Month: November 2008

A little more about the proposed new misdemeanor jail

Written by Randy Corman 8 Comments

Our police spokeswoman told us tonight that the new jail would most closely resemble the Cowlitz County Jail, which is an efficiently designed structure that is one story, with high ceilings that accommodate two levels of cells.

I found these pictures of the construction.

I could not find any pictures of the finished inside of Colitz County, but it is probably something like this:

After discussing the issue for nearly an hour tonight, we feel our only real choice to ensure we have jail capacity is to go forward with construction. Yakima, which holds some of our inmates now, intends to increase our fees 60 percent in the next couple years. King County is going to increase our costs by 20 % next year, and evict all our inmates by 2012. There are shortages of jail bed space across our state and across the nation right now.

Bummer! Kenworth to suspend production of “on-highway” trucks in Renton

Written by Randy Corman 10 Comments

Here is the latest update from our Economic development department. We will deeply regret the loss of jobs, and the loss of prestige that comes from manufacturing the best 18-Wheelers on the highway. Let’s hope Kenworth maintains the option of restarting in Renton when the economy improves.

My sincere sypathy to you readers that are directly affected by these layoffs. The economy is really going in the tank right now. Those of us in government will do all we can to improve it.

_______________________________________________________________

>>> Alexander Pietsch 11/14/2008 11:23 AM >>>

yes. Thanks. We’ve been in touch with Kenworth. The company is characterizing it as a temporary reduction in the production of on-highway trucks. They still will make other off-highway trucks. This is a big cut though. They last reported 1,067 FTE in Renton.

Alex Pietsch
Administrator
Dept. of Community & Economic Development
City of Renton

>>> Julia Medzegian 11/14/2008 11:20 AM >>>

Ack! Im assuming Jay, Marty, Alex, etc. know, but just in case . . . . http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/business/387874_kenworthcuts15.html

Kenworth to lay off 421 workersBy

BILL VIRGIN
P-I REPORTER
Kenworth Truck Co. plans to lay off more than 400 workers and end most truck production at its Renton plant as a two-year slump in truck sales moves into a third.Don Hursey, directing business representative for Machinists District Lodge 160, said he was told by officials of Paccar Inc., Kenworth’s parent, that 329 union and 92 management employees will be laid off. The plant will continue to produce two of the large off-road trucks used in such industries as mining. But production of conventional highway trucks will be shifted to Kenworth’s Chillicothe, Ohio, plant.The layoffs and production cuts are effective Jan. 19.A Kenworth spokesman confirmed that the Renton plant is curtailing production and laying off workers, but did not give numbers.Kenworth said the cuts are due to a slowing economy and truck market. Heavy-duty truck sales were 322,000 in the U.S. and Canada in 2006, but fell to 176,000 in 2007 and are expected to be about 2008 this year.

Rich Zwicker

Google’s “street view” now covers much of Renton

Written by Randy Corman 4 Comments

If you haven’t played with this a little, you are missing out.

You can now get a street level picture from most streets in Renton, just by going to Google, typing in an address, and clicking the “Map” and “Street View” functions.

It’s even interactive, so you can experience traveling down the street and looking from side to side. This will certainly be helpful in advance of traveling to somewhere new.

My friend Amy pointed out to me that the “Street View” picture-taking van must have traveled down Bornson Way on the Circus Day of Renton River Days, as you can see from the picture below. But it must have been early in the morning, before the crowds formed.

I’ve also included a shot of my house.

As far as I know, Google is not taking pictures INSIDE our houses yet! Hopefully the street view is where they will draw the line 🙂


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Several friends and I enjoyed the Sushi cafe on NE 4th

Written by Randy Corman 1 Comment

Several of us got together to celebrate friend Jennifer’s Birthday recently.

Being sushi lovers, we thought we would try out a new Japanese place in Renton Highlands at 4605 NE 4th, called Sushi Cafe.

The food was tasty and artistic, and the staff were very friendly and professional. There were lots of other diners when we visited, so we had to wait a bit to be seated…although we probably could have called ahead to avoid this problem. All in all, it was a very nice experience. We would all recommend it. Here are a couple photos from our visit.


