By DEBERA CARLTON HARRELL
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER

Dick Truly, whose 500-acre cattle ranch was bisected by Interstate 405, knows all about the effects of growth and change. It is Truly who sold the last 100 acres of his ranch -- first owned by his father-in-law and passed down to his late wife -- to the University of Washington after plans for a "first-class" shopping mall fell through.

Truly applauds UW campus plans he deemed "sensitive" to preservation of open space and wetlands.

"I'm glad to see the university here," Truly says. "That makes me feel good."

While Truly, a retired Boeing engineer, acknowledges his former rural way of life "is gone forever," he echoes other townspeople who believe "you have to adapt."

"I stood up in a public hearing and said they should put the freeway somewhere else. You can guess how much impact that had," Truly says with a chuckle. "We had a great life and thoroughly enjoyed it. . . . But times have changed. The environment is no longer an agricultural environment. The people who'd give up their lives to raise cattle or milk cows or raise celery, they're gone.

"I look across the valley and see a business park that is 50 percent open space, with six beautiful fields that can be used for baseball and soccer, with jogging paths and 30 acres set aside for a pristine area, and jobs for hundreds of people -- high-quality jobs. Would I trade all that for pastureland for 200 cows? Hell no."

The business parks include major employers that develop, produce or sell high-tech medical equipment, communications technology, sports and other products.

Some residents eye these additions less philosophically. Old-timers and the area's so-called "no-growthers" express concern, wistfulness and regret over the changes, mostly in the valley.

With the federal government pulling back from public funding, Bothell is finding itself in a dilemma similar to many growing cities: How to pay for ramifications of growth with limited finances. Many citizens support the idea of more retail businesses to bring in sales-tax revenue; others worry about how competition will affect downtown merchants.

Continued:

• A logging and farm town yields to people and technology
• Careful planning eases growing pains
• Sleepy downtown endures and endears, at least for now
• Hometown sentiment prevails over glass towers