Renton single-family zoning would be a thing of the past under House Bill 1110
House Bill 1110 would eliminate much of the single family zoning in our state in an effort to create more housing. It’s the latest in a series of attempts by legislators to supercede zoning by cities because the legislators feel cities have not been aggressive enough in solving the housing crisis. The bill would allow fourplexes in all single family neighborhoods in cities with more than 75,000 residents like Renton, and allow six-plexes in certain locations near parks and public transit. Cities between 25,000 and 75,000 population would have to allow duplexes on all single-family lots.
Renton Councilmembers Van and Rivera look on as Renton Police Chief Jon Schultd describes the staffing challenges his department is working to stay ahead of
Public Safety Committee is one of Renton Council’s six standing subcommittees. With homicides and robberies rapidly rising to all-time highs in our city, these meetings have sparked unusual public interest lately. Yesterday’s meeting covered several important topics, and I’ll touch on more of them in later postings. Today I’ll focus on police staffing.
Renton leaders and residents need to keep a close eye on police staffing as our heavily-burdened police department begins a year that includes at least six likely retirements of veteran officers, and the potential for two-to-three times that number based on the demographics of the workforce. Given that the process of finding and training new officers takes a year at minimum, the work to keep adequate police staffing has to be on-going.
During the meeting that included both a report about major crime rate jumps and the report about likely police retirements, Councilmember Ed Prince prompted Chief Schultd to discuss how Renton police staffing numbers compared to other cities, and what the chief might consider as ideal for our city.
Chief Schultd noted he was going from memory, recalling that Renton has been operating with approximately 1.3 officers per thousand residents, while many areas in the nation operate closer to 2 per thousand (see his followup email below for more precision). The Chief’s response is in line with research by the International Association of Professional City/County Managers (ICMA), which commissioned a report on the topic here. These numbers suggest Renton could have as many as 50% more officers, and be consistent with national and international staffing levels. While there has been no time in our history when we actively defunded our police department, it’s clear by these numbers that Renton Police Department has been operating very lean for some time. While this may have been okay in the past, it’s not working as well lately.
For those of us in attendance concerned about increasing crime rates, the committee discussion was encouraging. Councilmembers Prince and Van showed interest in possibly increasing funding, and Rivera nodded in apparent agreement.
This report was a status and won’t result in any specific action by itself other than approval for the Chief to continue rigorously working to backfill expected coming vacancies in his department. But for the full Council and the community of Renton, the stunning reports about high crime rates and minimum police staffing should set the stage for a more well-staffed department. The City and community should be working together to find more money for the police department. New funding could include bolstering behavioral health units that were added in the past two years, and have proven to be of great service to the department.
The City operates on a tight budget with little margin for additional police. If more money can’t be found, the Renton community should even consider a voter levy to add the necessary officers and behavioral health specialists needed to protect public safety.
Note: The meeting agenda for this meeting can be found here
Post-Meeting Police Chief email followup to Public Safety Committee:
Chief Jon Schultd had indicated he was commenting from memory during the meeting when asked how Renton staffing compared to national averages, so he followed up with more precise data in an email yesterday. The conclusions don’t really change. Here is an excerpt from his email to public safety committee:
Good morning Public Safety Committee Members,
Thank you again for taking time out of your schedule to meet with us yesterday.
I wanted to make sure that I gave you accurate information last evening when asked about staffing numbers. According to the FBI the 2021 national average of commissioned officers per 1,000 residents was 2.33 ( 2021 LE Employment by State.pdf ). The average for the State of Washington was 1.35, and if I am doing my math correctly the City of Renton is at 1.24 when fully staffed.
Renton’s North Renton neighborhood, looking north. Photo credit Google Earth
A few weeks ago I asked if a few people impacted by crime in Renton would allow me to share their stories, to help illustrate the real human impact crime was having on our residents and our city, beyond the statistics. Earlier posts in this series were from Tonya, who told her story about her family moving from Renton after an immense loss; and Melyza, about how her life was turned upside down by an attempted car theft. I’m publishing these as a call to action by state and local lawmakers, and everyone else that might be able to do more to protect our residents and business owners from crime.
I’ve posted the third in this series today, submitted by a woman who asked to be called E.W. She lives in the North Renton neighborhood, between Boeing and downtown. She and her husband bought a home in this neighborhood when they moved to Renton.
This is her story (in italics):
This is in response to your blog about how crime is affecting people here in Renton. My husband and I have three children in the North Renton neighborhood. We have lived here almost five years. The neighborhood and people here are delightful.
