The fear fighters
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INDEXOPINION 4 ON THE SCANNER 9 CALENDAR 10 PUZZLES 11MOVIE TIMES 15CLASSIFIEDS 12-14 Vol. 99, No. 19
BUSI
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retirement? Valley group starts monthly discussions Page 6BU
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VALLEY RECORDSNOQUALMIE
WEDNESDAY, OCT. 3, 2012 • DAILY UPDATES AT WWW.VALLEYRECORD.COM • 75 CENTS •
Medical marijuana storefront departs Preston
The Kind Alternative, one of 23 shops closed by DEA letter, re-opens
in Black DiamondBy Valley Record Staff
The Kind Alternative Medical Marijuana Collective in Preston has been tempo-rarily shuttered since early August, after receiving a warning letter from the federal Drug Enforcement Agency.
The letters, sent to the operators and landlords of 23 medical marijuana facilities in western Washington, stated the operations had to cease immediately because of their proximity to school zones or drug-free zones.
A sign on the Kind Alternative’s windows stated that the facility was closing as a courtesy to neighbor-ing businesses. Although the collective has closed its storefront, the operator said they have continued to make deliveries to patients. The adjoining Go’in Glass Lounge, which does not provide any marijuana, but sells pipes and other devices, and provides a patient-only area for con-sumption of marijuana, will remain open.
Collective operators hope to return to their Preston facility in the near future, as Seattle and unincorporated King County zoning laws are updated.
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SEE MOVE, 5
Lost alleys, foundAfter decades of overgrowth,
Snoqualmie survey is reclaiming pathsBY SETH TRUSCOTT
Editor
Bordered by fences on both sides, the strip fronting River Street is a patchwork of tall grass, concrete blocks, stacked firewood and leaf litter. Roots of big maples furrow the ground. A child’s fort overlooks the scene.
On the city’s official maps, this place is supposed to be an alley. But the connector between River and Newton Streets went back to nature years ago.
Not for much longer. The city of Snoqualmie is in the midst of a complete survey of down-town alleys, with the aim of transforming how people move around this historic neigh-borhood.
Seth Truscott/Staff Photo
Once an alley, this strip of land off Snoqualmie’s Silva Avenue may become a connector again. Dan Marcinko, the city’s Public Works and Parks Director, says a new alley survey by Perteet, Inc., will make for a complete picture of downtown, and a more accessible city.SEE ALLEY, 5
Serious skills mingle with fun in new women’s defense series
BY CAROL LADWIGStaff Reporter
There’s no reason the activities planned for this evening’s self-defense class should be fun, but they are.
People are talking quietly or laughing out loud, sprawled on the floor of the Snoqualmie Fire Station, or doing some gentle stretches. They’re relaxed and jok-ing, but transition quickly to all serious-ness for a final review of their training, and of the evening’s program with Officer John Lievero. Well, mostly serious.
When Lievero repeats the final rule for the night, “no weapons, OK?” he gets a quick retort from one student, flexing her biceps as she says, “None except for these babies!”
Just like that, the 17 women go back to joking, and the first few stu-dents gets geared up for practice.
The fear � ghters
SEE DEFENSE, 3
Carol Ladwig/Staff Photo
Standing up to her ‘attacker,’ police officer Dave Bond, a RAD student tries the self-defense techniques she’s learned in a class with Snoqualmie Police Department.
WWW.VALLEYRECORD.COM Snoqualmie Valley Record • October 3, 2012 • 3
They all go silent again, when they hear the approach-ing creak of protective gear.
That’s the sound of their would-be attacker, Officer Dave Bond, covered head-to-toe in red padding. He’s com-ing to help them practice their defense techniques in realistic but safe scenarios, or more concisely, to take a beating from each one of them.
The sound of his approach is when the fear—and the fun—really begin.
“I just want you guys to know, I am really nervous,” the first woman to face Bond announced as she stood alone in the practice area. “It may not look like it but…”
Lievero wasn’t surprised. He and Bond, both Normandy Park Police officers, are cer-tified instructors of Rape Aggression Defense Systems, or RAD (www.rad-systems.com) and they’ve been offer-ing these women-only classes for years.
“This is a really difficult thing for a lot of women,” Lievero said. “It’s very uncom-fortable to have someone put their hands on you.”
For these final exercises of the class, each woman was put into several uncomfort-able situations, and experi-
enced the terror and the thrill of kicking and screaming her way out of them.
Added to that were a sup-portive audience of fellow stu-dents shouting out encour-agements and techniques to try, and hoots and applause for every clean escape.
No wonder each and every one of them revealed a wide grin when their helmets came off.
