I am a resident of Redmond Ridge for the last six and a half years. I have two daughters both of whom are younger than 10 years.

As you know, the community recently appealed to King County Council members to reject the ordinance that essentially would place a marijuana growing, processing and distribution factory in the heart of the community.

The targeted location is very close to the Rosa Parks Elementary School and across from the Goddard School. Both the schools combined have traffic of more than 900 kids on any given day. This is also very close proximity to King County playgrounds and abuts popular trails prized and utilized regularly by the community and surrounding communities including Redmond Ridge East.

This facility has the potential to and will cause the decay of this close-knit community of families.

Redmond Ridge is not a proper location for this proposed facility, not because this is a special community, but just because this community is a dense, planned neighborhood of young hard-working families who chose the neighborhood to raise their young kids and like the abundance of natural trails around it.

These are the early days of the state facing consequences due to marijuana legalization and care must be taken not to set precedents due to which communities and neighborhoods are destroyed. There is time for experimentation in industrial and unpopulated rural areas. Redmond Ridge is not one of those locations that qualify for experimentation and must not be singled out and imposed upon in these early stages.

We are rapidly losing competitive advantage to countries such as China, Korea and Brazil. Locally, we face the possibility of Boeing gradually moving out. The need of the time is for investment into education, and creation of jobs that involve new technologies. It is NOT the time to introduce destructive vices into the great societies we have worked so hard to build.

Anu Ramanath, Redmond