City officials welcomed public input this past week on two of the most heavily visited areas of the city: Kirkland’s shoreline and downtown shopping district.
The King Conservation District (KCD) Board of Supervisors last week elected Kirkland resident Bill Knutsen as its new chairman.
The Cascade Land Conservancy (CLC) last weekend presented the City of Kirkland with its “Stewardship Legacy Award” in honor of a “tireless commitment to the restoration of forested natural areas and parks through the Green Kirkland Partnership.”
Growing up in the 1960s, it seemed as though every evening’s TV news was filled with scenes of Birmingham, Ala., sheriff Bull Connor either turning fire hoses or police dogs on crowds of civil rights protesters. Whether it was Walter Cronkite or Huntley and Brinkley, the lead story of the evening too often recounted some horrific act like the assassination of the NAACP’s Medgar Evers or the discovery of the bodies of three murdered Freedom Summer voter registration activists in an earthen dam in Mississippi.
Public Health-Seattle & King County has approved the reopening of the swimming area at Kirkland’s Juanita Beach Park.
The Lake Washington School District broke ground on the new Robert Frost Elementary School in the Kingsgate area of Kirkland on June 11. The school will replace the existing elementary as part of the District’s modernization program.
Hundreds of Kirkland residents crowded into City Hall June 12 for a Planning Commission meeting to discuss two plans for Parkplace redevelopment, but it was a third plan floated by the commission to allow up to 11 stories that had the crowd buzzing.
Of the estimated 200-250 people in attendance, many expressed surprise that the Commission would offer a plan to increase by three-stories the first proposal submitted by the developer — especially considering the controversy surrounding an original request to increase the height limit from five to eight stories.
Three Kirkland students are among the 2,800 students nationwide who have received National Merit Scholarships financed by colleges and universities.
A recent audit of the Lake Washington School District came back clean, with the State Auditor’s Office reporting no major problems or deficiencies at area schools. In concluding its report, the Auditor’s Office told the District it should be “very pleased” with its results, according to a District news release sent out last week.
Fourth of July fireworks, graffiti removal and most of the city’s IT department are a few of the programs and services at the margin that could be trimmed from the city budget in the next two years, city officials said at their most recent meeting to discuss a growing “record deficit.”
The Kirkland Planning Commission will host a hearing to discuss a proposed height increase for Parkplace tomorrow at 7 p.m. in the City Council chambers.
The King County Sheriff’s Office annual “Party Patrol” to target underage drinking at high school graduation parties began last Friday and will continue at least the next several weeks.
The goal of the extra patrols is to curtail teenage drinking and driving.
That and more incident reports from the Kirkland Police Department between the dates of May 28 and June 3.
A potential controversy over Bridle Trails State Park was avoided last week when Seattle City Light agreed to drastically reduce the number of trees it would cut down to protect power lines running through the park’s center.
Kirkland Mayor Jim Lauinger presented a group of Northwest University students with a public service award at the City Council’s June 3 meeting in recognition of the many hours the students spent designing and editing public service advertisement videos for Kirkland’s Green Building Program. Groups of students worked on the one-minute videos as an assignment for a mass communications course.
Kirkland Police officer Eric Trombley said he called out to the suspect once, twice, even four times to stop running. But the man kept moving, fighting through a steep ravine of blackberry brambles -- and toward a residential neighborhood.
The Kirkland City Council again put off a definitive decision on downtown development at its June 3 meeting, both delaying judgement on an appeal of the Bank of America redevelopment project for a third month and suspending another downtown redevelopment appeal until later in June.
More than 100 pieces of artwork by 50 local artists ages 65 and over will be on display at Kirkland’s Madison House Retirement Community for the third annual “Every Picture Tells a Story” art show July 1 through July 20.
Juanita resident Wesley Petersen is one of five members of a Western Washington University human-powered submarine team that will travel to San Diego, Calif., July 23-27 to compete in the Human-Powered Submarine Contest, sponsored by the American Society of Mechanical Engineers.
