Renton’s Community Center stack-up of activities reminds me of this memorable scene from the Marx Brothers “A Night at the Opera.”  Many classes, meetings, performances and activities are getting moved from other city buildings that have all been closed at the same time.  Schedules are being altered frequently to fit everything in, and conflicts are still arising.

Since I retired from Council in 2021, our Renton Public Works Director Martin Pastucha has closed numerous public buildings, typically without replacing them.  And with current temporary closures, Renton has nine fewer public buildings currently in service than we did when I retired.  They didn’t all have to be closed.

We’re currently coping with temporary or permanent closure of the Pavilion Event Center, 200 Mill Avenue, the Don Persson Renton Senior Center, Carco Theater, the Renton History Museum, the former Chamber of Commerce building, Rainier Flight Services airport classrooms, the Landing Gear Works historic tower building, and the Landing Gear Works installation hangar.

While a few of the individual closures are understandable, in the big picture we can’t lose nine public buildings simultaneously without harming the quality of our city services.

In my household we’ve seen city class times changed from one week to the next and kids performances rescheduled or canceled, often with little notice, as our Parks workers do their very best to try to fit everything in with too few facilities.  This evening two of my family members noticed each of them has an event scheduled in the same room of the Community Center at the same time, even though the events are not compatible.  They’ll contact the parks department tomorrow to try to work it out.

Renton leadership should analyze how this happened on one of Renton’s biggest summers ever.  We’re celebrating 125 years as a city, our 40th River Days, our 25th Farmers Market, and hosting a World Cup soccer team– but without our Senior Center, Pavilion, Carco Theater, our History Museum, Mill Avenue Building, or our former Chamber of Commerce building.  And our airport has lost vitality with the abandonment of three key facilities at the same time that it’s being marketed to World Cup fly-in visitors.

Maintaining buildings and keeping them in service is hard. I get that. But past Public Works Directors were able to do it, and we should expect our current Public Works Director to do it to.

The following nine buildings are OUT OF SERVICE: