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city council Q&a: part 1 of 3 p2Mayoral Q&a: round 2 p3Mariner football gets 1st win p8Beacon writers win 4 awards p15

MUKILteo InVIteKamiak girls swimming dives into season

GReen aPPLe DaYDiscovery plants 21 fruit trees, veggie garden 98

806 5th Street, Mukilteo, WA 98275 www.mukilteobeacon.com Volume XXII Number 9 Oct. 9, 2013

Just for fun, The Beacon asked Mukilteo designer Ron

Hansen to analyze this election season’s political signs for their overall effectiveness and what they may say about the candi-dates’ political leanings.

An award-winning designer, Hansen created the political signs for Snohomish County Judge Tam T. Bui. Her signs were apple green with white type.

“It stood out well, and she won,” Hansen said. “I helped her out.”

Locally, Hansen has also de-signed logos for the Mukilteo Lighthouse Festival, the Mukilteo Community Orchestra and the Mukilteo Farmers Mar-ket.

He is the owner and president of Ron Hansen Label Design Co., a food and beverage label and brand design company located in Mukilteo. He has designed ad-vertising campaigns, billboards, print ads, brands and more.

Like most of us, Hansen sees

the eight mayoral and City Council candidates’ signs plus one more anti-candidate sign when driving around the city.

He said that none of the signs stand out to him – that they’re boring, dull, bland.

“Most of them have no style,” Hansen said. “Very few of them are unique.”

Signs don’t define a candidate, he said, but they do give voters a sense of who they are: They are essentially mini-billboards for their personality.

“It’s all you know about the candidate until you vote,” Han-sen said. “It’s a key message to the voters – not that they’re good or bad at politics – but of their personality.”

Here’s what Hansen had to say about each sign:

No JoeHansen’s take on a political

action committee’s signs that at-tack Mayor Joe Marine’s leader-ship: They’re ineffective.

Citizens for a Better Mukilteo has staked signs on which the universal ‘no’ symbol is stamped

‘The circus has no set schedule…’

Beacon photo by Sara Bruestle

(top) Senior Drum Major Lynne Onishi dances with a light-up umbrella in Kamiak Show Band’s finals performance of “Night Circus” during the Music in Motion marching band competition Kamiak hosted at Goddard Stadium on Oct. 5. Twelve high school bands competed in this inaugural show. (inset) Senior Drum Major Aaron Coe plays the trumpet during the band’s preliminary showing of “Night Circus.” The inspiration for this routine is Erin Morgenstern’s book by the same name and the quote: “The circus has no set schedule, appearing without warning and leaving without notice.”

Taxes, chip seal issues top debate focus

see MaYoRaL DeBate page 10 u

What candidates’ signs say about themby SARA bRUESTLE

mukilteoeditor@yourbeacon.netby SARA bRUESTLE

mukilteoeditor@yourbeacon.net

by SARA bRUESTLEmukilteoeditor@yourbeacon.net

see sIGns page 6 u

Richard Blalock now knows you don’t have to be big to

be a hero. He almost died, but was saved by two small ones.

His daughters Lauren, 9, and Jenna, 8, helped his wife Sharon Blalock prevent him from dying of a severe asthma attack last month in their Everett home.

Lauren, a fourth grader at Mukilteo Elementary, and Jenna, a third grader at Olivia Park Elementary, have no formal training, but followed their trained mom’s CPR instructions.

Richard, 43, suffered the asthma attack that caused him to stop breathing around 9 a.m. on Sept. 8. Just before he blacked out, he managed to say “Call 911.” His daughters were

in the room and heard him.“These three little heroes of

mine did their best to keep me alive,” Richard said. “I’ve told them many, many times, ‘You guys are my heroes. You’ve really done an amazing job.’ I’m really thankful for them.”

Alerted by the girls’ screams, his wife Sharon called 911 and then she and the girls imme-diately started administering CPR. Sharon pumped his chest while Lauren and Jenna alternated giving mouth-to-mouth.

They continued for several minutes until paramedics arrived. It was another 3 1/2 minutes before Richard was breathing on his own.

Awake, he was transported to Providence Medical Center in Everett. He stayed there six days. Doctors said he had suffered acute respiratory failure.

Coincidentally, Richard’s own dad had died just five days earlier from an asthma attack.

Young daughters help save father with CPR

Beacon photo by Sara Bruestlesee cPR page 16 u

Issues on chip seal, taxes and a full-time mayor rose to the top when

Mayor Joe Marine and City Council-member Jennifer Gregerson faced off in a Mayoral Debate last week at Rosehill Community Center.

About 200 voters attended the debate sponsored by the Mukilteo Chamber of Commerce and The Beacon.

Marine and Gregerson are up for election Nov. 5. They were the top two-vote getters in the Aug. 6 primary.

Marine, 50, who was first elected to the office in 2005 and re-elected in 2009, is seeking a third term. An 18-year resident, he has served as mayor for nearly eight years.

Gregerson, 35, has served as a councilmember since 2004, including two years as council president. She is a lifetime Mukilteo resident.

Other issues covered on Oct. 3 included Japanese Gulch acquisition, commercial expansion at Paine Field and redevelopment of the waterfront, but it was over the issues of chip seal, tax increases and a full-time mayor that the candidates – who have similar political views – were most divided, if only sometimes by a split hair.

