REPORTER
Mercer Island
Serving the Mercer Island Community Serving community Since since 1947 1947
Land values drive tax assessment
Paddling against cancer
Weekend sale to benefit City of Hope A huge sale of new and lightly used items along with fresh baked goods and more will benefit City of Hope, a research facility that focuses on the treatment of cancer, diabetes and HIV/Aids illnesses. The event is between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m., this Friday and Saturday at Holy Trinity Church at 8501 S.E. 40th St.
Property owners may challenge value online By Mary L. Grady
editor@mi-reporter.com
Radio Operators to meet tomorrow The Mercer Island Radio Operators will meet at 7 p.m. at the North Fire Station, 3030 78th Ave S.E. for ongoing training on how to manage emergency communications. For more, go to www.mercergov.org.
Music at Mercerdale There are two reasons to keep those lawnchairs handy this week for an extra evening of Mostly Music in the Park. At 7 p.m., Thursday, August 21, the Brazilian Orchestra, En Canto will perform. Then a special bonus concert is set for 7 p.m. on Sunday, Aug. 24, for a ‘Community Sing-a-long’ with Mercer Island Musician Nancy Stewart. Both are at Mercerdale Park.
‘Fees and Photos’ days begin Aug. 25 Students and their parents will begin the process of finalizing registration and other details for the new school year at 9 a.m., Monday, Aug. 25, and Thursday, Aug. 29 at Mercer Island High School. Expect heavy traffic and limited parking around the high schooll campus. The 2014 - 2015 school year will begin Sept. 2. The first football game is at 7 p.m., Sept. 5 at Islander Stadium.
Tim Tiscornia / Special to the Reporter
Over 100 participants including friends, family and even a baby, took to the waters of Lake Washington to paddle from the Enatai boathouse to Mercer Island and back on August 15. They raised over $10,000 for ongoing research into pediatric cancer. Kat Tiscornia, center with bullhorn, has raised over $180,000 since being diagnosed with Ewings Sarcoma in spring of 2013. See more on page 2.
City still paying to clean up old oil spill Leak from old fuel tanks not discovered until 2004 By Celina Kareiva
ckareiva@mi-reporter.com
Nearly a decade after clean-up efforts began on a gasoline leak from an old underground fuel tank at the city’s maintenance shop, the Island is still paying about $75,000 a year in clean-up efforts. “We’ve made progress,” said Glenn Boettcher, maintenance director, “but it’s been slow going.” The clean-up has included groundwater filtering, chemi-
site at 9555 S.E. 36th St., just behind City Hall, more than 20 years ago when the city paid to dispose of them and a sizeable amount of contaminated soil. Contamination was first detected in 1991, northwest of the maintenance shop, where the Honeywell Industries buildcal injections and air injections. ing sat. A device was installed to Boettcher said it’s not unusu- remove vapors from the soil, but al for a clean-up was never activatsuch as this one, ed when paperto take 20 years work was lost at or more and that City Hall. Over this was a “a small time, gasoline issue in the contraveled through text of things.” the groundwater The city will have onto the properspent $410,000 ty to the west of by the end of City Hall. When Glen Boettcher 2014. Another City of Mercer Island a potential buyer $570,000 will have took interest in been covered by the Honeywell Washington Cities Insurance International site, soil and Authority, the city’s insurer, by underground water testing was the end of 2014. conducted in July of 2004. The three underground fuel oil SPILL | Page 2 tanks were removed from the
“It’s not unusual for a clean-up like this to take 20 years or more to complete.”
Staff from the King County Assessor’s Office and Board of Equalization (BOE) spoke with some 60 Islanders last week to discuss the new property tax assessments mailed out to Islanders on July 31. The Assessor’s office lead by Lloyd Hara, an elected official, re-values 700,000 parcels of land county-wide each year. Of those, 16 percent or 112,000 parcels are physically inspected each year. This year, that amount included parcels on Mercer Island. The last time Island properties were inspected was 2008. The Assessor’s office notes that land values county-wide have
Value | Page 2
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