WSP Trooper Paul Johnson

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Snoqualmie Tribe woodcarver puts finishing touches on canoe

Final cut of Dwight Bunn’s video by Sebastian. from Sebastian Moraga on Vimeo.

King County Elections employees review a ballot in the hand recount for the Snoqualmie Valley School District bond proposal from the Feb. 8 election. (By Katie Gilliam)

It took less than two hours for eight 2-person teams of King County Elections employees to finish a hand recount of more than 9,200 ballots cast in the Feb. 8 election by Snoqualmie Valley School District voters. At issue is the district’s $56 million bond to build a new middle school.

The department’s Canvassing Board will meet at 2 p.m. Friday to decide on three contested ballots. The voter’s intent is not clear on one ballot. The other two ballots could be counted if the board verifies the voters’ signatures on them. To conceal how those voters filled out their ballots, they will be mixed in with about 600 ballots that have not been examined in the recount. 

The recounts final results will then be posted online.

The bond measure lost by a single vote. Within hours of the results being certified, supporters of the bond had raised the $2,650 needed to pay for a hand recount. 

Employees pulled and sorted by precinct the 9,980 ballots cast in the election. Ballots were stored in sealed cardboard boxes on shelves in an open room in the basement of the Elections’ building. Each precinct had its own box.

A runner would then deliver a box to a team. The counters would then break the seal and start sorting the ballots — approved, rejected or no vote. Both team members had to confer on each ballot.

“Number one, we’re just checking the accuracy of our results,” checking the automated process, said Katie Gilliam, a spokeswoman for King County Elections.

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KingCo Conference Tournament 2011

Best photos of 2010 from the SnoValley Star

King County and the union representing its sheriff’s deputies are back to square one on wage negotiations after the county rejected a proposal that would have cost more than it saved despite a small pay cut to deputies.

The lowest pay rate for deputies is comparable to other Eastside police departments, but they have a much higher ceiling, according to an analysis of negotiated pay rates among local police departments by the SnoValley Star.

Deputies’ pay has climbed faster than other departments and will likely pull ahead of most departments in 2011 and 2012, according to the analysis.

Concern about the deputies’ rising wages remains part of the reason the North Bend City Council is considering ending its contract for police services with the King County Sheriff’s Office and instead partnering with Snoqualmie.

Deputies are in line to receive 5 percent wages in 2011 and 2012.Their proposal would have cut next year’s raise to 3 percent, which would have saved the county $1.3 million. But the proposal also stipulated that the county could not layoff any deputies and it extended their contract to 2013 with a 2 percent raise that year.

King County Executive Dow Constantine rejected the offer, saying it would ultimately cost the county $2.5 million. Layoffs are currently scheduled for January due to budget cuts. Further cuts are scheduled for June when several unincorporated areas patrolled by deputies will be annexed into Kirkland.

Constantine has asked the King County Police Officers’ Guild, which represents the deputies, to discuss other options, according to his spokesman, Frank Abe.

Defenders of the deputies’ contract say the wage increases are bringing their wages up to the middle of the field. Critics say it has  become too expensive given current economic reality.

The proposed concession would have meant some savings for North Bend, but City Administrator Duncan Wilson said he expects it to be less than $10,000.

The proposal does not do enough in 2012 and 2013 to reduce the city administration’s concerns about the rising cost of its contract for police services.

“We still have not reached a point where it’s sustainable,” Wilson said.

The guild did not reply to requests for comment.

Comparing costs

By the time the contract expires, the lowest pay rate for deputies will have gone from about $47,200 to $60,273. In 2010, the lowest rate is $54,671.

These wages are not that far from the median pay rates for Eastside police departments in 2008-2010.

The highest rate for patrol officers will similarly have climbed from about $66,450 to just under $84,400. In 2010, it is $76,551. These rates have consistently been well above the median high rate for the area, which is $73,482 in 2010.

