Tacoma’s streets are in bad shape. Its sidewalks might be worse.

And that’s troubling for local disability activists.

The city identified 17,754 locations where ramps need to be installed during a December 2006 study, said public works’ Jim Parvey. Since then, they’ve installed 324.

And it will cost the city $97 million to get every sidewalk in full compliance with the federal American Disabilities Act, which was passed in 1992.

Washington law requires three curb ramps at intersections in private developments. City-funded projects must provide ramps to all four intersections.

John Briehl, Tacoma’s director of human rights and human services director, calls it an “enormous undertaking.”

Michael Corsini, the director of advocacy group Access-ADA, has harsher words.

“It’s pandemic,” he said, adding the lack of a curb ramping isn’t just an inconvenience for some; it can be dangerous when it forces someone in a wheelchair to ride in the traffic lane because the curb is too high.

=> Read more!

A C-17 Globemaster from McChord Air Force Base ferried response teams to Louisiana on Saturday ahead of the arrival of Hurricane Gustav.

The massive jet left shortly after midnight, picked up members and cargo from the 615th Contingency Response Wing at Travis Air Force Base in California and then landed at Louis Armstrong International Airport in suburban New Orleans.

It returned to McChord by mid-afternoon. The aircraft commander expects his crew will be sent to the Gulf Coast again, as early as today.

“It’ll be a matter of whether we can get in and out before the hurricane hits, or if we have to wait until after it hits,” said Maj. Michael Maguire of the 10th Airlift Squadron, 62nd Airlift Wing.

=> Read more!

Four-year-old Joseph Diepeveen wore a wide smile and a brand-new backpack almost taller than he.

“He’s loving it right now,” said Joseph’s father, Sean. “I think they’re all really excited right now.”

Joseph’s siblings, 8-year-old Isabelle and 6-year-old Sophia, all sported new backpacks full of papers, folders, pencils, markers, crayons and other school supplies. They received them as part of Operation Back2School, an event put on by Operation Homefront Washington.

“This shows the community really cares about the military,” said Sean Diepeveen, a staff sergeant with the 3rd Stryker Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division at Fort Lewis.

That’s the point, said Janice Buckley, the president of Operation Homefront Washington. Companies and individuals donated the products to the organization, which helps military families. Organizers began soliciting donations and spreading the word about the event three months ago.

Organizers distributed more than 1,500 backpacks to children of service members from across Washington. Cool weather and the threat of rain didn’t drive people away; hundreds waited more than 90 minutes before the event began.

“They were just lining up around the building, around the corner,” said Susan Allen, the volunteer coordinator with Operation Homefront Washington. “People came from Fort Lewis, McChord (Air Force Base), Whidbey Island, Bremerton. I’m really excited about the turnout.”

Operation Homefront Washington started the backpack giveaway last year, but Saturday’s event was about three times larger, Allen said. Lakewood Ford offered use of its building on Pacific Highway SW.

“We try to do as much as we can with the military because they’re right next door,” operations manager Greg Anderson said. “We’ve never done anything like this before. Being able to host this is just a fun deal.”

Titina Deagan drove her 9-year-old son, Jordan, to the event. They live on Fort Lewis, and Titina said the backpacks will be a big help for some of her neighbors.

“On post, there are families who are struggling,” she said. “It helps, especially with the economy today. Every little thing helps.”

Each marker carried the name of a service member killed in Iraq, like Spc. Dominic Rodriguez of Klamath Falls, Ore., who died last June in Baghdad from non-combat-related injuries.

Or Spc. Rasheed Sahib of Brooklyn, N.Y., was killed in May 2003 when another soldier's weapon misfired, striking Sahib in the chest.

Or 2nd Lt. John Vaughan of Edwards, Colo., who fatally wounded during a patrol in June 2006.

Row after row of markers bearing the names of soldiers killed in Iraq fill Marine Park on Tacoma’s Ruston Way this weekend. The markers, made of whiteboard and resembling gravestones, are part of the Arlington Memorial Northwest, a memorial that travels around the state.

“This is a memorial for all the dead and wounded service members who fought in Iraq and Afghanistan,” said Ray Nacanaynay of Veterans for Peace Tacoma Chapter 134, which organized the event. “We’ve got more than 4,000 markers, but I’m not sure if we’ll have enough room.”

=> Read more!

I'm going to be on Ruston Way in Tacoma this morning to talk to organizers setting up the Arlington Memorial Northwest.

Residents of Tacoma’s East Side are encouraged to clear out their clutter during a community cleanup Saturday from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.

The drop-off location is the parking lot behind the Tacoma Church of Christ at 9201 Pacific Avenue. You must live between McKinley Avenue and South Yakima Avenue and between South 84th and South 96 streets to participate. You will need to show a driver’s license to verify residency.

There are a few exceptions of what they’ll accept: Large items can not be longer than 9 feet and must weigh less than 300 pounds. Freezers and refrigerators must be emptied, and all doors must be taped shut. Furnaces must be free of hazardous materials like asbestos or oil. Tanks must be cleaned and cut in half. Power yard equipment must be cleaned of all oil and gas, and riding mowers won’t be accepted.

And there is a list of items that won’t be accepted, including construction materials, business items, vehicle parts, daily household garbage, oil-based products, recyclable items, yard waste, hazardous waste or animal carcasses.

Outside the new Pioneer Middle School in DuPont, a weather-aged bell sits atop a wooden stand.

But the bell – which called classes to order when Pioneer first opened in 1892 – and the name are about the only holdovers from Pioneer’s Steilacoom digs. A 106,000 square-foot, $34.6 million building opened for classes to its 650 students Thursday, and students and faculty alike were buzzing before the first day of school was half finished.

It’s obvious even before one steps into the building that it’s a vast upgrade: Bose speakers mounted to the walls play classical music and kid-friendly rock. Inside, the school seems open and inviting.

“When I came in, I said, ‘Wow, this is beautiful,’” eighth-grader Ashley Connors said. “I think the building is going to be nicer than our high school.”

Her classmate, Jazmyn Winegar, was impressed with the new second-floor library, which principal Kristi Webster calls “our tree of learning.” Eighth-grader Matt Stillings, was eager to see the new SMART Boards in action.

=> Read more!

I'm out and about today, looking for fun stuff.

American soldiers fighting a counterinsurgency. The enemy using hit-and-run tactics. Troops struggling at times to determine who was an ally or an enemy.

But we’re not talking about Iraq. Try a century and a half earlier, when soldiers fought off attacks by Indians at Fort Steilacoom.

The similarities between the two conflicts drew 30 members of the 402nd Brigade Support Battalion, a unit of Fort Lewis’ 5th Stryker Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division, to the grounds of the old fort – today Western State Hospital in Lakewood – on Thursday.

“Believe it or not, the stuff they’re using here – counterguerilla tactics – is not much different,” said Lt. Col. Steve Allen. “It’s history, but we can take this and apply what we’ve learned here today to the conflicts we’re facing today.”

Thursday’s trip off post began with a tour of the grounds and talks about the history of the fort and the tactics the soldiers used to combat the Indians.

The blurred line between friend and foe resonated with Capt. John Louch.

“There are some examples of how they had to deal with not necessarily knowing who the enemy is,” he said. “Not all the Indians were enemies; many of them were friendly to them. You go over to Iraq, and it’s the exact same scenario.”

=> Read more!

As part of our upcoming series on potholes and the state of Tacoma’s streets, I contacted public works environmental specialist Chris Ott. He’s written a book about Tacoma’s roadways, “The Pavements of Tacoma: A Historical Perspective.”

The problem with Tacoma’s streets? They’re old. “Very, very old,” as he puts it. He likened pavement to a roof – eventually it’ll leak. You can patch the leaks, but it will need to be replaced one day.

Maintenance can help, but eventually a road will give out.

“We’ve done maintenance to them, but many are at the point where they need to be reconstructed,” he said. “I can’t say it’s all because of deferred maintenance – though I’m sure that’s played a role – but in general, they’re just very old.”

The constant rainfall leads to the formation of potholes, he said.

“Every city will have a unique set of environmental problems, including Tacoma,” he said. “If a road surface remains watertight, it’ll hold up for a long time. Once you lose that watertight integrity, it’ll deteriorate rapidly.”

One way to help prevent that is through chipsealing, where crews will fill cracks in the road, lay down oil and place gravel chips on top of it to form a new surface.

=> Read more!

I'm going to be at the opening of the new Pioneer Middle School in DuPont this morning for a story that will run in next week's Show&Tell.

Later, I'll be on the grounds of Western State Hospital to watch some Stryker soldiers from Fort Lewis learn a thing or two from some experts on 19th-century artillery.

Joy Gomez-Gonzalez didn’t enjoy working for just a paycheck during her career as an immigration lawyer. Many of her cases involved attempts to obtain extraordinary-abilities visas – not always grassroots stuff. “I don’t care if you’re the No. 1 beekeeper in Yugoslavia,” she said. So she began defending some of South Florida’s neediest, but she wanted to do even more for the community. Two months ago, she joined Tacoma’s Centro Latino as its executive director.

