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FEDERAL CHARGES | Kirkland art philanthropist indicted on charges of mail fraud, money laundering, tax evasion [3]
First Gentleman | Mike Gregoire Diesel spill | Crews contain oil spill that caused sheen on Lake Washington near David E. reads to Rose Hill Elementary students to break world record [11] FRIDAY, OCTOBER 14, 2011 Brink Park; source under investigation [8]
A DIVISION OF SOUND PUBLISHING
City, utility officials at odds over utility hike
Accident leaves local man a quadriplegic
BY PEYTON WHITELY pwhitely@kirklandreporter.com
It all comes down to lineal feet. Or the type of lineal feet. Or maybe it’s because when Kirkland annexed some parts of what had been unincorporated King County last summer, it didn’t dig up all the water pipes and put in new ones. Instead, customers there continued to get their water from the Northshore Utility District. That would seem pretty simple. Instead, it’s become something of a financial quagmire. To Kingsgate resident Toby Nixon, who’s running for Kirkland City Council, it’s an ethical issue, with him arguing the money matters have become unfair. To Margaret Wiggins, a utility-district commissioner, the questions partly seem to involve a mistake — about lineal feet. To the utility district itself, in a Sept. 28 letter to its customers, the questions seem to involve the discovery that much of the annexation area consists of single-family homes, not buildings like hospitals. And to the City of Kirkland, summarizing the situation in a Sept. 14 memo, the issue also seemed a surprise, with Kirkland officials not [ more HIKE page 5 ]
Erik Baker and his wife, Kelly. Erik recently suffered a spinal-cord injury from a fall. The community will hold a benefit auction for him on Oct. 22. CONTRIBUTED
Benefit auction to aid Kirkland native, survivor of recent life-changing accident BY LAILA ZAYAN UW News Lab
Lovada Lambright tends to her giant pumpkin at the Gardens at Juanita Bay retirement community on Tuesday. The pumpkin has helped Lambright, age 70, make a significant discovery about her life. PEYTON WHITELY, Kirkland Reporter
‘Magic seed’ grows into giant pumpkin, new outlook on life BY PEYTON WHITELY pwhitely@kirklandreporter.com
D
epending on your age, you may not realize, or be able to accept, that eventually life will come to this: A pumpkin may become more important than the collapse of the Greek economy.
“You can’t stop it,” says Lovada Lambright, who has made that discovery about aging in the past 1-1/2 years. That’s why, on a blustery October day, Lambright was standing outside at the Gardens at Juanita Bay, showing her giant pumpkin. She really has two stories,
however. One is about the pumpkin. The other is about her, her life, or, in a sense, the lives of about 70 million people around her age. She’s 70. Over the next few years, millions of people commonly [ more PUMPKIN page 6]
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Erik Baker’s life changed in an instant. A former Kirkland resident now living in Gold Bar, he was helping his neighbor install lights for the local 4H Club Horse Arena when he fell from a pole in May. He broke his neck and suffered permanent spinal-cord injury, making him a quadriplegic. Baker, 40, was always very active, including volunteering at Friendship Adventures, a nonprofit based in Kirkland that supports people with disabilities. His favorite hobbies were skiing, horseback riding, riding quads, hunting and fishing. But, his active lifestyle
had to be redefined after the accident. “I was initially very scared,” says Baker, who graduated from Lake Washington High School in 1989. “But then it got me really motivated.” After being released from the hospital, Baker has continued with physical therapy and recently started outpatient therapy at Providence Regional Medical Center. “I am still planning on doing everything I used to,” he says, “just at a different capacity.” Despite Baker’s grueling therapy, he has managed to maintain a positive attitude. “He has not had any major meltdowns,” said his wife, Kelly. [ more ACCIDENT page 3 ]
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