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The head chef talks about his craft with my wife Cathy and some of our friends
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Our friend Jen, the birthday girl!

Budget agreement reached at Monday’s council meeting; also, tree cutting referred to Committee

Written by Randy Corman 1 Comment

A couple quick highlights from Monday’s council meeting.

We achieved agreement on the 2009 budget! This is the earliest budget agreement I’ve seen in Renton…having resolved all of the questions prior to Thanksgiving. We held the first reading of all the ordinances on Monday, and we will read the ordinances a second and final time next Monday…thus putting the budget into law.

Mayor Law, Council President Palmer, the mayor’s staff, and all the council members deserve credit for working through the issues early and productively to get this done in such a timely way.

While the 2009 budget is very lean, most citizens won’t notice a drop in service. Taxes have not increased either, although we have made modest increases in water utility fees and renegotiated the garbage contract which expires next year (and garbage fees will increase).

Also on Monday I referred the subject of tree cutting permits, and how we enforce them. This issue has been front-and-center with me since trees have been mistakenly/wrongfully cut now on two sides of my home in the last few months. I suggested on Monday that if people in the tree cutting profession or developers have any ideas for improving the situation, I would love to hear them. In the meantime, I will be working on some of my own, such as construction fences around trees to be saved in developments BEFORE grading or cutting permits are issued; Property ownership map submittal with letters of property owner permission before tree cutting permits are granted; agreement that police officers will enforce these provisions on weekends, and other ideas.

The Committee of the Whole will first get a briefing on this topic, and then we can decide what to do with it after that.

Sue Carlson’s Celebration of Life to be held on Nov 24th

Written by Randy Corman 0 Comments

Several readers have asked for details about Sue Carlson’s memorial service. A Celebration of her Life has now been secheduled for Monday, November 24th.

Here is a note we recieved from her husband Rune.

___________________________________________

We will be having a service to celebrate the life of Sue Carlson at 2 PM on Monday afternoon, November 24, 2008 at St. Matthew’s Lutheran Church, 1700 Edmonds Ave. NE • Renton, WA.

I hope you will be able to attend.

Rune Carlson

____________________________________________

The Cedar River is cresting the trail at Bronson; trail closed until further notice

Written by Randy Corman 1 Comment

From: Julia Medzegian
Sent: Wednesday, November 12, 2008 3:16 PM
To: Don Persson; Greg Taylor; King Parker; MarciePalmer; Corman, Randy; Rich Zwicker; Terri Briere
Subject: Fwd: Cedar River update
Importance: High

>>> Kelly Beymer 11/12/2008 2:51 PM >>>
Hi Leslie,

John just called to report that the river is beginning to crest the trail. With the rain increasing up the valley I’ve requested that the trail be closed from Bronson to Logan through the remainder of the day. Crews will check the status tomorrow morning and I will provide you with an update.

Thank you,
Kelly

___________________________________________________________

Earlier Message:

>>> Preeti Shridhar 11/12/2008 11:22:30 AM >>>
I’ll keep you updated.

>>> Deborah Needham 11/12/2008 11:17 AM >>>
The latest information indicates that the Cedar will indeed experience some minor flooding with this storm. It is expected to crest at 4 am about 1 foot above flood stage. The Maplewood annexation area was mentioned as an area of concern by the National Weather Service. If citizens are displaced or lose access to their homes, this will become more involved than a Public Works response.

We are still evaluating this information, and a meeting will take place at 2 pm with field response representatives to also discuss field incident command organization and EOC activation triggers. I will provide an update to you at approximately 5:00 pm following that meeting. By then we will have also gained some more information from a National Weather Service briefing and a State conference call.

deb

Deborah Needham
Emergency Management Director
City of Renton

Bryce Nelson, Fairwood area resident, has been busy on his “Choose Renton” blog

Written by Randy Corman 1 Comment

Bryce Nelson, a Fairwood area resident and a Pierce County Prosecutor, has been keeping an active blog encouraging residents to consider annexation to Renton.

