Angle Lake Selected As Test Market

Recent news reports indicate mobile phone clients are becoming increasingly dissatisfied with their service due to poor coverage, dropped calls and/or inferior voice quality transmissions in the area of Angle Lake.  Representatives from the major carriers say that the rise in the number of complaints is directly proportional to the percentage of households who have elected to replace their home wired line service for the convenience of a mobile service line. However, customer expectations are that call quality should be equal to their previous telephone service regardless if their phone service is hardwired or not.

One carrier representative interviewed pointed to area land use as the number one reason for the poor quality service. Their claim being that the lack of available open space has resulted in limited available options to site a new cell tower installation. “The only area left open and available is in the middle of Angle Lake, but the general response received from lakeside neighbors has led us to believe that no one would like us to erect a tower out there!”

  

Due to the open space availability constraints, the Angle Lake neighborhood has been selected as a pilot market to deploy a new cellular coverage concept poised to address this gap in service due to lack of available transmission towers. The product being introduced is called ‘Wireless Convergence’, its Qualcomm’s newly developed convergence program that seeks to create the first truly ubiquitous digital network connecting everyone, everywhere without the need to have radios mounted on monopole towers.

The solution calls for mini radios to be mounted on wolf-pigeons with plans to deploy over one hundred birds that will circle the lake neighborhoods resulting in a significant increase in coverage. The linked video below furnishes more detail for a greater understanding of this exciting new service.

Click to View Promotional Video

This new product begins service on Sunday, April 1st and the new service is said to be compatible with all major manufacturer wireless products. Imagine improved cellular coverage, without the unsightliness of transmission towers, delivered via earth friendly, green solutions!

(Postscript:  This is an April Fools Joke)

Go Big or Go Home

On March 11th we reported here in the blog about an eight month long ambition concerning a collaborative effort under the name of Celebrate America.  If you had read that earlier post you may recall Celebrate America being a grass roots initiative with aspirations of holding a city wide, daylong event each year on July 4th. At that time a few key meetings had yet to take place, meetings that would ultimately decide whether Celebrate America could be realized in 2012 or not.  The following is an update status regarding those outstanding meetings.

City Council Study Session

On Tuesday, March 13th, the City of SeaTac Parks and Recreation Director Kit Ledbetter read a proposed motion requesting the City Council to consider approving a request to provide public funds to finance nearly 65% of the planned Celebrate America event expenses. A presentation to the council was made by CA Chairman Steve Beck with the objective of reassuring elected officials that although the ambition is great, there are no better resources to run these events than the selected stakeholders whose qualifications and proven history clearly demonstrate continual success in their respective areas.  After a series of questions by Council representatives and responses provided by Steve with additional support from Committee Member Clyde Hill, a vote was taken on the motion.  Although all Council Members indicated appreciation of the effort put forth by the CA team and all seemed to think it was a great idea however the motion failed to pass due to lack of funding available in the current city budget.

Hotel / Motel Advisory Committee

On Wednesday, March 14th, Chairman Steve Beck and Co-Chair Judy Williams with additional CA Committee Members attended the H/M Advisory Committee meeting to hear the final determination of advisement to the City Council regarding the request for funding from H/M Taxes in accordance to the Revised Code of Washington Title and Chapter 67.28. RCW 67.28.1816 authorizes use of funds for marketing and operations of special events and festivals, and whereas RCW 67.28.180 approves use of funds for construction and operation of tourism-related facilities. 

After a lengthy period of inquiries by Advisory Committee Members and representatives from Southwest Chamber of Commerce and Seattle Southside Tourism directed to the CA Committee representatives to respond to, an advisory committee member inferred that based on the results from Council Study Session held the previous day, it seemed clear to them that that City does not support this initiative and therefore neither should the Hotel / Motel industry. Attending Councilmember Rick Forschler commented that the entire council was behind the idea, it was more a matter of this not being an established 2012 budgeted item and therefore no funds were available to apply to this initiative.  

Some additional discussion ensued with the majority leaning toward the opinion that this sounded like a wonderful event that would benefit local citizen’s more than it would bring “heads to beds” and therefore should be the responsibility of the City to fund from its other revenue sources. A tally was taken and the consensus was unanimous, none of the voting advisory committee members favored spending H/M Taxes on this event and therefore no advisement would be sent to council for further consideration.

