I recently attended a Neighborhood Connection meeting held at Mirror Lake Elementary that was hosted by Mayor Jim Ferrell and his team.

I have to say, I was very impressed with both the idea of having these meetings and the meeting itself.

There were informative presentations by Ferrell, by people from the courts, the roads, and the police departments.

One of my great concerns was about the increase in gun violence in the city of Federal Way over the last year. Police Chief Andy Hwang spoke about the shootings and what the police department is doing to combat the problem. I really appreciated hearing our police chief is in touch with the concerns of an average citizen.

The meeting wrapped up with a question and answer session. Those in attendance had questions ranging from building a cemetery in Federal Way, what the city’s vision is for the old Weyerhaeuser property and concerns about the police department’s inattention to dangerous jaywalkers. The mayor had representatives present to address almost each and every concern on the spot.

A few meeting attendees had concerns about our local community park, Mirror Lake Park. They described it as a “creepy” park.

While I disagree with the creepiness factor, I agree our park could use a little more opening up.

Mayor Ferrell took the citizens concern to heart and came out and visited the park with his child on a Saturday to check it out, then followed up with a park visit along with his representatives from the Parks Department.

Between them, they arranged the local Americorps chapter to come out and do some underbrush clean up and removed a few trees, which really opened things up. Our park is looking great.

Overall, I really appreciated the meeting and I feel citizen voices were definitely heard. If you haven’t attended one of Mayor Ferrell’s meetings, I highly recommend it.

Cathie Rohleder, Federal Way