Month: January 2026

The City of Issaquah just announced they are temporarily changing their name to 12saquah in honor of the Seahawks exciting return to the Superbowl.  Meanwhile Renton, the proud home of Seahawks headquarters, has been mulling a proposal since November to remove the football from our City’s logo.

[updated 2/3] Fortunately, several Renton Council Members have expressed opposition to the idea,   as have many members of the public. Councilmember Ed Prince, an avid Seahawks fan whose son plays football sport competitively, was very opposed to the logo change. Councilmembers Perez,  Alberson and O’Halloran also expressed concerns about the change. The once seemingly-greased  November 17 proposal from Renton’s communication department recommending the change said the next step would be Council action to officially adopt the new version of the logo removing the football (along with the airplane and the salmon).  Happily at this point at least four Councilmembers seems uninclined to do so.

Perhaps Seahawks fever might put an end to the idea of doing away with the football once and for all.  Our Seahawks’ triumphant return to the biggest and most-watched event in US sports will certainly help remind the current council why we put the football in our logo in the first place.

And as we near the exciting Superbowl LX, we certainly can’t let our friendly neighbor “12saquah” appear more devoted to the Seahawks than we are in their loving, exuberant hometown of Renton Washington!

Last night Renton City Council received their 56th change order for the Phase 4 Rainier Avenue improvement project.  This change order brings the new anticipated cost up another $390,000, 29% higher than originally budgeted.  And the project is only nearing the “pavement complete” stage.  Landscaping, signage, and other finishing is still ahead and will undoubtedly bring more changes.  (Just last month Council approved a change order hiking the project cost by $3.4 million.)

The contractor submitted the latest $390K change order in response to a section of the original street being about eight inches higher than shown in the engineering drawings, necessitating more material removal and rebuilding of the compact gravel layer before pavement resurfacing could occur.   While this specific change order may be reasonable, the total number and cost of change orders on this project should merit some concern by council, and ideally should lead to detailed after-action reviews.  Change orders can be caused by many things including schedule delays, contract language, engineering issues, incomplete requirements definition, permitting changes, scope creep, and other issues.

Two-to-three times the number of changes than in previous phase:

For comparison, the Rainier Avenue Phase 3 project was a very similar size and scope to this project, providing the same bus access lanes, upgraded signals and lighting, center median, wider sidewalks, updated water and sewer, joint use utility trench, upgraded signals and new landscape– on a more southerly stretch of Rainier Avenue.  But that Phase 3 project ran ahead of schedule and resulted in only 20 change orders at the “pavement  complete” stage, just 35% the number of changes seen in Phase 4 to date .  The Phase 3 project reached 36 change orders by its conclusion, picking up 16 relatively-minor changes as all the landscaping, signage, Metro Bus provisions, and art installations, and final reconciliation were completed. But even the final number was only 2/3 of the 56 change orders on Phase 4 to date– and again, the phase 4 project has a long ways to go.

You can find the list of change orders from Phase 4 here.  You can find the complete list of change order from Phase 3 here.

Phase 4 is at least 154 work days behind (about 7-8 months), and motorists have endured  continuous lane closures and traffic jams.

Phase 3 finished three months early, and all lanes remained open during most of construction.  The Renton Reporter announced the early opening in December 2013 as shown below.

There are only four and a half months until the Renton Farmers Market opens, and just five months before international visitors fill local hotels for the FIFA World Cup.  But our 26-year-old downtown Piazza, which will host the Market and soccer celebrations events, currently looks more like a construction zone than a park.

Crews will be scrambling during the next 18 weeks in what could be consider a self-inflicted emergency, since the Piazza was a nice park before it was torn up last summer.  As one of Renton’s stakeholders who helped plan and build the Piazza in 2000, I would not have chosen to rip so much of it out.  The trees and other plantings were maturing to the original landscape architect’s plans. The shade from the trees, along with the park’s two (now eliminated) water-features, provided much-needed respite from summer heat.

As can be seen in today’s photos, some of the trees are remaining, but many have been removed.

This city flyer above, released just today, urges “Get Ready Renton Businesses!”  Our businesses could make the same request of the city. “Get our parks ready Renton… and while you are at it, complete the delayed work on Rainier Avenue so visitors can get to the soccer games”

My wife and I saw the Northern Lights early this morning from our home in North Renton Highlands.  We got this view at about 5:50 AM, two hours before sunrise. These iphone photos make the colors more prominent than they appeared to our unassisted eyes, but the colors were visible and enjoyable without the phone.