The City of Everett approached the owner of the Waits Motel. The owner of the Motel and Elah Valley, LLC signed a purchase and sale agreement for $2 million dollars. “The future use of the property has not been determined but it won’t be a treatment facility, temporary housing or similar,” Mayor Franklin stated. “It is zoned residential and that is expected to remain, with the ultimate use to be determined and approved by the Everett City Council.” The property last sold for $2.3 million in 2021. The 24 room motel is now to be condemned at $95,800 per room.
Snohomish County purchased the Days Inn Hotel in Everett for $10.8 million using federal American Rescue Plan Act dollars, according to an email sent to The Center Square from the Snohomish County Office of Recovery and Resilience. The former hotel will be converted into time-limited bridge housing for the homeless with 74 units. The cost of each unit is nearly $150,000.
Snohomish County Executive Dave Somers announced $6.5 million in new funding for youth mental health. $3.2 million will aim to support vulnerable youth. Another $1.5 million will go to after-school care through partnerships with the YMCA and Boys & Girls Club. A previous $2.9 million investment in tuition subsidies and behavioral health support went to those organizations last year.
The Onward Learning program, which supports students transitioning from high school to higher education with housing and other needs, will receive $1.2 million from the county. $500,000 is dedicated to youth career exploration.
The final $100,000 will be used to create a “sensory calming room” for children who need to appear in court.
The county announced an $8 million investment in five projects that treat mental and behavioral health. Those projects include expanding behavioral health services in Edmonds schools, a new facility to serve pregnant women and mothers who are dependent on opioids and space for mental health care at Housing Hope’s child development center in Everett.
A $50 million, one-mile roadway improvement now runs through Lynnwood. “196th St. is a conduit that links and connects our city’s economic centers and will continue to serve as a hub for Lynnwood and our region as we grow and expand in the coming years,” Mayor Christine Frizzell said.
The project was funded with local, state and federal funds. About $20 million came from the city, another $17 million from state grants and $9 million from federal dollars.
Despite billions of dollars spent on salmon recovery, 13 populations of salmon and steelhead are at risk of extinction in the Columbia and Snake.
In February 2021, an Idaho Republican congressman, Mike Simpson, proposed a $34 billion plan for taking out the dams to benefit salmon. GOP lawmakers panned it. Washington Democratic leaders embraced it.
Gov. Jay Inslee and U.S. Sen. Patty Murray, commissioned a report on replacing the benefits of the dams, released in August 2022. They found a significant infrastructure program costing $10.1 billion to $31.3 billion could replace the services of the dams.
The Washington Legislature in 2023, at Gov. Inslee’s request, approved $7.5 million to fund studies on replacement of the power, river transportation and irrigation benefits of the dams.
Shannon Wheeler, chair of the Nez Perce Tribe, said, “We are hammering away at this to get dams breached and salmon recovered — that is our number one goal.”
Gov. Jay Inslee’s initiative to remove homeless camps, relocating 1000 people, cost $143 million. “About 1,300 people were swept from roadside camps as of July 31, with roughly 430 of those rejecting help getting into temporary or permanent shelter. That means it took $165,000 per person to clear the camps and house 870 people,” Fox News reported.
All this spending reminds me of this: “I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them.”
– Thomas Jefferson ◆
