Kenmore Undressed

Visiting Old Friends in Lavena, Italy

Last Thursday we took a trip to Lavena Ponte Tresa, IT which lies right on the Italian-Swiss border. There we spent 4 wonderful days with our old friends Ute and Winnie and their three daughters Marina, Elena and Lorena. We haven’t seen them for 15 years. We were thrilled to spend time with them, catch up on a lot of news and reconnect with our good friends.

This was the view from the home where we were staying in Lavena.

Virginia and Ute!

Winnie after a delicious gellatto!

The girls!

Virginia with an anonymous Italian male….

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I Like Italian Grocery Stores!

My cousin, Beatrice, ordered me to quit taking pictures at the grocery stores. She finds my fascination with the local products a bit odd. As usual, I ignore her and go on snapping shots of the various goodies Italians buy every day. It’s tempting whilst on vacation to simply check out all the touristy spots, eat at cafes and merely pass through a town without really checking out what the locals actually buy. For me, looking over the local produce, meats, soaps, household products, bottled water (my god, bottled water is an art in this country), not to mention the incredibly low-priced wines and spirits is, simply put, a passionate hobby…..but, oh boy, there are some cool things in Italian grocery stores:

For those of you who are curious, the little critters in plastic are rabbits. The whole, roasted pig is called “porchetta,” and I know some of you out there are drooling, wishing you could flop your lip over a few slices of Mr. Piggy.

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Sardegna – A Land of Simple Wonders

Rustic Yet Delicate

We arrived in Italy last week and spent our first couple of days in Livorno which is a classic port city and the place from which we took the ferry to the island of Sardegna. Livorno isn’t known as a tourist destination as much of it was destroyed in WWII and it retains little in terms of classic Tuscan “charm.” It’s, at its core a working-class town.

The photos above are of the Quartiere La Venezia in Livorno which are a number of Venice-like canals that lie in the center of the city. It was quite pleasant to walk along them.

We chose to stay in Livorno knowing that after 14 hours travelling, we would be jet-lagged, grimy and not particularly fit for human contact. This strategy worked really well as we had two care-free days to sleep, decompress and try out our Italian on the Livorenese. As it turned out, the people of Livorno are extremely helpful, friendly and accommodating. We actually had a couple of good meals there…….really good seafood, great pizza.

Ah, Sardegna!

This was our second visit to Sardegna (we were there in 2008) and it was another incredible week of beaches, a few family adventures and great food.

This beach is called Farfalle or The Butterfly!

The next pictures are from a street market in Olbia (the largest town in NE Sardegna).

This is a tiny church on the island of Asinara (little donkeys) which was once the location of a maximum security prison for terrorists and Mafia leaders.

Below is a picture of the main piazza in San Teodoro which is the town where my cousins have their vacation home.

I have a huge number of other pictures from our stay in Sardegna but there isn’t enough time or space to include them all. I sincerely wish that some of you have an opportunity to visit Sardegna someday.

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Taking a Walk in Tuscany

Faccia Una Passeggiata

My Tuscan cousins live in one of the most beautiful places on earth. There’s a reason why so many artists, film makers, tourists and just about everone else who visits Tuscany, find it utterly captivating. Today my cousins took us for a walk through part of the countryside close to their home in the hills above Lucca. I thought it would be fun to share some pictures of our “passeggiata” with you:

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Flickr

This is a test post from , a fancy photo sharing thing.

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License-tab Fees Revisited with Councilman John Hendrickson

Why Increasing the License-tab Fee in Kenmore is Wrong

Last month I posted an article entitled: “Kenmore City Leadership Undisciplined – If You Want Proof, Examine Your Wallet” in which I question the decision of the Kenmore City Council to raise car tab fees due to the City’s shaky budget. One of the main critics of raising fees is Kenmore City Councilman, John Hendrickson, whose analysis of the city budget sheds some interesting light on road maintenance and safety here in Kenmore. On July 22nd, John presented his position paper regarding the (seemingly inevitable) tab fee increase. He has graciously agreed to let me reprint his statement:

Car Tab Tax for What? July 22, 2010

It is true that the proposed Kenmore car tab tax would raise $346,000 a year and could be used to help pay for road improvements, but why does the city need the money?

