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Referendum 74Referendum 74 offers Washington voters a historic chance

to expand civil rights to same-sex couples.In February, after receiving crucial support from local

lawmakers in the state House of Representatives and state Senate, Gov. Chris Gregoire signed landmark legislation to legalize same-sex marriage. Opponents petitioned to put the measure before voters on the November ballot.

Washington already affords rights to same-sex couples, but the existing law is incomplete. Marriage is a basic civil right.

In 2009, voters approved Referendum 71, or the state’s “everything-but-marriage” law, to expand domestic part-nership rights. Both sides in the R-74 campaign realize marriage — both the institution and the word — is the key piece missing from existing state law.

R-74 offers voters the chance to take the next step, and extend marriage rights to same-sex couples. The measure, simply put, is about equality.

The flimsy arguments against R-74 do not hold up against the facts.

The measure could limit religious freedom, opponents assert. In fact, the law contains ample protections for reli-gious institutions, and no religious institution is required to marry same-sex couples.

Opponents claim same-sex marriage is certain to damage the sanctity of marriage. If R-74 critics want to preserve marriage, perhaps they should target divorce laws rather than a measure to expand the right to marry.

Voters should affirm equality for same-sex couples and approve R-74.

Initiative 502Despite decades of enforcement and untold millions of

dollars, marijuana prohibition does not work.Initiative 502 possesses the potential to clear the air and

allow Washington to legalize small amounts of marijuana for recreational use among adults 21 and older. The ballot measure outlines a sensible plan for the state to legalize, regulate and tax marijuana.

I-502 is not a perfect plan, but the potential benefits out-weigh the potential pitfalls.

I-502 earmarks the funds for health insurance, state and local governments, and, most importantly, drug research, prevention and treatment.

Critics claim the initiative could make marijuana more accessible to teenagers. In reality, marijuana, like alcohol, is widely available to minors. The onus is on parents to teach teenagers to make responsible choices.

Legalization could carry another benefit. The cash-strapped state desperately needs the estimated $1.9 billion in tax revenue from marijuana sales.

Passage could also squeeze Congress to consider over-hauling antiquated marijuana laws at the federal level. The current law claims marijuana is as dangerous as heroin.

I-502 is backed by law enforcement and legal profession-als. The fragmented opposition to the initiative seems more concerned about maintaining the status quo than engaging in a debate about real reform.

In August 2011, as Issaquah leaders worked to craft a sensible medical marijuana ordinance, we called for the legalization of marijuana. The time to update archaic mari-juana laws is overdue.

The choice for Washington voters is clear. Vote yes on I-502.

John Urquhart for sheriffKing County voters last experienced a contested race for

sheriff in 2005.The race on the ballot next month, between appointed

Sheriff Steve Strachan and John Urquhart, a former King County Sheriff’s Office sergeant, offers voters a choice between a pair of capable candidates.

Former Sheriff Sue Rahr stepped down in March, and the King County Council appointed Strachan for the interim. The election is to fill the remainder of Rahr’s term through December 2013.

The sheriff’s office is mired in problems with personnel, policies and procedures — all brought to light in recent audits. The next sheriff has a paramount duty to correct the issues and restore public confidence in the agency.

Both candidates served as insiders in the department — Strachan as Rahr’s chief deputy, Urquhart as spokesman and a beat cop — and yet both claim to bear the mantel of change. Neither candidate is ideal, but both offer a deep respect for the agency and its mission to protect and serve the public.

Urquhart lacks managerial experience at a large public agency, so his decision, if elected, to bring Anne Kirkpatrick — a reform-minded former police chief of Spokane, Federal Way and Ellensburg — on board in the sheriff’s office No. 2 slot is heartening.

Urquhart also possesses the skills to communicate the agency’s mission and priorities to elected leaders in Seattle and Olympia, deputies in the field and, most importantly, to the public.

Vote Urquhart for sheriff.

Vote to approve marriage, marijuana

Decision 2012

Give parents a choice by supporting Initiative 1240

Charter schools are free, public schools. They are a part of the ex-isting public schools system, and in 41 other states provide an option that is the answer for many chil-dren who have been unsuccessful in a traditional school setting.

Charter schools are subject to the same academic standards and requirements for teachers as traditional public schools. Charter schools are open to all students and are not bound by requirements of going to one’s “neighborhood” school.

As a former charter school principal, we accepted many students who had already “given

up,” or were suspended from their previous schools. We also enrolled many extremely bright, creative students who felt they just didn’t “fit in.”

