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FRIDAY, 11.27.2015
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EVERETT, WASHINGTON
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Holiday shopping changing Court
project shows success
Retailers are pushing sales earlier, and consumers are buying
Of the 10 who graduated a year ago from a program that offers the mentally ill an alternative to jail, only one person has reoffended. By Chris Winters Herald Writer
absurd at this point,” Cohen said. “Kids had barely opened their Halloween candy” before the Christmas sales pitches started. Offering earlier deals likely won’t mean people spend more this year, he said.
EVERETT — The city’s initiative to divert people with mental health issues who are facing misdemeanors into a special court is starting to show good results. Established in mid-2013, the city’s Mental Health Alternatives Program, formerly known as the Criminal Justice Alternative Program, has graduated 10 people, and recidivism has been low, said Laura Van Slyck, the presiding judge at the Everett Municipal Court who oversees the program. Those 10 offenders came into the program with 125 criminal charges among them, Van Slyck said. In the year since those 10 have graduated, only one has reoffended, leading to two new charges. Van Slyck told the Everett City Council that the investment in the program has been worth it. “You’ve had people out for over a year and we have not heard a peep from them,” she said. “Not even a traffic ticket.” The program is targeted at nonviolent offenders whose mental health issues might cause them to reoffend. Instead of jail time, people the program get pointed toward services they need to keep them straight, whether it’s therapy, medications or stable housing. Graduates of the program may have their charges dismissed. Participants in the program go before Van Slyck twice a month for advice, guidance or direction for at least a year. As of this month, there are 19 people taking part in the Mental Health Alternatives Program. Only two people since the court’s inception have been dismissed from the program for failing to keep up with the requirements of the court. The program predates Everett’s Community Streets Initiative, last
See SHOP, Page A2
See PILOT, Page A2
PHOTOS BY KEVIN CLARK / THE HERALD
Consumers line up to enter the Kate Spade store at Seattle Premium Outlets on Saturday morning. Others (below) explore the shopping options.
By Dan Catchpole Herald Writer
EVERETT — The lights have been strung, the sales banners have been hung and the chintz-pop holiday music is playing at stores and shopping centers. It’s Christmastime in retail America. It came even earlier this year. Stores have stretched holiday promotions to get bigger slices of the year’s busiest buying time. Black Fridays have become Black Novembers. Camille Edwards and her daughter were checking out the early Christmas deals at Seattle Premium Outlets in Tulalip on Tuesday. “I actually have four presents already wrapped,” the Marysville resident said. “I’ve never started this early.” She bought the items online because of time-limited deals. Holiday shopping is a necessity, not a thrill, Edwards said. The holiday shopping season is undergoing a dramatic change, said Marshal Cohen, the chief retail analyst at NPD Group in Port Washington, New York. It “is a very different animal.” Christmas has been creeping earlier and earlier into
advertising and store displays for years. But retailers in the U.S. traditionally have held back holiday deals for Black Friday. This year, “20 percent of consumers have already started shopping before Thanksgiving Day,” he said. “That’s the highest it’s ever been in 30 years I’ve been doing this.”
Online retailers are open every hour of every day. That prompted many big retailers in recent years to open Thanksgiving Day. And now many brick-and-mortar stores are offering holiday deals that used to be reserved for Black Friday earlier and earlier. “We’re bordering on the
County Council sets hearing on Paine Field proposal By Noah Haglund Herald Writer
EVERETT — An aircraft collector’s dream of creating new museums and restoration hangars on the west side of Paine
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Field could be headed toward a real decision sometime soon. John Sessions wants Snohomish County to provide airport land for the project next to the to the Historic Flight Foundation hangar that he opened five years
Lottery . . . . . . A2 Obituaries . . . A9 Opinion . . . . A12
ago. The County Council has set a hearing for 10:30 a.m. Dec. 9, though a vote might not happen until later. The hearing date will mark two years to the day since Sessions first pitched his idea to county leaders. “It’s probably a good time to make a decision,” Sessions said this week. “If this is approved,
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and I hope it is, I’m going to have to convince people here and abroad that there is commitment by the county. Taking two years to make a decision — I guess that’s what they call deliberate speed.” The plan calls for five new buildings along taxiway Kilo 6. To make Sessions’ idea work, Snohomish County would have
The Buzz The Buzz is sleeping off the tryptophan. It will return Saturday.
to provide more than 12 acres for free or at nominal rent. The land would be held by a specially created development authority and the facilities run by a separate nonprofit. The structure would resemble the one used by the Museum of Flight at King County’s Boeing Field in Seattle. See PAINE, Page A2
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DAILY
An aircraft collector wants land to be set aside for new museums, but officials aren’t sure the idea is fiscally sound.
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VOL. 115, NO. 288 © 2015 THE DAILY HERALD CO.
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