Seattle Hometown News

What we're talkin' about in Seattle:

• A man suspected of killing a 7-year-old Everett girl now faces formal charges in her death. Thursday in Everett District Court, 26-year-old Richard Clark was charged with first-degree murder and first-degree kidnapping and ordered held on one million dollars bail.

• Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates has apologized and paid an undisclosed amount of money to a Seattle T-V cameraman who was arrested trying to cover Gates' wedding in Hawaii. Dole Food Company which owns most of the island where the wedding took place also was a party to the settlement.

• State Senator Cal Anderson of Seattle is hospitalized with an AIDS-related disease. It's uncertain whether he will be able to attend the final days of the session when the big votes on the budget and other contested issues are made. Without Anderson, Democrats lose their one-vote majority in the Senate.

• The lobby of the King County Administration Building in downtown Seattle will be opened at night for the homeless. The lobby had been used as a winter shelter but was closed the last month. The decision to open the public building is part of an agreement with the group SHARE. The city of Seattle is looking for a permanent homeless shelter in the Pioneer Square area.

• Pearl Jam thinks it's found a way to bypass Ticketmaster. The Seattle-based rock band has hired a high-tech ticketing agency for its summer tour after a long-standing dispute over surcharges assessed by Ticketmaster. Pearl Jam's fight with Ticketmaster last year prompted a Congressional inquiry into alleged anti-competitive practices in the one-billion-dollar concert industry.

• The King County prosecutors office has completed all the paperwork associated with the extradition of Martin Pang. Documents are on the way to the Justice Department in Washington D-C. It could take a couple of weeks before the State Department sends it off to Brazil where Pang is being held.

• It's only tentative, but the Seattle Mariners are scheduled to play Cleveland in the Kingdome April 26th to kick off the 1995 baseball season. However, that could change as American League officials try to make sure each team plays 72 games at home and 72 away. Manager Lou Piniella says he hasn't decided who will start on Opening Day.

• Starting on April 26th, Puget Sound subscribers to TCI cable television will be able to turn to the Sega channel and play Sonic the Hedgehog and other video games. To take part in this interactive TV, players will need a Sega Genesis game unit and cable adapter. Parents will be able to use a password to lock out video games they don't want their children to play.

• The number of murders in Seattle reached a record high last year. A total of 69 people were killed in 1994. Otherwise, there was some good news in the new statistics. The number of incidents of violent and property crime last year was the lowest in a decade.

• A magazine ranks the University of Washington School of Medicine Number One among medical schools that excel in training primary-care physicians. U-S News and World Report's annual survey also rates the U-W's School of Nursing as tied for Number One for best nursing school in the nation.

• Standardized tests indicate barely half the eleventh graders in Washington state are proficient in math, science, English and history. An analysis of the rests indicates less than a third of the 48-thousand students two were tested last year are skilled in all four areas.

• Key Arena will be the new name for the rebuilt Seattle Center Coliseum, home of the NBA SuperSonics after next October. The stadium gets its name from Key Bank, which put up 15 million dollars over fifteen years.

• The King County Council has approved a project to upgrade 115 bridges to help them withstand an earthquake. The project will take a dozen years and cost 20 million dollars. Nearly two-thirds of the bridges in King County are more than 35 years old.

• Crime figures indicate 1994 was the safest year in Seattle since 1984. However, murders--especially those committed by youths--continue to rise.

• The north Seattle suburb of Lynnwood is the 20th-largest city in the state with a population of about 32-thousand. But the mayor, Tina Roberts, is the fifth-highest-paid mayor. A recent salary increase raised her annual pay to more than 78-thousand dollars. Only the mayors of Seattle, Everett, Renton and Auburn make more.

• The Census Bureau says Washington's population has grown ten percent in the past four years, adding 476-thousand people. The bureau says Washington is the seventh-fastest growing state in the nation. The state now has 5.3 million residents.

• Seattle is ranked sixth in the country on a Forbes magazine list rating the best cities for information age businesses. Portland ranks fifth and Salt Lake City topped the list.

• A study by Northwest Environment Watch says the timber industry accounted for less than four percent of jobs last year in the Northwest. In Washington, only about two percent of the state's jobs were related to timber, pulp and paper production.

• Seattle is tied with Riverside, California, for the seventh-worst traffic in the nation, according to a study by Texas A-and-M. Using congestion information from 1991 (the most recent available) the study says Los Angeles has the worst traffic congestion in the nation.

• More people now live in the suburbs in King County than in the city of Seattle. The King County Annual Growth Report says 35 percent of the county population lives in suburbs, 33 percent in the city and 32 percent in unincorporated King County.

• Seattle is Number Eight on ``Money'' magazine's latest list of best places to live in America. Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina, is Number One.