The News Tribune sat down with Gomez-Gonzalez, 33, at the nonprofit’s offices this week. Here is an excerpt; the full interview is online at the Word on the Street blog at blogs.thenewstribune.com/street

Q: For readers who don’t know what Centro Latino does, can you give us a quick overview of your work?
A: Our mission statement is to empower the Latino community in Tacoma. We do that in a number of areas now: education, work development, ESL classes. We run the gamut right now. We have family support workers going into homes. We have teachers working on literacy programs, because a large number of our adults are illiterate in Spanish and English. We are targeting teens with dropout prevention and tutoring, job linkage, apprenticeship programs. And we’re going to start with younger children, hopefully to get them before they drop out or go into gangs.

Q: What’s the biggest problem in Tacoma’s Latino community?
A: Gangs, the dropout rate, an increasing number of AIDS cases – all these are results of the problem, but they’re not the problem itself. The problem is the lack of a sense of empowerment. If people feel they don’t have a voice, protection, a knowledge of resources and a way to access those resources, all these problems come into play.

Q: You were a successful lawyer in South Florida. Why move to Tacoma?
A: I want to set down roots. I want to be a part of a community and mold the community into what it could be. And Centro Latino has so much that it can be. This is such a community filled with resources and so rich in opportunity. We just haven’t reached our potential yet. But we will.

=> Read more!

The drive down 22nd Avenue East in Spanaway is fairly typical for these parts: Houses surrounded by a yards, the occasional fence, entrances to subdivisions.

And then, with a bright flash of pink, something quite extraordinary stands out.

A large, plaster pig standing amid flowers atop a gothic stand.

Except one neighbor said it wasn’t always a pig. As of a few weeks ago, it was a panda – until someone doused it with hot pink paint.

It’s just the centerpiece of this fence-turned-roadside mural. The fence – covered with the same durable plaster and rising to dull points – is adorned with plants, flowers and a giant rendition of five roses.

On the other side of the fence, a recreation of a bald eagle sits below a flagpole flying the Stars and Stripes. Other designs, like flowers, circles, a lantern and a bunch of grapes, cover the wall.

So what’s the story behind the fence? I wish I knew. I knocked on the door but the woman who answered spoke no English. I wasn’t sure what language she was speaking, nor would it have mattered. But that didn’t stop me from enjoying the creation they built alongside an otherwise unremarkable stretch of road.

The City of Tacoma's expenses related to the Tall Ships Tacoma 2008 festival totaled $291,983.

The figure is lower than the $300,000 of in-kind services the city committed to the July event because lower attendance allowed the police department to reduce staffing, according to an internal memo released Tuesday.

Police services were estimated to cost about $250,000 but came in at $211,141.51. Other costs included staffing from the fire department, paramedics and public works employees.

The nonprofit Tacoma Tall Ships Organization will receive the remaining $8,017 in cash. The nonprofit is currently digging itself out of a $500,000 deficit that it ran during the event.

My man Joe Barrentine offers up another cool video -- about a vintage motorcycle museum in Spanaway:

I’m wrapping up potholes reporting today. With a possible trip to see the panda-pig.

Ten months after its abrupt closure, the city of Tacoma has a plan to renovate the iconic Murray Morgan Bridge.

But now comes the $80 million question: Who will pay for the renovations?

That’s the estimated price of renovating the bridge, which was closed to vehicles in October. The state legislature set aside $40 million in February for renovations to the bridge, but only under the guidelines that the city takes ownership of the bridge from the Washington State Department of Transportation.

Assuming such a large task had some council members hesitant during a study session Tuesday.

Still, many left optimistic that the city is moving closer to reopening the span over the Thea Foss Waterway that links downtown with the Tideflats.

“I think we have a plan for the first time,” Mayor Bill Baarsma said. “A tangible, specific plan of action.”

=> Read more!

Jeanie Peterson needs your help. And you get to feel like you’re a kid again.

Peterson, the director of community iniatives for the Hilltop Action Coalition, will be at the Tacoma Police Department substation tonight from 6-9:30 p.m. She and others will be color-coding (reading: coloring) a map of the area.

Oh, and there might be pizza.

Here’s her e-mail below:

I don't know what you do during your evenings but mine are often quite DIFFERENT. Tuesday night I'll be at the substation (1524 MLK) coloring. Honestly, we are doing a map of the Hilltop with the rentals, owner-occupies, knuckleheads, etc. all colored in different colors and I need help or I'm going to be coloring all 3000+ parcels myself.

So, it's on from 6PM to @9:30, you can come any time you want. I'll probably order pizza if enough people show (and I'll wait to order until I find out who is showing up).

Nothing hard, although we do need steady hands as the areas are small, just probably some conversation, and a bunch of fun work. Older kids/young adults are welcome to participate.

See you there, I hope.

I'm heading into the county today to talk to the creator of a panda-turned-pig. And later, I'll be talking with the new director at Centro Latino.

UPDATE: I'll cover the panda-pig later. Today I'm heading to a Tacoma City Council study session about the future of the Murray Morgan Bridge.

Tom and René Skaggs moved to a 10-acre farm in Eatonville for weekends like this: Bright sunshine. Fresh air. A day of polo with his friends.

“You can’t really ask for more, can you?” Tom asked Saturday.

Skaggs, wearing white pants, a striped shirt and boots, wrapped the legs of his horses as he prepared to umpire the first match of the Piper Classic 2008 polo tournament in Roy – one of three competitions the Tacoma Polo Club hosts this season.

Polo has become a weekend staple for the Skaggs.

René was a collegiate polo player at Texas A&M University. When she and Tom looked for places to move after graduation in 1995, their decision hinged on whether a polo club was within a reasonable difference. They chose Eatonville.

“I played for the first time when we moved out here,” he said. “Now it’s in my system.”

=> Read more!

The Tacoma Tall Ships Organization is considering several ways to pay off its $500,000 deficit from last month’s festival but is also seeking input for ideas, festival co-chair Clare Petrich said.

“We are open to every idea from the community on how to raise these funds,” she said. “The ideas we have now are kind of the typical fundraising.”

Such ideas include selling the leftover merchandise from last month’s festival, initiating a membership drive and looking for an angel donor who would contribute a large sum or put up matching funds.

The event, which ran July 3-7 along the Thea Foss Waterway, attracted about 300,000 people. But organizers said last week that it ran at a $500,000 deficit because of several factors, the board of directors wrote to supports in an e-mail.

“This event renewed Tacoma’s pride in its maritime heritage,” the e-mail read. “Poor weather, a faltering economy and low ticket sales impacted us and we are investigating what we do differently next time.”

=> Read more!

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals has named Tacoma’s Cheney Stadium as the fifth-most vegetarian-friendly minor league ballpark.

“Rainiers fans can choose from an array of delicious meatless options at Cheney Stadium,” a press release said. “Items on the menu that are sure to hit a home run with hungry vegetarians include veggie burgers and burritos, veggie tacos and taco salads, and large baked potatoes.”

PETA forgot an important non-meat product that Cheney sells: beer. It’s cheaper there than at Safeco Field. And that’s important.

I’m off to Roy today to cover a tournament that the Tacoma Polo Club is hosting.

Poor streets aren’t just limited to the southern and eastern sections of Tacoma. The 4200 block of North Verde is showing its age. The asphalt has faded from its original black luster, and numerous patches underscore the years of repair.

“I’ve owned this house since 1972, and it’s been like this forever,” said Ron Prentice, a 65-year-old electrical engineer. “It’s not huge potholes. It’s just falling apart.”

The Tacoma Tall Ships Organization sent out an e-mail to its supporters after today’s story about its deficit. If you’re interested, here it is:

Dear Tall Ships Supporter:

As you have probably seen this morning in the news, the Tall Ships festival this year finished with a deficit of about $500,000.

This deficit is in no way a reflection of your support and dedication to the festival. In our minds, the festival was a success because of the overwhelming community support it received, the positive reception the crews received, and the hundreds of thousands of visitors who attended and had a great time. We provided an extraordinary event for hundreds of thousands of people.

We exceeded our sponsorship fundraising goals and community response was outstanding. It was free for many and provided excellent hosting for visiting ships and new opportunities for youth. This event renewed Tacoma's pride in its maritime heritage. Poor weather, a faltering economy and low ticket sales impacted us and we are investigating what we do differently next time.

We could not have created this wonderful event without you and we greatly appreciate your support.

The Tacoma Tall Ships Organization is committed to this event, our community and our creditors. We are putting together a business plan that will help us pay our creditors and reorganize. We have no intention of declaring bankruptcy.

The next few weeks will be challenging for us as we work through our financial issues but we are confident that a solution can be found. We hope that you will remember the great times you had at this event and share your memories with others. Tall Ships Tacoma is a wonderful community event and we all worked together to make it happen.

If you have any questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to contact us. You can reach us at info@tallshipstacoma.com or 253-272-5650.

Fair winds
TTSO Board of Directors

Michelle Fields lives in the 8700 block of South Ainsworth. A block away, between South 86th and South 87 streets, the roadway has a score of 10 out of 100 in the City of Tacoma's database of street condition.

“It’s very annoying,” the 32-year-old said. “They’ve come and filled in some of these potholes, but it’s still pretty bumpy around here.”

South Cushman Avenue from South 39th to South 48th streets is in bad shape. The roadways are bumpy and pockmarked with potholes. With the exception of two blocks that the city recently paved, the entire stretch scored a zero. And that has one resident on the 4500 block, 52-year-old Jodi Newell, frustrated.

