Archives for March 2017

Riverview School District Boundary Changes

March 13, 2017 by Kathryn 3 Comments

I have a child at Cherry Valley Elementary and I live close-ish to one of the rumored boundary changes so I went to the meeting tonight, a forum to discuss redoing the elementary school boundaries.

Citizens of Duvall, rest at ease. The boundary changes only affect 2 houses with families living in them, neither of which have children.

The red line shows the current boundary between Cherry Valley and Stillwater. The horizontal red line is Big Rock Road. Everything above and to the left of the red line is currently zoned for Cherry Valley Elementary. Everything below and to the right of the red line is currently zoned for Stillwater Elementary. The dark blue line shows the proposed new boundary.

The affected neighborhoods currently under development are highlighted in yellow. The blue highlighted areas are developments that will go in later.

Again, no current students at either school will be affected by the boundary changes.

The most interesting question to be answered at the meeting, aside from boundary clarifications and growth questions, was about the possibility of a later start time for schools in our district. Superintendant Anthony Smith confirmed that he will be recommending a 15 minute later start time beginning next year for all schools in Riverview School District.

I don’t have a ton more information on either of these topics but you can always reach out to Dr. Smith for clarification. We have a very knowledgeable and caring district staff and school board. They have the best interests of Riverview kids and families in mind.

Also, speaking of schools, here’s a picture of me from Junior High.

The END

More in-depth info about the meeting and the proposed changes can be found here.

Glossary of Duvall Terms

March 9, 2017 by Kathryn 2 Comments

Today I tackle a Glossary of Duvall Terms. If you’re new to Duvall, you’re bound to hear terms or phrases thrown around that make little or no sense to you.

“Traffic was so bad, they had to use the pickle”

“What about the giraffes?”

“I think the event is in the old library.”

Some of these terms have been around a while and others are fairly new. The echo chamber on the community Facebook groups helps build popularity and momentum around terms that might otherwise disappear fairly quickly.

I asked discussion board participants which terms they’d include in a glossary for this page and the answers came pouring in. There were several things I had never heard before. But then, as stated previously, I’m a transplant of a mere 11 years. I’m hoping one of the Old Timers will take up my offer to write a guest post of glossary of terms for us newcomers.

I can’t possibly cover everything today. But, in no particular order besides alphabetical, here are a few to get started:

The App – There is a Windows App that links to Jim Gale’s Duvall Mobile Flood and Snowmageddan page. It gives you everything you need to know about impending doom. Traffic cameras. Flood predictions. School and road closures. Power outages. Search “Duvall Mobile Flood” in the app store.

Big Rock Park – Sometimes misslabeled “Big Rock State Park,” or referred to as the smallest State Park in Washington, the park is adorably tiny, but it’s a county park. It’s composed of the big rock that Big Rock Road is named after, 2 large sequoia trees, and a picnic bench. [Read more]

The Depot – The Depot is the old railroad building down by the entrance to McCormick Park. Technically it’s part of its own park, creatively named Depot Park. I’ll have to do a future post all about the history. I do know it was donated by Ray and Tove Burhen. You can rent it for events, but not birthday parties. Birthday parties are forbidden.

Duvall Island/Lake Duvall – When the valley floods, usually in the spring or fall, we get a gorgeous body of water between 203 and Snoqualmie Valley Road. Lake Duvall. If the flood is bad enough to close 124th, Woodinville-Duvall Road, and 203 in both directions, we are cut off from the world and become Duvall Island.

Giraffes – The unofficial spirit animal and mascot of Duvall. It was first introduced into Duvall culture when King County built a controversial animal bridge over Novelty Hill Road. Find more detailed information here.

Green Park/Toddler Park/Tot Lot/Judd Park – These are all the same place. On the corner of 150th and 275th stands a park with green play structures. It’s named after former mayor Lloyd Judd. It’s a big meetup spot for families with young kids and also bored middle schoolers who don’t know where to hang out.

