Council changes policy at worst possible time for North Renton residents, denying them Council representation

Written by Randy Corman 5 Comments
In a quasi-judicial hearing, Renton Council would look for errors in the building application process. Renton Council just decided to no longer conduct these hearings, after the North Renton neighborhood had been told for years that it would happen.

 

The Renton City Council swiftly made a major policy change at their last Council meeting, sending all land-use appeals to King County Superior Court instead of the Renton City Council.

While the council may have had good intentions with the change, they followed a flawed implementation process that left the North Renton neighborhood feeling betrayed and put in an unfair position.

For three years the Council has told North Renton residents that residents can’t discuss the Logan Six project with Council because it would eventually be sent to the Council for a quasi-judicial review.  At that time, the Renton Council, acting as judges, would formally review all aspects of the entire record of the project and make sure that residents had not been victimized by any errors in the process.  But after three years of telling North Renton residents this, a mere month before the long-awaited quasi-judicial hearing by Council would occur, the Council surprised virtually everyone by canceling their role in the appeals process and all future appeals processes.  Many North Renton residents understandably now feel hurt and betrayed.

The City made at least three errors in their implementation of this policy change that led to this betrayal.  (The policy change may have been reasonable, except for these errors.)

(1) The Council should have given the public better awareness and opportunity to comment on this policy.

This policy change was made swiftly, gliding through Renton’s Planning Commission and then two readings on Renton City Council in less than a month’s time.  Unless Renton residents were carefully monitoring the Planning Commission, which very few do, they would have missed virtually all discussion on this topic.  The group most severely impacted, those concerned about the Logan Six project (which many feel is too large with too little parking), did not have awareness this was coming.

Policy decisions benefit immensely from public input, and this change is so far-reaching that Council should have given ample time for the public to be notified and give input to council.  This is a change that has been discussed by Council in decades past, and has positive and negative ramifications, which the public could have been educated on, and commented on, with leads to my second complaint about the process:

(2) The administration should have presented both pros and cons of the policy change to the Planning Commission and City Council.

The Planning Commission was given a staff statement to base their deliberations on, which gave a positive account of how this change would improve communication between Council and residents concerned about a nearby project. Council would not have quasi-judicial constraints on their communication with residents during the life of the project (i.e. not every communication would have to be formal and on-the-record).

But the administration left out the negative consequences of the change– the reasons that Council has never changed this policy in past decades:  The quasi-judicial council review gives residents an easy and efficient way to appeal Hearing Examiner decisions, that does not require the extraordinary time, complexity and expense of going to Superior Court.  In addition, the Council appeal process ensured that the legislative body itself, the very ones setting the rules and codes, made a thorough review of all documents, and then a determination regarding whether the rules– that they had set– had been followed.  Without this Council review, residents and the King County Superior Court are left to try to try to surmise for themselves what the legislative intent is for specific rules, while residents typically must pay attorneys somewhere between $20,000 – $100,000 to represent them.

The Planning Commission and Council should have been presented with both sides of this argument.  Then Council should have notified the public of a possible change with a press release, and held it long enough to give ample opportunity to hear from residents and builders.  They could have scheduled a council public hearing on the topic, since the existing policy has been in place for many decades, and the change is so far reaching.  An open public discourse regarding this change would have assured that all factors were taken into consideration.  No matter what the final policy choice, Council, residents, and home builders would have understood the rationale without suspicion.

(3). Most important of all, Council should have set the policy for new applications, but not changed the policy mid-process for projects in work. 

They especially should not have changed the process for a project just a month away from it’s Council review, after refusing to discuss the project with residents for three years.  This amounts to a complete denial of legislative representation for the residents impacted.

 

 

 

 

Renton’s visionary Mayor Barbara Shinpoch was a champion in protecting our drinking water

Written by Randy Corman 2 Comments
Renton’s Mayor Barbara Shinpoch (1980-1988), is pictured here with her predecessors Don Custor, Charles Delaurenti, and Avery Garrett. She was an inspiring regional leader and a visionary force in protecting Renton’s water supply from contamination.  In this 1982 photo she is dedicating the new Coulon Beach Park, converting 1.5 miles of industrial lakefront to park use.

 

Renton Mayor Barbara Shinpoch was an inspiring leader in Renton and our region.   In addition to many other enduring accomplishments, she left a legacy of protection of Renton’s water supply.