“It’s bad. It needs to be paved. Something needs to get done. And it will only get worse this winter,” she said. “And it’s our tax money. Where is it going?”

One block south, Carolyn Greer called the paving of her street “really, really nice.”

“It was pretty bad when they paved it,” the 48-year-old said. “It was about as bad as the rest of Cushman.”

Bernadette Clark lives on the 800 block of South 45th Street. The roadway in front of her house, rough and crumbling as it approaches the curb, scored a zero.

Clark said it used to bother her, but she has since learned to accept it.

“They’re in bad condition,” she said, “but it’s the price you pay for living in the city.”

Our sister paper, The Olympian, reports the Lady Washington and Hawaiian Chieftain will be in the capital week after next.

They'll be at Percival Landing on Aug. 29 to Sept. 1 as part of Olympia Harbor Days.

Click here for more info.

I got sidetracked with neighborhood reaction to the sex offender and Tall Ships funding yesterday, so I head back out today to talk potholes.

The non-profit organization that operated last month’s Tacoma Tall Ships 2008 ran the festival at a $500,000 deficit, its co-chairman said Thursday.

But the Tacoma Tall Ships Organization has no plans to declare bankruptcy or seek a bailout from the city, Stan Selden said.

“Our ticket sales were not what we forecasted. Our expenses were less than we forecasted,” he said. “But the ticket sales, combined with free tours of the Eagle – we just did not have the income. And that’s something we couldn’t have known until the event happened.”

About 300,000 people attended the event, which ran July 3-7. That number is 100,000 lower than the original estimate, and lower than organizers were hoping. Poor weather during the event was likely a large factor in the turnout.

Admission to the U.S. Coast Guard Eagle, the 266-foot three-masted barque that was the main attraction of the event, was free, but boarding passes were required to visit the dozens of other ships moored in the Thea Foss Waterway.

All of the organization’s creditors will be paid, Selden said.

“We’re not running away from the problem,” he said. “There are various ways to solve these kinds of problems in the non-profit world, and we’re exploring three or four of those simultaneously as we move forward. No one likes to face up to these problems and make these kinds of phone calls, but we feel it’s our obligation.”

=> Read more!

A teacher at The First Learning Tree Daycare and Preschool at 1328 S. 84th St. hadn’t heard about the arrival of John Henry Mathers in her neighborhood, but she said she’ll be wary.

“I don’t want him to move here. My first job is to protect the children. Safety is our first priority,” said Ohkee Cameron. “He can live here – legally – but we just have to be more careful now.”

When Nanette Palaypay discovered last week that a Level 3 sex offender planned to move a block away from her South End home, she set some new rules for her 7-year-old son, Kyle.

“I told him not to get close to doors,” she said. “If someone rings the doorbell, I tell him to stay away from the door.”

Palaypay, 40, also altered her behavior.

“If anyone rings the doorbell, I’m really cautious,” she said. “I take a look at who it is before I open. And my friend printed a picture of him for me, so I keep an eye out to make sure it’s not him.”

John Henry Mathers, 56, moved to the 1700 block of South 87th Street after spending more than 11 years at the Special Commitment Center on McNeil Island. He was convicted of indecent liberties and second-degree assault in 1972 after he sexually assaulted a 12-year-old girl and threatened her with a knife. Two weeks later, he abducted and sexually assaulted two siblings, police reported.

Earlier: Court frees McNeil sex felon

While serving time at a state work-release facility, he escaped and fled to California, where he stabbed a 22-year-old woman. He was convicted in that attack.

In 1981 he was convicted in Pierce County of second-degree rape after he sexually assaulted a 19-year-old woman he’d met on a bus.

Mathers entered the facility in July 1997 and graduated to the center’s halfway house on McNeil Island in 2002. He has no court-ordered requirements of his release, but he must abide by the state’s registration requirements.

That means residents in the Fern Hill neighborhood are grappling with the knowledge that Mathers, only the second convicted sex offender to be released from the center since it opened in 1990, is now living in their area.

“I don’t want a sex offender in the neighborhood,” said 46-year-old Norma Felix while holding her 19-month-old granddaughter, Raenalyn Pardo, in her arms. “It’s not sake for the kids. And not just the kids – it’s not safe for older people too.”

Marilee Harding, a 14-year-old student at Mount Tahoma, said the fact the state released him likely makes the situation still a little better – but not much.

“I don’t think it’s a big, big deal,” said Harding, who lives about two blocks away. “It just makes me nervous.”

The Fight Back! Express bus is stopping by Stadium High School this Saturday.

It’s part of a 6-month, 48-state tour to promote cancer awareness, and it’ll be at the iconic school at 10 a.m. Dr. Gordy Klatt, the founder of the American Caner Society’s Relay for Life, will deliver a keynote address.

The bus tour concludes with the “Stand Up to Cancer” event that will be broadcast on ABC, NBC and CBS to highlight the need for increased caner-research funding.

Check out a video of it:

It's more potholes reporting today, and an interview for a weekend profile.

Ruston Mayor Bob Everding resigned Monday, a day before residents apparently voted down a measure that would transfer the town’s executive power to an administrator.

Entering Wednesday evening, 91 people had voted against the change. Sixty-six voted for it.

Ruston has 452 active voters, according to the Piece County auditor’s office.

“This shows that not everyone agrees with the way the council wants to go,” said Karen Pickett, a vocal opponent of the proposition. “The council still has a fairly strong base, but clearly not everyone agrees with all the changes they propose.”

Proponents of the switch said the job responsibilities of the mayor have become too much to handle for one person. Opponents were wary of adding another layer of bureaucracy, the cost involved and losing an elected official who is responsive to citizens.

Now it appears the town needs a new mayor.

Everding e-mailed his resignation letter to some members of council ahead of its Monday meeting. Councilman Jim Hedrick, who said he read a copy of the letter e-mailed to Councilwoman Jane Hunt, said Everding said he would serve through Sunday and would help the council find a replacement.

Everding didn’t return a voicemail Wednesday.

The council has the task of appointing a new mayor, provided the change-of-government measure ultimately fails, Councilman Jim Hedrick said.

“The only thing officially we have done is appoint Councilman (Bradley) Huson as mayor pro tem,” Hedrick said.

Everding served on the council until Jan. 19, when he resigned amid growing frustration over in-fighting between the members of the council and Mayor Michael Transue.

Transue resigned on June 2, saying the atmosphere at council meetings was growing increasingly tense. The council unanimously appointed Everding to the vacancy two days later.

Everding wasn’t showing any obvious displeasure with his position, Hedrick said.

“This is completely out of the blue,” he said.

Pierce County definitely felt the crunch of the rising price and shrinking supply of asphalt – so much so that it suspended its chipsealing operations for the rest of the year.

Tacoma, which operates its own asphalt plant, wasn’t forced to take as drastic measures but is feeling the squeeze.

“We’re certainly feeling an impact when we buy our oil,” Jim Parvey with the public works department said. “We have a different contracting arrangement and don’t use as much of the product as the country uses. Our supply of chipseal mix is pretty much secure. But we’re definitely seeing prices going up on that.”

(Parvey couldn’t give me exact numbers but said he would e-mail them later today. I’ll post them when I get them.)

Still, some critics of the asphalt plant have said the city could operate at a lower cost if it sold off the plant. Parvey said the public works department is preparing to put together a performance audit. It should start in a few months and take less than six months to complete.

“Every few years, we evaluate whether it’s a good idea for the city to be in this line of business,” he said.

But he believes the asphalt plant is cost-effective and allows the city to operate efficiently. Its central location means trucks can easily access it and cut down on travel time). Also, trucks don’t have to wait to be loaded before heading to a job site like they would at a commercial plant.

“It’s a small plant, and we don’t do big jobs like the commercial guys do,” he said. “Sometimes, it would difficult – especially if we don’t want to impact traffic – to get asphalt mix when we want to.”

After writing about immigration and the military, it looks like we're going to get cracking again on that potholes project.

National Guardsmen and their guests ate pulled-pork sandwiches and sipped lemonade at an Auburn park Tuesday.

Kids filled two inflatable playgrounds. Politicians delivered speeches and posed for photos.

And in the final hours before sending off their soldiers for a year, family members chatted about life with their loved ones serving overseas.

“It’s a little scary,” said Jenny Anderson, wife of Spc. Randall Anderson. “It’s a little stressful. But it’s kind of exciting at the same time. It’s cool that he’s going to serve his country. The kids consider him their hero.”

It is families like the Andersons whom the commander of the 81st Brigade Combat Team calls “the unsung heroes of this deployment.”

Similar farewell ceremonies were held at 11 other sites across the state Tuesday, as the 2,500-member brigade embarks today on one last training in Wisconsin before deploying to Iraq. The soldiers already spent 28 days at the Yakima Training Center in July and August.

Randall Anderson took his family on a dinner cruise and a camping trip to make the most of his 10 days of leave. He just wanted to spend time with his wife and three children.

Now comes the difficult part for Anderson, a 33-year-old military policeman from Puyallup.

“I’m not nervous when it comes to doing my job,” he said. “I’m just not looking forward to leaving my family behind.”

=> Read more!

If you're interested in hearing the speeches at today's farewell ceremony in Auburn, click below. Each are only a few minutes long.

