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[6] www.federalwaymirror.comFebruary 26, 2011

By DINI DUCLOS

CEO, Multi-Service Center

If Congress approves Presi-dent Obama’s proposed slash in federal funding to Community Action Agencies across the nation, thousands of our Federal Way neighbors in need could lose critical services such as food and hous-ing, job retraining and employment help.

As one of the more than 1,000 Community Ac-tion Agencies in the United States, Multi-Service Center in Federal Way stands to lose $1.2 million over two years if Congress votes to cut Com-munity Services Block Grant (CSBG) funding. This would deal a devastating blow to South King County’s homeless people, the elderly, and un-deremployed and jobless families at a time when need is skyrocketing.

Without CSBG funding, Multi-Service Center could have to turn away nearly one-quarter (12,112) of the 58,000 people we serve each year. Getting more specific, MSC would not be able to serve approximately 600 people with hous-ing, and another 600 with financial management classes; 115 people would not get help with education, and 50 people would not receive job skills training.

Additionally, our area food bank would go from serving people three days a week to one day a week, turning away nearly 11,000 people.

Where will our neighbors go for help?You may already know that Multi-Service

Center serves as a “first stop” for people in need, providing critical services such as food, shelter, heat and eviction prevention, along with job training and referrals. So do most of the other Community Action Agencies across Washington state and the nation. All over America, Commu-nity Action Agencies are our frontline response to the economic recession. We create and retain jobs, and prepare low-income people for family-wage employment.

Community Action Agencies like MSC cross political and cultural lines and are leadership examples of the promise of bipartisanship. Through decades of building broad coalitions and local partnerships with business, faith groups and other nonprofit agencies, our Community Action Agencies have gained the trust and confidence of communities throughout King County. We are reliable, capable partners that strengthen the cit-ies and communities where we live.

In Federal Way, you know this from our work with the city and Federal Way Police Department

Federal Way lost a badge of honor.The 2010 Census reveals that Federal Way,

once the eighth largest city in Washington, has fallen out of the top 10.

With 89,306 residents, Federal Way now ranks 11th in population after being surpassed by annexation-happy cities like Kent, Yakima, Renton and Spokane Valley.

Since 2000, King County’s population has grown 11.2 percent to 1,931,249, according to the 2010 Census. In that time, Federal Way expanded by nearly 7 percent.

Federal Way has often leaned on the “eighth largest city” label as a bragging right. The city’s former rank carried a dignified status, regard-less of whether it was earned. Unfortunately, “11th largest city” doesn’t sound as impressive.

Federal Way could annex its way back on the list of largest cities, if being on that exclusive list is important. The last attempt to annex a 4,400-acre area of unincorporated King County (east of Interstate 5) was shot down by voters in 2007. Had it passed, the annexation would have added about 20,000 residents to the city’s popu-lation — making Federal Way the sixth largest city on the 2010 list, right behind Bellevue.

Better yet, forget about the top 10 list and remember this old saying: It’s not the size of the dog in the fight, but the size of the fight in the dog.

Federal Way’s so-called fight is right here within the city’s borders. Rather than pursuing

a spot on someone’s top 10 list, let Federal Way work as if there are no lists other than its own.

If there’s one road Federal Way must travel, it’s the road toward a higher quality of life. Here are a few areas in which the city is moving in that direction:

1. Schools. A new policy in the Fed-eral Way School District has doubled the enrollment of students in advanced classes. Long-term results remain to be seen. Despite criticisms that the policy

“waters down” the advanced classes, the silver lining is that more students are exposed to a higher level of learning.

2. Businesses. The South Sound Regional Business Incubator offers resources, training and information to help small businesses suc-ceed. Strong businesses lead to a stronger tax base that benefits residents, roads and schools.

3. Volunteers. Last week’s One Day Federal Way, for example, brought together more than 300 volunteers to spruce up three schools that needed it. Volunteers who invest time into making Federal Way a better place to live will always see a return on their investment.

