I spent the Fourth of July enjoying my last chance to launch fireworks in my cul-de-sac with my kids and had to explain to them why mean old Kirkland was taking away our fun. That got me to thinking about all the freedoms that we have lost this year. A year ago, I was part of unincorporated King County, my kids were going to school in a K-6 configured school, I was not forced to buy medical insurance and my kids were not saddled with a multi-trillion dollar debt that they will have to help pay for. Any wonder why the tea party movement has grown so much in the last year! But as I have said it was not just the national government that took away our freedoms. Right here in Kirkland, the city council usurped their authority and pushed annexation on us even though “yes on annexation” did not win at the ballot box. So who benefited from this? The present Kirkland citizens did not want us to be annexed since it hurts their pocketbook and those in the annexed area did not want to be annexed. That leaves “whoever” financed the “vote yes on annexation” at a 10 to one or greater dollar ratio than the “vote no on annexation” folks and, of course, the council members themselves. You have to ask yourself, when is the other shoe going to drop and find out why they were willing to spend so much to push for the annexation and when will we find out why the council voted against the will of the people and drove the city into deeper debt.

Then to add insult to injury, Lake Washington School District Superintendent Dr. Chip Kimball forged ahead with the school reconfiguration, even though the bond measure that was supposed to pay for the reconfiguration of LWSD, failed. It did not seem to faze him that the people voted strongly against this measure knowing full well that one of its main purposes was to support the reconfiguration. He also did not seem to be bothered by the cost incurred, or the disruption of school programs that have been designed for the present configuration.

In the meantime, where do we go from here? Well, unless we can follow Jeff Jared’s example and succeed from Kirkland we have to find a way to live with it. Seems to me like it is time for our own tea party here! So I urge all of you that love freedom and fireworks or hate the fact that Juanita High is losing one of their top fund raising events of the year, to join me in voting them out!

Let’s vote out every council member that voted for the annexation and replace them with someone who will actually listen to the will of the people. Remember, all politics is local and if Kirkland politics is a sign of things to come, it is time to take out the trash! And then if the school board does not start to listen to the citizens, well …

Tom Ellis, Finn Hill