Gov. Chris Gregoire

Rep. Dave Reichert

Rep. Adam Smith

Auburn Mayor Pete Lewis

Spc. Edward Mears sat atop the hill during the ceremony and silently watched his twin sons play in the grass. Deployment hasn’t been much to celebrate for his household.

“It’s tough,” he said. “It’s tough on me. It’s tough on them. It’s tough on my wife. It’s tough on my daughter. These last 10 days have been like a breeze. They just went so fast.”

Mears, a 36-year-old Tacoma resident, served with the 81st Brigade during its first deployment to Iraq in 2004-05. This time around is more difficult, he said, because his 4-year-old sons and 2-year-old daughter are old enough to realize their father will be gone.

And the 10-day leave just made it harder on everyone, he said.

“It just makes it harder for the family to say good-bye again. You’ve got 28 days where I’m gone, and then I’m back for 10 days. And they’re like, ‘Where did that come from?’

“It’s harder on them, and it makes it harder for me to say good-bye again.”

Randall Anderson took his family on a dinner cruise and a camping trip to make the most of his 10 days of pre-deployment leave.

That small slice of normalcy has ended for Anderson and others in the 81st Brigade Combat Team of the Washington National Guard. Now comes the difficult part. For Anderson, a 33-year-old specialist from Puyallup, that doesn’t necessarily mean entering a war zone.

“I’m not nervous when it comes to doing my job,” he said. “I’m just not looking forward to leaving my family behind.”

Anderson spent his last hours before deployment with his wife and three children – aged 4, 2 and 4 months – at a farewell ceremony at Game Farm Park in Auburn.

“It’s a little scary,” his wife, Jenny, said. “It’s a little stressful. But it’s kind of exciting at the same time. It’s cool that he’s going to serve his country. The kids consider him their hero.”

Hunter Ellis joined the Washington National Guard last September. The 19-year-old Olympia resident felt the call of service – his family has a history in the military – and graduated from basic training on July 31.

Still, he wasn’t certain if he would be able to join the 81st Brigade in time for its deployment – until Monday.

“Yesterday was the first day with my unit,” he said. “And I’m excited. I want to go and do my job. It’s what I was trained to do.”

Col. Ronald Kapral sat at the wooden picnic table and flipped through white index cards. The man who will lead the 81st Brigade into war was minutes away from addressing more than 700 soldiers at Auburn’s Game Farm Park, and he was trying at the last minute to nail his speech.

“I don’t even know why I write all this down,” he said. “I usually just get up there and ad-lib it.”

That might be more appropriate for the ceremony, which seems relaxed by military standards. Families and soldiers are milling about the park, taking cover from the sun under tents. Everyone seems to be snapping photos, and there is more than a few footballs sailing through the air. An inflatable playground in one corner is set up for kids to enjoy their time.

And, of course, there has been more than one joke about getting in that one last beer before deployment.

Terry Harder and Steven Cook took some time off the campaign trail to welcome visitors to today’s farewell ceremony in Auburn.

The Republicans are running for seats in the state House of Representatives out of the 29th District. But on Tuesday afternoon, they stood at the entrance to Game Farm Park and held American flags.

“We want to let them know that the public does care about them,” Harder said. “We want them to know that their families and the public support them. And that’s more important than campaigning today.”

And it didn't look like just a ploy to snag some votes. Both wore shirts with the logo of Operation Support Our Troops, and there was nary a campaign brochure to be seen.

They’re not the only politicians here today. Dino Rossi is working his way through the crowd, posing for photos and shaking hands of the soldiers and their families who are preparing to deploy.

And we’ve heard that Gov. Chris Gregoire and Rep. Dave Reichart are also expected to be in attendance.

Mail-in balloting seems easier. It’s likely cheaper for the voter. And yet, many people still enjoy driving to polling places across the state today.

I wondered why, so I stopped by my polling place, Olympic View Baptist Church in University Place, to cast my ballot and then ask a few other voters why.

It’s tradition, most people said.

“It just gives me that sense of Americana,” Claudia Whitling said.

Whitling, 65, quoted E.B. White – best known for “Charlotte’s Web” – when the government asked the author to make a statement about democracy.

“(Democracy) is the feeling of privacy in the voting booths, the feeling of communion in the libraries, the feeling of vitality everywhere,” he said.

“That’s what it’s all about right there,” Whitling said.

About 76 percent of Pierce County residents registered to vote by mail.

“That’s because they’re lazy,” laughed 54-year-old Kim Bainbridge. She pointed toward the church. “That’s how I’m supposed to do it.”

Tacoma is looking for members to serve on the Commission on Disabilities. No word about how many people are needed or what the actual job entails (apart from a montly meeting), but if you’re interested, click below.

=> Read more!

We're going to be at Game Farm Park this afternoon for the farewell ceremony of hundreds of soldiers of the 81st Brigade Combat Team, the Washington National Guard unit deploying to Iraq.

Dranea Bonner and Van Vong swung mallets during a spirited game of croquet. Further away, men dressed in white bowled on Wright Park’s manicured grounds. And beside a stage featuring a four-piece jazz band, people wearing turn-of-the-century clothing posed for photos.

To celebrate the upcoming 100th anniversary of the W.W. Seymour Botanical Conservatory, organizers at Metro Parks Tacoma wanted to create a community event that captured the spirit of 1908 – hence women in dresses and men with moustaches reminiscent of the days of Teddy Roosevelt.

“I wasn’t really expecting all this. I thought it would just be a fun place to bring my kids,” said Arielle Richard of Tacoma. “But it looks like they really worked hard to make it special.”

The star of the celebration, of course, was the conservatory, a Victorian-style glass building. It opened in 1908 after a $10,000 gift from William W. Seymour, then the parks board president and later mayor of Tacoma. Today it holds more than 250 plant species.

=> Read more!

Victoria Woodards, the president of the Metro Parks Tacoma board, announced today that an exhibit by Tacoma-born glass artist Dale Chihuly will go on display in Wright Park in November.

More details to follow.

We'll be in Wright Park today for the celebration at the W.W. Seymour Botanical Conservatory.

Sophie Dawn has fought a stuffy nose the past two days, but that’s about the extent of her reaction to the rising levels of smog across western Washington.

“I might be the only person here who’s reacting to it,” the Enumclaw resident said. “And I’m the one with the really sensitive allergies.”

That didn’t stop Dawn – or about 200 others – from taking in a sunny (and hazy) day at Nolte State Park outside Enumclaw. This area tends to get the highest levels of ozone throughout the Puget Sound region, but everyone seemed more concerned with swimming on Deep Lake, paddling canoes, enjoying a picnic or soaking up some rays.

“The only thing I’ve noticed is a little haze when I look at Mount Rainier,” said Caren English of South Prairie. “It’s usually such a nice view from here, but yeah, it’s definitely obscured.”

The former owner of the Mystery Car called.
I'd rattled off the car info I had, 1997 Honda Accord, when I spoke with her mom, who didn't correct me.
The person who answered the phone at Burns Towing checked and said it was an Accord.

Pierce County Sheriff's Dept. said it was registered as an Accord.
But you eagle-eyed, car-loving bloggers were right when you said it looked like a Civic. (I'm no good at telling cars apart, so I appreciated your input.)

The owner says it's a Civic.

How did this happen? I'm guessing the error originated on the registration. The car was last bought used. That error would have stayed alive on its paper trail.

I'm going back to the posting and correcting the error now.

Thanks again, sharp-eyed readers!

I’m about to jump in the car and head to Enumclaw, which typically has the worst smog levels on this side of the state.

But before I went, I called the Puget Sound Clean Air Agency. I wanted to know what the poor Enumclawers (Enumclawians? Enumclawans?) did to deserve the worst air quality in the area.

Turns out, they can blame Seattle. And Everett. And Bellevue. And basically everyone in that giant sprawling urban mass where people drive everywhere, spewing the elements of smog into the air. If it’s cool and wind aplenty, no problem. If it’s hot (by Washington standards), then Enumclaw gets a larger-than-average dose of O₃

“The wind is very, very low speed during these events,” said Dave Kircher, the manager for air resources at the Puget Sound Clean Air Agency. “And it typically comes out of the north. And it’s affected by geography and geology of the area. That airmass moves down the mountains and ends up in the Enumclaw area. It’s kind of funneled down there.”

But if you think your South King County brethren are choking on a Beijing-like haze, rest assured it ain’t that bad.

“Depending on how sensitive you are, you might detect more of an impact in Enumclaw than you would other places,” Kircher said. “But it really depends on sensitivity. Our levels are nothing like you’d experience in Houston or Southern California. If you go to LA during a really bad time, even if you’re a healthy person, you’ll feel a difference.”

The Metro Dive Rescue Team suited up on the shore of Wapato Lake on Friday morning, and a crowd of about 50 gathered to watch the Mystery Car come out of the water.

Pierce County Sheriff's Deputy Curtis Filleau walked into the water first and snorkled out to the pale greenish square visible from the surface. He dove down, took a look at the submerged 1997 Honda Civic and swam back with a small tire and good news: There was no body in the car.

Deputy Bruce Johnston, directing the effort on shore, explained that next Filleau would put on scuba gear and attach two J hooks to the axle on each side of the car.

Easy to say. Messy to do.

Around 10:30 a.m., Filleau reported in from 6 feet under the water.