The nationwide self-indulgence from the early to mid-2000s has been replaced with a spreading interest in self-improvement. The key is to nurture this interest in Federal Way.

It’s a notion that should top everyone’s list.

Mirror editor Andy Hobbs: [email protected] or (253) 925-5565.

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Civic center could fatten FW’s coffers

(RE: “Oops, they did it again,” letters, Feb. 23):

Our Federal Way School District is a separate entity from our Federal Way municipal government. The district receives funding from many sources, and you and I pay our portion from our property taxes. Federal Way City Council’s recommendation regarding a civic center doesn’t impact school funding.

The majority of our council members were right on spot with sound foresight on moving toward bringing a civic center to Federal Way. The center would

draw people from within and outside the area, and the best part is that those who attend would spend their money locally. A key focus of the council and Federal Way Chamber of Commerce is a healthy business environment, which, through taxes paid by businesses, brings funds into the coffers of our city.

When businesses do well, sales tax income increases to the city, which can then provide more and better services for the community. A civic center would bring people and their dollars to Federal Way.

Envision Federal Way as a “go-to” city, a destination on the map! It can be done, and this is a good start.Sandy Petitt, Federal Way

Schools: Can I get my money’s worth?

I don’t have any kids in the Federal Way school system. That must mean that I don’t have an ax to grind. Or does it?

I recently received my property tax statement. I see that a hefty portion of that tax goes to the

school system. So if I pay for it, I must own it. And if I own it, I could ask, “Did I get my money’s worth?”

Mark Knapp had an interesting column in The Mirror (“Charter schools vs. the gorilla,” Feb. 19). I urge you to read it. Knapp pointed out that there is a large achieve-ment gap between Hispanic and African American students and Asian and non-minority students in math and science. He said that nearly 80 percent of Hispanics and African American students fall below Washington state

standards.Knapp also pointed out that at

the Federal Way Public Academy (FWPA), this achievement gap does not exist. That tells me that it is not the fault of the students.

Somehow, I have the sneaking feeling that I am not getting my money’s worth.Leo J. Thoennes, Federal Way

Disc golf players aren’t big spenders

Disc golf in Federal Way? You’re kidding, right? Please, please, not another parks depart-ment boondoggle.

The purported benefits include

Federal Way falls off top 10 list

● L E T T E r S - Y o u r o p i n i o n C o u n T S : To submit an item or photo for publication in The Mirror: email [email protected]; mail attn Letters, Federal Way Mirror, 1414 S. 324th St., Suite B-210, Federal Way, WA 98003; fax (253) 925-5750. Letters may be edited for style, clarity and length.

Proposed cuts will hurt thousands in South King County

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your opinion counts: To submit an item or photo for publication in The Mirror, e-mail editor@ federalwaymirror.com; mail attn Letters, Federal Way Mirror, 1414 S. 324th St., Suite B-210, Federal Way, WA 98003; fax (253) 925-5750. Letters may be edited for style, clarity and length.

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The Federal Way School District recently conducted a public forum that focused on the achievement gap and equity. The gap is the difference between the academic achieve-ment of Hispanic and African American children compared to Asian and non-minority students. A district employee made some initial comments, then they formed us into small groups. There were repre-sentatives from the school district at each table.

The fact that the Federal Way Public Academy (FWPA) is, in many people’s minds, a little like a charter school, raises the issue of how charter schools could help close the achievement gap and thereby create more “equity.” Almost 80 percent of tenth-graders who are black or Hispanic are below Washington State’s standards for math and science.

At FWPA, the achievement gap is virtually nonexistent.

People at more than one table were talking about why they never heard about the FWPA and why we don’t have another FWPA. The one we have now is the only secondary school in Federal Way rated exemplary by the Washington State Board of Education. Most FWPA students suc-ceed, regardless of race and without additional expense to the taxpayers.

At the meeting, some of us started to talk about charter schools and the FWPA.

