The Mercer Island Senior Commission launches “Older Americans Month” with a special showcase at the Mercer Island library. Entitled “Connecting The Generations,” the display can be viewed through the month of May, the traditional Older Americans Month since the 1960s.
A story in a recent issue of BusinessWeek magazine, features Island attorney Lory Lybeck, who has been representing a Portland, Ore., woman accused of illegally downloading music.
Additional changes to the intersection of Island Crest Way and Merrimount Drive may be ahead, but the City Council will not be considering the installation of a traffic light.
A group of students at Islander Middle School are determined to replace the school’s polystyrene lunch trays with an eco-friendly, reusable alternative. In fact, this very goal spurred them to start the Gators Go Green recycling club last fall. And now that the club received a $1,600 grant from the Washington State Department of Ecology for its proposal, the project has moved from discussion to near reality.
The architects of the Boys and Girls Club’s proposed PEAK project recently presented an updated design of the facility that showed trees were the better screen for neighbors to the west, while the city’s Design Commissioners asked to see more interactive features in the formal review process.
Citizens chosen by the mayor to protect Pioneer Park do not think the benefits from adding a second feeder line into the Island’s South end substation outweigh the costs of removing about 50 trees from the park.
Nationally renowned academic Yong Zhao left members of the Mercer Island School District scratching their heads last week, and in a good way. The professor with a Ph.D. in education asked the district to consider three big questions: What knowledge is of most worth for our children? What unique talents are we growing that other countries do not have? How are we preparing our students for a new, virtual world?
The 2008 parks levy stakeholders group is recommending two ballot measures for the November election to fund improvements to Island parks and ballfields.
PEAK design/Honeywell development praised
The Washington Court of Appeals heard the school district’s Alliance for Adequate Funding of Special Education present its case against the state before a three-panel judge on May 6. Mercer Island is one of 12 districts in the alliance, which is arguing that the state has not upheld its constitutional duty to fund special education as part of “basic education.”
Mercer Island City Councilmember Steve Litzow recently joined several local leaders, businessmen and the presumptive Republican presidential nominee John McCain to discuss global warming in North Bend.