"I just hooked it up," he said. "The front end got smashed up. It was hard to get at. It's under 2 feet of mud. It looks like they drove it right down into the lake, The window on the left is out and broken."

Filleau joined his chains to the wire attached to Bernie LaPointe's Burns Towing truck, surfaced and waded out.

Fresh from digging around in two feet of prime Wapato Mud, he shed his tanks and beelined to Tacoma Fire Department's Engine 10. The fire crew had come to wash the Wapato water off the divers.

"Can you all back up, in case the cable snaps?" Tacoma Police Officer John Warczak asked before LaPointe began to reel the car up.

Young Caleb Musick of Puyallup backed toward his father, Miles Musick.

"This morning Caleb asked 'Can we go see the mystery car?'" Miles said.

What kid would not want to see law officers, divers and tow trucks pulling a car out of a lake?

This car had come to light, literally, when a Metro Parks contractor dumped alum in the lake to bind phosphates and starve algae. Overnight the water went from an impenetrable green to blue clarity.

The car, which had been invisible for about four years, was suddenly apparent, along with shopping carts, bikes, skateboards and a television. Metro Parks workers retrieved the small stuff and removed thousands of fish killed by the chemicals. They tried, and failed, to snare the car from the surface.

That's when the Sheriff's Department contacted Metro Parks and volunteered to hook the axle.

"About 30 to 40 percent of the calls we respond to are stolen cars in the water," said Deputy Shaun Darby, suited up and standing by in case Filleau needed help.

Add the mystery car to that list. Four years ago, the silver two-door Honda Civic was stolen from a University of Puget Sound freshman.

LaPointe started the winch rolling. Within a minute, the slimy car was waving its windshield wiper at the crowd of 50 spectators at the park.

The car came out in one piece, revealing a broken window, a smashed left front end, and a back seat wriggling with small fish who survived the chemicals only to take one last ride to the impound lot.

"Can we save the fish?" asked Delia Bartolini. "They're the only fish that lived in the whole lake."

No, they would not be saved. Fortunately, they are not the sole survivors. Alert fish spotters have seen catfish rummaging along Wapato's bottom. And Caleb found another critter.

"Look!" he yelled, and held up a crayfish that escaped from the Honda's undercarriage. "I'm going to put it back in the water."

One Honda out. One crayfish in. A good day for a troubled lake.

Do you notice the bad air?

A smog watch is still in effect for the Puget Sound area. East Pierce County tends to get the highest levels of ozone. We're looking for people who notice the smog when it gets bad. We're also hoping to talk to those of you who consciously change your behavior (no jogging outside, driving less, etc.) because of the warnings.

If you've got something to add, let me know.

Information about the Wapato Honda is coming to light, sort of like the lake in which it is submerged.

First off, the car is a 1997 Honda Civic, silver, with a sun roof. And it was stolen.

Sgt. Ed Troyer of Pierce County Sheriff’s Department researched the Oregon license plate, ZUM 409, and came up with a family in Ashland.
Their daughter came to Tacoma to study business at University of Puget Sound. While she was still a freshman, someone made off with her car.

I called her mom in Ashland, and, smart woman, she wanted to check out our Web site and talk to her husband and daughter before she went on the record. If they decide to be interviewed about the unhappy celebrity of their aquatic vehicle, you’ll be the first to know.

Meanwhile, that car is still in the lake, and it does have to come out. Wapato Lake has enough problems without adding a sedan’s worth of brake fluid, anti freeze, oil and gas.

The Pierce County Sheriff’s Department has offered to send its dive team down to assess the job, and Metro Parks has accepted.

Troyer said the team will likely arrive at the beach near the bath house around 7 a.m. Friday. Don’t expect the car to come out, but you are welcome to watch the divers in action.

The folks on McKinley Hill are hosting an arts festival and street fair Saturday.

It’ll take place along six blocks of McKinley Avenue from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. There will be games, arts and crafts, food, a pet parade and more. The Tacoma Christian Center will also give away school supplies to more than 1,000 kids.

David Doxtater, the executive director for Tall Ships Tacoma 2008, said organizers are a few weeks away from releasing financial and attendance figures from last month’s festival.

Organizers are still in the process of crunching revenue numbers – including the numbers of boarding passes and sailing excursions – and reconciling them against the expenses.

“We should have some more information pretty quickly,” he said. “We’re just doing our normal accounting.”

He said he didn’t know if early indications point to a profit or deficit for the festival. But he said early estimates put the attendance figure at about 300,000 people. That number is 100,000 lower than the original estimate, but he said this figure doesn’t include the crowds on Ruston Way for the Parade of Sail.

But even the attendance figure should firm up once they can compare it to financial data, Doxtater said.

“We’ve got to wait for our financials,” he said. “It’s all about waiting for that now.”

More work on our potholes package today. But we'll let you know if any other cars decide to find themselves in any other overly polluted lakes.

The Metro Parks crew trying to pull a submerged car out of Wapato Lake stopped Wednesday afternoon to come up with a better plan.

They’d towed a dock to the beach near the car. They had a Bobcat on shore. They had a sturdy chain with a hook at the end. And they had Josh Azinger in a rowboat, trying to hook the car visible about a yard under the surface.

They did not have a swimmer in the water, which the Tacoma-Pierce County Health Department is monitoring. Until July 25, the lake had been unsafe for fishing or swimming because of toxic algae. Since then, it’s been unsafe for swimming because a treatment intended to bind phosphates in the water and carry them to the lake bed went horribly awry. A contractor pumped the wrong mix of alum solution and sodium aluminate into the lake on July 25. On July 26, the lake was perfectly clear, except for thousands of dead fish.

The park district is working on correcting the chemical balance in the lake, and it’s removing all the detritus that became visible in the overnight clarification. It has sent people out in boats to snag bikes, shopping carts, televisions, skateboards and trash cans.

“Last week, that fellow over there came up with a prosthetic leg,” Tony Council said, pointing at Azinger.

Maybe it was a mannequin leg, Azinger said later. Either way, it was creepy.

The car has been the big mystery, Council said. He and his son, Tamar, 10, have been waiting to see it come out of the water. Tamar is an auto enthusiast with an encyclopedic knowledge of car parts.

Around 11 a.m. Wednesday, Azinger hooked the bumper, the Bobcat pulled, and something white shot to the water’s surface.

“They got the bumper,” Council said.

“That’s a Honda. It looks like a Honda,” Tamar said of the foam bumper liner.

On the next pull the slimy bumper cover came out, complete with Oregon license plate ZUM 409, renewed in November, 2005. Tamar was right. It was a Honda, apparently white. Crew boss David Horstman phoned the license number in to the police so it could be traced.

Among the spectators, Jim Guthrie and Bonni Parker wondered how the car got so far out in the lake, sideways from the shore with doors and windows closed.

Years ago, when the lake froze, teens would drive on it, Guthrie said. But the lake hasn’t frozen lately.

Perhaps, they thought, someone stole the car, gunned it toward the lake, jumped out and slammed the door, and the car floated for a while.

Crew member Eric Johnson hoped no one got lost and drove in.

The Bobcat backed up, and the chain went slack.

“Well, they lost the hook,” said freelance videographer Tito Brown.
They’d bent it earlier, and reshaped it. Now it was just gone.

Time for lunch, and a better idea, Horstman said.

The Health Department might okay the lake for swimming, and someone could snorkel down to the car. A towing company might have better equipment. Someone else might have a better idea. But keeping a crew trying in vain all day would be a waste of taxpayer money.

Horstman will let us know when they try again, and we’ll let you know.

Let’s call it Word on the Water today.

I’ve been at Wapato Park this morning, watching a Metro Parks crew try to pull a long-submerged car out of the lake. They’ve broken for lunch and expect to be back on the job around 1 p.m. It’s interesting, amusing and mildly exciting. I mean, how often, outside of the movies, do you get to see a mystery car pulled out of the water?

If you’re having a lazy afternoon and can break away, the action’s by the bath house off of Sheridan and South 72nd St.

This car came to light, literally, when a park district contractor doused the lake with an alum solution to trap algae-friendly phosphates in the sediment on the bottom.

The first thing the dump did was kill all the carp in the lake. Next it cleared the algae out of the water, giving the lake a lovely tropical clarity. For the first time in years, you could see everything all the way down to its 12-foot maximum depth.

Spotters found bikes, televisions, shopping carts, a plastic leg, and, near the bath house, the car.

The Tacoma-Pierce County Health Department has a no-swimming order on the lake. That means the crew has to get it out without sending anyone into the water to attach the chain. That’s a problem, because the doors are closed and the windows are rolled up.

Josh Azinger has been trying to s nag it with a hook on a heavy chain attached to a Bobcat on the shore. So far, they've been able to turn the car toward shore. And they've pulled off the bumper.

The car is a Honda with Oregon plates renewed in November of 2005. Crew leader David Horstman called the plate number in to the Tacoma Police Department, which is tracing it.

I'm heading back to the lake with Peter Haley. I'll introduce you to some of the crew and the spectators, and let you know how the operation ends.

Meanwhile, we hope you enjoy Peter's photos, taken from the crew's row boat.

UPDATE: They've given up for the day and are mulling over how to proceed. More to come.