A few of us began to ask ourselves whether a gorilla might be hiding in the meeting some-where. There actually was a 500-pound gorilla in the room: the teachers union. Organized labor has been hostile to charter schools and the Federal Way Public Academy ever since it was conceived. The Washington Education Associa-tion (WEA) was shouting louder than any of us could — and didn’t even open its mouth during the forum.

One of the things I learned during a recent visit with Superintendent Robert Neu is that the district gets along well with the teachers union. I told the superintendent that I could share a prison cell with a 500-pound gorilla and also get along fine — provided I did everything my cell-mate told me to do with a smile on my face.

Many of our state’s legislators oppose charter schools or anything that even looks like a charter school. There are currently several bills before the Legislature for “innovation schools.”

The WEA has consistently come out against them in spite of the governor’s endorsement of these as a “substitute” for charter schools. The

Why is that guy on fire?That’s the number one question Cub Scouts

ask when entering my office. Scouts often tour newspaper buildings to earn merit badges, and Federal Way scouts some-times visit The Mirror.

This paper prints in Everett, which means the so-called tours in Federal Way are quiet and simple. The Mirror is just like any small office with desks, computers and a lunchroom/storage/recycling area. Let’s not forget about the two bathrooms, where many ideas are born.

The tour eventually reaches my office in the back. The scouts immediately notice the poster of Pink Floyd’s “Wish You Were Here” clas-sic rock masterpiece. The surreal album cover shows two businessmen shaking hands in an empty movie studio lot. One of the suit-clad men is engulfed in orange flames while cracking a smile.

Every scout group that tours this office asks: Why is that guy on fire?

The real answer, of course, would fly over their innocent heads. Released in 1975, “Wish You Were Here” criticized the music industry and corporate greed. If the scouts were earning a Pink Floyd merit badge, we could plug in a lava lamp, play the album and analyze the cover. Maybe the flaming guy represents the devil in whatever deal is taking place between the two executives. As one article suggests, the cover reflects the idea of people hiding their real

feelings to avoid “getting burned.” Either way, a merit badge with this artwork (or the “Dark Side of The Moon” prism logo) would look

super cool.However, the scouts come here to

learn about newspapers, and they are delightfully curious. The flaming man steps aside while the scouts ask how The Mirror gets made. They want to know how long we’ve been here, who we meet, what we find, when we eat lunch, where we print the paper and

why we’re here in the first place. Before parting ways, they’ll watch a couple of The Mirror’s news videos, and I’ll preach about the power of the printed word. Lives and laws can change for better or worse, I tell them, because of words printed in ink on paper. I praise the pen for being mightier than the sword, hoping that if the scouts remember one thing from our time together, it’s this notion.

Much like the Pink Floyd album cover, the meaning of the press is easier to comprehend as a grownup.

That said, the educational and character-building experiences of Cub Scouts help shape these youngsters into well-rounded adults. Ku-dos to all Federal Way scouts for their thought-ful questions on the newspaper tour.

And why is that guy on fire? Because he wants you to ask.

Mirror editor Andy Hobbs: [email protected]


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Waste and fraud pollute state budget

In his Feb. 12 guest column (“Where can we find the waste?”), Andrew Villeneuve disagrees with 71 percent of poll respondents that the state budget could be bal-anced by eliminating waste and fraud. He says that no one is able to give specifics of how this could be done.

Fortunately, in Washington state we have the Freedom Foun-dation, which regularly analyzes state spending and recommends ways to cut waste and balance the budget. Recently, the founda-tion proposed 105 specific ideas, with a summary titled “Top 10

ideas for balancing the budget, cutting waste and stimulating the economy without raising taxes.” Both documents can be found at www.myfreedomfoundation.org and searching for “Top 10 Ideas.” A few of these ideas are:

• Canceling automatic pay boosts for all state employees who are already paid significantly more than workers in the private sector.

• Letting the private sector do some jobs that government is doing.

• Getting money the state

is owed at no cost by hiring a recovery audit firm to collect such money for a percentage of the collections.

