Monday, December 28, 2015

Lucky we live in Sequim

Dear Sequim town blog visitors,
We can't believe it, our 10th anniversary of our life in Sequim is coming up on January 12th 2016. Time to celebrate! For all those of you who seriously consider to move to the Olympic Peninsula now or in the near future, let us tell you, we never regretted the move here one bit. Reading the news about nasty weather reports like tornadoes, snow storms, floods, icy roads and more in states like Texas, Oklahoma, New Mexico make us even feel better. Visit Sequim, check it out and make your decision. We welcome new arrivals on a daily basis. Realtors are happy about the 'rush'.

New Railroad Bridge

We are closing the old year 2015 with some good news. In February the rain and high winds from a passing through storm damaged the Railroad Bridge at Dungeness River Auduborn Center and resulted in the closure of the bridge. As the bridge is part of the Olympic Discovery Trail and is frequently used by Sequim residents - we love our bikes past Sequim Airport to Robin Hill Park - and visiting bikers as well, the closure caused lots of inconvenience and detours. After about a 10th month waiting, the new bridge is completed (see my photos from Christmas Day). There will be a Grand Opening of Railroad Bridge steel truss trestle on December 30th at 1pm at the Railroad Bridge Park. See you there!

New riverbed of the Dungeness River

Location of Dungeness River before storm

Another big event negatively affecting the lives of hundreds of active, health oriented Sequim senior citizens happened when our beloved SARC Sequim Aquatic Recreation Center closed at the beginning of November - totally unexpected, we were promised by the board members that SARC will stay open at least till August 2016. Prior to the closure we attended a final meeting at the City Hall about the necessary closure. Hearing that SARC was working on its last reserves of about $20K(!), we were totally shocked and especially surprised when people in charge did not take responsibility for the failure by resigning from their position. This failure did not happen from one day to the next. No private business could have done that.

To cut a long story short, after lots of discussions and meetings of all the different entities - such as Clallam County, City of Sequim, Olympic Medical Center, Sequim High School - which realize how important SARC is to the healthy life styles of Sequim residents is, finally joined forces and a solution for SARC's reopening is in sight. Please, follow the discussions at the Sequim Gazette and at the Peninsula Daily News We are all very happy that a reopening of SARC has become feasible but we are very disappointed about the set time frame for July 2016. Til' then we signed up for two different gyms: Anytime Fitness offers AARP members (United Health) an affordable alternative but I signed up with the general affordable fees of Sequim Gym. Last but no least, forget about doing your swimming at the William Shore Pool in Port Angeles - they raised the daily fees FOR SEQUIM RESIDENTS from $3.50 to $10.50, which we consider totally unethical because the majority of Sequim residents are seniors on a fixed income.

We are looking forward to reuniting with all our kindred spirit Sequim friends at SARC soon.