By John Jensen Griffin Cour, a Newcastle resident, catches some air off of a snow pile near Newcastle Elementary School during the snowstorm that created havoc for city staff members for more than a week beginning Jan. 15.

While most Newcastle residents endured the brunt of January’s snow, wind, ice and consequential debris from the comfort of their own homes, five members of the Newcastle Public Works maintenance crew weren’t so lucky.

Despite 16-hour shifts, equipment malfunctions and no covered space to put chains on vehicles, Public Works Director Mark Rigos said the city staff “did an exceptional job under the circumstances.”

“We have a very small staff here,” he said. “They put in so many hours during this storm. Some had to sleep in City Hall … one of our guys didn’t go home for five or six days.”

The storm began Jan. 15 and created problems for city crews for more than a week. While final estimates on how much the storms cost the city are still pending, Rigos said the equipment, sand, gasoline, deicing materials and extra labor could add up to more than $10,000.

Power goes out for some

Coal Creek Utility District crews met obstacles of their own after the district’s Meadowview II sewer lift station, serving The Reserve neighborhood, lost power from Jan. 20 through the afternoon of Jan. 22.

The upper May Valley sewer lift station, which serves more than 150 families in the neighborhood of the Highlands at Newcastle, intermittently lost power that weekend as well.

Despite the setbacks, district crews were able to maintain water and sewer services to all customers in the district.

Both onsite and portable generators were brought into service, said Robert Russell, general manager at CCUD. They were operated and monitored around the clock in order to continue uninterrupted services to families in areas that had lost power, he said.

Pamela Martin, president of the CCUD Board of Commissioners, praised district staff for their work on behalf of customers.

“We prepare for emergencies like this, and our employees took the actions necessary to ensure that no families lost these vital services during the recent power outages,” she said.

While cleanup from the storms continues, power has been restored to all CCUD facilities and neighborhoods within its boundaries.

‘24 hours a day’

The city rented a hotel room within a few miles of Newcastle to allow crew members to catch up on sleep during the storm, while some hunkered down at City Hall with cots and sleeping bags instead of risking the drive home and not being able to make it back, Rigos said.

“Some of these guys were just really hungry to help out the community,” he said. “Being a small city, there’s just not a lot of redundancies in staff that can do this work. The residents are counting on these streets to be plowed and sanded, so that’s what we did.”

The city owns three snowplows; two of those have sanding capabilities.

“Those things were running pretty much 24 hours a day,” Rigos said. “We even had shifts at night, some from 12 to 8 a.m. Those trucks were working 24-7 for five or so straight days.”

One of the trucks had a malfunction and couldn’t deice the streets for a period of time, while another truck had a fuel filter go out Jan. 19 during the second phase of the snowstorm. That truck was out of commission for about four or five hours.

City staff members reached out to the city of Renton during that time to make up for the down plow, but Renton trucks were running at full capacity, Rigos said.

The city is now working on an interlocal agreement to be able to call in the assistance of a plow owned by CCUD, he said.

Rigos said a member of the crew drove to Seattle to find the right part despite business closures and poor road conditions to ensure the equipment would be up and running as soon as possible.

Potholes were filled

In December, the City Council budgeted $150,000 to install a maintenance garage at Lake Boren Park that will enable employees to have a space to work on equipment in inclement weather in the future.

Priority 1 routes on the city of Newcastle’s snow and ice priority route map, which include Coal Creek Parkway and Newcastle Golf Club Road, were maintained throughout the weeklong event, Rigos said, while other arterials and side streets were plowed as often as possible.

After the storm, he said he started to receive calls Jan. 20 from residents concerned about large potholes, especially along Coal Creek Parkway, that were becoming a hazard for motorists.

While he said January is not the ideal time to lay concrete due to weather conditions, road crews were filling the holes until more permanent fixes are possible.

Crews were also busy after the storm cleaning up tree limbs and other debris throughout the city, collecting more than seven dump trucks worth of debris on Jan. 24 alone.

