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BURGLARS ARRESTED | Kirkland homeowner follows burglary suspects from his home, helps police locate them [7]
Holiday lights | Light display with 40,000 FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 29, 2013 lights to benefit animals [10]
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50 years | The Barber Shoppe to celebrate 50 years in business [6]
GoDaddy opens new Kirkland office REPORTER STAFF
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GoDaddy CEO Blake Irving cuts the ribbon during the grand-opening ceremony of the new business on Nov. 21 with Kirkland Mayor Joan McBride and GoDaddy Chief Architect Arnold Blinn. The new business is located at Carillon Point and GoDaddy officials plan to hire up to 50 new employees throughout the next year. RAECHEL DAWSON, Kirkland Reporter
[ more GODADDY page 3 ]
Kirkland Mayor recommends carpool policy for express toll lanes on I-405
Common Core evens playing field for LWSD
BY RAECHEL DAWSON rdawson@kirkalndreporter.com
BY SAMANTHA PAK Reporter Newspapers
When a student moves from one school to another, one of the biggest adjustments he or she must make — aside from meeting and making new friends — is academically. Their new school may be covering a topic the student has already learned or they may not be ready for as the topic may be more advanced than what they have learned up to that point. This issue is magnified when a student moves states. “How much would he or she have to make up or how much is he or she ahead?” asked Nathan Olson, communication manager for Washington’s Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI). So, in an effort to provide students throughout the country with a more con-
oDaddy officially opened its new Kirkland office with a formal ribbon cutting ceremony this afternoon. Kirkland Mayor Joan McBride and GoDaddy CEO Blake Irving led the opening of the new Carillon Point 10,000-square-foot office overlooking Lake Washington. Upon entering the new space, guests were greeted with a modern lobby, two private conference rooms at the hall, which entered into a wide open space where desks, offices and a long table were strategically faced so that employees could enjoy the view of Lake Washington.
GoDaddy International Senior Vice President James Carroll said this was possibly one of GoDaddy’s most beautiful office locations. “It was an easy choice, it was our first choice,” Carroll said about the Kirkland location pick, which was pitted against other Puget Sound cities in a few months ago. Irving, a 15-year Microsoft veteran, took over GoDaddy CEO in January and identified Kirkland as a prime location for recruiting top-tier technology talent in June. GoDaddy opened a temporary office in Kirkland last spring, as it built out the new, larger office. “Our mission here at
A student lights a small piece of paper on fire to see how it burns as part of a science lesson at Stella Schola Middle School. SAMANTHA PAK, Reporter Newspapers
sistent education, 45 states — including Washington — have adopted a Common Core of standards for English/language arts and math.
An even, deeper, playing field Olson said in addition to providing a more consistent education for students nationwide, one of the goals of the Common Core — which applies to grades K-12 — is to help students be college and career ready after high school.
“The learning is a lot more rigorous,” said Shannon Leonard, who teaches second grade at Horace Mann Elementary School in Redmond. She said with the new standards, students need to think more deeply about what they are reading and pull evidence from the text to show how they arrived at their answers. Leonard, who has been teaching for 15 years, admits that this was a “big shift” for her as she has younger students. However, she has [ more LWSD page 3 ]
Acting on behalf of the Interstate 405 and State Route 167 Executive Advisory Group, Kirkland Mayor Joan McBride recently advised the Washington Transportation Commission to adopt a carpool policy for express toll lanes along Interstate 405 that would exempt carpools with three or more occupants from paying the toll during rush hour traffic. At the Kirkland City Hall meeting on Nov. 20, McBride said two state requirements for the tolling project were the driving force in that decision: maintain speed in the express toll lanes and generate the required revenue. The Washington Transportation Commission is responsible for setting toll rates. “We’ve been looking at this for 10 years, in detail for
the last four,” McBride said in a phone interview. The Bellevue to Lynnwood I-405 expansion, currently in construction, will add one more HOV lane in a large section of the route, resulting in two express toll lanes available for drivers between Bellevue and Bothell. It will then taper into one express toll lane at the north end of I-405. Officials expect the project to be finished in 2015. Aside from being able to sustain toll lane operation after the first two years, the tolled lanes must maintain 45 mph for 90 percent of the time during peak traffic. If the tolled lanes do not meet state standards, then the project will cease, according to RCW 47.56.880. For this reason, McBride said it wouldn’t be viable if the tolls were free for a two-plus person carpool because it wouldn’t generate
the required revenue nor would it make the tolled lanes congestion free. “I wish that there was a way we didn’t have to do tolling,” McBride said. “I wish that was the world we lived in but unless we’re willing to take more land from the city of Kirkland and the cities along I-405 and just double the size - we can’t build our way out of congestion - so we must manage what we have.” If funding is secured for the Bellevue to Renton express toll lane “direct connecter” in the next proposed transportation package from the Legislature, the group’s recommendation for the three-plus carpool policy would also potentially apply for that section of I-405. In a letter to WSDOT Secretary Lynn Peterson and Washington State Transportation Commis[ more CARPOOL page 7 ]