Every week, several parents would come into my office and say things like, “In the other school, my son would pretend to be sick at least two or three times a week, just so he didn’t have to go to school. Now, he is at the door with his backpack every morning telling me to hurry up so he can get to school.”

Indeed, I saw so many lives change in dramatic ways as our students found the self-confidence and success they so deserved!

For more information, visit the website at www.yeson1240.com.

Please give our students this

great opportunity by voting yes on 1240.

Wendy Ghiora, Ed.DIssaquah

What should be on the ballotWouldn’t it be great if this

could be an option to read over the voter’s pamphlet:

I vote for —Peace on planet earth;People helping each other;Food for the homeless children;Blessings for everyone’s dreams;Health, safety, success, happi-

ness, Love and laughter for all;Guidance from the Lord above.

Mollie RobertsIssaquah

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Email: news@isspress.comMail: P.O. Box 1328, Issaquah, WA 98027

OPINIONs s

The Issaquah Press

A4 • Wednesday, October 17, 2012

Abortion debate

Your very public sharing of a very private event is certainly your prerogative — your choice, if you will.

But your experience and change of heart cannot be ex-tended to all women, who also have a choice, and who may share a different reality, morality and spirituality.

You may believe that your campaigning actions are out of “love” — and the many shootings and violence at abortion clinics nationwide are also claimed to be for “love” — but many women may feel threatened by you, in the pursuit of their own very heartfelt choice.

Kathy Swoyer

Issaquah Valley Trolley

I can’t wait to ride it! I was hoping it would run during Salmon Days, but I understand they had safety concerns, what with all the children running around near the tracks.

After all the time and money Is-saquah has put into this project, I hope it continues to run for many years.

Darrell Vernon

Postmaster:Send address changes to TheIssaquah Press,P.O. Box 1328,Issaquah, WA 98027

FROM THE WEB

RAPID RESPONSEWhat solution do you propose for the unsightly and crime-prone Issaquah Skate Park?

Make the community cen-ter the main trailhead to Tiger Mountain in Issaquah to create more traffic in the area, and then improve the skate park without fencing where it stands.

Connie MarshIssaquah

Kids who do skate-related activities need a place to do them that is safe.

David MillerIssaquah

Bulldoze it and rebuild one in a high-traffic, visible location.

Matthew BalkmanIssaquah

Either monitor the facility more closely or close it.

Hank ThomasIssaquah

Better lighting, volunteers keeping watch and updating Is-saquah police.

Eddie DavisIssaquah

Patrol and/or monitor the area by police and volunteers who will call in problems observed. Talk about it in classrooms. Let the kids know residents won’t tolerate it.

Barbara ExtractIssaquah

Demolish and rebuild in open public area. Redmond, Kirkland and Renton are good examples.

Steve BalkmanIssaquah

Patrol it or close it. Arrest the dope pushers hanging out there and along the adjoining trail.

Raymond ExtractIssaquah

How about neighborhood watch and all those community-active teenagers we keep hear-ing about — what are they doing about it?

Bryan WeinsteinIssaquah

The city should open a new, cen-trally located skate park. Our kids need recreational outlets. Unfortu-nately, the current skate park only encourages nefarious activities.

Barbara diMicheleIssaquah

Relocate it to a view unob-structed location where police can drive by and see its activ-ity from their patrol cars. What about on Memorial Field?

Bernadette E. AnneIssaquah

The skate park should not be buried in a far corner unseen by passers-by. It needs to be relocated to a very visible, 24-hour daily location where cars and pedestrians pass by and can see goings-on no matter the hour. That’s what other cities do.

Jackie ThomasIssaquah

A4

By Lillian O’Rorkeltucker@sammamishre-view.com

The water at the Julius Boehm Pool bubbled and convulsed Oct. 9 when defending 4A state high school champions, the Skyline Spartans, took on defending 3A state cham-pions, the Mercer Island Islanders. In the end, the Islanders came out on top, defeating the Spartans, 112-74.

“We had a pretty good idea coming into the meet that we had a big chance of losing, but it is such a great time to push ourselves, and it’s good practice,” Skyline senior co-captain Andi Scarcello said. “We knew they have a lot of depth on their team, a lot of fast swim-mers … We lost some of our depth last year, too, so

we are fighting hard.”The 100-yard breast-

stroke started out as a fight for Scarcello as she and the two Mercer Island swimmers on either side of her emerged for their first breath in a three-way tie. By the second turn, she

had began building a thin lead, inch by inch ahead of the Islanders. With more than her body length between them, Scarcello finished the race with a two-second lead to take first place.