“Some cities in the Midwest who are used to dealing with this … have dedicated funding for these types of snow events,” he said. “It can be a huge portion of their budget, but up in the Northwest, there’s just not as much money allocated toward this stuff, and when it does happen you feel it a little more.”

Covered awnings still protect masonry products and other materials, stacked more than 10 feet high on pallets, from the rain.

A small stream meanders by the closed chain link fence gating its entrance and a quiet has essentially blanketed the plant since it shut down its day-to-day operations last spring.

But now a different kind of work is going on here — work that might lead to redevelopment of the site that would impact the city of Newcastle for years to come, a fact not lost on Mutual Materials executives and shareholders, Mutual Materials President Joe Bowen said.

“Given the sense of pride that we’ve had about what we’ve done there, we just want to make sure whatever the result of that property is … that we’ll be able to look back at what goes in there and still have that sense of pride,” he said. “The community of Newcastle has been very, very gracious to us for years. It’s important that we give this the consideration that this community deserves.”

A special opportunity

Bowen said while the Newcastle facility has been a cornerstone for the family-owned company for generations, the company aims to take the property in a new direction after the depth and duration of the economic recession was too much for the plant to withstand.

The plant has shut down twice since 2008.

“It is a special opportunity because of the size of the site and how it could be integrated into the existing area,” Bowen said. “It’s pretty uncommon to have a site this big in this area. To have a clean tablet, if you will, to be able to draw something up from scratch … is a really, really unique opportunity for Newcastle.”

An environmental study — with work that includes mapping out stream, wetland and mine-hazard locations — outlining how much of the 52-acre site located within Newcastle’s Community Business Center is expected to be complete and given to the city by early February, Community Development Director Steve Roberge said.

Because the property, which is zoned for mixed-use residential and mixed-use commercial use, has several areas that are considered streams or wetlands, only a portion of the property is developable, he said.

“That’s what they’re trying to figure out now,” Roberge said. “How big are the buffers? How much of that area are they going to try to take up? Are they going to have to cross those buffers and do some mitigation? These are all things that will have to be worked out once the development is determined.”

Once the city receives that information, the city is responsible for verifying the findings of the Mutual Materials’ study.

Redevelopment would bring revenue

City Manager Rob Wyman said city officials have been doing everything possible to facilitate a smooth transition for potential redevelopment.

The project harbors potential to bring in much-needed revenue for Newcastle, he said.

“Formally, at this point, the city doesn’t have an official role in this process, as they’re not in for permit,” Wyman said. “But all my conversations with them have been very, very positive. You really do get the sense that they want to be a partner in this, and we want to work with them. I think we both have the same goal: determine what’s best to put on that site.”

If the property is redeveloped, short-term and long-term revenue could alleviate some of the burden of lower revenue projections for the city over the next several years, Financial Director Christine Olson said.

“Several things happen when a property is being redeveloped like that,” she said. “Obviously if the property is sold, there’s real-estate excise tax the city would get. But then you’ve also got the construction of building … there is sales tax in the city for that.”

Revenue comes into the city during such a project by way of review fees, permitting fees, impact fees for things like traffic and schools, and other revenue, Roberge said.

Depending on what goes into the space, it could have further implications down the road, Olson said.

“Once it’s established, if it’s any kind of retail, that’s huge for us,” she said.

The scope of the project has lasting, unprecedented implications for Newcastle and a city the size of Newcastle rarely gets a project with such potential, Wyman said,

“This is a one-of-a-kind piece of property in Newcastle,” Roberge said. “It really is. It’s 50 acres, undeveloped, in Newcastle. We don’t have any more of that. It’s gone. There are a few medium-sized parcels, but nothing of this size and magnitude.”

Depending on how the property is developed, city officials may have to make adjustments by possibly contracting more community development-related work out for review to keep the project on target, he said.