Higher-ranking officers, such as sergeants and lieutenants, are paid more. It is difficult to compare pay for these officers due to differences in command structures and responsibilities between departments.

Most of the Eastside police departments are in the process of negotiating new labor contracts. Three cities have contracts with their police officers unions through 2011; no city has a contract for 2012.

Contracts negotiated in the midst of an economic recession tend to use deferred compensation rather than wage increases, according to Ken Smith, a labor specialist and professor at the University of Washington’s Evans School of Public Administration.

Comparing pay rates offers a limited view, because salary is only one part of an employee’s overall compensation, Smith said.

Nonetheless, Snoqualmie’s preliminary cost estimate of a joint police force was about $250,000 less than North Bend’s current contract with King County, according to North Bend officials.

This year, the lowest negotiated rate for Snoqualmie police officers is $52,584 and the highest rate is $70,284.

“We’re certainly going to look at what Snoqualmie has to offer,” North Bend Councilman Chris Garcia said.

Some city officials have expressed frustration with their lack of influence on the deputies’ contract negotiations, which are handled by the county and the deputies’ union.

“It’s a big part of it,” North Bend Councilwoman Jeanne Pettersen said. “Personnel costs are one of the highest costs in your budget.”

Currently, the city is considering layoffs or furloughs to close a $100,000 budget shortfall.

More than money

Money isn’t all that matters, though. Benefits, opportunities for advancement, personal fulfillment and other factors all influence a person’s decision to take a job.

“Salary is not the most important factor for most employees,” Smith said.

Police Chief Mark Toner agreed.

“If money were the big issue, I’d go be a doctor,” he said.

He took a pay cut when he left his career as a machinist to join the sheriff’s office. Like the rest of North Bend’s police force, Toner is a sheriff’s deputy. His assignment is acting chief of police for the former logging town.

When he applied, Toner also applied to work for a smaller department, which offered better pay, but he was attracted to the diverse assignments available with the sheriff’s office. The sheriff’s office also offers more opportunity for advancement than smaller departments.

In his more than 25 years as a deputy, Toner has worked in rural assignments (including North Bend), urban settings, as a SWAT member and in the department’s Major Crimes Unit.

“Show me another job where you can have such a huge impact just by being there,” Toner said.

Hard pill to swallow

Eliminating the increase would encourage North Bend to stay with the sheriff’s office for police services, city officials said.

As it is, the contract’s rising costs are a “hard pill to swallow,” North Bend Mayor Ken Hearing said at a county budget hearing in October. “We need to take a hard look at police services.”

The city told the county later that month it is considering other options and might want to end the contract, an 18-month process.

The county came back by lowering the cost of the proposed 2011 contract by nearly $200,000. The savings will come from different service levels and the county picking up part of the North Bend police chief’s salary.

“It’s a step in the right direction,” Garcia said.

The contract’s cost will still continue to rise in 2012, because of wage increases and North Bend’s annexation of the Tanner area, which means more ground to patrol.

Dan Catchpole: 392-6434, ext. 246, or editor@snovalleystar.com. Comment at www.snovalleystar.com.

Denise Paulette brings to life the tortured psyche of Zelda Fitzgerald in "Zelda," a one-woman play about the wife of novelist F. Scott Fitzgerald. (Photo by Dan Catchpole)

Alone, Denise Paulette steps onto the small stage lit with 100-watt light bulbs in front of about 20 theatergoers at a coffee shop in downtown Snoqualmie.

For 90 minutes, Paulette takes the audience on a frenetic tour of Zelda Fitzgerald’s overtaxed psyche in “Zelda,” a one-person play by William Luce.

Hospitalized due to her deteriorated mental state, Zelda is trying to make sense of her life that took her from being the belle of Montgomery, Ala., to fighting for recognition as an artist overshadowed by her more famous husband, F. Scott Fitzgerald.

The one-woman show is the result of Paulette’s own struggles as an artist. She’s poured her life into acting, but never managed to get her “big break.” Tired of waiting for the right part to come along, she decided to find it. That is how she met Zelda Fitzgerald.