I thought his post yesterday on the “Red Mill Annexation” was well writen and accurate.

You can find his blog HERE.

As a Renton councilman, I don’t feel a strong need to have Red Mill or even the rest of Fairwood annex to the city of Renton… but in the spirit of the Growth Management Act, I would try to accomodate them if that is what they chose. Whether these areas opt to request annexation or not, I appreciate Bryce keeping the record straight on items like this.

Renton must insist on our fair share of transit dollars; service must improve

Written by Randy Corman 7 Comments

Sound Transit Phase 2 won by a wide margin on Tuesday night, showing once-again our region’s commitment to environmental responsibility and world-class transportation infrastructure. The new light rail will undoubtedly be a valuable system when it is complete.

Now, the pressure will be on to make sure Renton does not get left out in the cold by the new system improvements.

Most Renton residents do not realize that prior to last Tuesday’s vote, City of Renton residents were paying a combined total of 30 MILLION DOLLARS PER YEAR for transit service to our city. This money was being collected as sales tax and property tax, to be used for Metro and Sound Transit service. With 85 thousand residents in about 30,000 households, this equates to roughly ONE-THOUSAND DOLLARS PER HOUSEHOLD PER YEAR for transit service to Renton. I don’t know about you, but I question whether we have been getting an appropriate level of service back for these dollars.

Specifically, I think of the downtown transit center. To Metro’s credit, they did find three million dollars to build this center, and the city was grateful for that. But note that the three million was about 10 % of our ANNUAL payment for transit.

And since the construction of the transit center, Metro has done very little to help us keep it feeling safe and convenient for our residents. For example, Renton taxpayers ended up paying for a parking garage for which we lease stalls to King County Metro when it was apparent that parking was going to be a problem. In addition, we paid for a new police substation to be installed near the transit center, to discourage loitering and mischief, again at an additional cost to Renton taxpayers. And most expensively, we now pay for extra police patrols, and some private security, to improve the conditions at the transit center. Considering we send Metro 20 million dollars a year, and Sound Transit 10 million dollars a year, you would hope that these agencies could pay for some Metro Police to help us with some of this work.

Sound Transit has let us down in another key area. While they committed in Phase 1 to put in two new HOV direct access freeway access point, to help buses swiftly get on and off I-405 near the center of town, they were unable to deliver on either of these. The 100 Million dollars (of Renton taxpayer’s money) which was budgeted for this has not been spent to help our local transit system. The only consolation we have since received is that Sound Transit is, to their credit, helping us with $19 million for improvements to the Rainier Avenue corridor to give buses and HOV lane. This is good, and I support it, but it is still only 19 cents on the dollar of what we were promised in Phase 1.

NOW WITH PHASE TWO TAXES, Renton households will be paying another $69 per year, and some people say several times that depending on inflation modeling assumptions, ridership, cost overruns, or other factors.

I WANT YOU TO KNOW that I remain a huge fan of transit. I have been to many cities in the US, Asia and Europe that have extraordinary transit systems that do the lion’s share of moving people around within the urban areas. And these systems are fun and convenient to ride.

But we need to make sure our 85,000 Renton residents are not left out in the rain while everyone else manages to hop a ride. This means we need to remind Sound Transit of their promises on new express bus service, make sure Metro is using large enough coaches on their Renton routes, and make sure that they keep their transit center clean and safe. We also need to ask Sound Transit to make promised capital improvement investments in our city. With 85,000 residents, Renton is twice the size of Redmond, four times larger than Mercer Island, and as big as Federal Way…all cities that have been assured good access to the new light rail extensions. While we will not have good rail access, we need to be included in bus system improvements, and see good return for our existing thousand-dollars per year, plus our new half-cent on the dollar in Sales Tax for Sound Transit Phase 2.

Click here for the Seattle Times story on Sound Transit Phase Two.

Passing of Sue Carlson; early visionary for The Landing, kicked off “Ahead of the Curve” campaign

Written by Randy Corman 7 Comments

We got this very sad news today:

_________________________________________
Dear Friends,

It saddens me to have to tell you that Sue Carlson passed away this morning
following a valiant battle against cancer. She died peacefully with her family
by her side at 5:30 this morning.