In 1984 Mayor Shinpoch and her City Council commissioned the first comprehensive scientific study of Renton’s aquifer, and then energetically implemented the many recommendations for protecting Renton’s precious drinking water.  Mayor Shinpoch fearlessly confronted the State, the County, numerous filling stations, dry cleaners, Stoneway Concrete, Metro, and many others to ensure Renton’s success.

Her successor and friend, Earl Clymer, Mayor from 1988-1996, continued her hard work on Renton’s aquifer protection ordinance, with unanimous support of Renton’s dedicated City Councilmembers.  (I was elected to Renton Council in 1993, and had the opportunity to join the team with the work already in progress.)

The study commissioned under Mayor Shinpoch in 1984 became our blueprint, and it contains guidance which remains relevant today.  The study recognized that protecting our water was our highest calling.  Recommendations included using tax money to buy business property and convert it to parks if it was upstream of our wells along our aquifer.

Mayor Shinpoch charted the course for clean water for our residents, and our council should retain the same vision today when it comes to the Lakeside Industries Asphalt Plant proposed upstream of our Maplewood Wells.

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Asphalt plant will only remove 30%-60% of deadly contaminants before injecting runoff into our aquifer

Written by Randy Corman 14 Comments
The US Environmental Protection Agency’s Hot Mix Asphalt Plant Emission Assessment Report provides the pounds-per-year of pollutants expected from typical asphalt plants.

 

In our toxic world, the only safe drinking water is that which evaporates from the ocean, condenses in a cloud, and drops as rain or snow in a clean, natural environment.  This is what Seattle drinks, and it is what Renton residents deserve as well.

Treated industrial runoff will never be healthy drinking water.  Industrial runoff is treated to a level that will minimize harm to wildlife as the water returns to the ocean. It’s not treated to a standard that makes it safe enough for human consumption.  Only evaporation and condensation will make treated industrial runoff safe to drink again.

With their proposed new Asphalt plant, Lakeside Industries is planning  to remove about 30-60% of the contaminants from their runoff using onsite treatment.  They will then inject the remaining waste-water, still containing 40-70% of some of the worst pollutants, into Renton’s sole source aquifer.  This is per poor instructions from the County, in a flawed approval process that has acknowledged the responsibility to protect salmon but not Renton’s residents.

Airborne contaminants from asphalt production will settle on equipment and pavement throughout Lakeside’s industrial site. Rainstorms will flush the poisons into a central catch basin, along with waste water from hosing down equipment and pavement.  Contaminants will include toxins like benzene, arsenic, lead, and mercury, along with dangerous PAHs that can cause cancer and autoimmune diseases, including fatal blood diseases.  Approximately half of the deadliest contaminates, those that are fully dissolved into the drinking water, will pass right through the “Enhanced basic” on-site filtration system–by design.

King County has required Lakeside to meet an “enhanced basic” standard in treating their runoff, which lets 30-60% of heavy metals pass right through.  The partial-treatment comprises an oil separator, a sand vault, and a small retention pond.  The 50% or so of dangerous contaminants that flow right through these simple systems will be infiltrated into our aquifer recharge zone.

There’s widespread misunderstanding about  the capability of the on-site system to clean the water.  The treated water is considered too dirty to dump in the Cedar River. Renton should not allow water deemed too dirty for the Cedar River to be intentionally pumped into our sole source aquifer.

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Until Sound Transit and Metro better serve us, Renton should rework our parking standards

Written by Randy Corman 4 Comments
Looking east across the site of the proposed Logan Six development (field in lower third of photo), toward the adjacent historic homes in the North Renton neighborhood.  Residents are concerned their neighborhood streets will be inundated with cars from the 100-unit Logan Six, which they fear has too little parking for its size. They are also worried about traffic in and out.

 

Architects rendering of proposed Logan Six Development. The project includes 1, 2, and 3-bedroom apartments, but has only one parking spot per unit.

 

North Renton residents have brought the long-simmering issue of Renton’s parking requirements back to the forefront. They are rightfully concerned about parking in their neighborhood.  As the new Logan Six project makes its way through the process, it would be a good time for Renton Council and staff to reevaluate our parking standards to prevent the kinds of parking controversy that this project has generated.