Read the candidates’ debate sur-rounding whether the city needs a full-time mayor in the Mayoral Q&A on page 3.

The following are Marine and Greger-son’s views on taxes and chip seal:

Photo courtesy of Liz Ferry

The Blalock family: Lauren, 9, Richard, Sharon and Jenna, 8.

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u from CPR page 1

His heart had failed during the attack. He was 69.

“I didn’t want him to die just like his daddy,” Jenna said.

“Thank God,” Lauren said. “It was a miracle.”

Richard realizes he could have died that day, all because he hadn’t been taking care of himself.

“When [my dad] passed away, I wasn’t paying attention to the fact that I was getting sicker, and my asthma was getting out of control,” Richard said. “This was kind of my fault.”

When his attack came, Richard tried to use his hospital-grade nebulizer, but it wasn’t helping.

A nebulizer is a medical de-vice that delivers medication in the form of mist inhaled into the lungs.

“He literally chewed the thing,” Lauren said. “There were so many bite marks on the mouthpiece.”

“The hospital had to give him a new one,” Jenna said.

After 10 seconds on the nebu-lizer, Richard, who has been asthmatic since he was 5, real-ized that this was like no other

asthma attack he’d ever had. The last thing he remembered

was hearing the girls scream before he blacked out.

“They said, ‘Daddy can’t breathe,’” Sharon said. “He was turning blue. The way he looked, he was dying.”

Sharon rushed into their bedroom and saw Richard strug-gling to breathe on the nebulizer. He wasn’t getting enough air and was about to pass out. Then he did.

The girls called 911 and then Sharon called 911 again because she feared the paramedics weren’t going to get there fast enough. That’s when she started chest compressions and asked the girls to help by blowing air into his lungs.

“His mouth is icky,” Jenna said.

“I felt like I was kissing a 9-year-old,” Lauren said.

Lauren tilted her dad’s head back and lifted his chin – with-out instruction. She had seen the move on a Nickelodeon TV show and mimicked it.

“It was on ‘Sam & Cat,’ and it was this episode where a guy was getting so freaked out that he passed out, and Sam and Cat were doing CPR on him,” Lau-ren said. “They tilted his head back, which caused him to start breathing again.”

“I’ve actually seen the episode, and it’s a really silly scene,” Richard said. “It’s surprising they were able to learn anything of value from it.”

As paramedics wheeled him to the ambulance, Richard saw how traumatized his wife and girls were and gave his family a thumbs up to let them know he was OK.

“The fact that I was awake and alive at all was a major miracle,” he said, adding that the para-

medics praised his girls for their CPR work.

In the ER, doctors gave Rich-ard the option of going home that day or staying overnight for observation. He asked to stay.

“It was pretty serious,” he said. “My lungs were in far worse shape than I think they realized.”

Richard connected the dots from his hospital bed: He had had a close call when home alone not long before the Sept. 8 asthma attack.

“If they hadn’t been there [this time], I would be dead,” Richard said. “Eventually my heart would have stopped.”

His asthma is the result of being raised in a home with second-hand smoke. Both of his parents smoked cigarettes. Rich-ard’s dad had COPD and smoked until the day he died.

Richard is now home from the hospital and taking medication to control his asthma. He is off bereavement leave and was back to work as of Sept. 30.

He also wears a medical alarm and GPS at all times – his wife and girls made him order it.

Richard and his family are going to counseling to deal with the trauma of his near-death experience. Jenna is taking it the hardest, but talking about it seems to help.

“That CPR training I did, there was a reason I did it,” Sharon said. “It’s just so strange to me how I’m just casually taking a class, and then someday I use it on my husband.”

All four of them are all also going to sign up to take CPR classes. Sharon wants to become an expert.

“This is a testament to the power of CPR,” Richard said, “and how you can be a hero, no matter how small you are.”

Seaway Boulevard that would go through the gulch). The city of Everett doesn’t want this highway in their city; the state of Washington doesn’t have the money or interest in it.

I’ll work on things that will make Mukilteo better right now. I will re-examine chip seal, and make sure we only apply it where it works on city streets.

We should consider other methods: every year except one, there has been only one bidder on our chip seal contract. I think there’s a better way.Closing comments

My 10 years of experience as your councilmember has been quite an education. It’s taught me that we need a fresh perspec-tive and new priorities in the mayor’s office.

I’m asking for your vote to be the next mayor of Mukilteo so I can bring a clear, new vision to this important role.

Here are some examples of what I mean:

• I want to strengthen our connection to our schools: The Mukilteo School District is a key part of what makes our city great.

• I want to make sure we’re providing public safety services in the most efficient and effective way. I won’t let my ego get in the way of finding the best solution or examining opportunities.

• I will be your voice on the is-sue of commercial air service at Paine Field: We need to preserve Paine Field for aerospace manu-facturing and Boeing. I created our Paine Field defense fund and have voted to replenish it over the years. I want to also strength-en our support for aerospace in Mukilteo. We should expand the aerospace innovation zone to include the major employers and areas in our city, not just on the other side of the airport.

u from MAYORAL Q&A page 3