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VOL. 15, NO. 31
Mirror
F E D E R A L WAY
division of Sound Publishing
OPINION | Roegner: Election forecast [4] Letters: Please remember fallen officer [4] Q&A with Mr. Federal Way [5] PRIMARY ELECTION | Mirror hosts forum for city council, school board candidates [2] CRIME BLOTTER | Homeless man caught sleeping at Federal Way High School [3]
SPORTS | Should 6th-graders play school COMMUNITY CALENDAR | Events include FRIDAY, AUGUST 2, 2013 | 50¢ sports? Plus: Local tourney updates [13] annual FUSION summer arts festival [10]
DaVita settles in FW with 350 jobs
Family fights to keep pet goat
By ANDY HOBBS
A Federal Way family faces an emotional dilemma after neighbors complained about the odor from their pet pygmy goats. Kelly Anissipour and her 12-year-old daughter, Ava, have raised the two goats since birth and bottle-fed them as babies. According to city code, one of the goats must go. The family was allowed to keep Lilly, a 3-yearold pygmy goat, after a doctor designated the goat as a service/ companion animal in 2012. However, the addition of pygmy goat Juju, now 7 months old, has created a new problem. On July 25, Anissipour received a citation for $100 from the city’s animal services unit for the second goat, which has not been documented as a service animal. Under city code, goats are classified as large domestic animals. The animals require a minimum property size of 70,000 square feet, which is a little less than 2 acres. Anissipour’s single-family property, located in the Brittany Lane neighborhood near Wild Waves Theme Park, measures roughly 6,000 square feet. The city’s animal services unit
By ANDY HOBBS editor@federalwaymirror.com
editor@federalwaymirror.com
Kidney dialysis company DaVita Healthcare Partners Inc. moved its accounting and payroll operations to Federal Way — along with 350 jobs and room to grow. Based in Denver, DaVita is a publicly-traded Fortune 500 company (NYSE:DVA) that claims billionaire investor Warren Buffett as its largest shareholder. Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc. owns 15.6 million shares (about 15 percent) of DaVita stock, according to USA Today. DaVita reported $8.186 billion in revenue in 2012. DaVita serves 160,000 patients at nearly 2,000 kidney dialysis clinics across the U.S. and in nine other nations. Federal Way is already home to a 24-seat dialysis clinic at 1015 S. 348th St. Located in a remodeled building on the Weyerhaeuser campus, the Federal Way accounting office plans to add at least 50 more jobs in the near future to help handle the entire company’s finances. [ more DAVITA, page 8 ] NEWSPAPER RACKS: To see a list of rack locations for the print edition of The Mirror, visit federalwaymirror.com/about_us.
Kelly Anissipour feeds a treat to her family’s two pet female pygmy goats, Lilly and Juju, on July 28 at their Federal Way home. ANDY HOBBS, The Mirror
has received complaints from at least two neighbors. Earlier this month, an animal services officer visited the home and recommended steps to reduce the smell of goat feces and urine. One neighbor, who declined to give her name, told The Mirror that the noise and odor from Anissipour’s backyard has become overwhelming in the past few months, especially in hot weather. As indoor pets, the family’s goats munch on hay and grain from plastic tubs near the kitchen. They roam the house like any normal pet, and their hooves clip-clop on the hardwood floors. The goats love to watch TV and have won ribbons by competing in the “Goat Olympics.” The two goats even go on car rides, whether to a local pet grooming salon or the Starbucks drive-through. The goats are house pets and have never slept outside, Anissipour said. “They’re really good pets, better than dogs,” she said, adding that the goats don’t smell as bad as her other pets. “We have a Mastiff and a Shih Tzu poodle who stink way more.” In fact, the Mastiff dwarfs the full-size pygmy goat, Lilly, who [ more GOAT, page 11 ]
FWPS superintendent receives a pay raise By GREG ALLMAIN gallmain@federalwaymirror.com
Federal Way Public Schools Superintendent Rob Neu’s base salary will be $240,000 for the 201314 school year, an approximate increase of $42,000 from the base salary of $198,000 he made for the last two school years, according to documents obtained by The Mirror. The move was approved unani-
mously by the Federal Way School intendents in the state, behind only Board on May 28, 2013. Seattle and Kent. Those Neu’s pay increase went two districts’ superinteninto effect July 1, and dents made $269,999 and the terms of this current $240,000 respectively, as contract are set to expire in their base salaries last year. 2016. While the pay increase According to the most may seem dramatic, it recent statewide data for does appear to put Neu Rob Neu 2012-13, Neu’s increased on equal footing with the base salary would make superintendents of other him one of the highest paid superlarge districts in the state. FWPS
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is the eighth largest district in the state, serving 21,554 students across 38 schools and employing almost 2,600 people. In comparison, Kent School District serves approximately 27,000 students across 40 schools and employs approximately 3,400 people, making Federal Way’s neighbor in the valley the fourth largest district in the state. [ more NEU, page 12 ]
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