Unimpressed by the police

My wife and I have lived in Federal Way for 25 years.

In that time, we put our two sons completely through the Federal Way School District.

We have had our new Dodge Caravan stolen from the Federal Way Park-In-Ride, my F-250 Ford truck had the windows broken out twice and everthing inside stolen, and both my cars vandalized in my driveway. My next-door neighbor has his cars and truck vandalized also.

I ask, where are the Federal Way police? You can find them giving traffic tickets. When is the last time you as Federal Way residents saw Federal Way police driving through your neighborhood checking on your homes and cars? How about keeping the speeding cars from running down your kids in your neighborhoods?

Think about this the next time you see a speed trap with four or five cops.

Don Workman, Federal Way

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Thoughts on recent election

After reading the letter from Federal Way Works titled “Sensibility prevails at elections” (Feb. 27), but finding very little within, I’m sadly compelled to write yet again.

One would think we could have let the dust settle a bit but, of course, it’s understandable that the “group” and its “writer” have been as wound up and active as the rest of us and haven’t had time as yet to come down, so to speak. As usual, it starts right out with the labels, their age-old tactic for disagreement from any quarter; misguided, unproductive, costly, underminers, nay-sayers, etc. To digress and reflect a bit on Karl Rove (Bush’s brain), I recall him saying “they” were trying in Washington, D.C., to install, nationally, a durable government. When asked what that was, Rove said “the people” weren’t ready to handle the word permanent quite yet.

What contempt for the American people, and guess what — he’s gone, leaving a mess for this administration’s legacy.

Back to our city, the cachet of arrogance is unmistakable in the writer’s declaration that they will hang onto their signs and vigilantly await our next challenge so as to spring into action. One can almost see them crouching behind a bush in readiness to preserve their apparently durable government.

Barbara Reid, the person the Federal Way Works group chose to be its mouthpiece, whose inarticulate drivel forever revealed their unfiltered, unfortunate opinion of the Federal Way voter, is too similar for comfort. Reid also implied a qualified person couldn’t be found in Federal Way and she’s probably right. We found the current bunch here and they’re still with us. Reid did arrive at one reasonable conclusion somehow, which was quoted in another area paper Feb. 20: “What we need to do is work harder at involving more people in decisions.”

Holy moly, what in the world do certain people think we have been trying so hard to do for so long, especially in this election? Incredible! But, hooray. She got it!

However, the more important message in this letter is where the writer proudly announces the group will not sit idly by while a small group of nay-sayers is active. If this little organization calls almost half of the voters a small group, they have, dangerously, missed a very important message to them. May I refer you to The Mirror’s very highly-regarded, articulate and astute political writer, whom I admire immensely (and he was against us), Bob Roegner, who wrote in the same edition as your letter. I urge you to pay particular attention to the last paragraph, which is aimed directly at you. It would be careless for those concerned to be so full of themselves they disregard the very pointed message from the people who have a legal right to be included. If it were me, I’d quit patting myself on the back and get busy trying real hard to miss sailing on the old USS Karl Rove. He’s gone, isn’t he? However, we can only hope steadier heads will prevail.

One thing we clearly learned is that they can, indeed, work really hard if they want to. Now, if they will only work half as hard, for and with the Federal Way citizens as they did to hang onto their jobs, we will have achieved a great deal.

Clara McArthur, Federal Way

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Praise for reaching out

Some changes occur whenever a new political administration takes office. Some are obvious. Some are subtle. Some happen immediately, while others evolve over time.

I would like to commend Federal Way Mayor Jack Dovey and Deputy Mayor Eric Faison, along with department heads and city staff, for scheduling regular semi-monthly outreach meetings at different locations in the community. I attended the first one at Nautilus Elementary School, but had a scheduling conflict and could not attend the second one Feb. 25.

These ongoing regular meetings are an opportunity for council members, the city manager and department heads to meet informally with citizens throughout the community. There’s no “three-minute” restriction on citizen comment as at city council or some committee or commission meetings. (Though I have attended some meetings where there was no time constraint on citizen comment).

The meeting starts with a brief presentation by the mayor. Then, citizens can talk as long as they want, within reason, about any subject. The council members and staff will make note of information requests or other comments and will get back to that citizen with a response, if a definite one cannot be made immediately at the meeting. Since the entire project is new, there hasn’t been a determination yet about how or if the full text of discussions at the meetings will be available online or in some other form.

We now have a new opportunity to participate productively in shaping and creating the future of Federal Way. The schedule for the town hall meetings is also at www.cityoffederalway.com.

There’ll be a meeting soon near you. Go to it. Speak your mind. Find out how you can become more involved in making good things happen for Federal Way, now and for future generations.

H. David Kaplan, Federal Way