In my previous three entries I covered the catastrophic additional loss of life on Washington’s roads and highways since the pandemic reduced traffic enforcement, and then just when things were getting better a new Police non-pursuit law curtailed traffic enforcement of our state’s deadliest drivers.
Renton police photo. (Info about this accident available in Renton Patch. Link below.)
As someone in Washington State with both a lifetime career as a transportation safety engineer (33 years), and a city councilmember (28 years), I see the importance of this analysis for the safety of motorists and pedestrians in our state. I have not seen this analysis done by anyone else. Please share this post widely, including with media. For questions I can be reached at 425-271-6913 (please leave a detailed message).
This is the second post of a four-part series covering the ongoing damage from the 2021 police pursuit law. Part one covered skyrocketing highway deaths. Part three will cover the catastrophic crime wave, and part four will cover environmental setbacks from this law.
In my previous post I showed that our state’s traffic fatalities are up dramatically since Washington’s police non-pursuit law was implemented. Highway fatality rates which had been getting better for decades went up across the US in 2020 due in large part to police choosing not to pull people over for unsafe driving during the pandemic. As Covid concerns diminished, other states began rigorously enforcing driving laws again, and road safety started trending back to baseline. But Washington State implemented a new non-pursuit law, and our highway fatality rates are climbing faster than ever. Deaths on our roads and highways are 37 percent higher than pre-pandemic, and climbing fast, representing a current excess death toll of 207 lives lost per year over the baseline.
Thank you to all of you who left comments on my blog post. I also received many great comments and questions in a private facebook forum where I shared this post. I’ll respect others’ privacy by paraphrasing and bundling their questions, but because others may have the same questions, I will share my answers here. READ MORE »
“Mad Max Fury Road” features a post-apocalyptic lawless future. My wife and I think of this movie as we get increasingly passed by dangerous, law-breaking vehicles on local highways.
This is part one of a four-part entry about the damage caused by the 2021 Washington police pursuit law. This entry covers the lives lost to traffic accidents as a result of this legislation. The associated spike in drunk drivers will be covered in part two, the unprecedented crime wave and it’s horrendous impact on Renton residents and businesses will be handled in part three, and the setback to Washington State environmental progress will be covered in part four. 10/28/2023 Update: I’ve covered this topic extensively during the past ten months, since publication of this first article. To see these later entries, click here
Last week Washington Transportation Safety Commission reported that 2022 saw the most traffic deaths on Washington roads since 1990, a total of 745 last year.
After decades of positive safety trends on Washington highways, our lawmakers in Olympia have seemingly put Renton’s and other Washington streets on the path to becoming Fury Road.
Sunset Gardens, being developed by Renton Housing Authority, will provide 76 new units of permanent housing for our veterans and others experiencing homelessness. In February Renton Council provided critical funding for this project from a new 0.1 percent sales tax in Renton under HB 1590 . This project will add to Renton Housing Authority’s growing portfolio of high quality permanent subsidized housing. One of the candidates running this year has said he would not have given this funding to Renton Housing Authority and would have sent it to the county instead.
For 28 years on Renton City Council I’ve worked diligently to strengthen our partnership with Renton Housing Authority, which is a separate agency from the City of Renton. A year ago City Council implemented a 0.1 percent local option sales tax to help fund our Renton Housing Authority and provide other homeless-related services such as rent/utility vouchers and hiring mental health professionals to assist our police in responding to people in behavioral crisis.
Dear Beloved Renton Community,
After more than 27 years of serving you on Renton City Council, I’ve decided not to seek an eighth term in this coming election season. A shifting situation in my extended family has caused me to reassess where I want to focus my time and energy in the next few years. Additionally, I was going to run another term to help the city recover from the pandemic, and now I’m increasingly confident that we can get the COVID-19 crisis behind us, resolve our financial challenges, and restart our businesses before the end of this term.
I am enthusiastically endorsing long-time Renton Chamber of Commerce Board Member James Alberson for my vacant position. James has served as President of the Chamber Board for six years, and is a business owner and business development consultant who is very active in our Renton community. I endorsed him during his run for City Council position 3 in 2019 and he came within 2 percent of winning the seat. A few months later I nominated him as a finalist for the vacant Council 2 position and during his Council interview he demonstrated excellent preparation and readiness for a council position. He will be an outstanding council member. Please join me in supporting James.
This coming Monday March 22, a seemingly small “street vacation” item on our Council Consent agenda will usher in construction of another 275 units of affordable housing for households making between 60-80% of area median income. It’s another typical week for those of us in Renton working hard to build affordable housing.
The latest project in the Renton Housing Authority’s pipeline, Sunset Oaks Apartments, will provide homes to 60 low income families when completed later this year.
To increase our affordable housing options, we have recently completed and approved a ground-breaking new ordinance to encourage backyard cottages. These cottages, technically known as Accessory Dwelling Units, can be enjoyed by your family or rented out to an individual or family in need of housing. Our new ordinance gives you a choice of beautiful, pre-approved designs and waives the building permit fees. We’ve also dropped several other impact fees and slashed hook-up charges. The City will soon put links on its website that show you how you can begin planning a backyard cottage. Until the links are up, you can get started by phoning Community and Economic Development at 425-430-7200 and letting them know you would like to get started on an ADU. As you’ll see in the presentation below, the city can get you approved in just a couple weeks.
