NEW Two new articles re U. S. 2 Fatalities: Dick Montgomery shared his love and life; and Help for significant U. S. 2 improvements not on horizo YESTERDAY: A G.R.I.T. update on two more fatalities on U. S. 2 (in Word) and the 1/3/06 Everett Herald article by Scott Morris

New: Thursday, Jan. 5th, 7:00 PM - U. S. 2 Safety Coalition's Legislative Committee will meet to discuss strategy for their outreach efforts for the upcoming legislative session beginning Jan. 9th. This is an open meeting, if you wish to attend. (Note: The Coalition's efforts in the last 14 months or so have been focused on developing, in conjunction with WSDOT and state, county and city officials, a Route Development Plan (RDP) to identify critical areas needing improvement along the U. S. 2 corridor. The Plan process has begun, and has moved into its public participation stage. Check out WSDOT's website (http://www.wsdot.wa.gov/projects/us2/rdp) for details (or the still-under-construction Coalition website for previous meeting minutes and other info. Please note that this website is compatible only with Internet Explorer's browser. Sorry.)

New! LEGAL Notices of Application -- dated 12/19 -- for two more Garth York subdivisions, one on Sultan Basin Road (Steen Park, in Word, pdf), and one south of Love's Hill Drive on crtiical slopes east of 8th Street (Cascade Breeze; in Word, pdf). The timing of the legal noticing of these subdivisions -- which reduces the sttate-mandated 14-day comment time period in which government agencies and citizens can comment on these subdivisions by 50% -- is highly suspect. Here's a copy of my email to Rick Cisar (in Word, pdf) on this subject. I find it very disturbing and sad that the City continues to engage in this type of "anti-citizen, anti-input" behavior.

STATE AUDITOR FINDINGS: CAN OPEN, WORMS EVERYWHERE.... The State Auditor reported significant findings at Sultan's Dec. 21, 2005 council meeting. Short version of the findings is this:

Here are the three Auditor reports, available only in Acrobat/pdf : Financial Statements & Federal Single Audit Report (885 kb).... Accountability Audit Report (178 kb)....Exit Conference Exhibits (48 kb). NOTE: We will be splitting up the 40-page "Financial Statements and Federal Single Audit Report" file later today for easier downloading, but for now, the complete file is 900 kb.

AUDIO of the auditor's 24-minute presentation (in MP3, 2.9 mb)

We will be working on a transcription of the Auditor's exit interview presentation, but in the meantime, here's Mayor Tolson's hopeful statement made at the close of last night's meeting: "We will, as a city, make it through this time. I just want to restate that myself as the mayor, and I know the council, that we are determined to see ourselves through this and make the right choices. And we appreciate our city staff, as well as all of our public workers for the job that they have done. I know this has created more stress for them, because when we say "worker freeze" and this and that, it was then all of a sudden they begin to think about their livelihood. That's our fret about all of this, because it does effect people. But I want you to know that, uh…. [pauses] we will be dealing with this and we will come out on the other side."

Recent - Council audio from Dec. 14th meeting....Agenda page updated....Audio from the Herb Jones' hearing and the 2006 Budget Hearing

Recent & ongoing - Tolson letter (12/7/05) to the Snohomish County Council, requesting approval of Sultan's proposed enlargement of its UGA (Urban Growth Area) east of Rice Road for economic development purposes. (Please read carefully the section related to why Sultan's "award-winning industrial park" -- on which the city and private landowners combined have spent literally millions developing -- is inappropriate for ec. devel. due to its environmetnally-sensitive nature. We, and many others, were labeled "anti-development" when we tried to point out the non-viability of developing in that area. How incredibly frustrating.)

Recent - Herald 12/13 article: U.S. 2 Safety Coalition worries about mini-cities (FCCs) (FCC's stands for Fully Contained Communities," a terrible misnomer. The only FCC's that ever really "worked" were East Berlin and Australia when it was a penal colony.)

Recent - Latest in the City's apparent determination to eliminate its own Planning Commission: Transcription of statement of Resignation by PC Bart Dalmasso made during the last (and perhaps, truly, the LAST PC mtg) (in Word, pdf); Or listen to the mp3 audio (1.0 mb) of his statement. QUESTION: In a town that is experiencing ongoing, significant financial heartburn (primarily due to its lack of proper capital facilities planning), why on EARTH would it wish to dissolve an organization that could, with a bit of positive leadership, be crafted into the most effective financial and land use tool this city has ever seen? The land use/GMA expertise and planning knowledge of Commissioner Josie Fallgatter (and Kirkman), after having filed several appeals with the Growth Mgt. Board -- without benefit of any PAID consultant, expert or expensive attorneys -- most of which have been successful -- now easily surpasses city "planner" Cisar's and rivals city attorney Thom Graafstra. It's a head-scratcher, folks!

Sunday (12/11) Evidence of endangered Marbeled Murrelets may hinder Sultan Basin Road's long-wished-for shooting range

Ongoing - Following Councilman Boyd's unsuccessful efforts during the 11/22 council meeting to inspire the council to dissolve Sultan's Planning Commission, Plng. Commissioner Dalmasso resigned at the end of the December 6th PC meeting. His resignation is no loss, of course, and his departure is long overdue: he has been the author of many pro-developer code revisions during his term in office, both specific and general, many of which were the result of direct conversations with specific Sultan individuals and with Barclays North personnel .

Ongoing - COUNTY COUNCIL's 12/7/05 HEARING on its 10-year Comp Plan update: Testifying at the 12/7 hearing were Sultan Mayor Ben Tolson and Planning Commissioner Josie Fallgatter (re county's recommendations on Sultan's UGA); testifying on FCCs were Sultan Councilman Jim Flower (reading Sultan's Resolution) and Loretta Storm reading the U. S. 2 Safety Coalition's Resolution (in Word) on this subject (filling in for Coalition Chairman Fred Walser, who could not attend). We hope to have transcriptions of these comments in a few days.