Dollars & Sense: Another Summer of Love or Summer of Discontent?

Picture this...

An iconic, but embattled Democrat president. A familiar challenger from a deeply divided Republican party. War abroad, protests at home, conflicts over women's rights, widespread economic uncertainty, a controversial new social agenda, an anticipated summer Olympics, and profoundly troubled middle class. 

Could be tomorrow's headlines. But it was all 1968. The era portrayed this season on TV's Mad Men.

There was a presidential candidate named Romney (Mitt's father), and a senator named Percy (not Paul) who wanted Republicans to be the party of conscious. My boyhood witnessed historic events on TV with Dad - from a dinner-time war and domestic assasinations to combative conventions and even a moon landing not long after. It was such a heated time, Mom finally banned all political talk from the family table.

Back then, unincorporated Woodinville was just preparing for a first outdoor music festival the following year. (It would be the only time The Doors and Led Zeppelin played on the same stage, the same week as that first moonwalk, one month before Woodstock.)

Those months were - for those who remember, or remember to read - "the best of times" and "the worst of times" as Dickens penned. It was both a summer of love and a summer of our discontent.

Which will this summer be in our hometown?

Local action has recently stopped a commercial zipline in Gold Creek Park. But there are other important issues to settle soon. King County's decision on growth boundaries. Annexation of a few valley parcels? A new Canterbury development near main street? There's an empty lumber yard, a missing anchor tenant, and no new shopping in sight. Another proposed residential tract, oddly reborn from phoenix ashes of a high court decision. Sewers or not? Signs or not? A sudden disappearance from city hall. What to do with a main street landmark? How to mitigate traffic without driving out business? Maybe even a Chamber-led, flower-powered new vision of Woodinville.

Which is most important to you? If you had five minutes with the city manager or a councilmember, what would you say? What are your neighbors buzzing about?

What is Greater Woodinville's top priority this summer?