By MARK HIGGINS
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER

Residents hold ground against some advances

Numbering only about 1,500, Georgetown residents doggedly hold their ground despite the advance of commerce and the possible future growth of Boeing Field, now under review by King County planners.

"We are a small community, somewhat isolated, and we tend to look out for one another quite a bit," explains Kai Schwarz, a resident, architect and activist. "As long as we maintain the livability of our neighborhood, we will survive."

Schwarz moved to Georgetown three years ago from Queen Anne Hill. "In Queen Anne," he says, "I barely talked to my neighbors and here I know them all by their first name."

Many neighbors are working-class people, trying to raise families, fix homes and make the neighborhood a better, safer place, he says. Georgetown has an active crime prevention program and boasts of having less crime than many South End communities.

Tim O'Brian, a resident historian, retired school teacher and former Issaquah councilman who grew up in the area, sees the neighborhood as "surging ahead."

"It is on the rise," O'Brian insists. "Some really good things are happening, but some really threatening things are, too."

O'Brian has angered some business owners with his uncompromising opinions and commitment to protecting Georgetown's housing, history and environment.

He is particularly concerned about air pollution and environmental degradation, which he says causes "the Georgetown drip."

"It's when your nose runs all the time. It's caused, I was told, by all the dust in the air," he says.

He readily points out businesses which he feels are questionable neighbors, such as Philip Environmental, a Canadian-based firm that distills solvents for reuse as industrial fuel. The company, which also has treated cyanide, is near Georgetown's playfield. A spill or disaster could have deadly consequences, O'Brian fumes.

But Marlys Palumbo, a company vice president and general counsel, bristles at such comments. "If we posed a risk we wouldn't be here," she says, noting the company is regulated by the state and federal government and has spent $4 million in recent safety upgrades. "We are good citizens."

Continued:

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