Tax day is over and most of us don’t have to worry about our income taxes for a while. For those of us who live in Mill Creek it’s nice to know that on average our local taxes are lower than other local communities.

Local taxes are the combination of property taxes, EMS (Emergency Medical Services) levies, fire service levies, and utility taxes that are used to fund city services. Mill Creek is the only local city that does not have a utility tax.

No one was injured in a fire that caused more than $50,000 damage to a home northeast of Silver Lake near Everett on Wednesday evening, April 17, 2013.

Dispatchers received multiple calls around 8:15 p.m. reporting flames coming from a single-story house in the 2100 block of 105th Pl. SE.

Firefighters responding to the call could see a large column of black smoke from several blocks away. The back of the house was engulfed in flames when the first firefighters arrived.

No one was inside the house at the time of the fire. Firefighters from Fire District 1 and 7 responded and had the fire under control in about 20 minutes.

The house is heavily damaged. The man who lived in the house plans to stay with friends.

The Snohomish County Fire Marshal’s Office is investigating the cause of the fire.

Do you know an outstanding educator or educational program making a difference in your community? Share their successes with the rest of Washington state by sending in a nomination for KCTS 9's 22nd Annual Golden Apple Awards for Excellence in Education.

Any person contributing time or services in Washington state schools from pre K through grade 12 can be nominated. Teachers, administrators, school staff and volunteers, specific education or community programs, and local businesses are all eligible for nomination. Students, parents, teachers and community members can all submit nominations.

In the end, the original plan for park signs didn’t hold up to public scrutiny. At their regular April 9th meeting the Mill Creek City Council decided that the current plan for park signs was not well conceived, and that City staff should come up with another plan.

The 2006 Wayfinding Sign Program was meant to provide a common design for all signs in Mill Creek. At the time the City had just adopted a new logo, a number of the old wooden signs around the City were rotting away, and people needed way faring signs at various places to tell them where things were.