The Bothell City Council recently voted 5-1 to sell a surplus, contaminated property to Regency Centers. This may be the most significant development in our city in the past 20 years.

Regency Center will be putting a specialty grocer in downtown again, this is something our city has needed and been missing since Safeway moved up the Bothell Everett Highway.

Most important though is that a negative legacy of “old Bothell,” toxic contamination in the soil and near the groundwater, will be cleaned up as a result.

Another negative legacy of “old Bothell” has shown up in recent letters to the editor in the form of negative personal attacks against elected officials and a virulent anti-growth sentiment. This negativity is as toxic as the contamination under downtown and it has no place in Bothell’s future.

Kim Dill, Bothell