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A UGUST 8, 2012
S EATTLE , W ASHINGTON
V OLUME XXXIV, N O .32
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C HALLENGING P EOPLE TO S HAPE A B ETTER F UTURE N OW
State
Law
Broken
UMOJA
FEST
Audit: 28 sex
offenders in child
care, foster care
By Donna Gordon Blankinship
The Associated Press
PHOTO BY SUSAN FRIED
Team Primetime played team Orcas in
the semi-finals of the Heal the Hood
basketball tournament on Saturday,
Aug. 4. The basketball tournament was
part of the annual African American
Festival and Parade which was held at
Judkins Park Aug. 3-5 and had
something for everybody including a
children's day, a hip hop stage, gospel
fest, a break dancing competition, food
and a talent competition.
No Sandbox Near Seattle Street
City puts together a task force to examine issue of kids vs cars
By Lynn Thompson
The Seattle Times
SEATTLE (AP) — When
Paulo Nunes-Ueno moved with
his family onto a residential
street between Wallingford and
Greenlake in June, he brought
along an 8-by-4-foot wooden
sandbox he’d built for his two
young children at their previous
home.
On the new block, where the
number of kids is estimated at
between 15 and 20, and where
many of the front yards are
postage-stamp size, the sandbox
became an instant gathering
place for youngsters and their
parents.
But not everyone approved.
The city received an anonymous
complaint the sandbox, located
at the end of the Nunes-Ueno
driveway, violated city rules
about play structures too close
to the street.
The city sent him a warning
he would be fined $500 a day if
he didn’t remove the sandbox.
The city now has, if not a
fight, at least a debate on its
INDEX
News ..................2,4,6,8
Calendar ....................2
Opinion .......................3
A&E ..........................2,5
Bids/Classifieds............7
hands. Nunes-Ueno, a trans-
portation and sustainability
director for Seattle Children’s
hospital, wants to nudge the city
toward more varied uses of the
street, planting strip and side-
walk. That means at least con-
sidering some streets could
become as safe for kids to play
on as for cars to drive.
He’s already had conversa-
tions with Seattle’s director of
street use, two City Council
members, and an urban sustain-
ability group in hopes of chang-
ing the city prohibition against
sandboxes on the planting strip,
the area between the street and
the sidewalk.
“I told them this is a silly rule.
We should be encouraging
neighbors to get together and
children to play outside,’’ he
said.
What’s particularly ironic to
Nunes-Ueno is that his next-
door neighbor has two planter
boxes on the planting strip that
look a lot like the sandbox,
minus the corner seats.
In fact, neighbors along
See TRAFFIC on page 3
SEATTLE (AP) — A new state audit
found 28 sex offenders lived in state-regu-
lated or subsidized child care or foster care
homes between 2002 and 2012, and one sex
offender worked as a high school janitor
undetected for nine years.
The performance review found that all
those problems could have been prevented
if everyone was strictly following state
laws. It also recommended several ways the
state can do a better job protecting children
from sex offenders in such facilities.
Mindy Chambers, a spokeswoman for the
auditor’s office, on Friday commended state
agencies for taking quick action to improve
their procedures when they learned of the
problems.
“The most important thing is that children
are protected,’’ Chambers said. “I think
everybody knows that.’’
Lawmakers said the audit makes it clear
that more needs to be done to protect chil-
dren.
Rep. Bruce Dammeier, R- Puyallup, said
he found it deeply concerning that only
teachers and other certificated school
employees such as librarians and counselors
were being regularly checked against lists of
sex offenders.
There has been a state law since 2005
requiring the checking of all school employ-
ees against the Washington State Patrol’s
database of sex offenders.
“I appreciate the fact that the auditor did
this and caught the error. The fact that they
only uncovered one (school) employee with
a sex offense is somewhat good news but
without a doubt, one is too many,’’
Dammeier said.
The janitor caught by the audit had passed
a background check when he was hired in
2000 but was convicted two years later of
voyeurism and continued to work in the
school and no one in law enforcement
See OFFENDERS on page 3
Grandpa Soldier Joins Army Reserves
Vancouver physician, 58, tries for two years to enlist -- successfully
By Marissa Harshman
The Columbian
VANCOUVER, Wash. (AP) — T. Scott
Woll isn’t what you might expect of a newly
commissioned officer in the U.S. Army.
For starters, he’s an orthopedic surgeon
who’s spent the last couple of decades
repairing limbs at Rebound Orthopedics &
Neurosurgery in Vancouver.
And then there’s his prior weapons expe-
rience — or lack thereof. Before deciding
he wanted to join the Army Reserves two
years ago, Woll had never handled a
firearm.
And finally, there’s the fact that the lieu-
tenant colonel will be serving beside men
and women half his age. Woll is 58 years
old and has five grown kids, ages 20 to 29.
He also has three grandkids.
None of that matters to Woll.
“Grandpa’s going off to be a soldier,’’ he
said.
Woll never wanted to be a soldier. His
father served during World War II and
shared his bad experiences with a young
Woll.
“When I was younger, it was the farthest
See GRANDPA on page 8