All large bureaucracies, public or private, have significant waste and some fraud. Contrary to Villeneuve’s claim, it is not easy to eliminate that because it re-quires time and effort to analyze programs to determine if they are worth their cost. It requires determination to get rid of unpro-ductive expenditures because the people getting that money want to go on getting it, even if their work

isn’t worth it. For Mr. Villeneuve to claim that Washington state government is exempt from these realities is too naive to be taken seriously.Sonja West, uninc. King County

Valentine surprise from a guy at IHOP

I’m an 89-year-old lady. After a trip to the doctor’s office at Virginia Mason Clinic, I decided to drop into IHOP for lunch. Three nice looking young men, probably high school students, sat

at a table close by. I couldn’t help but admire them as they were having a good time and enjoying their lunch. They finished their lunch and left. After a short time, one of them returned to my table and said, “Happy Valentine’s Day,” and presented me with a beautiful dozen red roses. Needless to say, I was overwhelmed!Marjorie Frank Dana, Federal Way

Traffic islands are worth the money

I do not feel the traffic islands for the pedestrians is a waste of my money. I personally feel this is way past due for our community.

Scouts earn Pink Floyd badge


Charter schools vs. the gorilla

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Your opinion counts: To submit an item or photo for publication in The Mirror, e-mail editor@ federalwaymirror.com; mail attn Letters, Federal Way Mirror, 1414 S. 324th St., Suite B-210, Federal Way, WA 98003; fax (253) 925-5750. Letters may be edited for style, clarity and length.


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By ANDREW VILLENEUVE

Northwest Progressive Institute

About a month ago, the 2011 regular session of the Legisla-ture convened in Olympia. The principal item of business is to come up with a budget for the next biennium.

Since the Great Recession hit, writing budgets has become an unpleasant task. The House, Sen-ate and Gov. Chris Gregoire have already used every conceivable means of mitigation available to offset painful cuts.

But now state lawmakers are out of options. Congress isn’t going to come to their rescue with a second American Recovery and Reinvest-ment Act. And Initiative 1053 unconstitutionally prevents them from raising badly needed revenue without a two-thirds vote. So all they can really do is decide how best to start dismantling state government.

Voters may not have realized it, but in saying yes to Initiative 1053 last November, they were approving a motion of “no confidence” in our system of representative government. Voters put senseless constraints on the very people who are best equipped to deal with our fiscal crisis.

Most voters don’t have degrees in law or public administration, or know much about writing complex budgets and delivering services. That ex-plains why an astonishing 71 percent of respon-dents surveyed in a recent Elway poll believe that the state would have enough money to balance the budget if it simply eliminated “waste and fraud.”

If anything, the poll’s finding is a vindication of all the time and trouble conservatives have spent denigrating the public sector and undermining people’s trust in government.

The idea that our $5 billion-plus shortfall could be closed by eliminating waste is ridiculous. If it were that easy, lawmakers would have done it already. The Legislature can always be counted upon to take the lowest road.

If lawmakers could save vital public services now by stopping fraud and getting rid of waste, they’d do it in a heartbeat.

We all have heard horror stories centered on the failings of bureaucracy, whether public or pri-vate. But “waste and fraud” simply doesn’t exist in government on the grand scale people have been led to believe. If it did, right-wing groups and candidates would be able to point it out. But they can’t. Whenever state initiative guru Tim Eyman is asked what he’d cut if he were in charge of the budget, he always dodges the question. If you don’t believe me, try asking him yourself.

At the beginning of his presidency, John F. Kennedy vowed to land a man on the moon. The feat, accomplished in 1969, marked the peak of the space race.

The space race set the bar for achievement while sending the world’s imagination and creativity in directions no human had gone before.

The race stemmed from the Cold War rivalry with the Soviet Union in an era dominated by diplomatic tension and nuclear weapons. Americans feared losing ground to the Soviets as both nations made missiles and launched satellites. This sparked unprecedented spending on education and scientific research. The U.S. government even pushed for a greater emphasis on math and science in schools. Innovations from the era — from telecommunications to aerospace engineering to dried foods — are staples of modern life.