“The potential is massive because you’re dealing with a clean slate,” he said. “There are no roads there now. There’s no infrastructure. When you have a fresh development like this, you get to plan the whole thing. When you plan something that’s on that scale, there’s just so much available to you — from their perspective and the city’s perspective.”

Looking back to the beginning

Mutual Materials’ history coincides with Great Seattle Fire in 1889

The day was unseasonably dry for June in Seattle.

Little rain had been recorded. Temperatures were hovering steady in the 70s.

John Back was at work heating glue over a gasoline fire at Victor Clairmont’s downtown Seattle woodworking shop the afternoon of June 6, 1889.

But as the glue boiled over and caught fire, eventually spreading and burning about 25 city blocks in the Great Seattle Fire, Back would have more of an impact on Seattle history than he could have ever known.

The next day, nearly 600 businessmen in the Seattle area came together to determine how to rebuild.

It was mandated by the mayor that the downtown business core would be rebuilt with brick.

Residents receive a grand opening tour of the Newcastle brick plant in 1959.

With only brick.

Experienced bricklayer Daniel Houlahan traveled from California to help pave the city’s roads and sidewalks — a journey that would help rebuild Seattle’s infrastructure and eventually impact the city of Newcastle for years to come.

Houlahan located a clay deposit to use for a brick plant and found an ideal site at the base of Beacon Hill and went on to found the Builders Brick Co. — Mutual Materials’ predecessor — in 1890.

After Builders Brick went on to supply much of the brick that rebuilt and continues to build Seattle, the company purchased Mutual Materials, a local distributor that opened its doors in 1959.

After expanding its operations into the marketing and distribution business, Builders Brick officially changed its name to Mutual Materials Co. in 1966.

In 2003, the plant was boasting an output of about 25 million bricks per year.

Today, Mutual Materials is the largest producer and distributor of masonry and hardscape products for household and commercial uses in the Pacific Northwest.

Newcastle residents can anticipate increases as they open their water and sewer bills this month. The Coal Creek Utility District Board of Commissioners adopted new water and sewer rates for 2012 at its Jan. 11 meeting.

The new rates take effect this month.

The average single-family household will see its monthly water bill increase $4.48 and monthly sewer bill increase approximately 80 cents in 2012, according to the district.

Water rates are scheduled to increase 12 percent in 2012 — with more than half of that increase due to the higher cost of water purchased from Seattle Public Utilities.

Water rates will continue to increase by 6 percent in 2013 and 3.25 percent in 2014.

Sewer rates are scheduled to increase 4.5 percent in 2012 and 2013 and 3.5 percent in 2014.

Those percentages also apply to the district’s commercial, irrigation and multifamily rate classes.

“We take any discussion of water and sewer rates very seriously, especially in these tough economic times,” CCUD Board President Pamela Martin said. “We also conducted an extensive and open public comment process as we considered these new rates. I believe we’ve met our responsibilities to maintain and improve our systems and to protect our customers as well.”

The rate increase will help maintain the district’s water and sewer systems and fund infrastructure improvements necessary to ensure safe and reliable service for the district’s customers, CCUD General Manager Robert Russell said.

Like many other utility districts, CCUD purchases water from Seattle and wastewater treatment from the King County Wastewater Treatment Division.

“Whenever Seattle increases our rates, we have to pass that through to the customers,” Russell said. “We have absolutely no control over that. That doesn’t go toward what we do as a district.”

In 2011, the district’s financial consultants performed a study of the district’s finances. The consultants advised district officials that higher water costs from Seattle Public Utilities, facility improvement requirements and an overall decline in water use resulting from cooler, wetter summers in 2010 and 2011 would require a rate increase to make system improvements and keep the district’s credit rating at a sufficiently high level.

The increase allows the district to finance water and sewer projects at the best possible interest rate, Russell said.

While the new rates are lower than those first proposed by the district’s financial consultants, Russell said CCUD would begin discussions within the next six months regarding the district’s cost of service to ensure those costs remain equitable for each of the rate classes — changes that could affect entities like The Golf Club of Newcastle and the city of Newcastle, the two largest consumers of irrigation water in the district.