Her time of 1 minute,

9.9 seconds was faster than the state champion-ship qualifying time, but half a second slower than her season best of 1:09.44, which already secured her a spot at the state tourna-ment.

Swimming the second leg in the 200-yard medley relay, Scarcello closed the gap between the Spartans and the Islanders, who had taken the lead in the first leg. Finishing at 1:53.03, Skyline was a few tenths of a second shy of first place, but two and a half seconds faster than the state-qualifying standard, which the girls already beat in a previous race.

Scarcello went on to swim 2 seconds faster in the 200 individual med-ley for second place and a season best of 2:17.38.

By Christina Corrales-Toynewcastle@isspress.com

It was senior night for the Is-saquah High School girls swim team and seniors Kayla Flaten and Stacy Maier continued their strong seasons as the two led the Eagles to a 117-68 win against Liberty on Oct. 11.

The team held a reception for the seniors after the meet and each Issaquah senior received a bouquet of flowers.

Issaquah coach Laura Halter said she admired the team’s senior leadership this year in helping guide and nurture a large freshman class.

“I think they’ve done an excel-lent job making all the new kids feel welcomed,” she said.

Issaquah now has a total of six state-qualifying times after Flaten and Maier each had state-qualifying swims, Halter said.

Flaten captured the 100-yard freestyle with a state-qualifying time of 54.65 seconds, while Maier won the 100-yard back-stroke with a state-qualifying time of 1:00.09.

Halter and Liberty coach Kris Daughters are best friends away from the pool and share a simi-lar coaching philosophy when it comes to setting up races, Halter said.

“Coach Kris and I are really similar in the way we do the line-ups for our meets,” she said. “So, as usual, our lineups matched up perfectly so we could have really, really fun races.”

It made for some exciting finishes that seemed too close to call at first glance.

Liberty’s Cecilia Nelson nar-rowly captured the 200 freestyle with a time of 2:03.67. Is-

saquah’s Flaten came in second with a time of 2:03.69.

“I’d say a key performance came from Cecilia Nelson in the 200 free,” Daughters said. “She gave Kayla Flaten from Issaquah a really good race and Kayla Flaten is a very fast swimmer, so for Cecilia to be right with her at the end was pretty cool.”

Another close race was the 200 individual medley, where Liberty’s Ellie Hohensinner edged Is-saquah’s Michelle Francois with a time of 2:22.55. Francois came in second with a time of 2:22.79. Ho-hensinner also won the 500-yard freestyle with a time of 5:36.59.

Liberty’s Mackenna Briggs continued her successful season, winning both of her individual events. She won the 100 breast-stroke in 1:11.92 and the 50 freestyle in 25.20.

Issaquah’s Kellie Langan won the 100 butterfly in 1:05.11 and Liberty’s Christina Sargent won

the 1-meter diving competition.But the key to winning dual

meets, Halter said, is winning the relay races and Issaquah did just that, sweeping Liberty in all three relay events.

“Winning the relays is impor-tant in these types of races be-cause they give more points than in individual races,” she said. “We did really well in our relays today, so that is helpful.”

Issaquah’s 200 medley relay team, featuring Flaten, Maier, Langan and Gabrielle Gevers, captured first in 1:56.14.

Maier, Gevers, Francois and Flaten won the 400 freestyle relay, while a team consisting of Lydia Mull, Sammantha Har-beck, Francois and Gevers won the 200 freestyle relay.

Liberty has never beaten Is-saquah before, but it’s always

SPORTSs s

The Issaquah Press

Page B4Wednesday

October 17, 2012

B4

There wasn’t much offense between the Lib-erty High School football team and Mercer Island when the two battled Oct. 12.

Both teams were able to move the ball, but getting it into the end zone wasn’t so easy, Liberty coach Steve Valach said.

“It wasn’t like there was no offense at all,” he said. “There was some movement of the ball, but then both sides kept get-ting shutdown and having to punt it or turning it over.”

Ultimately, Mercer Island was the only one to reach the end zone as Liberty fell to the Island-ers, 7-3.

Liberty’s only points came from a second-half field goal by kicker Josh Johnson.

“It was just one of those games where I think the team who made the least mistakes was going to win it and it’s not like there were a ton of mistakes,” Valach said.

Despite the loss, Valach said there was a lot to feel good about in terms of his

team’s performance, espe-cially the group’s effort.

