As the year comes to a close, many of us pause to look back at the year that was, and 2010 certainly offered news junkies plenty to sink their teeth into.
In East Pierce County, this year brought us a highly contentious senate race, zoning arguments, a high profile car accident and acquittal, new school buildings and much more.
The Courier-Herald dug through our archives to find the ten biggest stories of the year, the ones that kept us talking through the warm winter, wet summer and snowy fall.
Here’s what we’ve come up with. And If we left off one of your top stories from the year, let us know!
10. Flood District causes split
Following flooding in the past few winters, the Pierce County Council this year approved a new Pierce County Flood Control Zone District. The new district will have the power to tax residents to raise funding for infrastructure improvements to protect low-lying areas of the county. By creating a Zone District, the council was able to do it with a council vote instead of a vote of the people. Valley residents, including those in Sumner, hailed the district, but cities with higher elevations, such as Bonney Lake, protested their inclusion in the district at the same tax level as valley cities. Much like the Pierce Transit bus route plans, Bonney Lake did not think it was getting the same benefits as the valley for its tax dollars. County Council members said the county as a whole was included because floods would affect major roadways and commerce for the entire county. City officials and councilmembers from Bonney Lake protested their inclusion and asked not to be taxed at the same rate as the valley, but the Boundary Review Board created the zone to stretch across the entire county. The Bonney Lake city council immediately and unanimously voted to appeal their inclusion. The issue will be decided in 2011.
9. Changes at Sumner Downtown
Following the departure of Shelly Schlumpf in May, the Sumner Downtown Association is under the leadership of a new executive director, Arla Holzschuh. Reflecting on her time at the downtown association, Schlumpf fondly recalled the regular events for which Sumner is known, including the Mystery Wine Walk, the Classy Chassis Car Show and music events and said these activities would not be possible without the help of community members and local businesses who volunteer time. Events in Sumner continue to draw large crowds, especially the bridge lighting, which has thousands in attendance. Holzschuh, who took the helm in the summer, is moving the town toward the coming years by continuing the successes and creating an expanded vision. She uses a four-point approach to Main Street, which includes organization, promotion, design and economic restructuring.
Holzschuh said downtown structures and their uses are vital to the development and promotion and she wants to improve the downtown core and she would work to continue to fill vacant spaces as well as bring in new mixed-use buildings. Though some of the events have changed slightly Holzschuh said it’s important to her to retain Sumner’s staple programs and promised they wouldn’t be going away anytime soon.
8. Landscape of the Sumner school district changes
This year saw changes across the Sumner School District in terms of its campuses. Lakeridge Middle School reopened in September with an almost new campus. The new academic building was constructed next to the original building, beginning during the 2009-10 school year and continuing through the end of the summer. The original Lakeridge building was demolished during the summer. Less drastic in process, but no less impressive, was the reopening of Victor Falls Elementary School. In contrast to Lakeridge, Victor Falls was stripped to its bare bones and rebuilt with an open architecture designed to evoke a sense of nature. Teachers and students received new technology to boot, including voice microphones and computerized whiteboards. The remodel was accomplished over the course of the 2009-10 school year, while Victor Falls’s inhabitants made a temporary home in the otherwise empty Cascadia development’s Elementary No. 9. This school year, Bonney Lake Elementary School students did the same, while their campus was remodeled. It could be said that Elementary No. 9, officially renamed Donald Eismann Elementary School in the August school board meeting, was the district’s star of the year, allowing two school remodels to proceed at less expense than if the empty school didn’t exist. After this school year is finished, that emptiness won’t last. McAlder Elementary School students will permanently relocate to the Eismann in fall 2011, one year before the former campus is repurposed as something other than a school.
7. Investigation leads to sergeant’s resignation
An internal investigation into improper use of a state traffic grant led to the resignation of a Bonney Lake police sergeant in November. Though the city was not officially releasing the name of the sergeant involved, multitple sources in the city confirmed to The Courier-Herald the sergeant in question was Ken McDonough, who resigned the week of the investigation. The investigation began following a Sept. 3 phone call from the Washington State Traffic Safety Commission during which the program manager expressed some concerns over the way the department’s officers were working speed emphasis patrols. As part of the $30,000 grant, city officers were required to make three traffic stops per hour. The sergeant in question ordered his patrol unit to write three traffic tickets each hour for a total of 24 per shift and telling them to go home when they reached the total, no matter how much time was left on their shift. The way the program was being administered created a quota situation for the police – which is against Bonney Lake policy – and also could have left parts of the city uncovered if the officers went home instead of staying on their shift. According to Police Chief Mike Mitchell, all but one officer stayed at the station instead of going home when they reached 24 tickets. When confronted with the results of the investigation, McDonough opted to resign from the department. McDonough also ran afoul of city policy in 2003 and was fired. After a grievance was filed on his behalf, a judge ruled the city must rehire McDonnough at that time. The investigation did not jeopardize any of the city’s grant funding.
6. Mom acquitted in accident that killed sons
Tragedy struck one Bonney Lake woman early in 2010, when the circumstances of her sons’ deaths resulted in a criminal charge and judicial process that didn’t end until 10 months later, with a not guilty finding. Jayme Lynn Davis, 42, had spent the evening of Jan. 16 with her 8- and 11-year-old boys, Jared and Jordan, at the Monster Jam monster truck rally at the Tacoma Dome. After they left the show, their car, with Davis at the wheel, hopped a concrete barrier on the 2100 block of Tacoma’s Bay Street. It collided with one car, spinning it out, before it was broadsided by a sport utility vehicle. In March, Pierce County prosecutors charged Davis with two counts of vehicular homicide, stemming from their allegation that she was impaired at the time of the accident. A blood draw done three hours after the accident showed a blood alcohol level of 0.07, below the legal limit of 0.08. Davis told investigators she and her boyfriend had consumed beer at the event. Jurors , however, found Davis not guilty. They said traffic video and witness testimony suggested the possibility that the initial colliding car had drifted into Davis’s lane, adding that the prosecution had failed to prove intoxication at the time of the accident.
Click here to see stories 5-1!
Send your top stories of 2010 suggestions to blnews@courierherald.com