The role drew in Paulette, who identified with Zelda’s struggles to find success as an artist. 

Big part on a small stage

Isadora’s Café is not Seattle’s ACT Theater, and it certainly isn’t Broadway. But to Paulette, it’s all the same: stage, lights, audience, story.

Before the audience arrives, she arranges the stage props — a desk, some chairs, a couple of lamps, end tables, a rug. In this one-person production, Paulette is everything from stage hand to star.

She does have some help: A friend turns on the lights at the beginning and end of the show, and Isadora’s owner, Jody Sands cues the intro music. They help her arrange chairs for the audience.

In her preparations, Paulette moves with an excited energy. Performing thrills her.

Acting has gripped Paulette since she was a child. At age 2, she was putting on performances for her family. She studied drama at the University of Washington, but really learned the craft from a couple who ran a local acting studio.

Since then, she has enjoyed minor triumphs and setbacks along the way. It is a harsh, unforgiving industry that takes what it wants and rarely repays hard work with financial or even critical success.

And yet, for people like Paulette, it is a refuge, a temple where they become free of life’s pedestrian bounds.

“That’s the first part of it — where can I take the audience?” she said. “And the second half of this is that I get to go with them, because I adore playing somebody else.”

Hoping the part, production grows

Paulette poured herself into the role of Zelda. She is trying to take the show to Seattle, where she has previewed it a few times. She has also performed the show at the Valley Center Stage in North Bend and could be performing it in Carnation early next year.

Most of the play is taken from Zelda’s own words. But it is the space between that defines the performance.

“The really critical part of the work is between the lines,” Paulette said. “The more an actor understands their own body, their own thoughts, how they feel about life or their emotional access is a pretty critical piece. Then, that’s when you can really engage your character and have the ability to release yourself, so that you can go to the work.”

In theater, especially in intimate settings such as Isadora’s, an actor must use his or her entire body, she said.

Paulette has worked in theater and film, but theater is her love. The immediate response of the audience is exciting, she said.

Theater also offers a flexibility that film doesn’t. In film, an actor’s performance is captured and frozen. But in live theater, it is constantly evolving. That is especially true in a one-person production.

“I could literally start all over tomorrow if I wanted,” Paulette said, because she doesn’t have to rely on any other actors.

Paulette took on producing a one-person show because she wanted to find the right role. “Zelda” was the second script she read, and she felt an instant connection, she said.

To help refine her performance, she enlisted the help of local actor Vince Balestri as director. Balestri wrote, produced and starred in “Kerouac: The Essence of Jack,” which toured the U.S. for 17 years. Recently, he appeared in the independent film “Beat Angel.”

‘Zelda’ can teach women about themselves

Producing a one-person show is an act of love and dedication. For Paulette, it was long nights of rehearsal that culminated in a handful of performances.

Of course, she hopes to turn those performances into more. As part of her effort to perform in Seattle, she is approaching women’s groups about performing at their meetings in lieu of a speaker.

“Zelda” could be a surprising choice for women’s groups. Her husband called her the “first flapper” and she spent much of her life overshadowed by his success.

At one point in the show, Zelda says, “I should’ve loved the artist in myself.”

That is why Paulette thinks she is appealing for women.

“There’re a lot of women in a lot of situations that can relate to that statement: that we tend to put it all into the relationship, and put who we are and what our true self is second,” she said.

After deciding to produce “Zelda,” Paulette pored over her life. To prepare for the role, she became intimately familiar with Zelda, a woman diagnosed with schizophrenia trapped in an increasingly bitter marriage and yearning for the happy, promise-filled days of her youth.

“I feel like I am walking a tightrope,” Zelda says.

And for 90 minutes, Paulette takes the audience on that tightrope with her.

Dan Catchpole: 392-6434, ext. 246, or editor@snovalleystar.com.

Mount Si vs Glacier Peak, playoff game, Nov. 5