The district conducted a public input process with two separate study sessions in December and a public hearing Jan. 5.

CCUD is one of the only water systems in the region that has been fully upgraded to ductile iron pipe, which prevents leaks, saves water and protects water quality. Reinvestment in its system helps the district operate safely and more efficiently, Russell said.

The increases will also help the district cover costs of repainting a 5-million-gallon reservoir, provide funding for improvements to a sewer lift system in May Valley and provide for a new pump at a booster station located in northwest Newcastle.

The district operates a water and sewer service area covering the city and surrounding areas.

“We want our customers to understand that when you look at what we’re providing … we’re still able to provide water at less than a penny a gallon,” Russell said. “I know what it feels like when you get a bill and your rates have increased. It bothers me a lot, but people need to understand that there’s a lot that goes into providing that service, and we’re still able to provide that at a reasonable cost.”

The congressman — whose district now spans the area south and east of Seattle, including Newcastle, Federal Way, Renton and Bellevue — met with about 75 local government officials, business sector representatives and Newcastle residents at an informal gathering at Newcastle’s City Hall on Jan. 14.

While the physical boundaries of his district may change, the regional focus of his work — which includes supporting higher education and technical colleges to teach skills needed to maintain manufacturing and other skilled-labor jobs — will not, he said.

By Christina Lords U.S. Rep. Adam Smith (left) speaks with members of local and regional government and members of the public at an informal meeting at Newcastle City Hall in the Newcastle Professional Center on Jan. 14.

“There is nothing there illogical at all about my representing Newcastle, Bellevue, Mercer Island, the central district, the international district,” he said. “It fits perfectly with the issues that we’ve been working on.”

Smith’s district will become the state’s first majority-minority district, with more than 50 percent of the district’s constituents made up of racial or ethnic minorities.

The U.S. must continue to remain viable in the global market of manufacturing and technology-related jobs, especially when those sectors continue to expand rapidly in countries like China, Smith said.

“When you think about this economy, when you think about people who are desperate for jobs who have been unemployed for two years, and they don’t have the right skills to match … we have to fix that,” Smith said.

Technical and community colleges must receive adequate funding that allows students to be workforce-ready with applicable skills within one or two years, he said.

Employers should continue to reach out to colleges and high schools within the region to make sure students have hands-on experience in a trade, Smith said.

“The other thing that is critical is to get young people into these businesses so they understand how those businesses function … if you understand a business, you become employable,” he said.

Smith said Congress has a unique opportunity to re-examine the federal tax system after 2010’s two-year extension of Bush-era tax cuts comes to an end.

“Simplifying that code would … free up a lot businesses and investors to have a far more predictable and understandable environment and at the same time bring in more revenue,” he said.

At age 25, Smith was elected to the Washington State Senate in 1991 through 1996. In 1997, Smith beat out incumbent Republican Randy Tate for the 9th District seat.

Smith serves as a ranking member of the House’s Armed Services Committee and has also served on the House Foreign Affairs Committee and the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence Committee. He lives in Tacoma with his wife and two children.

Call Smith at his Tacoma office at 253-593-6600 or go to his website at http://adamsmith.house.gov/contact to send him an email.

King County Emergency Medical Services, a division of Public Health – Seattle & King County, plans to distribute 53 automated external defibrillators, or AEDs, to deputies interested in the training. Trained deputies can then be dispatched to a cardiac arrest call alongside emergency medical responders.

Equipped deputies arriving first at the scene of a cardiac arrest can start resuscitation and deliver the initial defibrillator shocks and, as soon as emergency medical responders arrive on the scene, they can take over resuscitation duties.

Officials announced the initiative Jan. 4.

“Training and equipping sheriff deputies with external defibrillators is a great service for all residents in King County and will definitely save lives,” Dr. Mickey Eisenberg, medical director for King County Emergency Medical Services, said in a statement. “Rapid defibrillation can literally snatch the life from the jaws of death.”

