I read an article in your paper last week that was very well written by a Mr. Bill Moritz of Bothell. The title was ‘We will pay and pay and pay for the new Bothell City Hall.’ Well I agree with his letter and decided to send a letter to the City Council members. My husband and I moved to Bothell seven years ago and shortly thereafter moved our disabled son here as well. My son used to live in the Beardslee Cove apartments near Cascadia College and he loved it. As you probably know, a couple of years ago the apartment complex was purchased by the University of Washington to house their students. We had to move our son to an apartment in Kenmore that he could afford and that was reasonably close to us. His apartment rent has increased at least $50 every year when a new lease must be signed. Needless to say, this is more than the increase in his Social Security disability checks each year. We hoped that when Bothell decided to have a few apartment complexes built here in Bothell that at least one of them would be affordable so our son could move back to Bothell again. They are not. We also hoped that someday we could retire into one of the retirement homes available on the south side of the Sammamish River off Riverside Drive. Just over a year ago we managed to assist a dear friend of ours move into one of those assisted-living homes and it was the least expensive we could find (and that she and her family could afford) in the entire Bothell and surrounding area (at $1,800 each month).

We hope that your newspaper continues to include comments from local citizens so that everyone understands what is happening to our community.  Bothell is still the lovely little town we moved to seven years ago but we are concerned that it’s changing to become unaffordable, partly due to the high expectations of our City Council members.

Katherine McAfee, Bothell