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NEWS | COUNTY PRESENTS UPDATES ON WILLOWMOOR PROJECT [9]
FRIDAY, MARCH 20, 2015
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COMMUNITY | Festival of Color is coming to City Hall on Saturday. [10]
FINAL CURTAIN CALL
City to use state grant and loan to restore Tosh Creek SAMANTHA PAK spak@redmond-reporter.com
Performers dance together during one of the final acts in Cirque du Soleil’s “Kurios.” The show’s final performance is on Sunday. “Kurios” is a tale in which time comes to a complete stop, transporting the audience inside a fantasy world where everything is possible. In this realm, reality is relative indeed as our perception of it is transformed. SAMANTHA PAK, Redmond Reporter
City, community members, to tackle area’s homeless issues together SAMANTHA PAK spak@redmond-reporter.com
On March 12, about 100 members of the greater Redmond community — from residents to business owners to members of local advocacy groups and churches — and about 20 members from the City of Redmond staff filled the Bytes Cafe at City Hall to address homelessness in the area. The meeting was prompted by growing concerns throughout the community. “It’s a complex problem that we’re definitely not going to arrest our way out of,” said Redmond Police Chief Ron Gibson.
A COLLABORATIVE EFFORT
For Tasha Witherspoon, those concerns include vandalism and unauthorized access to the apartment
building she manages in Redmond. Witherspoon — along with about eight residents from her building — attended last week’s meeting as representatives for the roughly 200 residents in their community. She said they had hoped to voice their concerns. And while some of those concerns were for their own safety and their families’ safety, Witherspoon said her residents were also concerned about the homeless community’s safety — especially the younger demographic. “A lot of them wanted to help and just didn’t know how,” she said. Helping and trying to find a solution was one of the objectives of the community meeting. Colleen Kelly, assistant director of community planning for the city, said in
Community members discuss concerns and solutions about local homelessness. SAMANTHA PAK, Redmond Reporter trying to figure out successful strategies, it makes sense to get together and work with others. “The solutions are not all in government,” she said. Gibson agreed. “They’re all part of the solution,” he said. Both he and Kelly stressed that the goal of last week’s meeting was not to come up with a solution
immediately. The meeting was just to get the conversation going in the community and come up with some long-term solutions. “This is just a starting point,” Gibson said. Since December 2014, he said they have met with police and human services with other Eastside cities such as Bellevue, Kirkland, [ more HOMELESS page 7 ]
In February, the Washington State Department of Ecology awarded the City of Redmond a grant for $4.9 million and a low-interest loan for $1.63 million to help fund the restoration of Tosh Creek. The money comes from the department’s Water Quality Financial Assistance, which Steve Hitch, a senior stormwater engineer for the city, said has set aside $100 million to go toward restoring the waters in the greater Puget Sound.
IDENTIFYING THE RIGHT PROJECTS
been a great partner by providing technical and financial support toward meeting this goal.” In 2014, the press release states, the city received a $250,000 National Estuaries Program grant from the Department of Ecology to help fund a study of the Tosh Creek Watershed. The study was conducted by the city and its consultant team, RH2 and NHC, and Hitch said they just completed the study. From the study, he said the city produced the Tosh Creek Watershed Restoration plan, which identifies several projects, including the 159th Avenue Vault, to be constructed during a five-year period. Other projects in the plan include modifying a nearby pond for it to hold more water and to address some of its drainage and seepage issues. There is also one more detention vault in the plan.
CITY NEWS
According to a press release issued by the city, this funding will be used to construct a new stormwater detention vault and stormwater treatment facilities near the 4700 block of 159th Avenue Northeast. Tosh Creek is one of six streams that are part of the city’s 2013 Watershed Management Plan. Hitch said Tosh Creek was selected as a priority stream for restoration and is the first one in the plan the city will be tackling. The next one on the list will be Monticello Creek and the remaining four streams are Clise, High School, Bear and Evans creeks. “Redmond constantly works to make a healthy environment part of our city’s future,” said Redmond Mayor John Marchione. “We prioritized Tosh Creek through our Watershed Management Plan as a waterway that will significantly regain health in the near future. The Washington State Department of Ecology has
AN ERODING ISSUE
Roger Dane, a senior planner for the city’s natural resources division, said the location for the first stormwater detention vault underneath 159th Avenue Northeast is very strategic as that is the area that has the most problems. He and Hitch explained that currently, stormwater runoff is flowing into the creek from existing urban development in the area and causing erosion at a higher rate than they would like. They said as the water rushes into the stream, sides of the stream are sloughed down, causing the water channel to become deeper. [ more TOSH CREEK page 3 ]