New active waterfront at Southport replaces the shuttered Shuffleton power plant thanks to long-term planning, rezoning, and follow through
As we approach primary election day I’ve been meeting with residents on their porches and in coffee houses. When they ask what distinguishes me in this race, I say city hall experience on top of my professional engineering and management background.
Renton Community Planning areas. Map sections in color are withing Renton’s Potential Annexation Area. City limits (at time of printing ten years ago) are depicted by heavy red line.
My wife Cathy, center, enjoying water-walking exercise on a cloudy morning session at Henry Moses Aquatic Center.
I’ve depicted Henry Moses Aquatic Center in my yard sign and taken credit for helping get the aquatic center and Veteran Park built. Here is the history of getting these projects funded:
We closed our old Henry Moses Pool in the mid 1990s, after it began leaking 30,000 gallons of water per day. One of our wells was pouring replacement water into the pool at the rate of a fire hose. The pool was becoming impossible to heat, spilling chlorine into the ground, and potentially becoming a risk for catastrophic collapse. Replacing just the pool tank was not an option, since the work would trigger codes requiring that everything including the pool house be brought up to latest standards.
Hence, we were looking at a multi-million dollar investment. It was a time when the county was trying to off-load their “Forward-thrust” pools throughout the area because pools were expensive to operate even when they were not leaking water into the ground.
So we set about building a pool that could operate financially in the black, where admission fees would cover all the costs of operating the pool. To pay for life guards, energy, and maintenance costs, we needed to get admission fees up. We learned people would pay much more to enter a pool with amenities like slides, wave machines, and lazy rivers, and other interactive features. Such amenities only added about 20% to the price of the pool, but doubled or tripled the ticket revenue. Hence, our Henry Moses Aquatic Center was conceived. It would be too large for the old Henry Moses Pool location, so we moved it across the freeway near the community center, and built a much-requested skate park at the old pool site.
Rubber ducks race under our beautiful and iconic Cedar River Library in the 2019 Rubber Ducky Derby, raising money for children’s charities. Courtesy Gary Palmer
Today a newer resident told me that they heard that all of Renton City Council had once tried to move the library off of the Cedar River. This is simply not correct. Three of us on Council– Marcie Palmer, Greg Taylor, and I– put up a tireless battle to keep the library right where it is over the river. Of the three of us that fought to keep it in its rightful spot, I’m the only one still in public office.
The controversy arose shortly after King County Library System (KCLS) took over the management of Renton’s Library System, and needed Renton to either remodel the existing library or build a new library of approximately the same size. Three of us on Council wanted to remodel, and the other four wanted to build a new library at the Piazza. After weeks of debate and public comment, the three of us were out-voted.
Everyone loves a marching band! Hazen Highlanders, 2018 River Days. Photo courtesy of Gary Palmer.
Let’s keep our Renton River Days Parade fun!
In decades past our Renton River Days parade became a magnet for political campaign entries. And not just local races, but county, and state races as well. The parade occurs right before the primary, and as soon as one candidate entered, their opponents felt compelled to enter the parade to maintain a level playing field. While I appreciate the first amendment as much as anyone, the net effect of so many campaign entries is that children (and probably most of their parents) became antsy and bored at the endless groups walking past with campaign signs.
At a recent council meeting, some youthful visitors asked Council whether we were actively working toward a sustainable future and a reduced carbon footprint. They also asked if the city has considered solar energy programs. Puget Sound Energy is sponsoring programs in which customers can commit to buying solar energy under a long-term fixed contract that’s priced higher than fossil-fuel-generated power today but will probably be lower than fossil fuel in the future– and it helps save the planet.
I appreciated the visitors for asking the question, and I applaud their concern for our environment and our future. One of the solar programs they referred to is called the Green Direct Renewable Energy Program. It gives cities the opportunity to source their electricity from renewable energy sources (solar and wind). Customers enter into Power Purchase Agreements to purchase renewable energy, which provides certainty for development of renewable energy sources. PSE has completed two phases of the program. No new customers are currently being accepted, but we think they will expand it in the near future. When they do, I would like the City of Renton to join to get renewable energy for powering city facilities and streetlights. Residences and businesses are being offered similar programs now or in the near future.
During my 25 years on council I’ve helped with many initiatives to save energy and our environment. Our staff put some of these initiatives together in the following list:
Believe me. I feel it too. We all pay too much in taxes. Some people have had to sell their homes and move away from our area because of high property taxes.
I’ve worked hard to hold down taxes in many different ways, and City-of-Renton-imposed property tax rates have actually been decreasing for many years under my watch. Recent hikes in our total property tax bills were mostly voter-approved Sound Transit 3 and State education taxes from the McCleary decision, along with other growth at state and county levels.
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Hi Randy, thanks for your current and past service to the City of Renton. one quick question about your platform, what do you think about the concept of “responsible growth”? I feel that this concept is key in my decision making for election choices, since I am feeling the economic and financial pinch of soon not being able to afford living in Renton, higher prices everywhere and more congestion and busy. Uncontrolled growth is no good. If you can address this and with a few specifics on tactics. I really like many of your positions because you do go into more details of the tactics, vs. just the main message points. Thanks