March 12, 2021
The Honorable Steve Tharinger, House Capital Budget Chair
The Honorable Lisa Callan, House Capital Budget Vice-Chair
The Honorable David Hackney, House Capital Budget Vice-Chair
RE: Strong Support for $2.1 Million Civic Center Phase 3 Request by Reps. Berg and Lovick for 2021-23 Capital Budget, “Local and Community Projects” Category
Dear Chair Tharinger and Vice-Chairs Callan and Hackney:
We are coming together on behalf of Farmers Markets, Chambers, civic clubs, festivals, and area rowing clubs, to let you know of our strong support for the $2.1 million request by Reps. April Berg and John Lovick (D-44th Dist.) that will complete Phase 3 of Lake Stevens’ “Civic Center” project and help the City complete what will be an incredible transformation of the community’s downtown and lakefront area. The Phase 3 work on the Civic Center project features site preparation and construction work that will allow Lake Stevens to develop a “festival street” that will act as a community and pedestrian gathering area, and to finish improvements at the North Cove Park adjacent to the area and fronting the Lake. These projects would allow the City to complete a major revitalization that has turned the Lake Stevens downtown center from a very sleepy area into a thriving, vibrant community core with a “Mill Spur” community center, a bustling Farmers Market, a graded and rebuilt park that allows residents and visitors to rediscover their lakefront, and multimodal connections that bring pedestrians, bicyclists, and tourists to the area. We tremendously appreciate the previous legislative investments in the Civic Center project, allocations that have been matched by more than $2.5 million in City funds. These investments, together with the Phase 3 project to come, will make Lake Stevens an important destination point in Snohomish County for pedestrians and bicyclists, for residents and tourists, and for all those who have seen the City grow from a resort town of 900 to a diverse community of 35,000 that is expected to accommodate more than 50,000 residents within the next decade. We have seen Lake Stevens put previous state funding to work to build improvements in a timely manner and can assure you that will happen again with funding for Civic Center Phase 3. We hope you will provide funding for this transformational project and thank you for your consideration.
Sincerely, Kim Daughtry Kim Daughtry 2020 Aquafest
Sincerely, Gary O’Rielly Lake Stevens Rotary
Sincerely, Gary Artim Lake Stevens Row Club
Sincerely, Matt Tabor, Lake Stevens Chamber of Commerce