Vote ‘yes’ to EvergreenHealth’s Prop. 1
Please vote to approve the revised Prop. 1 for EvergreenHealth to provide much-needed upgrades to your 50-year-old community hospital. Your vote matters, needing only a few hundred more votes than the April ballot measure. Passage will assure that the quality care provided to you and your family will be available for another 50 years.
Key areas of the bond issue are: Seismic upgrades to assure the hospital will meet FEMA standards and survive a 9.0 earthquake; an advanced ICU to replace the one built 35 years ago; a modernized FMC for the Eastside’s most-preferred birthing center and America’s first “baby-friendly hospital;” technology and facility upgrades, especially in outpatient care and mental health.
EvergreenHealth was created by voters from Kenmore to Sammamish in 1968. They formed KCPHD #2 and approved bonds to build a new 76-bed hospital that opened in 1972, replacing the old Kirkland Hospital downtown. I joined the ER staff in 1973 and have spent my entire career there.
EvergreenHealth now has more than 300 beds, is ranked among the “Top 100 Hospitals in America” by Healthgrades, and provides unique services such as free patient parking, a geriatrics clinic, a free 24/7 nurse consulting hot line, palliative care, Evergreen Hospice and Home Care, a five-star stroke center, youth mental health, etc.
Voters elect the board that runs EvergreenHealth. It meets four times a month, including with a group of more than 40 community advisors, while most hospital boards are appointed and meet less than once a month.
Your hospital district tax rate will not increase (currently about $11 a month for a $700,000 home). That’s about half the cost of your library tax. The bond term will extend out a few more years.
Please vote to approve Prop. 1.
Chuck Pilcher
Kirkland
The gem of EvergreenHealth’s Prop. 1
When voting on EvergreenHealth’s Prop. 1 measure, you may not be aware of a hidden gem in this bond. Our elected officials (commissioners) decided to build an outpatient mental health clinic if we pass the bond!
The need is definitely there. According to the National Institute of Mental Health:
One in 25 have a serious mental health illness like bipolar, eating disorders, major depression and severe anxiety.
Only 41 percent of adults in the United States with a mental health condition received mental health services in the past year.
Among adults with a serious mental illness, 62.9 percent received mental health services in the past year.
Just over half (50.6 percent) of children with a mental health condition aged 8-15 received mental health services in the previous year.
Suicide is now the No. 2 killer of our teens.
So please know Prop. 1 is more than seismically retrofitting EvergreenHealth’s oldest buildings and upgrading the 1985 Critical Care Unit. It’s about “the forgotten people” — our mentally challenged residents and their families crying for care.
Please vote “Yes” on Prop. 1.
Bob Yoder
Redmond
Vote for Shridhar
I am writing in support of Preeti Shridhar for Port of Seattle Commission, Pos. 2 in the Aug. 6 primary election.
The port is a very important race and impacts all of us — every time we take a flight form the airport, to every package that is shipped, to every cruise ship that comes to our port — it is the port commissioners that make decisions that impact our economy, our work force and our environment.
Preeti has served the public for 27 years, working for the city of Renton and city of Seattle. She has made it a priority that everyone has a voice and that the city listens and acts on their concerns and interests. She will do the same for the port commission. Her qualifications are the best in the race and she has strong existing relationships with business and government organizations. She is a woman of integrity and someone who brings people together.
I urge you to vote for Preeti Shridhar for Port of Seattle Commission, Pos. 2.
Sushma Thomas
Kirkland
Support King County’s Prop. 1
Ballots are arriving for this Aug. 6 election and we all need to make sure and vote for the King County Parks Levy, also known as Prop 1.
Why should we all do this? Well if you like to get outside and take a hike on one of the thousands of King County trails or if you appreciate Kirkland’s park system, then you probably know that they get significant funding from the county levy and you should take out your blue pen and vote yes.
Want to take a nice bike ride to a winery on a summer evening? Then you should vote for this levy and ask for a yard sign because this levy will fund a large section of the Eastrail, a 44-mile multi-use trail that will extend the Cross Kirkland Corridor both north to Woodinville and south through Bellevue.
Perhaps you just want the kids out of the house. If this passes, then they could be on one of the many sports fields that will be improved with this levy or in one of the hundreds of programs that use county facilities or playing in the pool that this levy will help plan for. So if that is you, then you should be voting for this and writing letters to the editor!
But wait, there’s more! If you join the majority of voters this Aug. 6 in supporting the levy, you also get investments in the zoo, the aquarium and thousands of acres of new open space all for the same low price of $0.1832 cents per $1,000 of assessed value, or about $7.60 per month for the owner of a home valued at $500,000. A bargain at twice the price.
Bill Finkbeiner
Kirkland
