Visiting friend Rebecca McNamee grabbed my camera on Friday night, and snapped these pictures of three visitors (or perhaps residents?) in the big maple tree in my front yard.

She tells me the critters were acting like a mom and two juveniles. In any case, we all thought they were awfully cute.

A commenter recently asked about my Freedom of Information Request to RTC.

The staff at RTC have been speedy and professional in getting back to me. They currently have a package for me concerning travel expenses. I need to make an appointment to go review the data, and I hope to be able to do it on Monday or Tuesday. The rest of the data is expected to be available by September 10.

Here is a letter I received a few days after sending my request:
__________________________________________

Dear Mr. Corman:

I am the public records officer for Renton Technical College and am in receipt of your public records request dated August 13, 2009. The college is compiling the information you want. Your request #2 will be available to view in my office, Building I, General Administration, Room 208, on Monday, August 24th. Office hours are 7:30 am to 4:00 pm. At your request we will be happy to mail you the documents. Our cost is $.10 per page plus postage. Please let me know if you would like these documents to be mailed to you.

Your requests #1 and #3 will be available Thursday, September 10th. These documents will take more time to assemble.

Please contact me if you have any questions.

Carol Werner
Executive Vice President – Administration & Finance
Renton Technical College
3000 NE Fourth Street
Renton, WA 98056

___________________________________________
For reference, here are the items enumerated in my letter:
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Water fluoridation has been a subject of some controversy for as long as most of us can remember.

Highly-respected agencies and scientific data suggests that for relatively small per-person costs, water fuoridation has helped reduce cavities in children– particularly those that may not otherwise have good access to dental health services and fluoride treatments. On the other side of the argument, there are people who question the data in light of the fact that many developed countries do not fluoridate water, and have experienced improvements in dental health similar to the USA since 1970. And there are people who have sensitivities to fluoride, who have to drink bottled water to avoid stomach aches or other problems associated with fluoride in the water.

The City of Issaquah still does not fluoridate its water. Every time the officials move to do it, the public largely objects and shoots the idea down. They are once again asking for input right now. Click here to see their meeting announcement

We were chatting about this in the Corman household tonight as we pondered ways Renton could consider saving money. I have no strong opinion on this myself, although I know my daughter drinks bottled water to avoid too much fluoride because of sensitivities to it. I suspect it would save $100,000 to $200,000 a year to stop fluoridating our water, but I have never asked our staff for an estimate. If we stopped fluoridating, the savings would not help balance our general fund (it would not pay for police or fire) since the utility fund is separate; but any savings could off-set customer water rates.

Again, I am not advocating one way or the other, but I would be interested to hear your views on the topic.

Here is a pretty good article in Wikipedia, that covers a lot of aspects of this policy question.

What do you think Rentonites? Are you glad we fluoridate your water, or do you wish we would stop?

The Renton Chamber of Commerce is asking the question that we would all like to hear the answer to. What is the new direction that Ronnie Behnke referred to when she, another trustee, and an “ineligible” trustee fired Don Bressler. Here is the article in the Renton Reporter.