Metro Parks Tacoma is celebrating the 100-year anniversary of the W.W. Seymour Botanical Conservatory in Wright Park with a public event Saturday.

A 5-kilometer race will begin the celebration. Organizers are offering guided tours, walking tours, refreshments and turn-of-the-(20th)-century games like croquet. The event runs from 10 a.m.-2 p.m.

The Victorian-style glass house opened in 1908 after William W. Seymour – then president of what is today Metro Parks – donated $10,000. According to a release, the conservatory is a 12-sided dome with more than 3,000 panes of glass. Inside, more than 250 species are on display.

Click below to read the press release:

=> Read more!

As Ruston voters mull a decision to change the town’s form of government from mayor-council to council-manager, I decided to ask one of the men most recently in the executive post.

Michael Transue was Ruston's mayor from 2005 until his resignation in June. He says the mayor’s job is too much for a part-time person right now, but he doesn’t believe a permanent switch in government format is the answer.

“It’s too much for a part-time person right now. It’s too much, unless you had the right retired person with the right schedule, managerial experience, project management experience – that sort of thing – but that sort of person doesn’t exist in Ruston right now.”

Transue said he proposed the town hire an administrator who would work with the mayor and the council to guide Ruston through all its changes.

“The council has the authority right now to hire a town administrator. And they have the authority to do it in the fashion that puts every check and balance into a consultant contract that they want. They could do that today. My view is that they should have done that months ago when I proposed it.”

“I put out a (request for proposal) and said, ‘What do you think? What do you think?’ No response. So I tweak it here, tweak it there. I put out an RFP. And then they say, ‘Whoops, just kidding.’

How is that a good way of doing business? If we had (hired an administrator) 18 months ago or whenever I proposed it, we’d be much better off today.”

Today I'll be talking to someone who fled the war in Iraq, came to Tacoma as a refugee and is fighting to bring her child here.

As Elliot Stockstad sees it, mentorship programs are one of the best ways to provide positive role models for students. Organizations like Big Brothers Big Sisters do a masterful job, he said, at helping elementary and high school students. But middle school students, he said, often don’t have the same opportunity.

A new program, Mentor253, hopes to fill that gap – at least on Tacoma’s East Side.

Launched by the Northwest Leadership Foundation last fall with the help of a grant from the U.S. Department of Education, program organizers hope to match 150 students at Gault and McIlvaigh middle schools with mentors by the end next year.

So far, 30 students have been matched with mentors. Twenty others – 10 kids and 10 adults – are going through the required background check and should be paired by the start of the school year.

=> Read more!

Tall Ships Tacoma 2008 has been over for more than month now, but organizers still don’t have final attendance or financial figures.

And it might be a while, one of the event’s co-chairmen said.

“We haven’t had any conclusive discussions with the city – they’ve been very cooperative – but we got all mixed-up in ’05” with the numbers, Stan Selden said. “The county is doing an economic-impact study, and we’re not going to put out numbers we’re not sure of.”

Selden was referring in part to an early estimated attendance of 1 million during the inaugural 2005 event. That was widely believed to be a large miscalculation, and organizers since lowered that number by 200,000-300,000.

“And then there was the problem with the overbilling by the police department that got publicized big time,” Selden said. “When they found the error, it was publicized small-time.”

Planners estimated about 400,000 people attended this year’s event, which endured several days of less-than-perfect weather.

Executive director David Doxtater was unavailable for comment, and Selden is asking for patience with the count.

“We can’t even get final numbers out of Victoria yet, and they’re collaborating with them on a couple of costs,” he said. “It just takes some time. It’s not as simple as you might think.”

Is your child more likely to play Madden 2009 than actually get off the couch and throw a football?

With childhood obesity rates reaching nearly 20 percent (according to the CDC), the National Physicians Network is sponsoring Get Out and Play Day this Saturday at Wright Park.

The event, according to a release, is “a chance for children entering kindergarten through eighth grade to go to the park, participate in track meet-style events, and appreciate the joys of summer. The goal of the event is to show kids various alternatives to sedentary lifestyles.”

Click below to read the press release and find out more about registration:

=> Read more!

(As seen in Tacoma)

I've got a few different things cooking this week, including pieces like a three-legged goat with a prosthetic leg.

My invitation to the weekend's festivities at the governor’s mansion might have been lost in the mail, but there are no hard feelings.

But if you want a recap at Saturday’s power wedding, the Vows section of the New York Times has a quick recap.

Courtney Gregoire, Scott Lindsay [NYT]

The question seems simple: Is running Ruston a full-time job?

A ballot measure this month hopes to answer that.

Voters will decide Aug. 19 on a proposal that could change the town’s government. If approved, the council would hire a town manager, who would oversee daily operations.

The mayor, the town’s executive under its current system, would be a member of the five-member council under the proposed changes.

Proponents say a part-time mayor doesn’t have enough free time to properly run the city. Opponents say it’s too costly and a departure from the town’s history.

=> Read more!

Creating artwork can be a messy job.

Ask Lauren Johnson. The 18-year-old graduate of Tacoma School for the Arts was working on a 5-by-7-foot replica of a painting by Leonid Afremov. Except this rendition wasn’t oil on canvas; it was chalk on sidewalk.

Johnson used only 12 chalk sticks, but from those she created numerous hues of colors, including the striking oranges and deep blues that dominate “Alley by the Lake.”

She was only about a fourth of the way through finishing her work early Friday afternoon, but chalk dust completely covered her hands, arms, shirt and jeans.

“You kind of get it everywhere,” she said. “But it’s just part of using chalk. I don’t really mind it.”

Johnson was one of dozens recreating paintings on the sidewalks that line Tollefson Plaza and the campus of nearby University of Washington Tacoma during the two-day Showcase Tacoma festival. Hundreds of others browsed the paintings and took in the objets d’art for sale before rain later in the afternoon drove many of them away.

One of Johnson’s classmates from SOTA, 18-year-old Katie Gregory of University Place, was chalking a rendition of Salvador Dali’s “The Weaning of Furniture-Nutrition.” The Spaniard’s artwork might have survived decades of critical study by thousands of stuffy art professors, but Johnson’s recreation of the painting didn’t last through Saturday morning.

=> Read more!

Parenting magazines tend to state that each childbirth is a miraculous act of nature – never mind that all 6.7 billion people came into this world in about the same way – but Maggie May Jones’ birth Friday at Tacoma General Hospital truly was something to behold.

She came into the world during a symmetrical confluence of time: the eighth minute of the eighth hour of the eighth day of the eighth month of the eighth year of the millennium. And, for good measure, she weighed just over eight pounds.

“Kinda crazy, isn’t it?” said her beaming father, Dan Jones of Gig Harbor. “It wasn’t even scheduled to happen this way. But when it’s time, it’s time.”

Maggie’s mother, 38-year-old Laura, was due to give birth a few days ago. Her doctor had scheduled her for a Cesarean-section surgery if the baby wasn’t born on time.

They scheduled the C-section months in advance for Friday – because it was the last day of the work week, not because of a catchy birthday. When the time drew closer and doctor and patients alike realized the date, they joked they should schedule the surgery for 8:08 a.m.

It was just a joke.

“I actually didn’t think I’d last that long,” said Laura, a nurse at a dermatology clinic in Gig Harbor, where the family lives. “I didn’t think I would need the C-section.”

The couple went to bed Thursday night expecting to drive to Tacoma General in the morning. Maggie apparently couldn’t wait. Laura went into labor at about 2 a.m.

Dan, a Seattle firefighter, drove his wife and their 2-year-old daughter, Lucy, to the hospital.

The birth was quick and easy, Laura said. She planned on using an epidural but was told it would slow delivery by 20 minutes or so. She passed.

And at 8:08, Maggie was born.

“It was all just a weird coincidence,” Laura said. “But we were having fun with it in the delivery room.”

The nurses encouraged the couple to purchase a lottery ticket and suggested names like Octavia or Olympia (the organizers in Beijing, after all, used 8-8-08 as a marketing ploy for the opening ceremonies).

Laura is thrilled because all the attention showered on Maggie’s timely birth will make a great keepsake. And she cracked a smile when she talked about another benefit.

“We’ll never forget her birthday,” she said.

I just had a quick conversation with Ruston Councilman Dan Albertson, who is a proponent of changing to a town manager format of government. He called it “the best move we can make right now.”

The job is too much for a part-timer, he said.

“It’s everything from the development of Point Ruston to lease negotiations at the school building to supervision of employees to the multiple legal actions we’re involved with. I don’t think you can ask someone to do that for virtually nothing. They either won’t be able to devote enough time to it, or they’re going to be so grossly underpaid for the effort that they put into it that it’s unreasonable to expect them to do it.”

Sherri Forch chaired the committee to provide the Yes statement in the voter’s guide to change Ruston’s form of government.

Her argument is that, with the future of Ruston at a crossroads, the job is simply too much for one person:

“I’d like to be on the record that I supported (former mayor) Michael Transue. I wrote the (town) newsletter as a volunteer. Volunteering is alive and well down here. … But it’s the mayor’s newsletter and it has to have his approval, so I would write it and it would be two or three days before I could get to it. My point is that a citizen mayor, with a career with two teenage daughters, has to go to soccer games and chaperone school dances – in other words, he’s got a life. A citizen mayor with a life just doesn’t have the time, the energy.”

