Category: Uncategorized

My daughter Katie and her husband Brandon are expecting their baby in April. (Photo by Katie’s life-long friend Jacqui Sandor)

Cathy and I received some joyful news earlier this autumn. We are going to become grandparents in April, thanks to our oldest daughter Katie and her husband Brandon. At this point they don’t know the baby’s gender, but we expect to find out soon.

The new baby will be the first grandchild on Brandon’s side of the family as well, so baby’s cup will be overflowing with love and attention. (Brandon’s parents have had a busy fall, as they have just opened “Eyes on the Landing” with their partner Evie Lawson.)

The soon-to-be grandmothers, Donna Jones and my wife Cathy. Grandfathers will be me and Bob Jones. The spoiling will begin in April. 🙂

Following a countdown, Renton children help Mayor Law throw the switch to illuminate this year’s “Clam Lights” at Coulon Park.

Last night’s clear skies were perfect for enjoying the official kick-off of “Clam Lights” at Renton’s Coulon Park on Lake Washington. In addition to the glorious display of lights, bundled-up crowds enjoyed carols sung by the Lindbergh High Choir, a lighted parade of boats, horse-drawn wagon rides, dancing clams, a fire-side sing-along, and of course great food at Ivars and Kidd Valley.

There was a large turn-out for the celebration this year, and Cathy and I enjoyed catching up with many friends that we don’t get to see often enough.

Our parks department has introduced more LED lights this year, which will save power and be more durable year after year. As always, this event is largely funded by donations from Ivars. In addition, Puget Sound Energy donated to this event.

My thanks to Ivars, Puget Sound Energy, Renton Parks Department, our Parks Board, the Lindbergh Choir, the Rainier Yacht Club, and the many volunteers who make this beautiful annual event possible.

Here are some additional photos from the event.

Lindbergh High Carolers entertained the crowd before the official lighting

Mayor Law visits with Amy and Rachel Thibadeau.

I posted this journal entry on Thursday about the work going on at “Eyes on the Landing” in preparation for their Friday opening. After all the effort that Donna Jones and Dr. Evie Lawson put into the new optometry, I felt I should show a few images of the finished product. Here they are:

Son Danny (left) and friend Derek Benigno (right) getting ready to head off to Seattle’s Steam Con.

My son Danny was one of the thousands of attendees at Seattle’s second annual “Steam Con” today. The Seattle PI described this event in an article today here. This year Danny appears to be some kind of Steam-Punk warrior that Jules Verne would have been proud of. (There are pieces of metal, cardboard, and steel hoses all over my garage floor at the moment.)

Cathy and I had fun attending the first one of these conventions with Danny last year, and I covered it with photos and a story here.

This is so cute I had to post it!

I represent Renton on a committee of local officials chartered to review various concepts for adding a new toll lane to I-405, along with much-desired flyover connections between I-405 and I-167. The extra lane and flyover connections would reduce congestion, but the tolling aspect obviously makes it controversial. It’s very important that any chosen concept is as fair to all users and taxpayers as possible. Here is the latest news on this topic in the Bellevue Reporter.

(Thanks to my wife Cathy, who took the photos for me with her cell phone camera– I had not planned the stop and we did not have our regular camera)

Cathy and I stopped into the new Highlands “Grocery Outlet” on Friday night while dashing out for bread, and we were very impressed by the new store. (2809 Sunset Ave NE in Renton Highlands).

Grocery Outlet is a growing chain in the western US, with many devoted fans. Their stores are generally independently owned, and Renton store owners Jeff & Erin McNeil have long local ties to the Renton area.

When I stopped by the new store on Sunset, I found the deals excellent, the staff friendly, and the store clean and bright. I also felt the architect and builder did an amazing job converting the building from a bowling alley to a grocery store. They did an immense degree of restoration to the the building, including removing false ceilings and reworking the entire floor. They also built in accents that gave a nod to the building’s history, with such details as using bowling pins to mark check-out lanes, recycling segments from the original wooden lanes for floor in the checkout aisles, and placement of bowling lockers near the front door.

Like many families in the Highlands, we were very sorry to see the Hillcrest Bowl close– the old, familiar bowling alley had hosted countless parties, social events, and tournaments over he decades, and several different owners had made a gallant effort to keep it viable. Most of my kids learned to bowl at this alley. It looked to me that as the bowling alley aged and continued to consume on-going renovations and maintenance, it became harder for the ownership to find a price-point that was low enough to keep customers returning, while high enough to keep paying for the upgrades and repairs necessary to compete with newer bowling alleys. So it’s been closed over a year. Here are a few memorial comments to the Hillcrest Bowl.

The “Grocery Outlet” has done an excellent job of giving the property a new lease on life, and injecting some vitality back into this shopping center. My family will be stopping by the Grocery Outlet frequently, as their deals are too good to pass up and their store is a pleasant place to shop.