Council Festival Committee

The following Tuesday, March 20th, Celebrate America Committee Chairman, Co-Chair and Committee members joined with the Council members Barry Ladenberg, Dave Bush, Pam Fernald and Parks Staff Kit Ledbetter and Lawrence Ellis to review the remaining funding option available for consideration. The Festival Committee had offered to re-proportion $5,000 from the International Festival budget, another $5,000 to be derived from the Hotel / Motel Taxes with an offer to assist in a fundraising effort to achieve a matching amount of an additional $5,000 – for a total of $15,000.  The Celebrate America Committee conveyed appreciation for the generous offer, reiterated that from the beginning the CA group made it clear that there was no intention of taking anything away from other established festivals and then respectfully declined the offer on the basis that the mission of the CA festival is to “Go Big or Go Home”.  

The supporting justification given was that any group is capable of putting on single events at any time within the city; that should the city had decided to in the past they could have hosted a picnic, produced games and provided entertainment for the hundreds of citizen’s regularly attending Angle Lake Park on the Fourth of July; however the CA Committee goal was motivated at drawing in all citizens throughout the entire city to gather together in collective celebration.  The committee members recognized that this objective could not be achieved with the limited amount of funding offered.

What Remains?

Prior to leaving the Festival Meeting, the Celebrate America Committee presented to the Festival Committee a draft Resolution requesting a formal acknowledgement of support by the City Council toward the CA event and included authorization to use of public spaces to host the various events at no charge and asked to direct City Staff to collaborate with the CA Committee in further planning efforts. The Festival Committee representatives had agreed to take this to the City Attorney via the City Manager for further review and to perform any compliance edits necessary.  Upon completion of final revisions, the Council Festival Committee plans to take this to the full council for approval.

If this remaining action is met with success, the Celebrate America Committee will independently pursue private / commercial sponsorship which is intended to alleviate any need for public funding from the City beyond normal emergency services and use of public spaces.  The goal remains the same, to hold a city wide, daylong event on July 4th, only the target inaugural year has changed.

Viewing the Recorded CA Presentation

To view the recorded presentation delivered by the Celebrate America Representatives at the March 13th City Council Study Session:

• From the City of Seatac Homepage, click on the linked option titled SeaTV located on the left side menu.
• Clicking on SeaTV will open a new browser window.  Located on the top menu bar is the menu option titled Council Meetings. Clicking on this item will reveal an index of recorded meetings to choose from.
• Select Council study session 3-13-2012 to open the viewer.
• From the right side menu, select Agenda Bill # 3409 to fast forward to the CA presentation specifically.  

First Lake Planting of 2012

Fish and Wildlife Employees planting fish in Angle Lake

Washington State Department of Fish & Wildlife report they have completed on March 13, 2012 the first of four planned Rainbow Trout plants. This initial plant released 4250 fish or an average of 2.5 fish per pound. Annual planting makes Angle Lake one of the top three trout waters in the Seattle area, according to "Washington-Oregon Game and Fish Magazine."

This early plant provides plenty of time before the 2012 Angle Lake Shore Club Fishing Derby for the fish to become acclimated to their new surroundings, greatly improving the opportunity for all derby participants to land at least one prized trout.

Besides fishing for trout, anglers can also target kokanee, largemouth, pumpkinseed, rock bass and yellow perch.

• Rainbow Trout: Planters, as in freshly planted trout, often attract a crowd and that's no different here at Angle Lake. Power Bait, worms and Power Eggs will work well here in the cooler months. The public fishing pier is a popular spot, but don't be surprised when a catchable trout runs seven inches. There are holdovers that manage to reach weights of 5 pounds.
• Bass: Besides fishing with live worms--which will work for all the lake's species--largemouth bass can be taken on plastics such as grubs and finesse worms shaking on the bottom and around structures. The L-shaped lake offers shallow water for sight fishing.
• Pumpkinseed and Perch: To have success on panfish such as pumpkinseed and yellow perch at Angle Lake, rig up with light line, minijigs and small lead-head grubs tipped with cutbait-like worms. Bounce these plastics or simply put a small piece of worm on a bare hook and drop the offering into view of panfish.
• Kokanee: Kokanee is another option at the 102 acre lake. Troll a Kokanee Killer over the deeper spots for a shot at these land-locked salmon. The area in the middle of the wider arm of the lake offers the deepest water and the best bet for kokanee.
• Catfish: Catfish also call Angle Lake home. They can't resist cutbaits such as worms, liver, shrimp or any other stinky bait like cheese or blood bait. Try squid as well. Catfish will find any smelly offering on or near the bottom.

