Auburn Reporter, September 19, 2014

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INSIDE | City celebrates poet laureate’s work [2]

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Sports | Peterson takes the reigns of Lions’ volleyball program [8]

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 19, 2014

City’s financial forecast is good BY ROBERT WHALE rwhale@auburn-reporter.com

City Finance Director Shelley Coleman took to the floor at City Hall on Monday night to present her preliminary 2015-2016 budget

update to the City Council. In 2009, she noted, year one of the Great Recession, the City of Auburn had $8.7 billion in assessed value. As might have been expected, over the next five years its

assessed value continued to drop, so that by its nadir in 2013, it was at $6.9 billion, more than a 20-percent-plus cumulative decline over that span. [ more BUDGET page 3 ]

Officials gather to break ground on the new $6.6 million Wesley Homes health center, the first of its kind in the area. ROBERT WHALE, Auburn Reporter

DREAM COMING TRUE FOR WESLEY HOMES Proponents of future health center on Lea Hill break ground BY ROBERT WHALE rwhale@auburn-reporter.com

King County Sheriff John Urquhart, right, with King County Prosecutor Dan Satterberg, fields questions from the crowd at a public forum last week. MARK KLAAS, Auburn Reporter

Can Ferguson happen here? County leaders, area residents sound off on race, law enforcement

BY MARK KLAAS mklaas@auburn-reporter.com

It’s hard talk, a sensitive conversation and one King County and community leaders welcome. A public forum to discuss county

law enforcement’s relationship with the diverse neighborhoods it serves jammed the Tyee High School cafeteria in SeaTac on Sept. 10. [ more FORUM page 10 ]

The folks at Wesley Homes Lea Hill retirement community broke ground Sept. 10 on a $6.6 million skilled nursing and rehabilitation center, launching a nine-month construction process that should end with an opening day in 2015. Even though the capital campaign to pay for the state-of-the-art center on the Auburn campus is still $70,000 short of the $2 million needed to complete it, and the timelines to finish it are still tethered to

those remaining funds. Still, there was a partylike atmosphere under the hot September sky. “These are dreams that happen because of hardworking people, and people who catch the vision of what we want to have here on Lea Hill,” David Snow, Wesley Homes Foundation director of campaigns, told supporters. “When we first began on Lea Hill, we always knew that we wanted to complete the continuum and build a health center here, and today we’re making that happen.” Upon the project’s completion, the Wesley Homes will be the only [ more CENTER page 3 ]

County working to avoid Public Health clinic closures Auburn among the cities in negotiations BY ROBERT WHALE rwhale@auburn-reporter.com

Constantine

Auburn City Councilmember Largo Wales is calling on Auburn residents

Auburn Int’l Farmers Market

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to make something clear to King County Executive Dow Constantine. A mince-no-words message about the potential closure of the King County

Market

Last day of the season! Final Day: Sunday, September 21 | 10 am-3 pm Sound Transit Plaza, 23 A Street SW www.auburnfarmersmarket.org | 253-266-2726

Public Health Clinic in Auburn. “It is imperative that our humans down here have the quality of life that our salmon are going to have,” Wales said at Monday’s meeting of the City Council. Imperative, she said, given the cold

fact that 10,000 of Auburn’s 74,000 residents last year accessed the Public Health Clinic. Continual declines in the federal and state funds that support Public [ more CLINICS page 6 ]

Celebrate the 2014 Market season


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