MARYSVILLE – The community’s many efforts to help the homeless was the top story for The Marysville Globe in 2017.
A major part of that was the opening of the $15 million Housing Hope development near Lakewood called Twin Lakes Landing. About 38 homeless people and families started moving into the modular apartment development in December. Another dozen or so people or families are there who are low-income. They, along with others in the community, can take classes to learn skills to become more self-sufficient.
Marysville Emergency Shelter Housing also grew this year from what had been just three city-owned homes. The faith community has now gotten involved to help even more people. Damascus Road Church moved and for some time there was a concern about where the city’s Cold-Weather Shelter would go. But by the time winter came around again the same church took it on, just as its new location to the north, also on State Street.
City police became concerned that some homeless who panhandled were becoming a little too aggressive. Police said homeless were coming up from Seattle to take advantage of the generosity of the communities. Marysville, along with Arlington, developed policies asking the public to quit giving panhandlers money – send them to services instead. Also, some private individuals and groups got involved with street ministry. They go out in the communities and give homeless food, counseling and direction on how to get off homelessness through the many social service agencies available. One woman, Penny Protheroe, helped a deaf woman get housing for the first time in years. A group called the Watchmen also walk the streets at night trying to help homeless. Churches and agencies all over town provide housing and food, but one event in the fall at the Arlington Airport, called the Convoy of Hope, helped thousands of homeless and low-income people get services they needed in one day in one location. A big part of the homeless issue deals with mental health and drug addiction. Too many things are going on to mention all of them, but the biggest was the opening of the $22 million Smokey Point Behavioral Hospital. It consists of 115 beds and 70,000 square feet. The rest of the top 10 stories of the year follow:
2. The Tulalip Tribes broke ground in December for its new $140 million Quil Ceda Creek Casino. It will much bigger than the old one across the street and just a little smaller than its grand Tulalip Resort Casino in Quil Ceda Village to the north.
The new 120,000-square-foot casino, known as “QCC2,” will be built on 15 acres. QCC2 is scheduled to be completed in spring 2019.
Amenities will include a spacious gaming floor with 1,500 slot machines and more table games, state-of-the-art smoke elimination system, an innovative new dining hall, an entertainment venue, 150-room hotel and 1,200-stall covered parking garage.
Also, The Stillaguamish Tribe announced the next day it is spending $3.4 million to have the arena in Everett named Angel of the Winds Arena for the next 10 years.
3. Marysville wasn’t able to pass its school construction bond, and Arlington will try in 2018, but Lakewood did succeed, and its $48 million state-of-the-art high school opened this year. Voters approved a $66.8 million bond in 2014. The school on 36 acres is twice as big as the old one for 825 students. The new turf field in its stadium was a hit during football this fall. Security features include limited entrances. It has a Career, College and Beyond wing, a digital art room, robotics, greenhouse and well-lit gymnasium with digital scoreboard. A 275-seat performing arts center, band and choir rooms were expected to be done soon, and baseball and fastpitch fields are in the future.
4. Off-year elections often aren’t that interesting, but that was not the case in Marysville in 2017. On the City Council, two longtime members, Donna Wright, who had served for 25 years, and Jeff Seibert, who had served for 16 years, were defeated in the general election. Their challengers were two well-known community members – Tom King, who is involved in many volunteer organizations, and Mark James, who is active in the business community as owner of Hometown Values with his wife Renae, who also is active locally in groups such as Soroptomists. The incumbents said that a reason for their defeats was they did not endorse a Regional Fire Authority, so they blamed the firefighters union for their losses. They might have gotten the last laugh, however, as they were among the council members who decided to end the RFA talks with Arlington (see story 6).
Other noteworthy election results: Vanessa Edwards beat incumbent Bruce Larson for school board, and young Nate Nehring was elected to the Snohomish County Council after being appointed just nine months earlier.
5. Growth, growth and more growth. Three five-story hotels are going up in Marysville, along with two very popular fast-food restaurants, a Sonic and a Chick-fil-A. Neighbors of the developments on 88th and 116th fear not enough is being done to deal with the traffic prior to the developments. Both areas already are filled to the brim with traffic.
6. The Regional Fire Authority talks with Arlington were abruptly stopped in the last City Council meeting of the year, led by outgoing Council Members Jeff Siebert and Donna Wright. They basically convinced the rest of the council, except for Michael Stevens, that Arlington was being unreasonable in how it wanted our residents to help pay for fire equipment it bought two years ago. Also, it didn’t want Marysville to have a majority vote on a new board that would govern an RFA.
The deadline for the talks to conclude was December, but ironically, just a few weeks before, Marysville’s council voted to extend the talks for another year. Marysville will continue talks to form an RFA with Fire District 12. Mayors of the two cities hope talks may resume once new councils are seated in January. An RFA would consolidate staff and equipment, saving money and improving services, supporters say.
7. The Marysville School District, and, in fact, the community have been working the past few years on programs meant to stop bullying. Yet Robbie Myrick Jr., 16 and a junior at Marysville Getchell High School, was killed during a fight in a wooded area south of Pinewood Elementary School.
The fight apparently was over a girl. Hundreds of people attended his funeral at MG, where those who spoke talked of his love and respect for others. A GoFundMe page was started to help pay medical expenses, as he was on life support for a week or more. The medical examiner said he died of blunt force trauma to the head. A 15-year-old boy was arrested for suspicion of second-degree manslaughter, but not charged. Police said the victim was left in the woods to die.
8. A longstanding institution in Marysville, The Village Restaurant just off Interstate 5, was destroyed in a fire in February. Part of the building had just been remodeled. The community came to help with fundraisers for those who had lost their jobs. Owners tried to decide if they wanted to rebuild or move when the opportunity came in June for the restaurant to move just across the street into the old Maxwell’s restaurant. Customers returned in droves to the new Village Taphouse and Grill, and its 24-beer-tap bar is more popular than ever. There were complaints about how long it took for the burned down building to be cleaned up, but once the city got involved that problem ended quickly.
9. There were a couple of homicides in town this year, but none scarier than this one. A Lynnwood man got off a Community Transit bus and brandished a weapon after arguing with another passenger. Police came, but could not find the man, even with K-9 help. Police then heard of gunfire 12 blocks away, right near the police station.
The man, identified as Wayne H. Alpert, 59, reported shot a random bystander who had told him to get out of their apartments’ parking lot because of the way he was acting. The victim was shot eight times. Alpert was arrested for suspicion of second-degree murder, and bail was set at $1 million. A woman who lives nearby Laura Murril, was able to warn neighbors of what was going on by using the Snohomish County Crime Page, a Facebook site she helped start three years ago.
10. Stephani Moser, 18, was killed by a passenger train near Silvana in July. Her dad, Scott, admitted she was wrong to be there, “but she didn’t deserve to die.” There are signs posted but he urged the railroad to do more, adding it has done nothing to stop these types of tragedies from happening. Stephani was on a railroad trestle near a popular swimming spot. The train came north around a corner going about 60 miles per hour. She ran but died at the scene, not making it off the trestle in time.
Honorable mentions: Marysville-Arlington Manufacturing Industrial Center progress; new museum opens; new Marysville-Pilchuck food commons opens; police close yet another drug house; arrest made after hit-and-run death at onramp from 4th Street onto I-5; WSU opens campus in nearby north Everett; summer heat wave; little Reese Estes makes it through cancer treatment; arrest made in homicide at mobile home park; two graduates receive $185,000 scholarships; real estate a seller’s market; $64 million Tulalip water system opens; estuary trails open; and new Strawberry Festival leadership is in place.
