Geocaching in the Northwest

We have been geocaching again after taking a few years off.  What is it?  It is an international treasure hunt using Global Positioning Satellites (GPS).  Members hide caches or stashes of trading items and post the Latitude and Longitude at Geocaching.com. When a member finds it they log in at the physical site, and trade items if they want to, and then log in on the web.   The web keeps track of their finds, and the ones they did not find.  I have a geocache in Fall City called If Fish Could Walk.  It is an example of a geocache that will take you to a spot that could be easily overlooked.  A lot of the caches are at pocket parks, or scenic spots that most people don’t know about or never take the time to stop at.  If it sounds interesting to you take a minute to check it out.

King County Comprehensive Plan to allow more development before making traffic improvements?

This is an interesting Seattle Times article regarding proposed revisions to the King County Comprehensive plan. They want to allow development even when congestion is at level E, in a scale from A to F. This is a radical change that eliminates traffic concurrency in my opinion.  You can find out more about the 2008 revision to the comp plan here.  The good news They are looking for comments from citizens.  The next local meeting is October 11, 2007 at Cascade View Elementary School 6:30 to 8:30 PM.

Tolt Hill Bridges over the Snoqualmie River

This is an interesting view from the Suspension Bridge in The Tolt McDonald Park, a King County Park, looking South to the Tolt Hill Road. The Tolt River is entering the photo on the left side of the photo. You can see the old bridge in the foreground an the new bridge in the background.  The funny thing is that the bridge in background has two arched spans.  The second arched span is to the east of the one you can see in this photo.  The community fought the county to have a similar style bridge replace the old one and I think this photo proves that aesthetically it was the right decision.  Thanks to the King County Department of Transportation for seeing the light.  I just thought this was such an interesting contrast of the old and new.  The old bridge will be torn down once the new one is put in service.   

Snoqualmie Tribe loses bet on Salish Lodge

The Snoqualmie Tribe lost the bid for the Salish Lodge to the Muckleshoot Tribe the Seattle Times reported today.  What a surprise.  I thought it would have been interesting to have the Snoqualmie Tribe obtain ownership of Lodge at the Falls that in their creation legend was the birthplace of the world.  Stay tuned…..

Does Fall City Really Need an Unincorporated Area Council?

David Read has been on a campaign to create an Unincorporated Area Council for Fall City for several months.  You can view his pro UAC web site and see what he wrote about it.  Unfortunately on that site you will not see any dissenting opinion because the comment link and the opinion link to do not allow the reader to post either.   So I thought I would post some of the questions and concerns that I have here.

I get the impression form the piece that David wrote that he thinks there is a vacuum in Fall City that needs to be filled.  I disagree with that.  I would have a hard time telling all the people that are active in community organizations and are contributing to Fall City that they are not, and have not been effective.  I am proud of the community and the organizations that over the years have influenced and shaped the community through their actions over the years.  Years ago I under estimated the level of community involvement because I didn’t know all the organizations that are active in Fall City.  My experience is that they quietly go about their business and when there is a pressing issue, like a park transfer, they get organized and make their opinions known.

Here are just a few of the active effect organizations that are part of our community.  Many of the organizations are reachable by the links on the side of my blog.

Fall City Community Association, FCCA

Raging River Riders

Fall City Neighbors Newsletter

Patterson Creek Advisory Committee

Fall City Elementary School PTSA

Chief Kanim PTSA

Fall City Food Pantry, (Food Bank)

Local Churches

Fall City Cub Scouts

Fall City Girl Scouts

Fall City Boy Scouts

Fall City Soccer Association

Fall City Little League

Fall City Historical Society

Snoqualmie Falls Forest Theater

Mountain To Sound Greenway

Snoqualmie Valley Schools Foundation

Lake Alice Community Association

Snoqualmie Tribe

Washington Trout

Eastside Steelheaders

Fall City Hop Shed Foundation

And many more….

Each of these groups has an influence on the issues that they care about.  Power vacuum? I think not.  One example was the community response to the proposed park Transfer to the Snoqualmie Tribe.  Several groups got together and were able to express there concerns to Kathy Lambert who organized a very well attended community meeting. 

One other point that I have heard discussed is that it will increase community involvement.  When I went to the web sites of the “active” UAC’s it does not look like they are increasing the turnout. 

For example: Bear Creeks April 24th meeting, the most current meeting with minutes posted, had 4 board members attending, four county staffers and 6 community members. Maple Valley had 13 members and 2 guests at their August meeting.

I think that we have a larger turn out at FCCA meetings that they are getting at these UAC meetings for areas that have larger population than Fall City.  In my years as a Fall City Community Association member and past President.  The organization has refocused its attention based on the desires of the active membership.   There have been times when they were very focused on County issues, transportation, arts, human services etc.  It is really a reflection of the memberships wants and needs.  Perhaps the FCCA should reconsider the meeting times and increase the number of meetings a month to allow more time for discussion of the issues in the community.

My concern is that if the UAC gets approved there will be low participation, and the few that do attend will present their own wishes to the county as “the community’s wants.  One of the other thing that I have noticed that happens with the county meetings is that the county tends to direct the discussion in the way they want it to go trying to lead the discussion so that at the end of a process they are able to say that the out come was what the community wanted.  When the outcome really what the community was willing to accept from what what was offered or available. 

What do you think?  Do we need another layer of Government? Do we need more meetings?  Do you feel like you do not have access to the people in charge at the county?  What message do you want to deliver to King County?