Public Meeting TONIGHT
Posted by the Kenmore Crow | Filed under Politics | No Comments Yet!
Via Mr. James Lupori’s Kenmore Undressed blog comes word of an important meeting tonight.
Kenmore to Lease the Village for $1 Per Year? Are You Kidding?
…the City of Kenmore and Urban Partners LLC are considering a “ground lease agreement” which will essentially turn Urban Partners LLC into the tenant (with some interesting rights) of the Kenmore Village which will place UP in the position of being the landlord and steward of 9 acres of the City’s property? Furthermore, this agreement will require Urban Partners LLC to pay a grand total of $1 per year for the lease which will expire in December 2016. There are other compensation factors in the lease; however, I still find this odd.
Mr. Lupori follows up with more information in Why Amend the "Development Agreement" with Urban Partners LLC?.
Over on KBIN, Dennis Hill weighs in with another view:
It would appear that the City is unloading active management of this property on the Developer. Considering the condition of the property and the City’s demonstrated inability to manage the property profitably, the next best option is to distance itself from liability. They appear to be doing that. Sounds like a win for the community. Not sure what the Developer gets out of it, but could it be worse than what we have now?
Whatever is really going on here, if you care about how your city dollars are being spent and how your city assets are being managed, it would behoove you to come to the public meeting at the Northshore Room at the Northshore Utility District tonight at 7:00 PM tonight.
On a side note, I thought we had fully moved into the new city hall? Why are we still having public meetings at NUD?
Tags: city council, development, Kenmore Village, public meeting, Urban Partners
Who’s to Blame for Yesterday’s Massive Traffic Backup?
Posted by the Kenmore Crow | Filed under General | 2 Comments
I received an interesting email from a reader regarding the delightful power outage we experienced here in Kenmore.
Yesterday around 6:30pm as I was driving from Bothell back to Seattle I was caught in a huge traffic backup on Bothell way that started in Bothell and ended at the 61st Avenue light. It was a flashing red with two other flashing reds northwest of it [that would be at 68th and 73rd]. Because people drive so slowly through them traffic was backed up for miles in both directions—up to Bothell and down to Lake City.
I’ve been trying to understand two things and hope that perhaps you might know about. Why were there no traffic police to move traffic along? Also, if the lights were flashing red, why did the city not come out to reset them?
Personally it was an inconvenience. But I can’t imagine the people stuck in cars with children, old folks, people needing to pick up their children. It was not as awful as a freeway backup with nowhere to go, but still.
Might you have any ideas? A complaint dept. I can call for the city?
I also witnessed this nasty backup as I drove out of Kenmore toward Woodinville. It stretched from Kenmore all the way to about 180th St in Bothell when I drove by a little after 6:00.
It is surprising that no one thought to send a few officers out to direct traffic at the three broken intersections in Kenmore. However, I’m not certain that it is the City of Kenmore’s responsibility to deploy police to direct traffic on Bothell Way. Since it is technically a state highway (SR 522), I would think that the job would fall first on the Washington State Patrol and secondly on the Kenmore Police Department (which is really the King County Sheriff).
Here are a few numbers you can call if you would like to comment to any of these agencies about yesterday’s traffic mess:
- WA State Patrol: (425) 401-7788
- Kenmore Police: (206) 205-7656
- City of Kenmore: (425) 398-8900
Tags: 522, Kenmore-police, power-outage, traffic, WASP
Still Wasting Electricity at the “Green” City Hall
Posted by the Kenmore Crow | Filed under Photo/Video | 4 Comments
Lest you believe that the photos I posted here last week do not represent the regular goings-on at our nearly-open new City Hall, I present a brand new set of photos, taken last night (Tuesday) at 11:00 PM.
Zero cars in the parking lot, zero sign of anyone anywhere inside the building. Roughly 90% of the interior and exterior lights (including in the underground parking garage) were turned on.
Here’s a close-up of the front again:
And another one of the room that I thought was going to be a meeting room. Now that it’s full of desks, I’m thinking it’s probably just some sort of mass office? Either way, I don’t see why they need to leave all the lights on throughout the night.
Here’s the back door…
…and what’s this just across the driveway, in basically the only dark spot on the lot?
According to the sign on the right there, that would be the generator and fuel tank—totally unlocked and wide open to whoever wants to stroll on by. That seems safe.
I wonder how much electricity our new green city hall will have pointlessly wasted before it is even open for business?
Tags: city council, city hall, photo
