Dear Editor,

I just finished reading “If you don’t like progress, move away” in the Letters to the Editor (6/25/08). I feel compelled to disagree with this writer.

My wife and I chose to live here precisely because of the quality of life in Kirkland. We have owned our house for 17 years and have seen many changes, some of them to the detriment of that quality of life. Hopefully Kirkland will never be another Bellevue.

Kirkland possesses a core, a sense of place that Bellevue, if it ever had it, lost in the race to be bigger, richer, more upscale. Bellevue is a nice place to visit but I wouldn’t want to live there.

Were Kirkland to follow that path it would lose the very quality that is such a draw. Perhaps the author of the above mentioned letter should have purchased or rented a dwelling in Bellevue where he would be more comfortable.

In that light I would suggest to him that if he isn’t happy with Kirkland perhaps HE should “move away”.

~Chuck Bonin, Kirkland