Author: Randy Corman

The Wall Street Journal reports that:

“Cities and states across the nation are selling and leasing everything from airports to zoos—a fire sale that could help plug budget holes now but worsen their financial woes over the long run.

California is looking to shed state office buildings. Milwaukee has proposed selling its water supply; in Chicago and New Haven, Conn., it’s parking meters. In Louisiana and Georgia, airports are up for grabs.”

You can read the full article by clicking here .

It’s an interesting article. I would be reluctant to put city assets up for sale for the reasons stated in the article. My experience is that most times we have privatized a city function, such as turning over the management of the downtown parking garage to Diamond Parking, we have drawn some complaints from citizens. I can’t imagine negotiating a long-term lease with a private company which lets them make profits from street parking.

What do you think? Are there any city assets you readers suggest we sell?

Friend and in-law Donna Jones (left), pictured here with my wife Cathy, is partnering with Dr. Evie Lawson of Bellevue to open a stylish and convenient optometry and eye glass supply down at the Landing.

A fashionable optometry is coming to the Landing. This one is very special to me, because one of the partners in the business is my dear friend and in-law Donna Jones. Donna, who is the mother of my son-in-law, has many years of experience managing a successful and fashionable optometry in Bellevue. In the new “Eyes on the Landing” Donna will be partnering with New England College of Optometry graduate Dr. Evie Lawson. Ms. Lawson is an avid sportswoman, and has years of experience as a practicing optometrist. Whatever your lifestyle and fashion preferences, Evie and Donna will be sure to give you friendly personal service and the sharpest vision you can get. They will also offer eye glass accessories and related items and advice. Their new store will be across the street from “The Rock”, on the opposite side of the parking garage entrance from the Balanced Athlete. Their address is 822 North 10th Place, Suite A, Renton.

The business is locally owned, and both owners have strong ties to the community. Donna is married to 1979 Renton High graduate Bob Jones, and she and Bob are raising their children in the East Renton area near Cedar River. Dr. Evie Lawson makes her home with her husband and son in Bellevue.

They can work with most insurance companies. Look for them to open in a few weeks. Click here to visit the website for “Eyes on the Landing”

In this entry on Tuesday, I wrote about the debate regarding whether council should go to ballot with annexing West Hill.

Many people have been wondering how the policing would change on West Hill if it were annexed to Renton.

Today, I spoke with Renton Police Chief Kevin Milosevich to get the numbers directly from the source.

And the law enforcement proposal is impressive. Renton would dedicate 36 police officers, including 5 detectives, to patrol and investigate crimes on West Hill. West Hill would be covered by an all-new police “West Sector”; Renton police currently divide the city into a North Sector and a South Sector.

The new West Sector would have one new Patrol Commander, four new patrol sergeants, 24 new patrol officers, and two motorcycle officers– all dedicated to patrolling the West Hill. In addition, there would be a new detective supervisor and four new detectives dedicated to crime resolution on West Hill. When scheduled around the clock, this works out to a typical presence of seven officers. This will surge up to nine officers during the hours the motorcycle officers are patrolling. The numbers on patrol will occasionally dip below seven during times of significant illness or vacation, but would never drop below a minumum of five commisioned armed officers at any hour of the day or night.

This compares to our understanding that King County typically staffs West Hill with two deputies, which drops to one if one is needed for transport or back-up elsewhere.

In summary, it appears Renton would provide approximately three or four times as much police presence on West Hill as King County currently provides, with greater dedication of detective support.

In addition, Chief Milosevich tells me that the Renton plan would also provide seven non-commissioned police personnel dedicated to West Hill crime resolution, prosecution, and prevention, and animal control. New evidence technicians, records specialists, a training export, a community crime prevention/block watch coordinator, and a new animal control officer would fill these needs.

Finally, Developmental Services would be providing a new code enforcement officer for West Hill, specifically to enforce clean-up of derelict buildings and other code-violation nuisances. King County just has a few of these inspectors covering the whole county, so this would be a major increase in attention to code enforcement. And for those owners who need permits to repair their derelict buildings, Renton has the staffing and procedures to process these much quicker than King County.

We are celebrating 25 years of having Katie in our lives. I vividly recall the early morning wake-up, two weeks ahead of schedule. Katie was born just a few hours after we reached the hospital.

Here’s Katie with her husband Brandon, as we all know her now (at The Rock Pizza)

Here is a shot of me and Katie in our first fun-filled year together (in the front yard of our current home in Renton.)

Happy Birthday Katie!

Renton’s Cedar River Trail won the “Seattle Weekly’s Best of 2010 Award” for being the best alternative to the Burke Gilman Trail. Hats off to our Renton Parks and Recreation staff (and the other departments who support them) for their excellent work on this trail.