Road Maintenance is our second highest core responsibility as a city (next to police) and we have been paying substantially for it since day one. Check your real estate tax bills in 1998 and 1999 and you will see that the King County “unincorporated road” tax was replaced with the “city” tax line item.

King County ceded this road tax money to us, which they had used solely for both road maintenance as well as new road improvements. The total road tax in our first year as a city amounted to $2 Million in revenue, while the road maintenance expense was $700,000.

In 2008 the city collected $3.9 Million from this tax source and paid $1.3 Million in road maintenance. A revised professional study recommends that we need to pay $1.6 Million annually.

The real question is what happened to the original $2 million a year and the excess revenue that has accumulated over the last twelve years? Also, does it make sense to pay $30,000 to set up a new taxing district when the city council already has the authority to raise over $1.2 million in additional property and utility taxes without voter consent?

The council already has too much uncheck taxing authority and adding another layer of tax only enables the carefree reallocation of resources to the new City Hall operations.

We were warned at incorporation if we did not limit the growth of administrative services that we would have no money for our badly needed infrastructure, including safe streets and parks.

The council and the staff need to come together, acknowledge the fiscal reality of our limited tax base and our looming operating deficit and strike a fair long-term balance between operating expenses and capital improvements.

Raising a car tab tax for the purpose of reallocating existing road tax money to cover rising administrative costs only encourages wasteful spending and misleading policy making.

John Hendrickson

Kenmore Councilman

A Difference of Opinion About Road Maintenance

My question as a Kenmore resident is this: How can the City Council justify coming to the citizens of Kenmore and expect them to pay more in car licensing-fees when they just built a $17 Million city hall? They have transformed Kenmore Village from a net-positive revenue generating asset into a ghost town. They fought with and won a Pyrrhic victory against a huge revenue generating (and well-liked) business, Kenmore Lanes. They produced an “economic development” study last year which showed promise that the city would try to attract new business. Instead, we remain a city whose main revenue stream is residential property taxes and some permitting fees.

I could go on, but I believe the City Leadership owes the citizens of Kenmore more transparency with regard to the city budget. I believe our city government needs to be far more creative in attracting business and commerce that will generate revenue for improvements. Ultimately, it is up to us to kindly ask the City Council to act in our best interest in this matter.

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Week 7 of Our Organic Food Boxes – Perfect Vegetables for Summer Eating!

A Nice Variety of Vegetables

Now that we are well into Summer (some might not think so given the temperatures only rising into the 70’s recently), Growing Washington has  been providing a nice variety of vegetables. I was particularly happy to see they had cauliflower on the list this week. The zucchini we received are of excellent quality and I can hardly wait to sauté the braising greens with garlic, olive oil, some hot pepper flakes and some home made chicken stock.

This cauliflower is beautiful!

In my gardening days I grew cauliflower but here in the NW it can be a difficult vegetable to master. There are a myriad of bugs and diseases that attack the plant. It takes a lot of careful attention to get a head that looks as nice as the one in this picture.

This week we received:

• Free range hen eggs
• Green Winterbore Kale
• Yukon Gold potatoes
• Braising Mix
• Zucchini
• Spicy lettuce mix
• Cauliflower
• Sweet Basil

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The Seattle Times Endorses Mayor Baker – This Blogger REJECTS BAKER…You Should As Well

KenmoreUndressed Editorial/Opinion

As a resident of Kenmore, home owner, residential real estate agent and an observer of our city leadership, I simply cannot endorse or even recommend Mayor Baker’s run for District 32 Representative (which covers northwest King and southwest Snohomish counties, and includes Edmonds, Woodway, Shoreline, Kenmore and Lake Forest Park).  Today’s endorsement of Baker by the Seattle Times (below) reveals just how shallow and “off-base” their opinion is. To claim that the Mayor’s “political and budgetary skills, honed close to where voters live, is the best choice” is a laughable statement. Here’s the Times article:

