Two things amaze me. I am amazed at all the natural beauty we can find in the City of Lakewood if we take time to notice what is around us. Many good Lakewood residents work hard in their yards and in our community to provide beauty for everyone to enjoy. Good citizens make our world […]
Lakewood
Home from Home: October 31
Next week Wednesday is a red calendar day for so many American children. They have probably been figuring for weeks already what costumes to wear. Some will go to parties. Some will walk from door to door the old-fashioned way. Some will go trunk-or-treating in the safe surroundings of a local church. The rest of […]
Westside Story – Remember Patty Hearst?
Remember Patty Hearst? I do. The year was 1974. Socialite Patty Hearst was an heiress to her grandfather, William Randolph Hearst’s, publishing wealth. Patty was a 19-year-old college student attending the University of California – Berkeley when a terrorist group known as the Symbionese Liberation Army (SLA) kidnapped her.
Westside Story: 4-Step RIP Inspection Process
Mr. David Anderson, The Tacoma News Tribune and I have written something close to 90 articles criticizing the City of Lakewood’s controversial Rental Housing Inspection Program, known as the R.I.P.
Letter: Rental inspections – when the accused, but innocent, outnumber the guilty
A beer can was spotted by administrators at a high school football game. Before the season-opening kickoff, 75 students – row by row – were consequently pulled from the section of bleachers near where a school official saw the can and all were sequestered in classrooms, creating what some parents described as a chaotic scene.
Letter: Rental Inspection Programs are an admission of failure
When a city adopts a rental inspection program, it means the originators and adopters – city staff and city council respectively – are tired of ‘fire-fighting.’ In a word: failed.
Home from Home: First Snow
As long as I can remember, winter and snow have almost been synonymous for me. I grew up in Southern Germany, and we always experienced the white load sooner or later. We built snowmen and igloos, went tobogganing down any slope we could find, had snowball fights, ate icicles, and simply enjoyed the sight of […]
Westside Story – RIP Rental Addendum
Disclosure: I am not an attorney. I do have 64+ years business experience including 48+ years in the real estate industry.
Letter: Renters’ and Landlords’ check-list for the Rental Inspector
With clipboard-carrying inspectors in Lakewood, Washington set to begin sometime after Christmas their examinations of rental bedrooms, closets, bathrooms, kitchens, and maybe cupboards, following is a suggested – in the spirit of the coming holiday – naughty-or-nice checklist of your own for the one knocking at your door wanting entrance to your home.