the horrible things that got thrown at our Lakewood Police Department lately.

Here's a slideshow for you to look at. Tell me what you think of the numbers and details. Year to date numbers show decreases compared to the same period in 2009 for rape, for robbery, and for many other categories. There's a decrease in the number of reported crimes of domestic violence, which is good news (assuming there's also a decrease in the number of actual crimes) when you consider what the rates were last year. Let me know what you think.


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Sat down over teriyaki this afternoon to try to get through a backlog of unread magazines, and look what I found: Fascinating article with implications for our situation in Lakewood and DuPont: High-Speed Rail in California: Transit Solution or Fiscal Disaster?
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I just posted on my Facebook councilman's page some quick reflections about the story in the TNT related to further and proper study of the Point Defiance Bypass. The study process will take 12 to 24 months and means we won't have the Utilities and Transportation Commission hearing in June. Hopefully everyone can come together and accept responsibility for fully studying this project AND living up to what comes out of a full study. More to come.
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Earlier this year I wrote about a state-mandated effort to assemble a plan for managing the places where land in Lakewood touches water: the shoreline master plan.

The first meeting has been scheduled for a week from Tuesday, and if you've got property on the water or are interested in our shorelines, it's worth going. The process is very, very early but I've always found when I'm passionate about something it's better to arrive early and not later. Here's the official word from the weekly city manager's report:

Shoreline Master Plan Update Kick-Off Meeting: The Shoreline Master Plan Update Kick-Off Meeting is scheduled for Tuesday, May 18th, from 6:00 p.m. to 8:30 p.m., at the Clover Park High School Performing Arts Center, 11023 Gravelly Lake Drive SW, in Lakewood.

The Washington State Shoreline Management Act (SMA) requires the City of Lakewood to update its current Shoreline Master Plan Program (SMP). The SMP will be used to set policy and establish regulations for development of shoreline areas. For further information, please visit the city’s website at www.cityoflakewood.us/news-and-events/689-shoreline-master-plan-updates.html.

Questions can be directed to Senior Planner Marc Amrine of the Community Development Dept. (253) 512-2261, ext. 7753.
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Pierce County Library System Executive Director Neel Parikh came by last night to fill in the Lakewood City Council on planning for the library system. The city doesn't operate the libraries, but we sure like to keep track of them.

Here's highlights of what I heard yesterday. If you are very interested in our local libraries, I'd encourage you to dive into the district's planning site that has, among other things, a full report on individual libraries. Click on "summary report" (It's a big file); the Lakewood library section is on page 90, and then the Steilacoom and Tillicum sections follow alphabetically.

If you thought the libraries are crowded, the library system knows it. They figure the main Lakewood library over in my neighborhood should have at least 260 seats and more like 320: it currently has 107 seats. The library has 41 computers, and the district thinks it should have 100 to 130 based on national standards.

There's a smaller library located in Tillicum that's 2,100 square feet; national standards would call for it to be around 8,000 square feet. And of course many of you know the library in Steilacoom is just a healthy stone toss from Lakewood's boundary; that building is 4,000 square feet and should be 11,000 square feet given the usage from Steilacoom and us neighbors.

The Pierce County library system is huge. They count up the need for more buildings and space and come up with a pricetag of $310 million in today's construction dollars.

To their credit, they're smart enough to know that an election for a bond issue for that much money in this economy is a non-starter. So the library system is biding its time, speaking at events and meetings and educating people for when the economy improves and the library system and a citizens' committee would feel ready to meet the voters.

Main Lakewood Library: In that environment, it's almost pointless to talk about options though certainly it would be nice if something got put together. There have been rumors for years, some of them well-founded and some not, about efforts to move the Lakewood library somewhere into the Town Center (former Lakewood Mall) area. If the city ran the library, that probably would have happened, for good or for bad. That location is still a preferred area for the library system, but they're willing to look at alternatives, such as in the Colonial Center area.

You'd need 4 acres for a full Lakewood library and that's pretty huge in our developed city. 'Course maybe you could combine it with something else and share parking. One option is to put a second story on the current building and an underground parking garage. But this is all idle talk unless someone can couple a new library with something else under construction.

Tillicum Library: Nobody's about to put a second story on the Tillicum Community Center, but it may be possible for the library to work something out with the Clover Park School District and their plans for new construction. Let's hope. They are extending library hours into the evening there, which is much appreciated.

Steilacoom Library: Someone invented the phrase "postage stamp-sized lot" for the Steilacoom location, though you could in theory pop a second story on the current building. The library system indeed could do that, or find another location. Obviously it's a bit more convenient for Lakewood if the Steilacoom Library stays where it is, but again, all this is sort of talk right now unless some developers or other governments come forward with creative ideas.

E-Readers: Councilmember Jason Whalen asked a very good question because this library system wants to design buildings that would last to 2030. He asked about e-readers such as the Amazon Kindle and the Barnes and Noble Nook (which I should add my daughter sells at the Lakewood Barnes and Noble) and whether that would reduce the need for physical bound books and their storage.

Neel said their estimates assume 20 percent of "books" use will reflect downloadable books in 2030. She noted that a lot of their space needs are driven by the seats: seats for computers, seats for people to work individually and in groups, etc..

I'm glad I don't have to predict what computers, e-readers or anything else will look like in 2030. For forecasting, 2030 might as well be 5030 in terms of how technology changes so quickly and unexpectedly.

You might prowl around the library system website for more info: there's a news release about their community planning effort here.
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