The space race also changed the way we view the planet. The iconic “Earthrise” photo, captured in 1968, showed humans their fragile blue home in full color for the first time — and is credited for fueling the modern environmen-talist movement.

Landing on the moon may have sounded like an impossible goal when first announced, but it was a concrete goal: We’ll know when we reach it. Likewise, the world is a better place for pursuing that goal.

The principles of the space race can apply

to Federal Way, in the sense that the race was about competition and survival. It’s in every-one’s best interest to live the most fulfilling life

possible. The key is setting a concrete goal for improving quality of life, then chasing after it.

Federal Way leaders call for more economic development in the city’s downtown core. Tax revenues are es-sential to healthy schools, roads and public safety. One concrete goal is to build a civic center. This proposed

project has the potential to become a destina-tion that enriches Federal Way with jobs and visitors. But is that goal broad enough to act as a catalyst for significant revitalization?

Consider the Cascadia MedTech Associa-tion, launched in 2010 to nurture a collection of medical device businesses in the city. It is a worthwhile goal for boosting Federal Way’s economy, but how do we get everyday citizens behind it? Should the city aim for tourism dollars by marketing its cultural melting pot of restaurants, or by pursuing novelties like the World Championship of Sand Sculpting?

Regardless, any plan to enrich quality of life requires a guidepost that’s bold enough to inspire public support, realistic enough to reach and broad enough to pave a path of creativity. In the spirit of the space race, Federal Way will win by shooting for the moon.

Mirror editor Andy Hobbs: [email protected]


(253) 925-5565


(253) 925-5565




[email protected]


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Can the fire board meet at 7 p.m.?

Does the fire department want you to attend its board meetings? Ever notice, when the public is really invited to attend and par-ticipate, that the public meeting starts at a time convenient to the public?

Take the Federal Way School Board meeting for example, which begins at 7 p.m.

Or the Lakehaven Utility District, which schedules a 6 p.m. start time. And the Federal Way City Council meetings, which all begin at 7 p.m.

But what if you want to attend the fire commissioners’ meet-

ings? Where are you when the regular meeting is called to order at 3 p.m. (changed from 4 p.m. by a 3-2 vote)? And can you miss work to go to their 8 a.m. special meetings?

Scheduling the meetings for any time of day that dissuades public attendance shows nothing less than contempt for the citizens of the district.

This topic arises because at the Feb. 4 special meeting (at 8 a.m.), the SKFR board members were discussing another way to help “keep you informed” with some

one-way feed of their meetings to you. These are ways that include no public input, no timely feed-back and no ability to influence decisions of the board.

And that will take more fire-fighting dollars out of an already tight budget.

Suggestions heard are to start video recording all board meet-ings and then post the video on the website. Or arrange to have the meetings broadcast live.

These ideas will cost the taxpay-ers money and accomplish zero value for public input. By the time

you read about or see the meeting, the votes are in, and there is noth-ing you can do or say to affect it.

But here is an idea that will cost the taxpayer nothing, and give us a chance to actually be a part of the meeting, not simply the casual observer.

How about the meetings start at 7 p.m. so the public can attend and participate?

Contact your board mem-bers with this idea and see what happens. Unlike with the other boards mentioned here, SKFR board member phone numbers

and emails are not available. You have to use this generic catchall address of [email protected] and hope it makes it to the intended commissioner.Jerry Galland, unincorporated King County

Skyscraper musingsI have been mulling this over

in my mind since the last Federal Way City Council meeting.

And no, I just can’t let this slip by without having my say.

The meeting was at 7 p.m. Feb. 1 at City Hall.

Everything went relatively well until economic development director Patrick Doherty gave

Federal Way’s own space race


Where can we find the waste?

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your opinion counts: To submit an item or photo for publication in The Mirror, e-mail editor@ federalwaymirror.com; mail attn Letters, Federal Way Mirror, 1414 S. 324th St., Suite B-210, Federal Way, WA 98003; fax (253) 925-5750. Letters may be edited for style, clarity and length.


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