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POLICE BLOTTER | Man arrested for indecent exposure at Juanita Beach Park [3]
Seniors | Fresh flowers bring smiles to seniors FRIDAY, JULY 26, 2013 at Merrill Gardens at Kirkland [8]
A DIVISION OF SOUND PUBLISHING
City urges Cross Kirkland Corridor ruling by Aug. 1
Wacky Wheelays | Event for people with all abilities on Sunday [9]
Waterfront fun comes uncorked
Pending injunction could delay rail removal, new trail for a year if federal board doesn’t make decision by August rdawson@kirklandreporter.com
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Adrian Prokopenko has fun in a paddleboat during the Kirkland Uncorked event that ran from July 1921 at Marina Park. The annual event featured fun for all ages, including a wine tasting garden, food, art, a boat show, cooking classes and a dog modeling contest. MADISON MILLER, Kirkland Reporter
Fun, wine and art at Kirkland Uncorked
Author reveals details in parents’ 1978 death aboard their boat BY RAECHEL DAWSON rdawson@kirklandreporter.com
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count, he, Oskam and Kerry Edwards buried the bodies at sea because it could have been a week before they got to land and the bodies would decompose by that time - an assertion the author later debunks after obtaining a copy of the FBI report. Kerry Edwards claimed to only know what her brother told her, and she couldn’t remember how she attained a head injury. Oskam said she was asleep the whole time and only knew of Gary Edward’s story. Skeptical, investigators named Gary Edwards the prime suspect but he was never charged, despite compelling testimony. [ more AUTHOR page 10 ]
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Author Larry Edwards does not believe his parents died the way his brother said they did. Neither do his sisters, nor the FBI. More than 30 years ago, the Kirkland couple’s mysterious deaths were front page news - a sensationalized story with some inaccuracies. But Edwards, an awardwinning journalist himself, reveals new information in his recently published nonfiction book “Dare I Call it Murder? - A Memoir of Violent Loss.” Written from his own perspective, Larry Edwards delivers evidence from the official FBI investigation report, while noting extreme inconsistencies in “witness” accounts throughout nearly 300 pages of how Loren and Jody (Joanne) Edwards died aboard their sailboat in the South Pacific Ocean in 1978. The couple, along with their children Gary Edwards and Kerry Edwards, and
family friend Lori Huey later, Larry Edwards Oskam started their journey received a call: His father to French Polynesia in 1977. was dead and his sister had As a Kirkland carpenter a bleeding, fractured skull for 25 years, it was Loren with a concussion. Later, he Edwards’s dream to build discovered his step-mother, the bright yellow whom he considered Spellbound (with a mother, was also “Kirkland, Washdead. He immediately ington” on the flew to Tahiti. side), and go on Gary Edwards, an adventure with who attended Redhis family. mond High School, Larry Edwards, told the FBI, and Larry Edwards who grew up numerous reporters in the Juanita that his dad fell and neighborhood and graduhit his head on one of the ated from Lake Washington spokes of the steering wheel High School in 1967, had – a conflicting story from planned to go on the trip what he told radio dispatch. but reconsidered when his His mother later commitbrother came aboard. The ted suicide because of her two often argued. husband’s death, he said. However, a few months By Gary Edwards’s acep Ke
s Aug. 1 looms, Kirkland city officials urged the Surface Transportation Board to make a decision on the pending Cross Kirkland Corridor suit before the city looses money and good weather for rail removal construction. If the board grants the injunction, it would prevent the city from removing the railroad tracks and its assets along the 5.75-mile-long corridor until the board makes a decision on the pending petitions the Ballard Terminal Railroad Company LLC filed on April 2. The city planned to remove the rail tracks and ties in April but plans came to a halt when they were served a federal lawsuit. But if the Surface Transportation Board rules in favor of the city, the petitions for the Ballard company to obtain the right to reactivate rail service from Woodinville to Bellevue would be moot. After months of hashing out the details, subpoenas, testimony and legal minutia the city needs a decision now. “Kirkland asks that the board rule by Aug. 1, so that Kirkland can commence rail salvage and development of an interim trail on the rail-banked Cross Kirkland Corridor during the 2013 construction season,” according to court documents filed July 10 by the city’s attorney, Matthew Cohen with Stoel Rives LLP. “The motion has been fully briefed since early June and Ballard has had ample opportunity to explain to the board why a prelimi-
nary injunction is warranted.” The city believes the Ballard railroad company’s strategy is to stall for time, the court documents continue. “For Ballard, no decision equals success,” the documents state. Executives from A&K Materials, the contractor that would remove the railroad, said they would likely be able to remove the railroad for an interim trail during the 2013 construction season if they were told by Aug. 1 to proceed. Court documents state it would be difficult for contractors to complete the project if notice was delayed because the fall rains in the Pacific Northwest “close the window for construction work,” therefore pushing the interim trail back another year. In a June 4 statement, City Manager Kurt Triplett said grant funding for rail removal and construction of the interim trail expires after 2014. And delaying the project for the next season would cost the city $175,000 in interest rates. If the contractor does not complete the project in the next six months, Triplett said nearly $107,000 worth of salvaged tracks would also potentially be lost. Rebidding the project would cost around $1,500 and maintaining the corridor’s overgrown plants and shrubbery, with the risk of floods, would cost the city $211,000 for ditch excavation labor and equipment. “Kirkland staff concluded that removing the rails and leaving the rail bed and bal[ more RAIL page 6 ]
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BY RAECHEL DAWSON
Look inside for our 2013 Kirkland Residents’ Guide for information about YOUR community!!