"Not all of us are City Council members or managers."

Home at last

You arrive in 2017 only to find the facade crumbling all around

Editor, The Times:

Time to surf with me to your neighborhood circa 2017 and any multi-zoned corner with 10-year-old town homes. I see peeling paint, ill-treated shake shingles and foggy double-paned windows. As Karen Lavallee, broker in Windermere's West Seattle office says, "typically there's no homeowners association, nor are there dues — two big selling points for town-home buyers" ["Houses here cost more than you think," Times, Local News, March 8].

Well, that little "benefit" of 2007 on these sparkling and attractive new town homes will be the bane of their neighbors in the future.

Without the structure for decision-making, the opportunity for thoughtful planning and, most importantly, the requirement that funds be set aside for future repairs, these buildings will become eyesores. The young, double-employed couples will barely be able to afford their payments, let alone set any money aside for costly paint jobs or roof replacements.

Our city planners have missed the boat and when the paint peels, we can all thank them.

— Signe Roscoe, Seattle

There goes the neighbor

"Houses here cost more than you think" articulates that families with two kids and a dog are not buying the multitude of new town homes. I work for Seattle Public Schools and, as an educator with two kids and pets, I cannot afford to buy a home in the city where I teach. I am seeing enrollment at SPS plummeting, as families move where housing is more affordable. Certainly, Seattle schools with their multitude of problems aren't drawing families to Seattle either.

Seattle is fast becoming a city for young urban professionals with dual income and no kids ("DINKS").

This April, I'm attending the national teachers job fair in search of a state that actually pays teachers something more resembling a livable wage and also helps them with buying a house in the area where they teach. California is looking more inviting and Seattle can say goodbye to the families (except the rich ones who use private schools), and more schools will be closed, driving more families away.

But I don't see anyone too concerned with that. They're too busy arguing about a tunnel to increase property values, thus driving more middle-class families to the 'burbs.

This will destroy the diversity that has made Seattle so appealing to so many.

— Holly Homan, Seattle

The peasants' nest egg

I guess I don't understand how anyone would think that a $400,000 to $500,000 price tag on a town house is considered to be affordable housing. Not for folks who work for the city of Seattle making less than $35,000 a year. Not all of us are City Council members or managers.

— Diana Rodriguez, Lacey

Ceiling needs a patch

"Group ponders where work force can afford to live" [Business & Technology, March 9], lamenting workers living too far from their homes, applies all over our region. King County Executive Ron Sims, Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels and the Legislature should be addressing this issue now.

One thing that shouldn't be done is increasing state employees' wages/salaries to compensate for local housing costs. An allowance might be acceptable, but retirement and other benefits might be skewed in favor of one university's employees, and a family's standard of living could be negatively influenced by a change of jobs.

— Terry Slaton, Federal Way

For sale by onerous

I have yet to see one letter about the owner of a mobile-home park in Renton, where retirees and low-income folks live and are going to be displaced ["Mobile-home park's future unclear," Local News, March 3].

Yes, it is the owner's property, but he didn't say anything about selling the property until developers with dollar signs in their eyes started making offers. He had sent letters to those who live in the park: They would either have to buy the property their homes sat on, or relocate.

Then, the owner decided maybe he would get rid of the mobile homes and develop the property himself, because the property it sits on is unincorporated King County, and he can get more money for the sale of property or developing. Those who own their mobile homes would have to go to the expense of having their homes moved to another park, if they could find one.

The greed and dollar signs in the eyes of property owners and developers is getting worse. This owner and those developers would like nothing more than to displace these people, who can ill afford to move into a retirement community because of the high cost.

They should be thoroughly ashamed of themselves, because some day they will be in the same age group. But they will have all the dollars they ripped off from these low-income seniors, and won't give it a second thought.

I'm not ashamed to be an American; I am ashamed of what the "baby boomers" and their children have become: greedy, and they don't care at whose cost.

— Patsy Gee, Federal Way

Designing scheme

Just how you described it

It infuriates me that people here in the Seattle area, where we are well- known for being "friendly and polite," took advantage of the Hurricane Katrina funds and pretended that they themselves were the disaster's victims ["7 accused of scamming $80,000 in Katrina aid," Local News, March 9].

What goes through their heads??? We live in a great area. We do not have hurricanes or tornadoes, yet we all know the "big one"(earthquake) is possibly coming, and we opt to continue to live here. Needless to say, we have it good.

Those lower-than-low pretend-victims should have to 1) pay it all back; and, 2) go to the disaster area and work the wreckage. Give them the least-desired job, let them get their hands dirty since that is what they had claimed they went through — make them go through it.

To take from those people who got struck so hard, and many are still awaiting help, is unforgivable!!

I always believe "Be happy for what you have and if you are, and seek nothing better, the better will find you all by itself."

Let those "relief-thieves" live the lives they claimed to have gone through. Go help the area you so brazenly stole from.

And stay there until it is done!

— Sue Stanley, Duvall

Groundbreaking gift

What to get for people who have nothing

If Donald Trump wants to build a lasting legacy in Seattle ["A Trump tower in Seattle? It could happen," page one, March 8], instead of creating another monster, view-blocking skyscraper, he might consider building the Alaskan Way tunnel. The 100,000 drivers who daily pass through his tunnel will be forever grateful.

Of course, he'd certainly want it to produce some sort of revenue ... perhaps a gift shop at the end.

Ahh ... The Trump Tunnel.

— Robert Burton, Edmonds