For decades, King County Metro and other transit advocacy groups have encouraged Renton to reduce our parking requirements.  Ten years ago  King County Metro Transit concluded a lengthy study capturing their recommendations for “right sized parking” in their service area.  The goal of the study was to encourage transit use and lower housing costs by avoiding “overbuilding”of parking.

The recommendations were controversial, because Metro was encouraging Renton and other suburbs to reduce our number of parking spot requirements to Seattle levels, even though our level of transit service was nowhere near as good as Seattle’s.  Some of Renton’s Planning Commissioners, Council members,  and staff embraced the recommendations, and some of us didn’t.

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Airport Committee told to destroy potential public records, avoid private conversations, and avoid unplanned motions

Written by Randy Corman 4 Comments
Members of the Renton Airport Advisory Committee (RAAC) and Airport leadership discuss the future plans for Renton’s airport at last Tuesday’s quarterly RAAC meeting. Some participants were on Zoom, visible on the right side of the meeting screen.

 

[Note:  There was also some valuable information shared at the Tuesday meeting, including a thorough report from the South Renton neighborhood representative. I’ll cover this content in a separate article. ]

At the Tuesday meeting of the Renton Airport Advisory Committee, I was surprised and disappointed by the controlling, questionable guidance given by airport management to the Committee’s hard-working volunteer members.

My process objections, in order of occurrence:

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Renton crime statistics show devastating impact of 2021-2024 non-pursuit law; legislators must do better

Written by Randy Corman 3 Comments
Renton motor vehicle thefts, burglaries, and robberies all spiked as police pursuits were curtailed in 2021; then declined when police were reauthorized to pursue in 2024. Reckless driving injuries and fatalities are not shown on this chart but they also climbed dramatically with the non-pursuit law.

 

Washington State legislators undertook a deadly experiment in 2021, and residents of our state suffered immeasurable pain and suffering as a result.  The Legislator limited the ability of police to pursue criminals, and consequently increased motor vehicle thefts, burglaries, robberies, and (most tragically of all) reckless driving fatalities.  Their ill-conceived law empowered perpetrators of these dangerous and destructive crimes to simply drive away from police, even in stolen cars if they chose to, without worry about being pursued.  Many of us spoke out vehemently about the harm this was causing our residents, but it took years of heartbreaking tragedies to finally persuade enough of our legislators to undo their foolish law.

Washington legislators were determined to show that they could reduce the  3 to 6 deaths that occur statewide from police chases, and instead of altering that trend, they got hundreds of new fatalities as criminals sped recklessly with abandon through all our streets and highways.  The latest statistics show Renton saw hundreds of additional crimes during this time period, as can be seen in the chart above.  Rates of crimes in these categories finally began falling in 2024, when the police pursuit limitations were repealed.

Currently our legislature is looking at reduced penalties for perpetrators caught in child sex stings, as well as reduced sentences for a large number of other crimes.  They are also considering preventing officers from pulling over cars for broken equipment and/or lapsed registrations (and typically insurance).  I hope they put more analysis and thought into their deliberations this year than they did in 2021, when they effectively sentenced many of our innocent residents to beatings, burglaries, robberies, assaults and even death on our roadways and elsewhere.

Renton water customers could be on the hook for an additional ten million dollars per year

Written by Randy Corman 4 Comments
Water District 90 is planning to take their wells offline due to contamination from the proposed asphalt plant, at a cost of $500,000 per year. Renton’s wells are just downstream and the cost to Renton would be $10,000,000 (ten million) per year.  Renton Council could end the risk for both water districts by purchasing the proposed asphalt plant property for about $15 million, using state grant money.

 

Water District 90  has three wells in the Cedar Valley Aquifer, a short distance upstream of Renton’s wells. District engineers have determined that their wells are threatened by the proposed Lakeside Industries asphalt plant.  In 2018, they determined the chemical poisoning risk would likely make their wells unusable within ten years.  This was before it was established that the Asphalt plant would purposefully inject their runoff into the ground.  If Water District 90 can’t replace the wells, they will begin paying Seattle $500,000 per year to supply the water to the equivalent of 6000 residents. (Water District 90 already buys 70% of their water from Seattle, and they are serving a total of 20,000 residents).

Water District 90 resolution opposed to asphalt plant due to poisoning of their wells

 

Renton’s wells serve 20 times as many people as Water District 90’s wells, so Renton customers would have to pay ten million dollars a year to Seattle to replace our poisoned water.  Even worse, our wells are sized for our city’s future growth projections, capable of delivering water to 60 % more Renton population.  And this water would also have to eventually be replaced by purchases from Seattle.  Given past rationing during droughts, Seattle may not even have this excess capacity.