Click on this picture to read the Times' Opinion

I recommend you vote for either Rep. Maralyn Chase, of Shoreline or Patty Butler, also a Democrat from Shoreline. Don’t make the mistake of believing that Baker, who is running as a Republican, knows what “fiscal responsibility” is when it comes to running a city government. Today, the City of Kenmore has a $17 Million city hall it doesn’t need and which drained the savings of our city which could have been allocated in far more constructive ways. We have a city whose main source of revenue is residential property taxes (70%) because the city can’t seem to implement a viable economic development strategy. The City Council intends to raise automobile license-fees in Kenmore to pay for road repair and maintenance and my guess is that this fee will be implement WITHOUT a vote of Kenmore residents. And then there’s the matter of the Kenmore Village which has been a total disaster IMO.

In my opinion, Kenmore has stagnated in relationship to it’s neighbouring cities (Bothell, Kirkland, Lake Forest Park). In these tough economic times, it isn’t enough for public officials to claim they’re “fiscally conservative.” What we need in government and what Baker lacks is imagination and a forward-thinking perspective. Like so many politicians, he has been more worried about looking good and protecting pet projects rather than trying to turn Kenmore into a 21st Century community.

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Suing John Hendrickson: Is It a Political Stunt to Silence a Legitimate Voice on the City Council?

The Nail that Sticks Up Gets Hammered Down!

Below is an article published today in the Bothell-Kenmore Reporter that gives an overview of a potential lawsuit being filed against John Hendrickson (a Kenmore City Councilman) by Kenmore’s City Manager, Fredrick Stouder. The article quotes City Council Members stating that Hendrickson “distorts facts,” that he is “disruptive,” and that he “questions the behaviour of the city staffers….”one too many times.” The article also mentions the fact that Hendrickson has been censured on a number of occasions by the Council and they have now voted to censure him “for gross misrepresentation of the council.”

One might get the impression that John Hendrickson is a stark-raving mad malcontent, hell-bent on bringing down city government. Well, I decided to get John’s side of the story:

Click this picture to read the Bothell-Kenmore Reporter Article

I sat down for a conversation with Kenmore City Council Member, John Hendrickson, this morning to discuss his perspective on the pending lawsuit being filed against him by the Kenmore City Manager, Fred Stouder. I wanted to discover why it is that the city manager and council feel that he libelled and slandered them. He came right to the point:

“The threat of legal action is a political stunt to silence me from telling a truth that they (the city staff and council) don’t want told. They want to avoid discussing material accounting errors and misstatements about our financial position as reported on June 30, 2010.”

And what is the basis of Hendrickson’s claim that there are material accounting errors in the city budget? It boils down to the way in which “Street Maintenance” revenue should be included in operations and not capital projects. Because the current budget is showing Street Maintenance in the Capital Projects Fund, John maintains that this distorts the city’s financial position in the next 6 years.  John claims that this shift from operations to capital projects is a change in standard accounting methods and this change was not properly disclosed to the council.

John provided me a copy of his response to the Kenmore City Council which includes an email statement by the State Auditor’s Office confirming that the reporting of Street Maintenance as a Capital Project type fund does not comply with GASB or BARS accounting principles. The Auditor’s office responded:

“No, routine maintenance costs for roads should not be accounted for in a capital projects fund. They should be accounted for in a special revenue fund or the general fund.” This is based on definition of capital projects fund (paragraph 33,GASB54): “Capital projects funds are used to account for and report financial resources that are restricted, committed, or assigned for capital outlays, including the acquisition or construction of capital facilities and other capital assets.”

OK, So What’s “the bottom line?”

John and I spoke for a couple of hours today. We not only discussed this particular controversy but we also talked about a number of things going on in Kenmore and the country. I find John to be unapologetically committed to serving the citizens of Kenmore.  He’s one of those people who takes his job seriously. He states in his response to the City’s lawsuit:

“As always, in order to do the peoples’ business, I encourage the council to maintain a working environment of tolerance and mutual respect where we can have healthy deliberations based on strong factual data. To the extent the City Manager desires to sue me, or to intimidate me with a lawsuit, I will continue to do the public duty that I campaigned on and will meet that challenge to the best of the public interest.”