Here is the story

Our hearts are with Petty Officer Newlove’s friends, family, and fellow service men and women. Received today from the Governor’s office:

Subject: August 5 Flag Lowering

Governor Chris Gregoire has directed that Washington State and United States flags at all state agency facilities be lowered to half-staff Thursday, August 5, 2010, in memory of U. S. Navy Petty Officer 3rd Class Jarod Newlove, 25, of Renton, who died from wounds sustained from an incident in Logar Province, Afghanistan, on July 23.

Flags should remain at half-staff until close of business Thursday (especially for those agencies on furlough on Friday), or first thing Friday morning, August 6.

Other government entities, citizens and businesses are encouraged to join this recognition.

(Above) West Hill has many beautiful homes with residents that take great pride in their neighborhoods and their rural-county way of life.

The area also could use attention in code enforcement, policing, and economic development, but not everyone agrees on what form this should take or how it can be paid for.

The Renton City Council is once again deliberating on whether to go to the ballot with potential annexation of the West Hill Neighborhood (which is made up of Bryn Mawr, Lakeridge, Skyway, Earlington, Campbell Hill, Panorama, Skycrest, and Hill Top.) I last discussed this issue in my blog in 2008 HERE , with detail and pictures.

The West Hill was in our original Potential Annexation Area (PAA) as defined in our first growth management plan in 1993 under Mayor Clymer. But when Mayor Tanner took office in 1996, he urged removal of West Hill from our PAA after an analysis showed that it would cost Renton taxpayers up to 40 million dollars to annex the area (a number which has remained remarkably unchanged in the last 15 years). Then, in a heated and passionate council meeting in 2005, Mayor Keolker succeeded in getting a divided council to put West Hill back into our PAA, largely on the premise that putting it back into our PAA was the only way we could evaluate funding options. The reasoning that prevailed went like this: if we put West Hill back in our PAA we could request county and state funding assistance for additional study and ultimately for servicing the area. If the county and state agreed to provide us the money we needed, we could then consider annexing. If we ultimately could not get any money (or West Hill chose not to annex), we could take the area back out of our PAA.

Now, after many years of study and fund raising efforts, the state has come though with about half of the money we would need to service West Hill during the first ten years without impacting current residents of Renton– the state can provide us about 2.5 million per year for ten years. Unfortunately, the County has not been able to promise any significant assistance, so we would find ourselves running a deficit of about 1.5 million per year for the first ten years trying to service West Hill, and significantly more than that after ten years if we did not get some sort of major economic revitalization out of their retail corridors by that time.

This has left Mayor Law recommending against annexing the area, and the council divided on what action to take next. The state funding offer comes with a time line in which council has until next week to set an election date for West Hill– if no date is set by next week, the twenty-five million dollars in state funding (2.5 million per year) will not be available.

Some council members are ready to say West Hill Annexation is dead, while others are pushing strongly to promote it, while others might put it on life support. We’ve been told that setting an election date does not mean we are obligated to go through with annexation…it just means we will hear from West Hill whether they want to annex. So some council members were interested in understanding whether we could tentatively set an election in 2012, and then decide by the end of 2011 whether we would would go through with the election or call it off. This would give the county and others more time to find additional money. I was interested in this option yesterday, but I am increasingly less interested because of the confusing messages it sends and the low probability of more money turning up.

Council has been hearing from West Hill and existing Renton residents that are split on this issue. Some in Renton have suggested that the existing citizens of Renton should be allowed to vote on this annexation as well. I’ve heard one other council member express this sentiment as well. We’ve not talked about this, and I don’t know whether it would be supported by a majority of council, but it would not be out of the question for the council to ask for an advisory vote from existing citizens. We would want to be sure we picked an election where everybody was already receiving ballots in order to keep the costs down.

We intend to resolve this issue on Monday August 9th, first at Committee of the Whole which starts at 5:30, followed by final debate and action at the council meeting at 7:00 PM. I’m not certain at this point exactly what I will do. I will possibly vote no to further discussion of West Hill annexation, in which case I will also recommend that we once again remove West Hill from our potential annexation area (so that West Hill would be free to petition Seattle or Tukwila for governance); or I will vote to put annexation on the ballot in mid-2012 with the call-off the election at the end of 2011 if there is no additional money available. I might also float the idea of an advisory vote of existing Renton residents.

As always, I would love to hear from the citizens of Renton and West Hill on this topic. Send your letters and emails to Renton City Hall, and feel free to engage in debate here on my blog.