But we have gotten so concerned for the safety of our children, especially when they play outside. We spent thousands of dollars constructing a long, tall fence. (We hated the separation this created between our yard and the many neighbors we enjoy greeting as they pass by on the sidewalk.). The fence wasn’t enough. There has been a steady drumbeat of gun violence. I am afraid of one of my kids being shot while playing outside. There is also frequent loud shouting, cursing and altercations by people that are suffering behavioral issues, suffering from addiction, or unhoused passing on foot on a regular basis.
We intended to stay in this house forever, but are now in the process of moving to east Renton highlands in pursuit of safety for our kids.
This is a decision made out of privilege – most of the families in our neighborhood can’t afford to leave to a more expensive neighborhood and deserve more safety right where they are.
Just 16 hours before publishing E.W.s story, there was gunfire in her neighborhood at N. 3rd St and Park Ave North as assailants in a car with no license plates passed a group of teenagers, and both parties apparently shot at each other. Three uninvolved motorists in two separate vehicles were injured by flying glass as bullets pierced their cars. The police are currently looking for the suspects. There have been increasingly frequent shootings in this area, combined with a record number of homicides.
Families with children like E.W.s are important to the future of our city. It’s critical that families are able to thrive in North Renton, one of our city’s oldest neighborhoods with our most distinctive and historic homes. This neighborhood also hosts our city’s Don Persson Senior Activity Center and Sartori elementary school, in addition to highly utilized parks and trails. I’m grateful for E.W. for sharing her experience. It represents a call to action to those policy makers in charge of protecting this neighborhood from crime before more families feel they need to move out. There are tens of thousands of Rentonites committed to making North Renton a safe and inviting neighborhood for all families. Any elected policy makers that don’t have this responsibility near the very top of their priority list should step down and let someone who cares take their place.
House Bill 1513 errantly attempts to improve equity by tossing out almost all automobile equipment safety requirements contained in RCW chapter 46.37
In doing so, the bill attempts to supercede safety standards based on years of scientific automotive testing with new rules that could only have been written by hurried politicians. Here’s just one example from the bill.
“A peace officer may only stop or detain an operator of a vehicle when the primary reason for the stop is an equipment failure violation when necessary to protect against an immediate, serious threat to the safety of the operator or others on the roadway.”
“Immediate, serious threat to the safety of the operator or others on the roadway” means …. Having both taillights, headlights, or brake lights out at nighttime”
“Having both brake lights out at nighttime” is dangerous, but hey…who needs brake lights during the day, right?
Fentanyl deaths in King County have been rising dramatically, now averaging about two per day. A disproportionate number are Indigenous and Black residents.
In 2021 the State Supreme Court issued its “Blake” decision, overturning drug possession laws in our state due to technical issues regarding the definition of possession. Our state legislature responded by implementing an ineffective interim drug possession law that requires police to issue two referrals to treatment to anyone caught with hard drugs like fentanyl or heroin before they can be arrested. But no clear state-wide mechanism has been established for recording and tracking the referrals, so police can’t track the number of referrals or arrest for possession. Instead, police can just suggest people using drugs go to treatment, the same way everyone else has been unsuccessfully suggesting this to people struggling with addiction.
Three generations of my family love these sci-fi, gaming, and pop-culture events, and we have put together some elaborate cosplay costumes (dressing up as favorite characters in the past. I love how more of these conventions have been held in Renton in recent years. We don’t have to deal with Seattle’s traffic or parking challenges, and out-of-towners can discover Renton’s great hotels and restaurants.
Marcel Bower of Renton City Retro sent me this description of their upcoming May 13-14 event in Renton’s downtown Pavilion event center:
Crime and safety has been on everyone’s radar recently, and many readers may be interested in attending this Public Safety Committee meeting. You may attend either in person or by zoom. The City Council conference room will only comfortably seat about 10 guests in addition to the meeting attendees, so zoom may be a good option for many of you.
Council Members on this committee are:
Chair: Kim-Khánh Văn Vice-Chair: Ed Prince Member: Carmen Rivera
randycorman.com now features a comprehensive community calendar, thanks to a suggestion and hard work by Marcie Palmer. The updated calendar with clickable links can be accessed through the link on the upper right hand side of the website.
Former Renton Council Member Marcie Palmer recently pointed out to me that our community was in need of a comprehensive community calendar. In recent years technology has somehow made it more difficult to track down start times and locations of events in our community, since printed schedules and posters have largely disappeared. Many online invite systems like “Facebook Events” use algorithms that randomly hide events right when you look for them.
The office space at Southport was ready for tenants right around the time the pandemic hit, delaying occupancy. Marcie Palmer sent me this beautiful photo showing the lights finally on in the Southport offices, to the left of the Boeing factory. The lit up space will soon be occupied by Renton’s own global trend-setting game designer, Wizards of the Coast.