Then again, Bond also seemed pretty happy, despite the punishment he was tak-ing. Before he was half done with the group, Bond had been thrown on his back, stripped of his helmet once, kicked and punched count-less times and his ears were probably still ringing with the verbal abuse his students had let fly, all part of the training.
On a water break, he wouldn’t even consider giv-ing someone else the suit for a few rounds.
“Honestly, we fight for who gets to do this,” he panted.
The “we” he’s talking about is the small group of RAD-certified instructors who host classes throughout the Puget Sound Area. Member police departments of the Coalition of Small Police Agencies, like Snoqualmie, have access to specialized training like theirs, said Snoqualmie Officer Nigel Draveling, who coordinated this first Snoqualmie class.
“That’s where the Coalition is really cool,” said Draveling, adding that the Snoqualmie department had been receiving requests for self-defense classes for some
time. “They can come in and assist us, since we don’t have our own instructors.”
They love to do it, too. Bond’s only disappointment for the evening was that, although his program now owns two suits, they couldn’t use both of them that night because the third RAD instructor they work with in the Valley was unavailable.
In another month, though, they should be able to use both suits, because Draveling will be taking the RAD cer-tification course in October, and the Snoqualmie Police Department just authorized another RAD class for later this fall.
Draveling is excited, both about the training he’ll be getting, and the community’s response to this training ses-
sion. “We’ve been wanting to
do citizen classes for three years, as a police depart-ment,” he said.
When the timing and opportunity were right to offer one, Draveling knew it would be a self-defense class, but he didn’t know
which one until he’d done the research. He chose RAD, he said, because “this is the one that fits best with what we wanted to do.”
The response was over-whelming. “We had 18 spots, and it booked up in three days,” Draveling, “I’m not kidding, I’m still getting e-mails from people!”
He doesn’t attribute the interest in self-defense to any trends in the community, but to general awareness. “I think people just want to be pre-pared,” he said.
The four-day class covers more than just the physical maneuvers. In fact most of the first two sessions discuss ways to improve safety at home, at work, and online.
“After that first night, I went home and cancelled my Facebook, my LinkedIn account, everything,” one student said. “I talked to my kids, too.”
Each of the three men was gratified to see how well this first RAD class in Snoqualmie had learned from them.
That the women had learned from each other was apparent, too.
When that first student confessed that she was ner-vous about the practice, some women laughed, some said “me, too!” and a few more echoed the sentiments of one student, who said “Don’t worry, we’ve got your back!”
For information about the next RAD class and other self-defense offerings such as pepper-spray or firearms training, send an e-mail to Officer Nigel Draveling, [email protected].
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DEFENSE FROM 3
Carol Ladwig/Staff Photo
A woman flees from ‘assailant’ Dave Bond, as John Lievero signals the end of the exercise.
Path plan gets passing grade
BY CAROL LADWIGStaff Reporter
A new policy for improv-ing Snoqualmie Valley School District was adopted in a 4 to 1 vote by the school board Thursday, Sept. 27.
The “Curriculum Pathways and Benchmarks” policy, number 2423, calls for the school district to implement “curriculum pathways” for grades 6 to 12, and to create a scorecard to determine how the district is progressing. The goal is “to allow all students access to courses necessary to build the transcripts rec-ommended for competi-tive application to post-high school education, including top four-year universities.”
All of the details regarding the implementation of path-ways and the creation of the scorecard will be determined by the district administration and staff.
Originally presented at a Sept. 13 board meeting, the policy proposal by board members Geoff Doy and Carolyn Simpson, drew both high praise and strong criti-cism. It did again at last week’s meeting, attended by roughly 60 parents and teachers.
Board member Scott Hodgins supported the origi-nal policy, and noted that Doy and Simpson had simply done as they were asked by the board, when they were assigned to think about stra-tegic planning. He also sup-ported the rewrite. President Dan Popp overcame his ini-tial opposition that the first draft was too prescriptive, and supported the new version, too. Marci Busby maintained her opposition to the policy, on the grounds that Doy and Simpson had talked to teach-ers and administrators from other school districts, but not their own. “I think our experts should have been able to weigh in on this,” she said.
Busby cast the only oppos-ing vote to the new policy.
The split opinion on the policy was shared by audience members, many of whom took the opportunity to com-ment on the policy before the vote. Some felt the policy was too elitist, focusing too heavily on four-year colleges, while others felt improvement was always a worthwhile goal. Others had general statements they wanted to make.
Teachers described the work they’ve already been doing in increasing curricu-lum offerings, and didn’t want that work to be discarded.
Trese Rand of Fall City, asked the board to “give some time and some weight
SEE PATHWAY, 6