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PEOPLE | Former Bellevue resident to head Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History [2]
Sports | Tae Kwon Do fundraiser helps family in face of grim cancer diagnosis [14]
FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 6, 2013
Community | Eastside Baby Corner throwing a Pants Party to help low-income families [10]
Council to take another look at light rail appointments Sloppy process, possible conflicts of interest cited BY CELINA KAREIVA BELLEVUE REPORTER
he Newcastle Historical Society, which this week will celebrate its annual Newcastle Days, was recently awarded a grant to preserve the small cemetery plot, buried with the coal miners and pioneer families that years ago called the Eastside home. The 2.2 acres to the west of Lake Boren was first set aside in 1880. Now owned by the city of Newcastle, the gravestones have been overgrown, vandalized and mostly forgotten. But as one of the last remnants of the once thriving Newcastle coal mining town, some neighbors are trying to change that. “There are just some incredible stories in that cemetery,” says Vickie Olson, a descendent of the locally famous Baima family. Olson plans to hold tours of the cemetery during Newcastle Days. She also is asking neighbors to come forward if they have stories to share themselves, or may know more about the plot’s
The Bellevue City Council has admitted to a sloppy selection process and possible conflicts of interest on the East Link Citizen Advisory Committee (CAC), appointed unanimously last month. A well attended council meeting Tuesday night opened with comments from a number of concerned neighbors who outlined their apprehensions about the lack of neighborhood representation and the appointment of at least two individuals thought to pose partiality. “I have to say some criticism is justified,” said Mayor Conrad Lee after a string of neighbor testimony. “We probably didn’t do as good of a job as we should have…There’s an opportunity to make the proper adjustments and corrections and we of course will.” Sixty people applied to be on the committee, of which nine were selected. They are intended to represent a range of experience as engineers, property owners, urban planners, business owners and artists. Approved at the Aug. 5 meeting were Erin Derrington, Clay Wallace, Richard Line, Don Miles, Ming-Fang Chang, Susan Rakow Anderson, Marcelle Lynde, Joel Glass and Doug Mathews, though as councilmember Kevin Wallace noted, the agenda item was voted on only at the last minute, during the final council meeting of the summer. “Regardless of the cause, the important thing is to correct this situation in an open, transparent manner that is sensitive to the two people who – through no fault of their own – were
SEE CEMETERY, 12
SEE APPOINTMENTS, 8
There aren’t reliable records of who is burried in the 2.2-acre cemetery west of Lake Boren. COURTESY PHOTOS, Cerelli Photography
Preserving a forgotten past Newcastle Historical Society wants to restore final resting place of coal miners, pioneers BY CELINA KAREIVA BELLEVUE REPORTER
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