Officials said 15 deputies have already been trained and equipped with AEDs. The involved agencies plan to assign the remainder of the AEDs during the coming months as deputies receive training.

“This is a voluntary initiative and all deputies receiving an AED have expressed their interest in participating in this life-saving program,” Capt. Bryan Howard, emergency services coordinator for the sheriff’s office, said in a statement.

Public Health – Seattle & King County provided funding for 49 of the AEDs. EMS levy funding is available for projects related to training for King County and a regional municipal workforce, as well as providing AEDs for King County facilities and vehicles.

“Our sheriff’s deputies often arrive first at the scene of an emergency, and they are already trained to save lives,” County Councilwoman Kathy Lambert, chairwoman of the Security Oversight Committee and the Issaquah representative on the council, said in a statement. “These AEDs are important tools to have available in the field so we can get help quickly to where it is needed.

“Recent placement of AEDs in the King County Courthouse already has saved at least one life, and now we can expand this capability throughout the community.”

The city of Newcastle’s volunteer Parks Commission is reaching out to residents for feedback as it looks to update the city’s parks section of its Comprehensive Plan — a document that could shape the city’s park space and recreational aspects for years to come.

Parks Program Manager Michael Holly said the commission will conduct four to five online surveys asking questions about what residents would like to see in the city’s recreational future to better shape the city’s Park, Trail, Recreation and Open Spaces Plan, a major component of the Comprehensive Plan updates.

The PRO plan encompasses guidelines for environmental stewardship, park design, natural planting, trail systems and other recreational elements.

“Having recreation available to all types of community users is a part of this process,” he said. “The PRO Plan is the driving force behind what we do.”

The feedback will guide the commission’s recommendations to the City Council, Holly said. The commission hopes to have its PRO Plan complete within a year, he said.

“A long-range plan is important,” Holly said. “Not necessarily everything you want to do gets done within the next year. It does provide sense of direction, and maybe the direction has changed since the last time you looked at the plan. There’s nothing wrong with that, but you need to get a sense of what’s important to the community.”

The updates also have financial implications for the city, he said.

Because the PRO Plan hasn’t been updated since 2003, the city is ineligible for grant money from the Washington Recreation and Conservation Office that could benefit city parks and protect and restore habitats, Holly said.

The plan should be updated every six years for the city to remain eligible for funding from the office.

Since the state office was founded in 1964, it has contributed more than $1.4 billion to more than 6,400 projects, averaging about 230 grant awards for $60 million in contributions annually.

To meet the state certification requirements while updating the plan, the city must provide an avenue for public participation in the process.

More than 100 people completed the first installment of the surveys, which closed Dec. 31.

Holly said while every project listed in the surveys may not be possible or feasible, the commission is looking to gauge and prioritize the community’s wants and needs for the long-term future.

“This survey is assessing the needs of the community,” he said. “We want to know what do residents see as assets. Is it parks, recreation or trails-related? It’s import for the city to look forward in the next 20 years with what the community wants in mind.”

The next survey should be out within two to three months and focus on the policies and goals that are discussed in the plan. Each time a survey is rolled out, a public hearing will be held by the commission to gather further testimony on the plan, Holly said.

Brokers have recognized Webb’s designation across the country as one of the best real estate marketing certifications available.

Lussier has achieved professional certification as a home marketing specialist.

“The CHMS designation is about much more than staging a home,” Lussier said. “Rather, it is designed to give brokers the insight and tools necessary to put a seller’s property first in line among the properties buyers will consider.”

The CHMS designation is a marketing course, with an emphasis on finding ways to present a home that attracts the best buyers at the best price for sellers, Lussier said.

Lussier is a member of the Newcastle Chamber of Commerce and is active with the Newcastle Historical Society.

Learn more about Lussier by going to www.newcastlehome-resource.com.

Lunch for chamber members is $20, and $25 for nonchamber members. The lunch includes food, tax and gratuity.