“I don’t think it’s fair to ask a citizen to be a mayor. There’s too much responsibility. With all the development going on, we need someone that’s involved 9-to-5.”

She added that a full-time administrator might not be needed 10 or 20 years in the future after developments like Point Ruston are finished. But with so much changing in the community, she said, the town needs someone full-time.

It’s not reasonable to ask a citizen to do this anymore. It’s too specialized. There’s too much too knowledge. You need a consultant for this, a consultant for that. You need an attorney to protect the mayor from missteps. The regulations are so complicated, you need a professional.

=> Read more!

Karen Pickett is heading the No campaign to change Ruston’s form of government. Pickett, who runs the Ruston Home blog, has been one of the most vocal critics of the current town council.

She wants to keep the current form of government, in which the mayor acts as the town’s executive and the council as its legislative body, to a town manager format. Her desires stem from checks and balances and tradition.

Some of this, for me, is based on intangibles. But when talking to folks and getting input and going over this, one of my biggest concerns is that, being a small town, small factions can take elected seats and not be responsive to all the constituents. It’s part of the nature of small towns. Having elected seats is important, and losing one of those representative seats is a wrong move. We need to keep our town as responsive to the voters as we can.

=> Read more!

Photographer Russ Carmack and I were out at the Yakima Training Center last weekend, and Russ came back with some fantastic photos. A few of them required some pretty nifty techniques.

We were riding along in a Humvee during training with the .50-caliber machine guns. The original plan to open up the back of the vehicle and let us stand behind the gunner was quashed by the safety guru on site (and for good reason, in retrospect). Still, that didn’t stop Russ, who used a remote control, a tripod and some duct tape to get these shots:

Click below to find out how he got them:

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We're back in Ruston today to talk about the upcoming ballot proposal to switch from a strong mayor to town manager form of government.

East Siders have jumped all over Tacoma City Manger Eric Anderson's challenge to make the city cleaner and safer.

They held one community cleanup in July, and they'll be having another one on Aug. 23. They brought the city and the Puyallup Tribe to reclaim T Street Gulch and rename it First Creek. They have a partnership with Lowe's to get inexpensive plants into public spaces that need prettifying.

All that's very civic minded, which is fine. But they go one step better. They make it fun. Every work party has a celebration attached to it. And they are delighted when young people show up. They make a big deal about praising the kids and telling them how important they are to the community.

Everyone's welcome to get involved. If you're interested, you can learn more at 6:30 tonight - that's Wednesday, Aug. 6 - at the Portland Avenue Community Center, 3513 Portland Avenue.

McKinley Park will soon undergo a major renovation.

The construction firm that will improve the park on Tacoma’s East Side has begun staging work on a $1.665 million project. Among the improvements will be elevating the promenade to street level, removing some unhealthy trees, expansion of the play area and installation of a new plaza and restrooms.

The work is scheduled to be completed in the spring.

Today I'll either be heading to Mount Rainier to talk ozone or finish reporting on a middle-school mentorship program. Not sure which one yet, though, so stay tuned.

Organizers were excited about a larger-than-expected turnout for last year’s Pacific Avenue Business District event.

This year?

“We’re very, very happy with everything,” Debbie Puryear said. “We probably had about 200 people here. A lot more kids too, for some reason. But that just made it even more fun.”

The festival was held in front of Stewart Middle School. Children passed the time by playing on the grass in front of the school.

But National Night Out is more than just a party for one Tacoma neighbor.

“When we moved to Tacoma, we first lived in the Hilltop,” Elizabeth Lonergan said. “We know how they went through their improvements, cleaned up the neighborhood. That was done by the residents being present.

“If citizens are out, the undesirable elements have to come face to face with us. And we can drive them away.”

Judy Robinson has lived in the Whitman area of Tacoma’s South End for more than 30 years, and she has seen plenty of changes in the neighborhood.

She points to houses and tells their stories. A shooting here. A drug house there.

“It was pretty bad for a while,” she said. “We’ve seen a lot. But it’s better. A lot better. And it’s because of the neighbors.”

And community events like Tuesday’s festivities helped mobilize change, she said. She was one of about 125 people who partied on the 3900 block of South K Street, which was closed to traffic.

Tacoma Police Chief Don Ramsdell and assistant chief Bob Sheehan dropped by the party, held on the street in front of Whitman Elementary School.

Kids played on an inflatable water slide, chalked drawings on the sidewalk and dueled in air hockey. Adults feasted on a spread that included everything from hot dogs to gourmet cheeses.

“This is awesome,” 28-year-old Todd Chamberlain said. He and his wife, Sondra, brought their two children, 3-year-old Noah and 1-year-old Caed, to the event.

“We know a lot of people who live on our block and the ones surrounding it,” Sondra said, “but we’re meeting people who live further away. And we’re making an effort to do so, because it’s important.”

Burgers and hot dogs sizzled on the grill. Bowls of tortilla and potato chips shared a long, white table with kebabs, salad, watermelon and brownies.

National Night Out is about crime prevention, but Tacoma resident Linda Nichols is realistic about why more than a hundred people celebrated at Neighbors Park on the Hilltop.

“It’s the free food that brings them in,” she said with a laugh. “Everyone knows it’s free food. This draws everyone. But once we’re here, we celebrate as a neighborhood.

“And that’s really what it’s all about.”

Children kept busy with tetherball or on playground equipment while adults listened to the thumping music. Residents of the 8th and I Neighborhood who don’t routinely mingle gossiped over plates of grub. Police officers and firefighters were also present, shaking hands and chatting.

“This is a pretty good turnout,” said 26-year-old Jorge Baza, who was attending his first National Night Out celebration. “I’m meeting people I didn’t know before.”

The area, part of Tacoma’s Community Based Services program, has improved in recent years because of civic action – including events like these.

“I’ve been coming here the past four or five years,” 55-year-old Ken Meyer said. “You get to know people this way. And we can tell the criminals that they don’t belong here.”

It’s an announcement that makes Kits Merryman wish she was born in the early 90s.

Five teenagers from the Youth on Board program will spend four days working alongside the crew of the U.S. Coast Guard Eagle, the barque that was the centerpiece attraction of last month’s Tall Ships Tacoma 2008 festival.

The five were selected based on recommendations from their ships’ captains and evaluations based on participation and performance from the Youth on Board program, when 47 teens sailed from Victoria, B.C., to Tacoma.

They’ll board the Eagle in San Pedro, Calif., and sail to San Diego on Aug. 20-24.

The five teens are:

Meagan Southworth of Tacoma, age 17
Sydney Lynden of Lakewood, age 18 at time of sailing
Kristie Spadoni of Gig Harbor , age 17
Jayna Gilley of Bellevue, age 18
Elizabeth Ross of Port Angeles, age 16

I'll be bouncing around to several National Night Out festivities today. Any ideas which ones I should hit up?

City of Tacoma Public Works crews started in with the big machines today on the East Side’s massive First Creek cleanup.

I’ve been looking forward to seeing a plus-size excavator munch away at the layers of junk people have tossed over every accessible bit of the ancient creek bank. The reality was even cooler than the anticipation.

The tossing is something of a neighborhood tradition, said Edwina Magrum, the community organizer behind the cleanup. She met a woman who, when she moved to the neighborhood, was told that if she had anything big to discard, all she had to do was wheel it down the street, over the bridge and behind the church, and give it a push into T Street Gulch.

With this cleanup, the gulch is getting an upscale new name: First Creek. The new title refers to the days when it was one of the Puyallup Tribe’s favorite salmon streams.

Edwina met that woman while gathering signatures on a petition asking for the city’s help in cleaning the impromptu dump. She was hoping for permission and haul-away service. Instead, when environmental specialist Chris Ott got a load of the mess, he realized it was beyond the scope of even the most determined volunteers. We’re talking cars, refrigerators, propane tanks, sofas, lawn mowers, dishwashers, microwaves., mattresses, tires.

This job, Ott realized, would require an excavator with a 50-foot reach, a dozer with pincer jaws to grab the detritus, and a crew to keep fresh jumbo dumpsters coming all day long.

This morning, the site was like a party. Edwina showed up with longtime resident Andrew Wood, one of the first to sign her petition. Lisa Wojtanowicz, head of Tacoma CARES stopped by a with a cadre of inspectors and a representative from City Manager Eric Anderson’s office. Members of the Puyallup Tribe, which are partners in the cleanup, came. Tacoma Police community liaison officers Jim Shin and Bert Hayes checked in.

You’re invited, too.

City employees want to get the message out that this is a serious effort to get rid of the junk for good. They’d like people to know that all this refrigerator flinging is a lot more trouble than the free alternative, Call 2 Haul. Any Tacoman living in a single family home or duplex can get oversized items picked up for free twice a year. Just phone (253) 573-2468 or log onto www.tacomaservices.org.

The Tacoma crew wants you to come and watch them grappling with the gulch garbage so you’ll get a sense of how hard it is to remove the trash. And they like to show off their cool dozers and excavators in action.

Their one rule: Don’t get in the way.

They’ll be working near T Street between 32nd and 34th Streets East for the rest of the week. Just look for the white city trucks, the blue dumpster and the giant orange excavator.

The convoy of five Humvees rolled down a dirt road when a voice boomed across the radio.

