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LOCAL | Tahoma High Drama Club presented ‘A Night of British Comedy’ Nov. 1 [page 8]
Crossing the line | Tahoma’s boys and girls cross country teams advanced to the FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 7, 2014 state tournament [9]
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Consequences of an epidemic BY ERIC MANDEL emandel@covingtonreporter.com
G
eri Jeffery and I wait as the Facetime connection on her laptop once again reconnects. The sound and video of her friend on the other side of the screen, Patrick Sesay, is delayed by the more than 6,600 miles between Maple Valley and Makeni, Sierra Leone, as well as a tenuous satellite connection. Sesay’s bald head reappears, his smile and excitable response making Jeffery laugh. He is full of life, despite the somber subject at hand — the state of his country. I’m asking Sesay about the death of his friends and neighbors and optimism is decidedly scarce. The city’s confirmed deaths have risen to 547, the number of quarantines up 170 — 40 more than in September — and, yesterday, they ran out of chlorine, which is needed for both safety and continued education about necessary hygiene protocols.
From an iPad mounted inside Makeni’s Bridge of Hope compound, Sesay says the people of Makeni are desperate. Even more so than usual. “We are getting help and we need more help,” Sesay says. “In normal cases people are struggling. We have nothing to start with. We desperately need help.” Even before the Ebola outbreak, which is estimated to have killed nearly 5,000 of the more than 13,500 infected West Africans in eight countries, the people of Makeni, and much of Sierra Leone, lived in hardship. The country was beginning to recover from a nearly 11-year long civil war that ended in 2002. On the best of days, the West African nation of six million suffers from immense healthcare issues that include HIV/AIDS, malaria, tuberculosis, Lassa fever and one of the highest maternal mortality rates in the world. All of these issues still remain, which means while
the people of Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia are currently just fighting to survive, there will be far reaching consequences to the Ebola epidemic beyond the final body count. “Our normal effort is to help rebuild up after the wars they went through,” says Jeffery, Executive Director of The Bridge of Hope, a nonprofit organization in Maple Valley that has been providing aid in Sierra Leone since 2006. “Now it’s become just an effort of relief, educate and feed.” The Bridge of Hope is among the many non-governmental agencies around the country attempting to provide aid to the region from afar. Volunteers from the Maple Valley organization, which started with mission work, typically make three trips per year to Sierra Leone. The volunteers have helped build schools, provided microloans for businesses like bakeries and barber shops, have planted churches, and
Councilman unapologetic over controversial remarks unpaid religious holidays each year. The bill can be utilized by individuals of any religion, but was most specifically aimed Ron Taylor believes he “took a stand” to provide flexibility to employees of faiths against political correctness. Other Black such as Islam or Judaism whose holy days Diamond City Council members and the do not fall on federal holidays. The employmayor said Taylor made offensive reee will be allowed to take the unpaid marks in an inappropriate fashion. holidays on the selected days “unless Either way, despite assurances the absence would unduly disrupt BLACK from the mayor saying otherwise, operations, impose an undue hardDIAMOND Taylor is not sorry. ship or the employee is necessary to “I don’t regret it,” said Taylor, a maintain public safety.” council member since 2012. Despite strong bipartisan support, On Oct. 16, the Black Diamond City some reported concerns included typiCouncil approved a resolution to adopt cal workload and staffing concerns and a bill signed by Gov. Jay Inslee in March potential for employee abuse. A newsletter that allows public employees, including from Seattle law firm K&L Gates said the employees at public schools, institutions act “creates special challenges for public of higher education and state-funded employers throughout the state, including workforce training programs, to make two [ more REMARKS page 5 ] BY ERIC MANDEL
ericmandel@covingtonreporter.com
Food, water and medicine have been difficult to come by for the people of Makeni, Sierra Leone since the ongoing Ebola outbreak started to decimate their population in September. Courtesy Photos are building medical and dental programs. But, after the Ebola concerns mounted, the group cancelled its last scheduled trip in April.
“We are not equipped to be there,” Jeffery says. “We’re kind of just trying to see what happens; we may send a couple of our leaders early next year. We are
trying to be wise... We don’t want to bring anything back to the states. We need to do the best we can from here.” [ more EPIDEMIC page 2 ]
‘Copy cat’ threats won’t change school procedures BY REBECCA GOURLEY rgourley@maplevalleyreporter.com
In the wake of the deadly shooting at Marysville Pilchuck High School two weeks ago, several additional threats of violence have popped up across the region. One of those threats was on Oct. 30 at Federal Way High School. As a result, the school was in an emergency lockdown for a brief period of time in the morning. The student who allegedly threatened one or more students at the school was taken into custody by police at the Federal Way Transit Center. No injuries were reported. On Oct. 29, a rumor of a threat at Kent-Meridian High School surfaced, but school officials determined that it wasn’t credible. Parents were allowed to keep their children home from school the following day. These types of instances are referred to as “copy cat” threats. Kevin Patterson, spokesperson for
Tahoma School District said these threats are all too common after a shooting takes place, and proximity has made them even more prevalent in this area recently. “I think we notice (copy cat threats) more because it happens literally in our back yard,” he said. “Whereas, if it was happening across the country, we may not notice it as much. People are paying closer attention to it because it happened here.” Tahoma schools are doing what they can to learn from the recent shooting to keep students safe as much as possible. “We’ve learned a lot of lessons from those other shootings,” Patterson said. “We try to incorporate those (lessons) in our training and preparation.” Patterson said the last time a majority of schools significantly changed their training and procedures for emergencies was after the shooting at Columbine High School in 1999, where two teens killed 13 people and wounded more than [ more SCHOOL page 6 ]