Keep watching this blog for further details on the upcoming 2012 Angle Lake Shore Club Fishing Derby scheduled for Sunday, April 29th.

Deciding Moments for Celebrate America

A group of civic minded citizens has teamed together to form a committee to design, develop and implement a new major community festival in SeaTac to be held each year on the Fourth of July. The committee has adopted “Celebrate America” for the festival name.

Event Overview

Events may begin as early as 7 am and operate until 12 pm – Locations and descriptions are as follows:

• North SeaTac Park: 
• Classic Car Show
• Disc Golf Tournament
• BMX Bicycle Race Clinic
• SeaTac Community Center:
• Garden Tour
• PacWest Field Complex:
• Boys Baseball
• Girls Softball
• Valley Ridge Park:
• Jam-n-Jet Skate Off
• 6 a Side Soccer Tournament
• Angle Lake Area:
• Kiddies Patriotic Parade
• 5k Family Walk 
• Run Around the Boomerang

All converge on Angle Lake Park from 1:00 pm until 10:30 pm

• Angle Lake Park:
• Flag Ceremony and  Wounded Warrior Dedication
• Recognition of our Naturalized New American Citizens 
• Participant Arts & Crafts; Blow Up Toys, Face Painting, Old Fashioned Picnic Games 
• Live Music with Celebrity MC 
• Historic Period Actors Performances
• Scout Barbeque Foods and Classic Desserts
• City of SeaTac and Angle Lake Shore Club present the 4th of July Fireworks Show Over Angle Lake.

The individuals on this committee have invested hundreds of hours working on this agenda since July of 2011, developing the concept, gathering key event stakeholders, working with city staff and elected officials, including outreach to the Somali and Punjabi communities and several local businesses such as Mike’s Community Coffee for their engagement and support for this event  The committee has also been invited this past two weeks to meet with the newly formed ad-hoc ‘Festival Committee’ for further review of our proposed event.

Since beginning in December 2011, the Celebrate America (CA) team has also been actively evolving a request for funding through the Hotel / Motel (H/M) Advisory Committee.  All required forms were originally submitted in December for review at the scheduled January H/M Committee meeting.  A request for more detail was made of the CA Committee so that a supplemental 99 page packet was submitted for review at the February meeting.  Unfortunately the volume of detail was determined to be too great to make a decision at the February meeting and it was decided by the H/M Advisory Committee Members that a vote should be deferred to a later time in order to allow additional time for review. 

In addition to the H/M Advisory dealings, the CA members have been working with City Officials and are on the agenda to present an event concept overview and to make a funding request at the next Council Study Session scheduled for Tuesday, March 13th at 4PM. The objective is to determine if this event is something the City is willing to support through public funding and decide if it warrants further discussion. If decision is made to support Celebrate America, the next steps anticipated may be:

• March 14th 3-5PM - H/M Advisory Committee will discuss and is expected to reach a consensus determination regarding direction for funding request.
• March 27th 3-5PM – H/M Advisory Committee recommendation may be delivered to the council Study Session.  At which time the Council may determine that enough information is available to warrant a vote at the evening Regular Council Meeting. 
• March 27th 6-8PM – The Council Members would be expected to discuss and vote on support for the event, if majority support is achieved, indication of a specific amount of funding is expected.  If additional discussion is required to also take the H/M Advisory Committee recommendation into overall consideration, a final determination on funding may be delayed until the next following Regular Council Meeting scheduled for April 10th.

Please note the dates included above are derived from logical conclusions made by the author and therefore are subject to change. Actual dates and times will be determined by city officials. 

If a favorable decision is reached to support Celebrate America, we’re not quite in the clear yet. Depending on when approval is made and a specific funding amount is indicated, the CA Committee and the event stakeholders will need to meet for a Go / No Go decision to confirm that approved funding is adequate and there is still sufficient lead time available to produce and deliver a quality event for this year. This decision would be expected to be achieved within days after the council decision is made public.