Attendees are asked to RSVP by emailing info@newcastlecc.com.

When confronted, the men ran away through other yards, the release stated.

The Newcastle Police Department checked houses in the area and did not find any homes broken into near the location.

Residents in the neighborhood are encouraged to report break-ins or suspicious activity by calling the nonemergency dispatch number 206-296-3311 or reporting it online at www.reporttosheriff.org.

That’s how she found out about the Stuff the Bug Contest.

But on one trip in particular, it paid off big.

“I thought it was really fun to see a VW bug stuffed with toys,” she said.

Donna Buck (left), president of Ladies Auxiliary for Post No. 1 of American Veterans in Tacoma, and George Hight, of the Marine Corps League Pierce County Detachment 504, tell Newcastle resident Angela Weber how the IKEA soft toys will be used by Pierce County Sheriff’s Department deputies.

The yellow classic Beetle was stuffed with soft toys to promote IKEA’s Soft Toys for Education campaign.

IKEA held its annual Soft Toys for Education campaign from Nov. 1 through Dec. 24. Since 2003, the IKEA Soft Toy campaign has donated $47.5 million to UNICEF and Save the Children — a contribution that has provided access to education to about 8 million children in nearly 40 countries.

For every colorful soft toy purchased at stores throughout the U.S. during the contest, IKEA donated $1.30, or the equivalent of one Euro, to UNICEF and Save the Children’s global projects designed to improve children’s education.

People were invited to guess the number of soft toys inside the car.

Weber entered only three guesses and one of them was the exact number, 286. Her thought process was that since the workers placing the stuffed animals probably have other duties, the number couldn’t be too high.

“286 is an obscure, low, but high-ish number,” she said.

Weber got to pick among three charities for the toys to go to. One of the options was the Ladies Auxiliary for Post 1 of American Veterans in Tacoma.

She chose the Ladies Auxiliary because it sounded like the most grassroots, organic, local group that hasn’t received a lot of media attention yet.

“I watch a lot of ‘Portlandia,’ and I wanted to keep it local,” she said.

“Portlandia” is a comedy TV series on the IFC channel that purposefully overdramatizes Northwest hipster organic sensibilities.

She said she supports women’s organizations in general.

The Ladies Auxiliary gives blankets and stuffed animals for the patrol cars of Pierce County officers, who often are the first responders to emergencies, so that the soft toys can be available to comfort children just coming out of a stressful situation.

Donna Buck, president of the Ladies Auxiliary for Post 1, said she was excited to have the auxiliary chosen to receive the toys.

“We’re very careful that we have very soft blankets and soft snuggly animals,” Buck said, adding when you visualize a police officer approaching a child who just got out of a fire or domestic-violence situation, having a blanket and toy can make a big difference.

“It’s just something really comforting to have for a minute,” Weber said.

Weber enjoys being the stay-at-home mother of her 5-year-old daughter, and she has lived in Newcastle since 2010. Before that, she moved to Renton in 2009 from Iowa.

“Most of my time is spent between volunteer work for my local church and for my daughter’s school,” she said.

Weber volunteers at St. Stephen the Martyr, a Roman Catholic Church in Renton, where she has been involved with starting new ministries for stay-at-home moms. She has also helped with decorating committees.

“I’m a social worker by degree, so I have a mentality of knowing what service looks like on a governmental level and on an informal level,” she said.

She received a $100 IKEA gift card for her correct guess.

“More than likely I will spend it on myself with bookshelves, but that hasn’t been decided yet,” she said.

Weber said bookshelves would be useful. Since having a child, she’s accumulated a lot of baby and toddler items that she feels she can’t get rid of because of their sentimental value.

Buck said the auxiliary’s efforts are growing, and “if other organizations in other cities would be interested in doing this for other police, we’d be more than happy to fill them in, help them out and show them how.”

Learn more about the project by calling 253-224-7837.

Sean Duncan is a student in the University of Washington Department of Communication News Laboratory. Comment at www.newcastle-news.com.