{"id":19401,"date":"2012-01-04T19:33:05","date_gmt":"2012-01-05T03:33:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spiken.wpengine.com\/news\/editorial-reflections-for-the-new-year-dennis-box\/"},"modified":"2016-10-23T09:35:31","modified_gmt":"2016-10-23T16:35:31","slug":"editorial-reflections-for-the-new-year-dennis-box","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/opinion\/editorial-reflections-for-the-new-year-dennis-box\/","title":{"rendered":"Editorial | Reflections for the new year | Dennis Box"},"content":{"rendered":"

The new year has started and there are a few items I would like to write about in this first column as 2012 engines rev up. None are worthy of a column on its own, so I will just string some notes together about issues I am interested in or would like to figure out.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Council Elections<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

The first council meetings of the year can be quite intriguing depending on the city. The obligatory swearing in of candidates freshly elected is a nice picture, but the more interesting story can be the choosing of council presidents for strong-mayor systems or mayors for council-manager forms of government.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

In the council-manager form the mayor is chosen by the council.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Maple Valley i<\/a>s a council-manager system as is Covington.<\/a> Black Diamond<\/a>, Kent<\/a> and Tukwila<\/a> are strong-mayor systems and the council will choose a council president, mayor pro tempore or deputy mayor. It is basically the same position with a different name.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Maple Valley is usually the most fun to follow because there are plenty of back-room gymnastics going on prior to a mayor being selected. The choice tells us a great deal about the group dynamics of the council.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

This season in Maple Valley, Councilman Bill Allison won by a 5-2 vote replacing former Mayor Noel Gerken. The deputy mayor position went to Victoria Laise Jonas on a 4-3 split decision.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

My bet is Covington will again choose Margaret Harto as the mayor for a third two-year term. I am pretty sure God couldn\u2019t beat her for the job.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Black Diamond\u2019s City Council is the very interesting with three new members swept into office on what appears to be a wave of voters voicing their opposition to the YarrowBay developments. In my years of reporting I have often seen that voters presumptions about a candidate and the reality of governing hit head on very quickly once the chair is filled.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

On Tuesday Kent elected Councilman Dennis Higgins unanimously to the council president position. I am sure there was some backyard croquet before the decision was made, but nothing nearly as entertaining as Maple Valley.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

I guess there can only be one Maple Valley.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

A Brainy Business Idea<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Here is a quirky business venture I heard about just before Christmas. It is currently my top business idea for 2012.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Initially it made absolutely no sense to me. After thinking about it and observing certain behavior around the office I decided this may be the real salami.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

A couple of weeks ago our newest reporter, Sarah Kehoe, told me about this ShoeDazzle<\/a> thing. It\u2019s like a book-of-the-month for shoes.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Now when I was a kid I lived for the Book-of-the-Month club. My grandma got me started on it and I still have some of the books, which explains why I had mainly imaginary friends.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Apparently, through ShoeDazzle, a woman can get three or four pairs of shoes to try each month and if they keep them it costs a certain amount or they send them back.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Seriously, is this brainy or what.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

I mentioned this to my daughter and you would think Moses came down from the mountain all full of light, carrying tablets and shoe boxes.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

I asked Sarah if men were doing this and I got the look. (Men know exactly what I mean.)<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Apparently only women understand the need to have 700 pairs of shoes.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

I admit that I hate buying shoes, I hate spending money on them, I even hate looking down and thinking about shoes.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

But this business idea is a stroke of twisted genius and I wish I had thought of it.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

I hear God looks down occasionally and asks Peter, \u201cAre those things really shoes? How come no one ever tells me about these things?\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

ShoeDazzle \u2013 I bet it will make a million bucks for someone.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

To Iron or Not to Iron<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Here is something I cannot figure out, and I need help. You know all that permanent press stuff sold in stores \u2013 shirts and pants and whatever.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

I take that particular advertising claim at its word. Permanent press means forget the ironing.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

I know this woman who thinks you still have to iron permanent press things. In fact, she had a closet built just for her ironing board.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

When she started talking about the ironing board I tried to make an intelligent comment and I suddenly got this silence.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

I quickly gathered myself and began lying. I said I\u00a0 had an ironing board… oh yeah and an iron.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

I tried to explain to her that wrinkles on permanent press will fall out after you wear them for a while. Or if they don\u2019t fall out, after an hour or so the new wrinkles cover up the old ones and it doesn\u2019t matter anymore. It\u2019s a mathematical cancellation equation, like a positive and a negative.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

I heard something about me being nuts and a pig.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

I am male so I didn\u2019t know what else to say. I ran out of lies so I began whining.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

I would like to understand this ironing phenomena in the new year. Are we supposed to iron things that say permanent press or not? This seems a lot harder and more relevant than property taxes and council elections.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

To iron or not to iron\u2026 that is the question.<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The new year has started and there are a few items I would like to write about in this first column as 2012 engines rev up. None are worthy of a column on its own, so I will just string some notes together about issues I am interested in or would like to figure out.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":215,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-19401","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-opinion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19401"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/215"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19401"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19401\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19401"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19401"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19401"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=19401"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}