We all know the significant role Sue played in shaping how Renton has become in
this region. She was also a very good friend to many of us who have had the
opportunity to know her all these years.

A special celebration will be planned in a couple weeks, and we will be sure to
let you know the details.

Thanks.
Denis

______________________________________________________________________

Here is an update of a journal entry I wrote regarding Sue about a year ago:

 

Year 2000 Public Employee of the year Sue Carlson advises (then councilman) Denis Law

I had the honor of serving as City Council President the year that our amazing Economic Development/Long Term Planning Administrator, Sue Carlson, won the title of Outstanding Public Employee from the King County Municipal League for her contributions in turning Renton’s economic fortunes around. That year we got the veterans park and the Henry Moses Aquatic Center started with year-end fund balance windfalls. These revenue windfalls came from new sales tax collections from new retail businesses Sue had recruited. That same year also began the advanced planning for the Landing, as you can see in the Municipal League write-up (linked below).

Sue Carlson had a strong passion for the Renton Community, and remained active in city events right up to the end of her life. I last spoke with her a couple months ago at the Bench Dedication for Jess Tanner in front of city hall.

Back in 1993, Sue helped encourage Denis Law to start the Renton Reporter, as a means to give our city an identity, a sense of community, a way to market itself to outside businesses, and a way for Renton businesses to advertise.

This was around the same time that she was working hard to market our city to the Spirt of Washington Diner Train and IKEA, both businesses which enhanced our community.

Sue Carlson was widely known as one of the greatest Economic Development experts in our state, and we finally lost her only because her private sector value was so high that our city could only pay her about a fraction of her market value. Her last few years with our city were very charitable on her part, given the outside job-offers she was passing on. She was always a great believer in Renton.

Her love of our City was so strong that I once found her teary-eyed after seeing a particularly brutal “Almost Live” parody about our city. I attempted to comfort her, reminding her that it was comedy, and I did not think it would really hurt our image that much. But to Sue, it was as if her own child had been teased on TV. We were that important to her.

Muni News
VOLUME 90, ISSUE 5 – MAY Special Edition 2000

Municipal League Announces 2000 Civic Award Winners
The Municipal League of King County will honor several citizens and organizations that have made outstanding contributions to our community at the League’s Annual Civic Awards luncheon on Friday, June 2, 2000, from noon to 1:30 p.m. at the Washington State Convention and Trade Center. All community members are encouraged to join the Municipal League in this celebration of civic excellence.

Since 1960, the Municipal League has recognized citizens, government leaders and organizations that work hard to improve the quality of life in the Puget Sound region. The 2000 Civic Award winners truly represent what the Municipal League of King County is all about: fostering open, efficient and accountable government. Each of these award winners made significant contributions to our community over the past year and the Municipal League is pleased to recognize them at the Civic Awards luncheon.

CIVIC AWARD HONOREES FOR YEAR 2000

Public Employee of the Year: Sue Carlson, Director of Economic Development and Strategic Planning, City of Renton

In her position with the City of Renton, Sue Carlson is responsible for planning, organizing, directing and evaluating all economic development activities for the city. Since joining the City of Renton in 1993, she has persuaded numerous major businesses to move to the city, including IKEA, HomeBase, and City University. She also played a key role in the development of a $400 million, 60-acre business campus that will ultimately provide jobs for 10,000 people.

Learn more by reading this blog entry from a former direct report to Sue.

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Sue looks on as we dedicate a bench and plaque to former mayor Jesse Tanner two months ago (September 8, 2008). Pretty, kind, and cheerful, even in her final months battling cancer.

Issaquah Press: “Unincorparated Area Councils,” including the East Renton area, meet with the County

Written by Randy Corman 1 Comment

The Issaquah Press ran this story about the Unincorporated Area Councils, including the 4-Creeks Council between Renton and issaquah. As expected, county budget cuts are high on everyone’s worry list right now. In the city we are a bit more insulated in some areas (local services), but the county budget still affects many regional services we depend on.