Lakewood

or the ocean, or major events in urban areas, very easily.” Lakewood’s history dates back to 1833,when the Hudson Bay Company first came out to the farthest regions of the continent and set up shop. Prior to that, the area was home to the Puyallup and Nis- qually tribes, among other Native Americans. In 1850, the first grist mill was set up byAndrewByrd, followed by the first sawmill in 1852, and the first flour mill in 1855, in the area now know as the Chambers Creek Estuary at the north end of Lake Steilacoom. Immigrants began to arrive in covered wagons over Naches Pass in 1853, after Washington became a Territory. Lakewood became an incorporated city in 1996. “The purpose was fourfold,” says Caulfield.“As a community, Lakewood had evolved from a some- what rural environment to a suburban/urban one. The sheriff’s department is not set up to provide public safety services at that level. So, in forming LAKEWOOD, WASHINGTON our own city,we were able to increase our level of public service, and we ultimately formed our own police department.” “Another itemwas dealing with land use,”Caulfield continues.“There was a lot of sprawl, so we were able to get that under control and focus on developing a comprehensive planning and zoning code that was in the best interests of Lakewood, as a whole.The third area was to deal with our infrastructure needs, particularly in the area of parks.We had a lot of property that was classified as parks, but they weren’t really parks.Today,we have 14 beautiful parks, ranging from small, neighborhood parks to the regional jewel of Pierce Coun- ty–Fort Steilacoom Park,which is 340 acres.The fourth area was to keep the tax- es that were generated in this community, local, for local services.And, if you go back to where we were 22 years ago,we have We have rather significant bodies of water throughout the city, and we have a couple of major streams that run through town. So, the quality of those waters is always something you need to look out for. One thing we’ve done is replaced hundreds of catchment basins with more modern, baf- fled storm drains to make sure that the pollutants off the roadways don’t reach those waters. So, people see a street proj- ect taking place –the new curbs, the new top dressing of asphalt, but what they don’t see is the hundreds of thousands of dollars in replaced storm drains to maintain water quality.” DON ANDERSON MAYOR