Thumbs up to the King County Library System for its latest major upgrade in our neck of the woods.

The new Black Diamond Library will open today to fanfare befitting a $5 million facility. A ribbon-cutting ceremony and musical entertainment will get the new era in library service in Black Diamond off to a rollicking start. But the real test will be in how well the new library meets the needs of its patrons. And it seems sure to pass the exam, with a community meeting room, children’s and teen areas and more space for studying and reading included in its 5,000 square feet. Toss in expanded hours, and the picture is clear: Library users are getting virtually all they could hope for.

This comes on the heels of the reopening in March of the Covington Library, a $6.4 million wonder of modern conveniences added to all the usual trappings of a library.

Money for these two projects and others of the library system comes from a $172 million countywide ballot measure approved by voters in 2004. From the looks of the Covington and Black Diamond results, taxpayers should be satisfied.

Thumbs up to King County for trying to make an intersection near Tahoma Junior High School safer.

By making 244th Avenue Southeast and Southest 216th Street a four-way stop instead of the previous two-way, upgrading a flashing light and adding rumble strips to the pavement, traffic engineers hope the accident rate at the junction will go down. Problem addressed and, hopefully, solved.

Editor Pat Jenkins