"We're not sleeping all that well," says Linda Clark, who lives next door to the site. It was her house that sustained melted siding. Neighbors are concerned that the fugitive arsonist may strike again: There's a new house on the lot, and it's at the exact same construction stage as last year's torched house. Some neighbors also fret that the cops have given up their investigation (it's still active, the police say), and rumors--like the one that claims building on the site of an unsolved arson is a no-no--are running rampant. The Stranger's attempts to reach the owner of the property were unsuccessful.
"We were never given any info about the fire," says neighbor Ann Christiansen, who lives two blocks north. "We're a little disappointed that nothing was ever communicated." So she took matters into her own hands a few weeks ago, putting in a call to Fire Marshal Gregory Dean and convincing him to send a fire-department rep out to the neighborhood--along with people from the police department and the Department of Design, Construction and Land Use--on September 24 to set the record straight. Since then, she's been passing out fliers to get folks to her Whittier Elementary School meeting. "I just want to get everyone on the same page."
