Posted inPolitics

Residents Plan To Sue Port Of Seattle Over 3rd Runway

Over 150 area residents turned out Sunday to hear lawyers discuss an upcoming class action lawsuit against the Port of Seattle over the third runway.

by Jack Mayne

Big 757s taking off and landing right over your house can jar nerves and rattle lifestyles, yet a lot of people have to live that way every day – and many are ready to fight on in court.

“I can’t sleep at night,” said one person at a meeting Sunday afternoon at the SeaTac Community Center. “It got better for a while, but then they opened the new runway and now I can’t hear people in the room,” said another person, “or what is on TV.” Still another said people had moved from his rental properties and others said the value of their property, already hammered by the faltering economy, have gone lower because of the November opening of the runway….

Posted inPolitics

Burien’s Red Light Camera Citations Are ‘In The Mail’

By Jack Mayne

Any day now, cameras mounted high over three First Avenue intersections will record motorists running red lights and after local review of each photo, citations will be mailed to the owners of the offending vehicles.

The violation fine set by the Burien City Council is $101 now, but state law allows it to go up to a maximum of $124.

There are two cameras at First and SW 148th, focusing both east and west on 148th. The camera at First and SW 152nd tracks westbound vehicles and the one at SW 160th tracks eastbound traffic.

“Those intersections have a lot of accidents and this is really about safety to us,” said Mike Martin, Burien city manager. “It is not about the revenue. What we expect to see is a lot of tickets the first few months and then we expect it to decline. We thought about doing similar things in schools zones, we thought about doing it on Ambaum Boulevard it terms of speeding.”

But not now…

Posted inPolitics

Should Lake Burien Get A Public Park? City Says No’

by Jack Mayne

A small group of residents are continuing their efforts to have the city of Burien purchase for a public park a recently rezoned portion of the Ruth Dykeman Children’s Center property on Lake Burien.

The area was rezoned last December, so the Dykeman Center can sell it to improve its revenue structure during the current economic downturn. When approached by the group calling itself the Committee to Free Lake Burien, Dykeman’s CEO said the center would not sell the land for a park.

Lake Burien is well known to long-term residents of the city but newer residents are likely to ask, “There is a lake in Burien?” That is because the lake is completely surrounded by private homes with no public access to it.

Under federal law, all lake shores the size of Lake Burien are considered public, but the sticking point is getting to the lake across private property.

The rezoned land, apparently for sale at some time in the future, would not include public access to the lake, which is vehemently opposed by owners of the property surrounding Lake Burien,

A flier by area resident Lee Moyer says the property should be purchased as a lake front park…