Schools struggle with kid boom and levy busts

Originally published Saturday, September 26, 1998

By NEIL MODIE
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER

Many who favor some growth, especially commercial, see the need to broaden the meager property tax base, particularly for Riverview School District.

On Highway 203 at Red Rock Road, a half-mile south of downtown, a sign proclaims the future location of a Safeway store and strip mall. When it opens next year, it will be Duvall's first chain food store.

The locally owned Cherry Valley Family Grocer recently remodeled and expanded to meet the competition. Many townspeople say they like the hometown supermarket and will remain loyal to it.

But even some who lament the suburbanization of Duvall don't seem greatly upset. Gallery owner Sunny Ruthchild reasons that Duvall commuters to Bellevue or Kirkland probably already shop at a Safeway or a QFC on the way home, "so now you can stop at a Safeway here and not have your ice cream melt."

Ray Burhen, a longtime Duvall planning commissioner, hopes new residents and businesses will increase tax revenue and create "a synergistic effect to help keep the antique stores and other stores (in business) down in the Old Town area. Money won't be spent unless there are people there."

Meanwhile, there is concern for the Riverview district, which encompasses Duvall and Carnation, eight miles to the south. Carnation, lacking a sewer system, hasn't shared Duvall's growth.

Riverview's only senior high school, Cedarcrest, was opened at the rapidly developing eastern edge of Duvall in 1993. Suburbia followed.

"Those new subdivisions are off a road that (the school district) built to put the new school there," says district Superintendent Jack Ernst.

While the developers benefit from it, the development fees they pay the school district can be spent only on classrooms, not roads or playfields.

The district can't keep up with the growth. When Ernst became superintendent in 1991, the former Tolt junior-senior high school in Carnation had 700 students. Now Tolt is a middle school, and it and Cedarcrest together have nearly 1,600 students.

Riverview voters didn't approve a bond issue for the new high school until the fifth try. They have repeatedly turned down bond issues for new playfields. A modified measure will be on the November ballot.

Most of the bond-issue support has come from fast-growing Duvall.

Lacking a football field, Cedarcrest must play its home games at Tolt's small, flood-prone field. But academically, it has built a good reputation in a short time: Three years ago, Cedarcrest was named a National Blue Ribbon School for excellence.

With Duvall's scant recreational facilities, "if there is any fault that this area has, it's that there's nothing for the kids to do," says Dean Aaron, who operates the Valley Mailbox and Packaging Service in Duvall.

His part-time employee, Krissy Oakes, a Cedarcrest 11th grader, agrees there's little for kids to do "except hanging out with friends."

The 16-year-old is excited that Duvall might get its first fast-food chain outlet along with the new Safeway. So count her as welcoming some growth.

Real estate agent Barrett thinks the people who have wanted to keep Duvall the way it is have won most of their battle. Old Town has changed little, she noted.

"And there's still only one stoplight."