Interested residents have until Feb. 10 to file their applications for appointment to the vacant seat on the DuPont City Council.

Mayor Michael Grayum vacated the seat when voters elected him mayor in November.

Eligible citizens must be registered voters in DuPont and have been a resident for at least one year.  Council members receive $375 a month in compensation.

Residents must submit an application and a letter of interest discussing your applicable experience, philosophy on a council member’s role, and their thoughts on the most significant short- and long-term issues facing the city.

Application packets are available at DuPont …

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It’s coming down to the same old arguments as Pierce County and its cities weigh the formation of a countywide taxing district for flood control.

Officials from DuPont, Lakewood and Steilacoom questioned Monday night why the proposed flood control district should assess the same tax rate countywide when residents in some areas would benefit from its projects more than those living in other areas.

Lakewood City Councilman Michael Brandstetter said establishing a blanket rate “seems arbitrary given where the risk is” and favored asking property owners in the Puyallup River watershed to pay more given they’ll receive the …

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Two Pierce County fire departments – Tacoma and DuPont - have received federal grants to hire a total of 13 “front line” firefighters to bolster sagging staffing levels.

Tacoma announced today that it received $1,566,699 to pay salary and expenses over the next two years for 10 new firefighters.

The City of DuPont Fire Department received $540,750 in January to hire three new firefighters.

The money comes through the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s Staffing for Adequate Fire and Emergency Response Grants program. The local departments are among four in the state to receive money.

“It’s great news,” said Tacoma Fire spokesman Joe Meinecke. …

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The state Department of Transportation announced today that it will review the effect of the Point Defiance Bypass project on its surrounding communities after all.

DOT will conduct a project-level, Environmental Assessment of the $91 million project, something for which Lakewood officials have repeatedly asked the state.

It isn’t clear how the environmental assessment, which officials say could take up to two years, will affect the $590 million the state received this year to improve passenger rail along the Interstate 5 corridor.

The state must build the bypass by 2017, or it could potentially lose the federal money.
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Reporter Kris Sherman, who is working on a larger upcoming story about changes at Fort Lewis and McChord Air Force Base, reports the following:

If your head whipped around on I-5 near DuPont today and you thought, “What was that?” when you passed a sign reading “Joint Base Lewis-McChord (JBLM) next 6 exits,” it wasn’t your traffic-befuddled brain.

It was a brand new highway sign, heralding change at the South Sound’s two big military bases. Fort Lewis and McChord Air Force Base are merging into one installation Monday.

The first sign of the change went up on northbound I-5 at …

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She stands 6 feet high, school bell in hand and keeping a watchful eye on her students.

But the bronze statue of pioneering schoolteacher Chloe Clark doesn’t overlook an untouched prairie or a backdrop of Evergreen trees, scenes she might have seen when she first started teaching at Fort Nisqually (now DuPont) in 1840 at a mission school. She was the first school teacher to arrive in the South Sound, historians say.

(To the right is a picture of Chloe Clark. It isn’t the bronze statue, but it gives an idea of what it looks like. Key Peninsula sculptor John Jewell produced the real one)

Instead, Clark’s statue overlooks buildings and asphalt near the Bronze Works foundry in Tacoma. The group of history enthusiasts who raised $86,000 for the statue’s creation is ecstatic that it’s complete.

But they’ll have to wait until 2010 for the statue’s installation at Chloe Clark Elementary School in DuPont. The Steilacoom Historical School District must perform about $100,000 worth of landscape improvements, including clearing trees and readying the area for a pedestal for the statue.

“Are we disappointed? I think so,” said Retired Army Maj. Gen. John Hemphill, chairman of the Chloe Clark Memorial Committee. “But it is a lot of work.”

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Keith Beaton’s hands shifted from gauge to gauge today as he leaned inside the 12-ton monument to pre-World War II Dupont.

The 51-year-old Stryker mechanic played doctor, tapping the insides of the small, rusty locomotive used in the old DuPont Explosive Co. powder works.

"Fire in the hole!" he yelled. And with some turning and tweaking of a few switches, the locomotive rumbled, and a piece of the city’s history came to life.

After moving to DuPont in March, Beaton has worked almost daily to breath air into the antique train’s lungs.

The 1941 locomotive, which the Army delivered to the city two years ago, is now running. My former colleague, Rob Tucker, wrote about its homecoming.

Some parts still need tweaking, such as a whistle that’s more of a whisper among the engine noise. (Above is a video lifetime DuPont native Fred Foreman made of the narrow gauge train running on its own for the first time)

Still, it’s a far cry from when the machine came to the city two years ago. Beaton, along with Foreman, are working to restore it 100 percent.

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Outside the new Pioneer Middle School in DuPont, a weather-aged bell sits atop a wooden stand.

But the bell – which called classes to order when Pioneer first opened in 1892 – and the name are about the only holdovers from Pioneer’s Steilacoom digs. A 106,000 square-foot, $34.6 million building opened for classes to its 650 students Thursday, and students and faculty alike were buzzing before the first day of school was half finished.

It’s obvious even before one steps into the building that it’s a vast upgrade: Bose speakers mounted to the walls play classical music and kid-friendly rock. Inside, the school seems open and inviting.

"When I came in, I said, ‘Wow, this is beautiful,’" eighth-grader Ashley Connors said. "I think the building is going to be nicer than our high school."

Her classmate, Jazmyn Winegar, was impressed with the new second-floor library, which principal Kristi Webster calls "our tree of learning." Eighth-grader Matt Stillings, was eager to see the new SMART Boards in action.

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