When I drive through downtown Kirkland I feel like I am looking at a ghost town. The grass is brown, the flowers are not their usual things of beauty, the islands have weeds growing in them (some 6 feet high) and half the buildings are empty with brown paper covering the windows. If I were a business property owner all of us this would make me very unhappy. How can they ever rent at the very high rents Kirkland demands if prospective businesses look at us and say this is a town on its way out.

My dad always said it doesn’t matter how poor someone is, there is no excuse for them or their surroundings to look shoddy because soap and water are cheap. Kirkland needs to start using some of that soap and water to make itself attractive to prospective buyers and leasers to help the landlords out. In the long run the city will profit from increased revenue.

Patty Tucker, Kirkland