Next up, Liberty travels to Bellevue to take on the undefeated Wolverines on Oct. 19.

Skyline overcomes slow start to easy win

In what was billed as the clash of the unde-feated Oct. 12 on Newport High School’s turf, it took the Skyline a while to get in the groove, as the Spartans put up a rare goose egg in the game’s first quarter against a stubborn Newport home contingent.

Once the visiting Skyline offense started hitting on all cylinders, it was business as usual. The Spartans eventually came away with a lop-sided 56-28 road triumph to emerge from the fray

FOOTBALL ROUNDUP

Liberty loses defensive battle to Mercer Island

See FOOTBALL, Page B5

By John Leggettip-sports@isspress.com

The Issaquah High School had its hands full with a feisty Ballard bunch Oct. 12 before a large Homecoming throng of maniacal yet apprecia-tive Issaquah followers.

After a rocky start, the Eagles took command in the encounter and prevailed, 49-28, over the Beavers, behind the relentless ball-carrying skills of Eagles’ junior tailback Jack Gellatly, who would go on to notch four rushing touchdowns to add to the 10 he had already gleaned before the encounter with the Beavers.

The north-south run-ning stylings of Gellatly undoubtedly spearheaded the fourth Eagles’ tri-umph of 2012 to give Is-saquah a 3-3 league mark and a 4-3 accounting on the year so far, virtually assuring a play-off cross-over appointment, prob-ably with 3-0, 6-1 Wood-inville (of the KingCo 4A Crest Division).

Issaquah wisely elected to mix a little aerial at-tack in with its first-half offensive scheme, to keep the Beavers perplexed, guessing and on their heels from the opening kick-off.

The Eagles scored on their initial couple of pos-sessions in the opening pe-riod as Gellatly found pay dirt on runs of six and 19 yards to send Issaquah out to a 14-0 upper hand after the encounter’s opening 12 minutes of action.

Then, the Eagles caught Ballard napping when they abruptly began to diversify by airing the pigskin out early in the second quarter. Issaquah quarterback Jack Neary, unleashed two long bombs of 46 and 24 yards to senior flankers Craig Greiwe and Reed Peter-son, respectively, and after Gellatly tacked on his third touchdown jaunt of the evening on the ground, the Eagles jogged into the locker room at the break, with a decisive

35-7 lead.After the game, played

in an almost constant drizzle, rain-drenched Is-saquah coach Chris Ben-nett called the aforemen-tioned first half of play probably the best half of nearly mistake-free foot-ball his squad had played all season long.

Ballard continued to get a steady dose of Gellatly’s clock-burning running style as he forged ahead for one first down after another in the third period, ending the night having toted the ball 20 times for well over 200 yards, before becoming a spectator. He was pulled in the fourth quarter to keep him healthy for the next game.

Ballard meanwhile, utilized its mercurial team speed to its advan-tage with quick openers, screens and post patterns as the Beavers’ talented QB Johnny Verduin tried to engineer a desperate second-half comeback, but the rally fell well short of the mark. This by virtue of the fact that Ballard eventually aban-doned the running game and most of the time, when Verduin dropped back to pass, he would either be forced to run for his life or be buried by a wave of Issaquah tack-lers. Verduin was sacked a half-dozen times.

Senior Issaquah kicker Alex Shane represented well on the point after touchdown kicks going a perfect 7-for-7, ac-counting for seven of Issaquah’s 49 points.

The one-sided victory did not come without a price for Issaquah. The Eagles may have lost their stellar senior offen-sive left tackle, Jake Volk, for the remainder of the season with an excruci-ating medial collateral ligament tear.

The debilitating injury was brought about by a couple of Ballard players. Volk said after the game that the two seemed bent on eliminating him from the field. Volk was on crutches by game’s end.

Issaquah rolls over Ballard, 49-28

BY GREG FARRAR

Seniors on the Issaquah High School swim team celebrate the end of their regular season Oct. 11.

AQUATIC DOMINANCEEagles prove superiority in the pool against the Patriots

BY GREG FARRAR

Kayla Flaten, Issaquah High School senior, swims through the lane on the way to winning her 100-yard freestyle race against Liberty.

BY GREG FARRAR

Andi Scarcello, Skyline High School senior, pushes off the bulkhead at the final turn of her winning 100-yard breaststroke race Oct. 9 against Mercer Island in a state-qualifying time of 1 minute, 9.9 seconds.

Skyline sinks Mercer Island, 112-74

See EAGLES, Page B5

See SKYLINE, Page B5