EVERETT DRUG COUNSELING CLINIC -- AND ITS CLIENTS -- DESERVE A CHANCE

Mary Zuanich loves downtown Everett, especially Colby Avenue with its
block of chic stores.

She not only shops on Colby, Zuanich enjoys cooking classes at J.
Matheson Kitchen & Gourmet.

"And I like her," said Zuanich, 68, who lives with her husband, Andy,
in Everett's Lowell neighborhood.

Her? I didn't need to ask. Zuanich meant Judy Matheson, who opened
her original shop, J. Matheson Gifts, at 2615 Colby Ave., in 1991.
Her kitchen store, a couple doors to the north, is a newer addition
to the block that includes Pave Specialty Bakery, Burkett's women's
clothing store and Erickson's Jewelers.

I like her, too. In the 16 years I've been her customer, Judy
Matheson has never failed to be friendly, helpful and interested in
what I've needed.

Matheson has done as much as anyone to bring life to a downtown once
dead. It wasn't that long ago I wouldn't have felt safe walking alone
on parts of Hewitt Avenue. What's so much better now began with
Matheson's faith in downtown.

Zuanich and I both like her. We just don't agree with her.

In a Herald story Tuesday, Matheson and several neighboring shop
owners recently voiced strong opposition to plans by Catholic
Community Services Northwest to move a drug counseling clinic from
Pacific Avenue to an office building at 2601 Wetmore Ave.

J. Matheson Gifts and the other Colby shops would share an alley with
the counseling office.

While they appreciate the work Catholic Community Services is doing,
they worry about the center's proximity to two schools, Immaculate
Conception/Our Lady of Perpetual Help school and Everett High School.

The Pacific Avenue clinic now serves about 300 teens and adults with
counseling services each year. Many are referred by drug court or
Child Protective Services.

"Let's give everybody a chance," said Zuanich, who believes the
clinic should be located near the shops. Her take is that there's no
problem until there's a problem.

"And if something happens, and this is a detriment, we would all
stand behind the shop owners to protest that. We won't let that
happen. Colby is too important."

Lora Miner works in Edmonds but is keenly interested in the Everett
dispute. She's been where the addiction clinic clients are today.

"On Monday, I'll be 16 years clean," said Miner, executive director
for the Center for Counseling & Health Resources Inc., a private
facility founded by Dr. Gregg Jantz. The Edmonds-based center treats
people for substance abuse, depression, eating disorders and other issues.

"When you face up to what you've done, that's who shows up at a
counseling center," said Miner, who was a cocaine user when she went
into treatment 16 years ago. The shop owners, Miner said, "should be
sending them fruit baskets and saying keep up the good work."

Drug addicts are everywhere, Miner said.

"They're in doctors' offices and hospitals giving you medication.
They're in your school and in your family," Miner said. "There is no
face to addiction. I was disappointed to hear people so judgmental.
It's an illness. I lived it. I got into trouble, and the legal system
saved my life."

Heidi Sawdon has her own issues with downtown Everett but agrees with
Zuanich that the city ought to be accepting.

"There's a kind of stereotyping of a certain type of person," Sawdon said.

The 31-year-old Everett woman is a manager at a local Starbucks, but
she also runs a business, Hotrod Heidi's Vintage Closet. She sells
vintage clothing at hot-rod and motorcycle shows.

Her husband, Matt Sawdon, runs a tattoo shop in Everett, the Sunken
Ship. The couple live in the View Ridge area and have two children.

They'd like to open a vintage clothing store and tattoo shop
downtown, but rules enacted by the Everett City Council prohibit
those uses in the city's core. "What's happening now, basically
they're trying to gentrify," she said.

Sawdon finds it ironic that a city that pushed for a Navy homeport
would ban tattoo parlors downtown. "Rich people come here," she said
of her husband's tattoo shop, which is on Everett Avenue east of
Broadway. "Aesthetically, I wanted an art deco building downtown. I
wanted to break the stereotype."

No one wants the bad old Everett back again. There were years when
downtown was scary. Now, there's something else to fear. Wash away
the life, it won't be a city. A newly antiseptic place, it will only
look like one.

Zuanich is right. Colby is for all of us.