The Hub – Redemption Church’s gathering place on Main Street in the building that, until recently, housed a bank. You can see their trailer parked out front with pictures of the beautiful Glover family on the side. This one is relatively new but I’ve heard several people refer to it as though everyone knew what it was, so I thought it deserved a mention.

Is 124th Open? – Did they close 124th across the valley due to flooding? This matters for a couple of reasons, probably the biggest of which is, if 124th is closed, traffic in and out of Duvall will be a nightmare. They might even need to bring out “The Pickle.” (see below)

Old Library – The adorable red building in the heart of Main Street between The Grange and the Wild Fish Conservancy. This was the King County library in Duvall when we first moved here and it now serves as the Duvall Visitor Center. It frequently hosts community craft fairs and other events and is available to rent.

The Parade – Duvall Days. The festive celebration of everything Duvall. We head over to Carnation for 4th of July festivities. Around the 4th of June each year, citizens of Carnation head to Duvall to celebrate with us. Tractors, drill teams, librarians, elected officials, dancing horses, free Kathy Lambert paper. The Duvall Days parade has everything.

Pickle or Pickling – From the Duvall Police Department Facebook Page: ”This refers to a small, hand held electronic device which an Officer can plug in to the control box at the intersection of Main and Virginia. The ‘pickle’ allows the Officer to manipulate the light cycles at that intersection to maximize traffic flow during times of road closures, especially floods.” There are never not complaints about pickling when it happens. It only happens when traffic is already horrible so people can’t tell if the manual traffic control makes things better or worse; they just know it took them two hours to drive home from work.

The River – If someone says, “Let’s hang out at the river,” chances are REAL good they’re talking about the sandy beach in McCormick park, just down from the police station parking lot and the Depot. On summer days it is packed with babies eating sand, elementary school kids digging really large holes, and tweens and teens awkwardly flirting. It also houses the Sandblast every year.

Rose Room – Housed in the basement of The Old Library, the Rose Room is a meeting area with tables and chairs and a small kitchenette. It doubled as a break room for library staff and the location of Story Time and other meetings. It takes a talented librarian to keep kids’ attention when they’re sitting on mismatched spinning office chairs in a basement room with no wall hangings and a dated kitchen directly in their line of vision.

Windstorm – When people tell Tales about a big windstorm, most often they refer to December 2006 when much of Duvall lost power for a week or longer leading up to Christmas. It was COLD and it was DARK and at our house we refer to it as the Attack of the Ents. Tony Gill says, “We were officially out of power for 10 days and 8 hours (to the exact minute).”

People who have lived here a little longer may be referring to the Inauguration Day Storm of January 1993. I still lived in Canada at that point and had no idea about a storm and not much idea about an inauguration RE: Immigrant. So I’ll leave it to others to tell that story.

Woody-Du/Woo-Du/The WD – So many creative ways to refer to “Woodinville-Duvall Road”. It has too many syllables. Everyone knows this, but no one has the guts to make a permanent change. I think we should call it Ernie.

Below are a few more terms I plan cover in another installment of this glossary. Do you have any other suggestions?

Holiday Heifer/Christmas Cow
The Mountain is Out
Christmas Reference to Taylor’s Ridge
The Valley
Downtown
The Twisties
The Silver Spoon
Mallowmars
Piano Drop
The Trail
Thayer Barn

As always, if you find any inaccuracies in this post, please tell me in the comments. I love learning about our town.

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Duvall Giraffes

March 2, 2017 by Kathryn 5 Comments

Newcomers to Duvall frequently ask, “What’s the deal with the giraffes?”

They are everywhere. On Facebook. In conversation. At the Christmas celebration. On bumper stickers. On T-shirts. Giraffes are a Thing in the City of Duvall.

Should they be a Thing? It’s debatable. When I recently polled the Duvall Community Discussion Board for words to include in a glossary of Duvall-related terms, reactions were mixed.