It was a tough day for drivers and traffic. A bus fire described in this Renton Reporter story snarled I-405 this morning, while drivers at Sunset and Houser were slowed by police activity at the Houser Way Bypass tunnel after a high-speed collision.

Here is Mayor Law’s own photos and write-up about the accident on Houser.

Renton Police Traffic Investigators were called out to a serious, head-on collision near the Houser St. tunnel at Sunset Blvd. in Renton this morning. Both drivers miraculously survived the crash. One driver traveling at a high rate of speed lost control in the tunnel and slammed into the oncoming car. Alcohol may have been involved. New safety features in automobiles and the quality service provided by our fire fighters and medics has clearly increased the chances of survival.

Photos by Denis Law

The Seahawks have posted a really nice video about Renton featuring former Seahawks fullback Mack Strong and his wife Zoe. They talk about the Seahawk training camp, Coulon Park, the Farmers Market, the Landing, Renton’s 258 restaurants (including espresso stops), and many other amenities which will give visitors a perfect day when they come to watch Seahawks training. Sportscaster Tony Ventrella hosts.

Click here to view the seven minute video “Your visit to Renton”!

Tonight’s Finance Committee was quite interesting. In addition to the usual review and approval of city spending vouchers, we discussed a few other issues.

We agreed to some terms that will allow us to receive state grants for assistance in purchase of additional alternative fuel and hybrid vehicles. We currently have some hybrid passenger cars in our motor pool, and we have a hybrid boom truck; the state grants would provide us approximately $140,000 in funds to upgrade some other vehicle purchases to hybrids, potentially including other work trucks, an Aid Car, and other passenger vehicles. The State is also making money available for installation of Electric Vehicle charging stations, but we will have to compete with several other jurisdictions in King County to win a share of the charging station money.

In separate business, we recommended that the full council approve the hiring of a consultant for preparation of an updated six-year parks and open space plan. We last developed one of these plans in 2003, and it “expired” in 2009. A current plan must be on file with the state for us to qualify for certain grants which are essential for Renton to fund the development of trails and other open space improvements. The creation of the new parks and open space plan will be a highly public process– a consultant will gather and document community input regarding future priorities for new park development. So start thinking about new park amenities you would like to see in the next six years. (I mentioned tonight that a trail on May Creek, where we have been procuring land for 20 years, is high on my list.. but I’m sure readers all have their favorite ideas). In addition to making us eligible for grants, this plan will ensure that the park projects are well coordinated with other city growth management plans.

The last thing we discussed was the plan for determining the sites for two new (modern and larger) public library branches. A consultant will assist us in selecting and acquiring a new site in downtown (probably somewhere near the Piazza and parking garage) for a new Downtown Branch, and a new site in the Highlands (likely on NE Sunset) for a replacement Highlands Library. The Council has expressed interest in building these new library branches as early as next year using bonds that would be paid off with money that was previously dedicated to library operations. As a reminder, starting in 2011 library operations will be funded by KCLS from proceeds of a new levy on Renton property, as a result of the library annexation that was narrowly approved by Renton voters earlier this year. The council and mayor wish to get the new branches built soon to get maximum benefit from the new King County Library Service. Renton and KCLS officials have been working collaboratively on the siting of the new library branches, and a consultant will be assisting them make final siting and acquisition decisions.

The old Benson Ave Bridge over I-405 is coming out tonight, to allow the freeway to be expanded with an extra lane each way. The bridge removal will require that the entire freeway be closed both directions from starting in a few hours. The freeway will reopen by 11:00 AM Sunday. Note it will be closed all day Saturday, so plan your driving carefully to avoid traffic jams. We’ve tried to get motorists to take I-5 and I-90, but much freeway traffic will also be detouring through Renton.

Here is more info in the Seattle Times.

Don’t forget Doggapalooza at the Landing tomorrow!  I’ll be down there serving as a judge.  I hope to see you!

Click below for all the details:

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It appears that Seattle has retaken the world’s record for the most “zombies” in one place. Seattle obtained this record at their first annual “zombie walk” last year, only to lose it to England shortly afterward. But now we are once again the zombie capitol.

This year Seattle got some help from some of the Renton Corman clan, as my son Kenny and his wife Anastasia dressed up as zombies, signed in for official counting, and then danced “Thriller” with thousands of others.

Here are a couple videos which give a sense for this event. The first one was put together by a youtube user, and shows off the crowd’s costumes and dancing. The second video is one I took of Kenny and Anastasia practicing their “Thriller” dance here at the house.

I’m thinking I may have to try dressing up as a Zombie next year… it looked like a lot of fun.

Thousands of Zombies dance “Thriller” in Fremont last Saturday

Son Kenny and his wife Anastasia practice their dance before the big event