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Pros come to town

Doug Ramsay photo

Phoenix Coyotes’ Mikkel Boedker (left) battles with Tampa Bay Lightning’s Radek Smolenak for position of the puck in the National Hockey League exhibition game Sept. 22 at Comcast Arena at the Everett Events Center. Not since the Los Angeles Kings and the Pittsburg Penguins played in Tacoma in1992 has an NHL game been played in Washington state. With two former Everett Silvertips on the Coyote roster (Peter Mueller and Shaun Heshka), the 7,281 fans in attendance cheered on the Coyotes who lost 2-1. Although Mueller was absent from the game due to an injury, Heshka did play.

Fly back in time

Doug Ramsay photo

With the engine of a Grumman F7F-3 Tigercat fighter plane as a backdrop, Cascade War Bird’s member Rob Baughman of Kirkland, dressed in an authentic Word War II vintage flight suit, talks with a visitor at the second annual Vintage Aircraft weekend Sept. 26 at Paine Field in Everett. More than 60 airplanes from the Flying Heritage Collection Museum and the Historic Flight Foundation (both located at Paine Field) as well as the Cascade War Bird Association were on display, with many making demonstration flights over the airport.

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Mayoral candidates debate issues
While candidates agree on some issues, challenger says there is a choice in this race

Mayoral candidate Pat Smith answers a question during a debate Sept. 22 hosted by the Chamber of Commerce. Mayor Joe Marine, behind, listens.

LINDSAY TOLER photo

MUKILTEO - Mayor Joe Marine says he makes “no apology” for the 20-page city newsletter sent to residents earlier this month, despite residents who complained he used the city-funded newsletter to campaign for the upcoming election.
“We’ve been doing the same newsletter for two years,” Marine said.
Marine was responding to his opponent, Pat Smith, during a mayoral debate early last week. Smith said the newsletter was “not an appropriate use of funds in an Internet age.”
“What gets sent to you currently is administrative stuff,” Smith said. “That isn’t what you need. What you need is to collaborate interactively.”
The candidates also used the debate to highlight the differences between them on issues like annexation, public safety and the city budget.
“We have a real choice this year,” Smith said. “Choice is good. The current mayor and I disagree on just about everything.”
The candidates first squared off on annexation. Marine, who is generally in favor of annexation, said he saw it as a way to control development in unincorporated areas and diversify Mukilteo’s tax base.
Smith, who argued against annexation, said adding areas to the city that don’t share Mukilteo’s “values” — or have incidences of crime and prostitution — could take away from the city’s character. If Mukilteo continues to annex these areas, Smith asked, “are we still going to be a top 10 city,” referring to CNN/Money Magazine’s recent list of “100 America’s Best Towns and Cities to Live In” that ranked Mukilteo as No. 10.
When asked about specific issues, such as commercialized flights at Paine Field and improving public safety, Smith tended to give broad, general answers while Marine pointed to city accomplishments made during his tenure.
Both candidates are against passenger flights at Paine Field, an airport surrounded by neighborhoods, and Smith said he’d “reach out” to Paine Field to resolve the controversy.
“I believe we should negotiate. These are our neighbors,” Smith said.
Marine pointed to his appointments to political committees throughout the state and said he was having discussions with the major players in the controversy, including County Executive Aaron Reardon.
The candidates found common ground on some issues, such as transportation, affordable housing and preserving Japanese Gulch.
Marine and Smith agree commuters driving to the ferry terminal is the city’s major transportation issue. Marine named short-term solutions, such as moving ferry traffic onto the Boeing Freeway or widening lanes by the docks, as alleviation methods until the ferry terminal is moved north in the next five years.
Both candidates promised to try to bring a Park-and-Ride station to Mukilteo.
When asked how they would represent vulnerable populations, including seniors, the disabled and needy families, Smith and Marine supported bringing affordable housing to Mukilteo, a city with high property values.
Both candidates also promised to work to preserve Japanese Gulch, which could be the site of new warehouses built by Auburn’s Latitude Development LLC.
“Our goal is to preserve as much of that gulch as we can,” Marine said. Because the land is privately owned and within Everett’s city boundaries, Mukilteo has little power in what happens in the area. Marine promised to get Everett to annex the gulch into Mukilteo, part of an ongoing discussion between the two cities.
Smith said the city “missed our chance” to buy the land when companies first looked at developing the gulch. “When the opportunity came up, they did not move on it,” he said.
About 175 people attended the debate, which was hosted by the Chamber of Commerce.

by LINDSAY TOLER
Published Sept. 30, 2009