President Jeanette Simecek called the meeting to order at 7:05 p.m. She introduced Mayor Jim Lauinger and Kirkland City Councilmember Jessica Greenway. The SRHBTNA Board and Officers in attendance were also introduced.

A special thank you to Dana and Rhoda for, once again, bringing the refreshments to our meeting and to the Starbucks on 85^th Street for donating the coffee.

Kirkland January Event Guides are available for everyone from Jim McElwee.

The Kirkland Emergency Sewer Program construction has started in South Rose Hill. Avoid 122^nd Avenue N.E. if you can.

The SRHBTNA Street Banner will be hung in a newly identified location where the City can put up new poles. The new site will be just west of Pagliacci Pizza, by the apartments.

Officer O’Neill introduced himself and said he is another resource to solve neighborhood problems. He has been a Kirkland Police officer for six years and worked on patrol. He is available to answer questions, work with the Mapping Your Neighborhood program, and hopes to get the Block Watch up and running again. Kirkland has its crime statistics available on the City website. The most common crime in our neighborhood is car break-ins. Office O’Neill is available to teach classes on Apartment Safety, ID Theft, Home Safety, and works with the schools.

The Neighborhood Association has a tradition of starting off the January meeting mentioning accomplishments for the prior year. Three new bus stop benches have been purchased and installed as part of our Neighborhood Connections Grant from the City. The benches have signs on them, identifying that they are from the neighborhood and they are being heavily used. They are located at 120th/70th, on 80^th just outside LWHS, and by Pagliacci’s. Other "Good Things" included the SRHBTNA Picnic of ‘07 which was a huge success. C.Ray Allshouse will be chairing this event again this year and volunteers are being sought to help with this fun event. The Rose Hill Meadows Park (by Safeway) is moving forward. The new Park at Ben Franklin School opens later in ‘08. The covered shelter is already open but other areas are closed due to landscaping. We have many newly-painted crosswalks, particularly along N.E. 70^th Street, and there are many intersections with crosswalks and the orange reflective pedestrian crossing flags. And regarding the Landfill, they are finally done dumping dirt and the cap is finished.

Andy Held explained that the SRHBTNA was contacted by Lake Washington United Methodist Church who had been, once again, asked to host Tent City 4. Sharon Sherrard from the LWUMC discussed Tent City and distributed a letter which explained that the Church had voted not to host Tent City again in February 2008 but wanted to in the future. She said Tent City had left in August of 2005. She explained that Tent City preferred to stay in Kirkland because it tried not to move too far from its previous location. However, the Kirkland Cooperative Preschool which meets at the Methodist Church is part of the Lake Washington Technical College which has established guidelines for the school. If the Methodist Church hosted Tent City again in February, there would be a significant decline in the preschool enrollment which would mean closing classes and losing affiliation with the Technical College. Since the Church does not want to be the demise of the Kirkland Cooperative Preschool, they are declining to host Tent City 4 in February 2008 but are looking forward to hosting them again sometime in the future, as early as November 2008.

The Verizon FiOS Internet broadband fiber-optic network project being installed through our neighborhood is almost wrapped up and Rodney thanked everyone for bearing with them. The first phase is complete, offering internet and telephone services, and Verizon is currently negotiating with the City regarding cable television. If neighbors want to know if they can hook up, they can log on to verizon.com and put in their telephone number and it will tell you. You can get bundled packages from folks going door-to-door, from flyers being left, and on the Internet. There were several questions from the audience about service during loss of power and about retaining copper wire service for this purpose and the availability of battery backup. He also explained how most of Kirkland is now wired and how this plays a role in attracting and retaining highly-skilled technology workers in Kirkland.

The SRHBTNA Picnic was a huge success. The picnic is held on the second Saturday in August, which this year falls on August 9^th. It will once again be held at Ben Franklin School. The NA is looking for more volunteers and hopes to expand the picnic, the activities, the food, and the fun.

The Council has been considering the possible Annexation since 2006. In order to decide whether to go forward the Council has been looking at the financial implications and talked to people within the Potential Annexation Area (PAA). This area includes Finn Hill, Upper Juanita and Kingsgate. The Council felt they could go to Phase Two, looking at capital infrastructure needs and a financial analysis of the PAA. Phase Two was supposed to conclude at the end of 2007. What the City found was that the capital needs are similar to Kirkland, that the road conditions are actually better, that they don’t have as many developed parks, but that they wouldn’t generate enough money for what it would cost to provide services to the PAA. In 2006 the State came up with sales tax money as in way to close the gap for annexation costs, but this money would only be available for ten years. These incentives were meant to take care of urban islands. The Growth Management Act calls for people to receive services from cities, not counties. The City of Kirkland would have to hold the election of the people within the PAA prior to 2010 in order to qualify for the State incentive money. Some of the challenges include the existence of a Casino within the PAA which could not exist under the City of Kirkland laws. Another challenge would be the need to finance and build a new City Hall which would be required to house the additional City staff required to run such a larger City. However, there is a feeling within the PAA that the City of Kirkland has already taken the revenue-producing Totem Lake area which would have made the PAA more viable. The Council will decide next Tuesday whether to go ahead, pause, or stop the Annexation discussion.

Margaret Schwendler reported that the Friends of the Kirkland Library, together with the Northwest Earth Institute will be presenting a class called, "Choices for Sustainable Living." It will present sustainable ideas to practice. The eight-week class will be held on Monday nights at Hopelink and flyers are on the back table for everyone.

There were No Kirkland Council members participating in the Polar Bear Run!!!

The meeting was adjourned at 8:55 p.m.

Respectfully submitted,

Deirdre DeWan Johnson

Secretary