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Deathtrap buildings on Park Avenue unsecured a month after Public Safety Chair assured public they would remain secured

Written by Randy Corman 3 Comments
Open sections in the chain link fence around the site give quick access to the dangerous buildings.

A month ago the North Renton Neighborhood turned out in force at a Renton council meeting, to beg for action in resolving the hazards and blight caused by the dystopian Park Avenue Buildings.  These formerly beautiful office buildings were allowed to swiftly fall into ruin over the past 18 months.

When the damage begun in 2023, many of us encouraged the city to save the multi-million dollar building complex by repairing the property  at owner expense through the enforcement and abatement process defined Renton’s Code Section 4-5-130 .  To meet code, the buildings needed some windows replaced, water dried out, some lights left on, and ideally (with owner coordination) a caretaker or non-profit tenant to keep the buildings looking occupied…the precise steps any good homeowner would take before an extended trip away from home.  The City could take the action to abate the building, and the expense could be billed to the owner and/or placed as a lien on the property.  The money would also come back to the city through property taxes many times over (as opposed to losing all property tax associated with the building, which is ultimately what happened).

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Renton Jet Center invites 737 business jets, further increasing chance of runway/school clash

Written by Randy Corman 1 Comment
The lower right corner of the new Vesper Aviation website shows it’s not business as usual for Proflight at Renton airport. “Largest Aircraft Handled Boeing 737” invites large business jet landings. When the total  landings and takeoffs (including Boeing deliveries) exceeds five hundred in a year, the runway will likely need to be extended through Renton High School.

 

I’ve previously reported that Proflight Aviation, which was primarily a locally-run flight school and propeller aircraft hangar facility, was purchased and turned into a jet center without public awareness or input.   Then last week I explained how the airplanes proposed for hangaring in the new jet center could likely trip our airport runway into a larger classification, forcing an expansion right through Renton High School.

Now, a newly-updated Vesper Aviation website for the facility is inviting Boeing 737  business jet fly-ins.  It’s as if they want Renton to expand our airport…. and who knows, maybe they do.

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Coal mine tunnels at asphalt plant would further increase risk to Renton’s drinking water

Written by Randy Corman 5 Comments
Tom and Ed Jones at their new Coal Mine in 1925, on the property now proposed as an Asphalt Plant. Abandoned tunnels will provide a shortcut for “forever” toxins from asphalt production to reach every layer of Renton’s drinking water aquifer. (Photo courtesy of Renton Historical Society)

 

Question: What is the one thing that would make it even more dangerous for an  asphalt plant to inject toxic runoff into the ground on Renton’s sole source aquifer?

Answer:  Man-made tunnels at the site to carry poison through every clay and sedimentary layer, so that no well is deep enough to be safe.

These 100-year-old photos were taken on the property that is now owned by Lakeside Industries, and proposed for the asphalt plant.  The Coal Mine shown was alternatively known as the Jones Brother’s Mine, the Indian Coal Mine, and the New Black Diamond Coal Mine.  (The “New Black Diamond” name reflects that it replaced what may have been the deepest coal mine in the world in Black Diamond.)

Perhaps the reason the ground percolated so well during the “infiltration test” at the proposed Asphalt Plant site is the miles of mining tunnels that descend from the property.  We may unfortunately never know, as no Environmental Impact Statement was required for locating an asphalt plant here.

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Renton City Council must protect our drinking water before it is too late

Written by Randy Corman 12 Comments
Screen capture from US government map showing sole-source drinking water aquifers. I’ve added labels showing approximate locations of some of Renton’s wells (in blue) and the planned Asphalt plant runoff “infiltration” facility (in red). (Link to map here)

 

Renton City Council’s Planning and Development Committee was recently briefed on a proposed update of Renton’s Critical Areas Ordinance.  Per the language recommended by Washington State (slide 4, bullet point 5), critical areas include aquifer recharge areas: ” Critical aquifer recharge areas contribute to groundwater quality and in-stream flow. While critical aquifer recharge areas are designated and protected to ensure availability of potable water, the groundwater resource also interacts with streams.”