Be sure you stop by, check out their amazing prices, and welcome them into our neighborhood.

The old lanes help decorate the check-out aisles(bowling shoes are not required)

Decoration throughout recognizes the building’s history as the Hillcrest Bowling Center

Here is the link to all of the election results for King County.

Fairwood residents appear to be rejecting annexation to Renton by about the same margin (approximately 45% to 55%) that they last rejected incorporation.

It looks like they will remain in King County for a while.

Below is the prediction I made twenty months ago in this journal entry based on a survey conducted by Renton and King County at that time:

Based on these results, a likely sequence of events would be that the Fairwood Incorporation initiative would come up for a vote first, and then fail. Next, a vote to annex to Renton would potentially come up, and probably fail (unless over half of those who wanted to form Fairwood switched over to support annexing to Renton, which does not seem likely to me.) In the end, Fairwood would end up remaining unincorporated, an idea favored by just 31 percent of the voters in the area.

Guess I called it.

Here are the results so far. Here are the results from last year’s incorporation election.

We’ve never received as many phone calls as we have during this election. I attribute it to five ballots coming to our house, fewer people still using land lines like ours, my family waiting too long to send our ballots in, and millions of dollars of national being poured into our US Senate and House races. And we screen our calls and don’t generally answer unidentified numbers unless the caller makes it clear who they are in their message, so pollsters may have tried calling us repeatedly.

In any case, our household is guessing we received somewhere between one-hundred and two-hundred election-related calls during the last few weeks. Most of them of course were robo-calls. Every day our answering machine filled up.

It goes without saying that this is WAY too many. I would not complain if each campaign left me one message explaining why I should vote for their candidate. But this was far too many.

I’m going to seriously consider dumping our land line before the next national election.

This just in from the Mayor:
___________________________

Police have shutdown traffic southbound on the Maple Valley Highway at 140th (at the golf course) while they investigate a serious two vehicle accident. At least two victims with life-threatening injuries have been transported by medics to local hospitals. Police are also conducting a search of the area for one of the drivers who fled from the scene on foot. We’ll keep you advised.

Denis Law
Mayor, City of Renton

Great article about iconic Almost Live host John Keister here in the Seattle Weekly. He just entertained Rentonites as host of a benefit auction for the Renton Historical Museum, and he has recently hosted some of our Ahead of the Curve Campaign ads. His show Almost Live was my favorite show on television for many years in a row; you can find many hilarious and memorable Almost Live skits on youtube.

FW: Fire
Council
Sent: Wednesday, October 27, 2010 5:54 PM
To:
Don Persson; Terri Briere; Rich Zwicker; King Parker; Randy Corman; Greg Taylor; Marcie Palmer
Attachments:

——————————————-
From: Denis Law
Sent: Wednesday, October 27, 2010 5:54:36 PM
To: Council
Cc: Jay B Covington; Mark Peterson
Subject: Fire

Council,
In case you get any calls, there Is a large tire fire at 13500 beacon Coalmine Road. There is a large amount of smoke visible from miles away. Renton has one Engine Co. In route and Dist. 20 and Tukwila are the primary units on the scene.

UPDATED: Riley Bunch has been FOUND a Fairwood Safeway.

From her parents website: FOUND HER- SHE IS HOME. A Manager at Fairwood Safeway saw her pic and recognized our baby and called us- we drove over and got her just now-
thank you ALL so very much, you are how happy endings are made. More
updates later, thank you thank you again.
______________________________________________________________

Original post:

Everyone in the community is asked to keep an eye out for Renton Highlands resident Riley Bunch. If you see her or have any information that can help locate her, please call the King County Sheriff’s Office at (206) 296-4155. Her family and friends are obviously worried sick about her.

(Photo updated to reflect she has been found)

From the Bring Riley Bunch Home Facebook page:

“We’re setting up this page because our daughter, Riley Bunch, ran away today. She has been missing since 7 am. Please- Maywood kids, local friends, everyone- keep her in your prayers and help us bring her home. If you have ANY information please share it with King County Sheriff Sgt Andrea Alexander at (206) 296-3883 or call us at (425) 213-4866 or email us at planetbunch@comcast.net.

Riley’s dad and brother are out posting flyers all around the neighborhood, in hopes students will see them tomorrow morning. If you know where Riley is, please let us know- she is not in trouble, we just want her home safe. We are worried about her- the weather is too cold for her to be out in overnight, we need to know she is okay. We love her and miss her.

We are over 27 hours since Riley ran away with her bible (scriptures) , a raincoat, next to no cash and very little food. Yes, she ran away but she is a lost little girl. We are limited in how much help we think we can get from King County Sheriff because she is not “in danger” or abducted, so we are counting on our community to post flyers and look for her. She’s not in trouble, we just want her safe!”