Snoqualmie Valley Record, January 01, 2014
January 01, 2014 edition of the Snoqualmie Valley Record
Valley Record SNOQUALMIE WEDNESDAY, JAN. 1, 2014 n DAILY UPDATES AT WWW.VALLEYRECORD.COM n 75 CENTS Year of the stars 2013 in retrospective: Valley’s celebs, scares and searches make the news By Valley Record Staff Photos by Carol Ladwig Mount Si works the basics to hold off Cedarcrest sharpshooters Page 8 SPORTS Local musician Austin Jenckes broke into the top 10 on TV’s “The Voice,” and he beat out Hollywood star Johnny Depp for the numberone spot on the Valley Record website for the most-read story of 2013. SEE YEAR IN REVIEW, 5 Top local stories of 2013: Above, smoke curls behind DNR’s Seth Barnes during a wildfire that spread on Mount Si in July. Far left, Valley resident Austin Jenckes returns home for a surprise concert during his run on reality show “The Voice. ” Ruling could change city’s sewer fees Sewer assessments annulled while North Bend addresses ‘housekeeping issue’ BY CAROL LADWIG Staff Reporter Remembering Apartheid North Bend’s Rudy Edwards looks back at eye-opening South African sojourn BY SETH TRUSCOTT Editor Valley grad finishes basic training with honors Page 7 INDEX Opinion 4 8 Sports 9-10 Classifieds On the Scanner 11 11 Calendar Vol. 100, No. 32 At first, you don’t recognize him. Then you realize that the smiling, bearded man in the red cloak and leopard pelt is actually a younger version of North Bend resident Rudy Edwards. The image of a traditionally costumed Edwards is among the mementos of a two-year sojourn that he and wife Connie spent in the African kingdom of Swaziland in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Those memories were reawakened last month, sparked by the death of South African freedom fighter and statesman Nelson Mandela, at 95. Edwards, who still knows a smattering of Zulu and Swasi words, experienced the color barrier for himself during the era when Mandela was an imprisoned champion of his people. Much later, Edwards witnessed South Africans of all races vote for the first time. Top, courtesy photo | Left, Seth Truscott/Staff Photo Going to Africa In 1969, Rudy and Connie had joined the Peace Corps, and newly graduated from college, they went to the tiny, landlocked country SEE APARTHEID, 2 Top, the passport photo from Rudy Edwards’ 1969 trip to Africa. Edwards got a firsthand experience of South Africa’s apartheid, with his American passport confounding the racial system. Left, he holds sourvenirs from Swaziland. A court ruled in their favor, but the North Bend property owners who successfully appealed their sewer assessments may have won the issue in principle only. The Washington Court of Appeals annulled the city’s sewer assessments on several parcels of land in North Bend’s Utility Local Improvement District #6 (Tanner ULID) in an Oct. 21 opinion, claiming the city erred in changing the sewer system design without adopting a new ordinance. However, it also stated that the annulment would allow the city to reassess those properties. “The court did leave the door slightly open for reassessment,” Todd Wyatt, attorney for the appealing property owners, wrote in a message to the Record. However, he added that he’s filed a motion to change that. SEE RULING, 3 NEWS YOUR LOCAL NEWSPAPER, SERVING THE COMMUNITIES OF SNOQUALMIE n NORTH BEND n FALL CITY n PRESTON n CARNATION Come in Today for a FREE 6-point Safety Inspection. 951271 SNOW TIRES IN STOCK 610 E. North Bend Way • North Bend • www.lesschwab.com 425.831.6300