It’s appropriate for Wizards of the Coast to settle in next to Boeing. When I was a systems engineer at Boeing, I worked with engineers that had regularly played a pre-production version of “Magic the Gathering” with their colleague Peter Atkison during their 40-minute lunch breaks. “He would bring new hand-drawn cards for us to evaluate every week” they told me. Mr. Atkison had started a small side business, “Wizards of the Coast”, which took its name from the adventuring group he and his friends had created when they played “Dungeons and Dragons.” Mr. Atkison was close friends with a gamer named Richard Garfield, the creative inventor of Magic the Gathering (and also a great-great-grandson of US President James Garfield). Peter Atkison’s small company was working to bring Richard Garfield’s product to the market, and his fellow nerds at Boeing were an outstanding test market.
Renton’s 11th District Legislator Steve Bergquist (center, in blue) is co-sponsoring a bill to restore police pursuit authority. Last week he was given encouragement by six Renton Council Members and the Mayor who showed up at his office: from left Council Member Alberson, Mayor Pavone, Council Members Van, Perez, O’Halloran (not shown but participating, CMs Prince, and McIrvin). Renton Council Member Carmen Rivera was lobbying for the other side.
The City of Renton has a long, important partnership with the Association of Washington Cities (AWC), a respected professional organization that lobbies on behalf of all 281 cities and towns in our state. AWC just urgently informed cities that the Police Pursuit bill needs everyone’s help (bolding is theirs): “AWC is encouraged HB 1363 is continuing to move forward. Cities still need to reach out to legislators and ask them to support this bill because it still faces opposition and a difficult path to full passage”. Mayor Pavone and six council members are helping as requested.
Crime is currently one of the biggest concerns of many residents in Renton and our region. I’ve heard from countless Renton residents who are extremely worried about this issue, and sadly some of them have become so concerned they’ve either already moved or are making plans to move. While some elected officials are actively working the crime issue, others are still denying that crime is a significant problem. I’ve asked permission from readers to share a few of the stories I’ve heard, with the goal of ensuring a common understanding of the problem so that it may be worked seriously and productively. A reader named Tonya generously offered to share her poignant story as she and her family begin a new chapter of their lives in Eastern Washington.
For those who would like to give the state legislature your input about police pursuit. You have a great chance right now! Police Vehicle Pursuit — HB 1363 — will be heard in the House transportation committee today.
My wife Cathy and I have each done this. It takes no time at all to register your comments. You’re allowed 5000 words, but if you keep them to a few sentences they are more likely to be read, so I encourage everyone to participate. The bill will give more police pursuit options, so if you want to empower police you should “support” the bill. You don’t have to read the bill to express support, but if you want to, here is the bill.
A few weeks ago KIRO TV broke the story that King County is still paying $330,000 per month in taxpayer funds for the former Red Lion Hotel, which now sits empty with numerous broken windows and a fence around it. While it’s widely known that the hotel was being operated as a homeless shelter and caught fire in December 2020, it’s less well known how hard Renton fire officials worked in the months before the fire to get correction of numerous safety violations in the building and warn the leadership of the Downtown Emergency Services Center (DESC-the non-profit that was operating the shelter) and King County of the high fire safety risks.
From left, Council members Van and O’Halloran, Mayor Pavone, Council members Perez and Alberson in Olympia Wednesday morning. Council members Prince and McIrvin also participated but aren’t in this photo (they were taking kids to late-start school, due to snow in Renton.)
Every year, Renton Council approves an official list of key Renton priorities for legislators in Olympia. This year’s priorities were approved by the council on a 6-1 vote, and are available here. This week, all six council members who approved the legislative agenda joined Mayor Pavone in Olympia to ask for support face-to-face from state lawmakers.
My grandson Henry takes a drink of water while riding on my lap on a commercial flight. While he would be a little safer during turbulence buckled into a seat, even on my lap he’s 50- 100 times safer than he would be riding in a car buckled into a car seat.
This blog entry is provided for reference in future discussions, and provides an interesting and little-known explanation about why the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) allows a child under age two to ride on an adult’s lap. This FAA policy has saved the lives of hundreds of precious babies who would have crashed in cars, and prevented horrific injuries to hundreds more. I’m sharing this information here because it is an excellent example of a complete, holistic safety analysis that has protected the most vulnerable in our society. It’s also an example of two brilliant safety agencies both claiming the scientific high ground on an issue, where only one can rightfully claim it. The FAA, which arguably sets the highest standard for safety of any agency anywhere, has been battling the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) and consumer groups over this for decades. The NTSB points out that parents can’t hold onto a child in high force conditions like a crash, or in heavy unexpected turbulence. And they have data showing 298 passengers were injured by turbulence from 1980-2008, a rate of 10 injuries per year, although this is a total of all injuries and its not clear if any were babies.