But a future Asphalt Plant could soon be injecting thousands of gallons per year of contaminated runoff water into the recharge soils of Renton’s pristine sole-source aquifer, a short distance upstream of our drinking wells, and Renton City Council has not used its state-granted authority to halt it.

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Renton needlessly elbowed out our premier flight school; is space going to more jets?

Written by Randy Corman 4 Comments
A google image search of Rainier Flight Services in Renton looks like a college yearbook of happy graduates and their instructors, launching life-changing careers in aviation

 

Renton has suffered a very sad academic loss this week.  Rainier Flight Services has been training our aspiring aviators in Renton for decades, launching many of our residents into lifetime careers as professional pilots.  Their prices were affordable, and Renton’s youth could earn a pilot’s license for the price of a semester or two of college. Formerly (until last week) headquartered in Renton, they are the biggest and most successful flight school in the Northwest, with major satellite schools in Everett, Tacoma, and Auburn.

Their social media pages look like college yearbooks, replete with photos of happy graduates and their instructors at this key moment in their lives. They take pride in keeping their airplanes up-to-date and well maintained, and they fly them to low-population regions to get their time in, producing minimal negative impacts to Renton.  The business added to our job and tax base along with training our youth;  dozens of instructors and support staff were employed at their headquarters in Renton.

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Renton School District on collision course with Renton Airport jet center, with residents caught in the middle

Written by Randy Corman 10 Comments
An extension of Renton airport (left) would put the runway and taxiway right into Renton High School (right), which is about to undergo a half-billion dollar rebuild.

 

In 2020 the City of Renton worked diligently with the FAA to avoid an airport reclassification which would have required Renton to extend our runway and taxiway one-thousand feet into Renton High School and the nearby homes and businesses.  The arguments Renton made to avoid the extension leaned heavily on the fact that almost all our air traffic was lightweight propeller aircraft with just one or two carefully-orchestrated new 737 takeoffs per day.  We barely prevailed….if the jet operations had been any more numerous, we would have needed to extend the airport into the neighborhood and school.

Today, to the dismay of impacted residents, Renton School District is purchasing and/or condemning much of the same neighborhood property that we protected in 2020, in order to amass land for a half-billion dollar rebuild of Renton High School.  (The average Renton household will pay about $1000 per year in additional property tax for 22 years to fund this rebuild.)

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Renton makes missteps as landlord while considering stricter rules for landlords

Written by Randy Corman 3 Comments

Updated as of May 18; See update at end of article

For background, I’ve previously described the dispute between Landing Gear Works and the City of Renton here.

I was recently copied on an email that Landing Gear Works President Tom Anderson wrote to the Renton City Attorney’s office.

In the email Mr. Anderson explains he just received a formal 3-day notice to pay or vacate on leases that cover two of his small airplane hangers. (He has also received a separate notice for another lease that covers his two other buildings, and one of those buildings is the subject of the ongoing roof-repair dispute).

Since his small hanger leases are not in dispute, he went to the Airport Management office and made payment in full for these leases, per the three-day notice.  He said he had been trying to pay on these particular hangers since November of 2023, but the city kept lumping his payments together with his other leased building, and this 3-day notice finally separated the payments on the distinct leases.  His payments were marked “received” by Airport Office personnel.

But following receipt, the Airport Manager was contacted by his staff via phone, and he directed his staff to return the payments to Mr. Anderson.  This prompted the email to the Renton City Attorney.

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SeaTac once considered takeoffs directly over Renton; we fought for our sleep

Written by Randy Corman 3 Comments
The Split East Turn proposal by Seattle-Tacoma Airport in 2001 would have directed full-throttle airliner take-offs directly over Renton neighborhoods.

 

Twenty-four years ago I received an urgent phone call from Mayor Jesse Tanner: “Randy, I need you to meet with Mercer Island tonight.  They’ve learned of a distressing proposal by SeaTac Airport.  I’m going to stay in my office tonight and make phone calls to learn more.”

A proposed change would route SeaTac airliners in full-throttle takeoff directly over Renton neighborhoods. This would happen when winds were coming from the the north, typically during our warm sunny days when we have windows open and people are enjoying the outside.

“Wouldn’t this conflict with Renton Airport Traffic?” I asked Mayor Tanner, who had been a high-level FAA executive before serving as our Mayor.  “No, they could do it.  He said.  They’ll be just above Renton traffic, crosswise to it. Renton traffic might get a lower ceiling”

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