John is, by profession, an accountant and if I’ve learned anything about accountants over the years it’s that they have an uncanny ability to root out inconsistencies in a budget like a well trained dog hunts truffles in the forest. They never give up and once they find the truffle, they dig for it until they’ve acquired the delicious fungi. Having someone of John’s professional background and temperament IS AN ASSET TO OUR CITY GOVERNMENT. A lot of people forget that a lot of what goes on in government is bean counting, thin slicing public policy and managing some really tedious data. It’s not for the faint of heart nor is it sexy work. But it is incredibly important that we have policy makers and city management who recognize that the public must rely on the expertise of our elected officials in these matters.

What our City Manager and the City Council have forgotten is that the “sausage making process” of government, budgets and public policy isn’t always a matter of “group think” which is what I personally believe our City Council engages in far too often. There’s a whiff of insincerity and bullying with this lawsuit business and as a citizen of Kenmore I’m asking the City Manager, Mr. Stouder and the City Council to withdraw their threat of a lawsuit against John Hendrickson and resolve their differences in a civil (non-litigating) manner. I’m truly sorry feelings were hurt but I expect my elected officials to have rigorous and, sometimes unpleasant disagreements about running the city. What I will not accept is knowing that my City Council and Management does not tolerate dissent or disagreement.

So what’s it going to be Kenmore City Manager and City Council? Are you going to hammer down the nail that stands out, or are you going to operate the city with transparency and some imagination? Are you going to play ugly, power grabbing games of coercion and intimidation or accept the fact that you don’t have a monopoly on the “truth” with a capital “T?” We put you in office to get things done not to sue each other.

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Week 6 of Our Organic Food Boxes – With the 80° Weather Comes the Bounty of Summer!!!

All Sorts of Goodies this Week

Yet another week of excellent produce

I thought I’d review exactly what this “weekly box of food” situation is. This year I’ve had an opportunity to participate in on-line discussions with people from around the country who don’t know what community supported agriculture or subscription farming is. Many live in parts of the country where it’s either impossible to have a CSA or no one knows what they are. Essentially, a subscription farm sells “shares” to subscribers in order to help capitalize the farm and, in turn, the subscribers share in the farm’s productivity.

Growing Washington

The farm to which my wife and I subscribe is Growing Washington. The actual farm (this year) is located in Redmond, WA. Every Sunday we go to a drop site (a local person’s house) to pick up our box of vegetables. This year we signed-up for a small share which entitles us to 8 items each week. Last year we purchased a large box which included 12 items. We chose a smaller share this year because we wanted to supplement our food purchases with foods from our local market (mainly fruits and meats). In this way we are able to enjoy the subscription and also support several other local producers. It’s all good.

You Have A Huge Number of Choices

Each Wednesday I log into a reminder email from Growing Washington which allows me to pick 8 items from an extensive list of products. So far this year the farm has produced a list of over 100 vegetables, greens, herbs, fruits (a separate subscription) and flowers. Here’s the crop list page:

Click on this picture to see the full crop list in living color!

Our Goodies this Week Include:

• Purple carrots
• Fava beans
• Broccoli
• Braising mix
• Yellow Spring onions
• Spicy salad greens
• Green beans
• Sweet fresh basil

Purple carrots are what carrots commonly looked-like

Braising mix - beet & collard greens, kale, Swiss Chard

Fava Beans and purple carrots

We are really fortunate to have highly productive and diverse local farms within a short driving distance of us. Puget Sound and the Seattle area are blessed with good soils, a mild climate and a “food culture” that rivals any in the country. I sincerely hope that, in the future, more of you participate in subscription farming. It runs about $20-$30 per week for food that will make you quit shopping at your local supermarket (and break your heart in the winter when you are forced to eat grocery store produce).

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