Several people called for the inclusion of giraffes in the glossary. Others openly mocked the Duvall Giraffe hype, calling it stupid and blaming its existence on “transplants”. Transplants vs. Old Timers remains a fertile field of debate that I will explore in a later post. From what I can tell, you need to have lived in the valley for at least 93 years before people stop gently ribbing you about being an outsider. I will keep you informed.

I’ve lived here for 11 years. So, in Duvall Old Timer culture, I’m basically an annoying cousin camped out on the city’s couch because I ran out of gas on my way to Bothell. They’re not sure how long I’ll be here and they certainly wouldn’t call the arrangement permanent. So, what do I know about Duvall?

Honestly, not that much. However, I moved here before the giraffes so I believe I have a handle on the basic story behind their popularity.

And it’s a story that doesn’t even take place in Duvall.

To tell this story, we’re going to need to travel into unincorporated King County. Hold on to your tractors, Old Timers. It’s a bumpy ride.

In early 2012 King County announced a massive project to create a wildlife bridge across Novelty Hill Road in the Redmond Ridge area. The area experienced frequent animal-vehicle collisions and the bridge would attempt to reduce those by re-routing animals over the road, rather than across it.

Remember the Wolves-Only Roadway from The West Wing? It was like that.

Reactions to this project were decidedly mixed and people passionately spoke out either for or against the overpass. King County held meetings, attended by members of Duvall and other communities, and then decided to go ahead with what they planned to do in the first place. The project was paid for with federal grants totaling nearly six million dollars.

Drama on the Discussion Board

In a shocking turn of events, conversations got heated on the Duvall Community Discussion Board. Gasp. Before long, sarcasm was employed, and eventually it led to a crap-storm of memes. What were the memes about?

**The original giraffe/bridge photoshop creation came from Jeremiah Judd, according to the Duvall Historical Society. You can view the image at that link. More information can also be found here. Thanks, Bairavi!**

You see, human people were upset that King County was spending so much money on a project to build Animal Roads, when the People Roads in and out of Duvall left so much to be desired. Why should we spend millions of dollars to improve the commute of the deer and the bears and the freakin’ giraffes when my human commute sucks river rocks?

The counter to that was, of course, we are improving People Roads by stopping all the animals from throwing themselves in front of your cars and causing accidents.

As people joked about the need to build the bridge to protect ALL the creatures of the earth, the image of giraffes crossing the bridge along with local species captured the imaginations of the citizens of Duvall.

And the meme storm began.

Even the Duvall Police Department got in on the fun. (They generally bring the fun, so it’s not that big of a surprise.) You can always count on the Duvall Police Department to have a quality photoshopped giraffe picture ready to deploy on Facebook.

Giraffe bumper stickers, signs, and t-shirts began popping up around town. And as each year goes by, giraffes become more and more of an integral part of our community. Love them or hate them, they’re here to stay.

At the Riverview Education Foundation auction last weekend, they held a massive rock-paper-scissors competition with all the attendees. It was epic. It was hard fought. It was probably a game invented by a transplant. The prize was a Duvall Giraffe.

A few fun facts:

Three years ago, Jeremiah Judd started a petition to make the giraffe the official mascot of our fair city. He delivered the petition to the city but, as far as I can tell, no official action was ever taken.

Giraffes have been in the Duvall public consciousness for a while now. The first mention I find of giraffes and Duvall is at a city council meeting in 2010, when giraffes were given to staff and city council members as a thank-you gift for “sticking their necks out” working on the Main Street Reconstruction Project.

Whenever we talk about giraffes, I think about this SNL sketch.

A band called Giraffe Tongue Orchestra has a lead singer named William Duvall. You can learn all about them when you Bing “Duvall Giraffes”.

Follow InTheDuv on Facebook or sign up for email updates. I’ll update you on some of the events and activities happening in Duvall and get to the bottom of a few of our city’s little mysteries.

As always, if you find any inaccuracies in this post, please tell me in the comments. I love learning about our town.