“Indirect fire! Indirect fire! Roll through! Roll through!”

Spc. Shane Sotocole mashed the accelerator. The vehicle jerked forward. Dust from the convoy darkened the bright sky.

The same voice on the radio had a different message seconds later.

“Gas!”

Sotocole hit the brakes as the Humvee skidded to a stop on the side of the road. He and two passengers, Sgt. Terrell Fox and Sgt. Terry Meyers, unzipped green pouches attached to their belt. They slipped black gasmasks over their face.

A minute later, the same voice announced an all-clear. The three soldiers, members of the Washington National Guard’s 81st Brigade Combat Team, removed the masks. Meyers, sitting in the passenger seat, turned to his colleagues and nodded.

“This is the kind of stuff that’s gonna save us over there,” he said.

Over there. Iraq.

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Spc. Antonio Shepard returned from a deployment with the Virginia National Guard two months ago, spending his year in the Middle East as a gunner on convoys running supplies from Kuwait into Iraq.

Time for a long, relaxing break, right? Nope. Shepard is heading back.

The 23-year-old Atlanta native transferred last month to the Washington National Guard and joined the 1st Brigade, 161st Infantry Regiment.

“I just want to knock another deployment out before I finish school,” he said. “I won’t be going any more after this, so I can focus on classes instead of thinking about deploying again.”

Shepard is one of about 35 “interstate transfer” soldiers, brigade commander Col. Ronald Kapral said. Many of these Guardsmen transferred because they want to deploy, but their Guard unit might not be scheduled to for year

“We’ve had people drive here from Georgia and Tennessee just to fight with the 81st,” Kapral said.

Spc. Raymond Hearne had served with the Washington National Guard before accepting a job offer and moving to Coos Bay, Ore., last year. He kept in contact with his colleagues and transferred when he heard his old unit was deploying.

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Choose your comparison. Chances are they’ve heard it.

Refugee camp? Can of sardines?

“Yep. Yep,” said Cpl. Brandon Truman of Tacoma. “We’ve made them all.”

Truman, a member of the 81st Brigade’s 1st Battalion, 161st Infantry Division is one of about 300 soldiers sleeping in a massive tent during exercises at Yakima Training Center.

Another tent on the grounds is the temporary home of almost 1,000 Guardsmen.

The tents are stuffed with row after row of cots, many just inches from each other. Duffel bags, shoes, backpacks and other personal objects cover the floor. Soldiers are constantly chatting to each other, talking on cell phones, napping or reading.

Sounds bad? Many Guardsmen seem to prefer tent living – this is the desert, and the tents have something the barracks don’t: air conditioning.

“It’s really nice in until morning – then it can get too cold,” Cadet Jay Ladines of Cheney said. “But I’d rather be in here than the barracks.”

Other factors remind soldiers that this ain’t the Ritz. Truman said it one person can catch an illness and spread it to everyone else. It can remain noisy until pretty late. And the bathrooms are outside, several hundred feet away.

It's our last day at the Yakima Training Center. Today we're going to head to a range to watch soldiers practice on a .50-caliber machine gun.

The run-up to the 81st Brigade Combat Team’s deployment four years ago was hectic.

The Pentagon gave the Washington National Guard unit about a month to begin full-time training to head to Iraq, and about third of its soldiers was in risk of missing the deployment because of poor health.

It was a unit in need of dental work: About 1,200 soldiers were classified as Class 3 or 4, meaning they couldn’t deploy until their mouths improved. Some required months of treatment.

Training schedules were disrupted because many of those soldiers – many of whom didn’t have insurance – hurried to get their teeth fixed before the 81st left for Iraq.

More time and better coverage have made a huge difference ahead of this month’s deployment, brigade officials said. “We’re way ahead of where we were because we’ve had plenty of time to get Sgt. Joe’s teeth looked at and get them fixed,” Maj. Kurt Shevalier, the brigade’s medical operations officer, said Saturday. “Last time, it was a race against the clock.”

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Russ and I are back at Yakima again today. We’re with the 2nd Battalion, 146th Field Artillery based in Olympia. We’re putting together a piece about training for convoy security missions – but it won’t run until Monday – and will be bringing other stories throughout the day.

Sgt. Patrick Daniels doesn’t routinely pull rank on Pfc. Justin Daniels.

He doesn’t have to.

Patrick is Justin’s father.

The two are serving and will deploy to Iraq together in B Troop, a unit of the 1st Squadron, 303rd Cavalry Regiment. Patrick joined the Washington National Guard in 2003, and his son followed two years later.

“It’s pretty cool because I’ve seen a lot of change in him so far,” said Patrick, a 43-year-old Boeing inspector from Arlington.

Justin, a 21-year-old structural mechanic from Boeing who lives in Everett, said the unusual arrangement isn’t always easy – like when Justin calls his father “Dad.”

“Yeah, he does that a lot,” Patrick said, smiling. “We’ve already got out butts chewed out a few times for that.”

“Well,” Justin replied, “I can’t exactly call you Sgt. Dad, either.”

YAKIMA – The tape in the sand represented the walls. Four soldiers lined up outside, silently signaled they were ready and kicked down a nonexistent door.

The men rushed in, rifles panning the imaginary room. They secured the location as seasoned veterans looked on and critiqued their actions.

It’s called a glass-house drill, and soldiers of the National Guard’s 81st Brigade Combat Team repeated it dozens of times Friday at the Yakima Training Center.

The soldiers are trained to be anything from tank mechanics to police officers. But other skills are needed in Iraq, so the members of 1st Squadron, 303rd Cavalry Regiment based in Kent, were practicing urban warfare skills less than three weeks before their mobilization begins.

The 3,400-soldier unit, which is expected to arrive in Kuwait in late October and will enter Iraq soon after, will mainly be tasked with protecting convoys, defending bases and working with reconstruction teams but can be called to engage in close-quarter combat.

When the 81st arrives in Iraq, it will function as a heavy brigade in name only.

“We have tanks, Bradleys, Paladins; we are a conventional force if the United States went to war against a conventional enemy,” said the brigade commander, Col. Ronald Kapral. “But because we aren’t going against a conventional enemy and we’re doing a counterinsurgency mission, we had to refocus our training.”

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The State Secretary of State’s office is at Yakima during drills to encourage service members to either register or to change their status to active military on their registration forms.

Nick Handy, the state’s elections director, said that 90 percent of the 2,400 soldiers set to deploy with the 81st Brigade are already registered or will register before drills are finished. Handy didn’t have a firm number Friday morning on the amount of new registrations.

About 30 people – including state workers, county auditors’ offices and volunteers – have been helping guide soldiers through the registration process. One advantage of changing voter status to military, Handy said, is that it allows the state to send a mail-in ballot sooner.

With more training looming next month in Wisconsin and then the deployment to Iraq, that makes that extra week even more crucial, he said.

“We want to make sure that the 81st Brigade members are able to exercise one of our country’s most sacred rights,” Secretary of State Sam Reed said in a release. “As they go to Iraq to help give Iraqis the freedom to vote, we need to make sure our soldiers have the opportunity to vote in our elections.”

About 50 soldiers in headquarters troop of the 1st Squadron, 303rd Cavalry filled a large white tent early this morning. They sat at long tables and took notes while a civilian instructor presented a slideshow on a projection screen.

The training might not be as sexy as kicking in doors or firing M-4s at the range, but the Guardsmen were learning skills that will be crucial during convoy security missions.

“We’re teaching CREW training right now,” said Chief Warrant Officer Gordon Jay, a Shelton resident and electronic warfare officer. “Basically, we’re teaching guys how to jam radio-controlled IEDs.”

Here’s a milspeak-to-English translation: IED is an improvised explosive device, more commonly known as a roadside bomb. An IED detonated by radio frequency is known as an RCID. And CREW training stands for Counter RCID Electronic Warfare.

The soldiers were learning how to use the tools that interfere with the electronic signals that set off the bombs. It’s a rapidly changing field, Jay explained, because as the different tools to detonate the bombs change become more sophisticated – cell phones and passive-infrared sensors have largely replaced RC car remotes and garage-door openers – the jamming technology has evolved.

“Once (the military) got a system on the ground and it countered a threat, a new threat would arise and that system couldn’t counter that threat,” he said. “So they had to look at a new system. It made a steep learning curve the first few years.”

The jammers the Guardsmen are learning to use prevent detonation because they overwhelm multiple radio frequencies at once. But because the detonators come from an array of technologies, the range of frequencies to jam is wide.

Employees from Virginia-based defense contractor General Dynamics taught the course to the Guardsmen. Instructor Randy Caswell, a Lewis County native and retired electronics maintenance technician with the Army, said several agencies from various countries are now working together to share information about developments in IED technology, and that swapping has helped the military make strides in preventing attacks.

But roadside bombs still remain the largest security threat on convoys, Jay said.

“(The insurgents) aren’t dummies,” he said. “A lot of people want to label them as dummies. The guys actually laying them in the road might not be the smartest guys in the world, but the guys designing them are insidiously clever.”

Photographer Russ Carmack and I are about to head to the Yakima Training Center to start our three-day visit with the 81st Brigade Combat Team. Things are always subject to change, but it sounds like we’ll be spending our first day with the 1st Squadron, 303rd Cavalry based in Kent.

Check back for updates throughout the day, pending scheduling.