From: "Denis Law" <dlaw@ci.renton.wa.us>
Date: March 1, 2008 12:53:35 PM PST
To: "Don Persson" <dpersson@ci.renton.wa.us>, "Greg Taylor" <gtaylor@ci.renton.wa.us>, "King Parker" <kparker@ci.renton.wa.us>, "Marcie Palmer" <mpalmer@ci.renton.wa.us>, "Randy Corman" <rcorman@ci.renton.wa.us>, "Rich Zwicker" <rzwicker@ci.renton.wa.us>, "Terri Briere" <tbriere@ci.renton.wa.us>
Cc: "Jay Covington" <jcovington@ci.renton.wa.us>, "Julia Medzegian" <jmedzegian@ci.renton.wa.us>, "Kevin Milosevich" <kmilosevich@ci.renton.wa.us>
Subject: Benson/Cascade


Dear Councilmembers,

The city of Renton grew by 16,272 residents today with little obvious impact. I spent the evening out with the police last night and it was a relatively quiet . There were many traffic stops, a narcotics arrest and clearly a significant police presence. Those driving the area were certainly aware that Renton Police were in the neighborhood, and the King County Sheriff added extra cars to assist during the transition.

In addition to extra patrol officers today, the Traffic Division has been working the area. They have made some warrant arrests and there was an armed robbery at the Mission Ridge apartments on the Petrovitsky Road. It was apparently a drug-deal gone bad.

I recommend you drive the area if you have not yet done so. It's quite large and there are a lot of homes, including some very nice neighborhoods. And there are tons of apartments, which have been the focal point of a lot of crime activity. We had adopted a little city!

So far, so good! I'll let you know if there is any other news this weekend.

Denis

Renton staff are coordinating with Benson Hill Businesses in preparation for annexation. Below is a meeting notice that was sent out to the business community:

Note this meeting is intended to address business issues primarily, and the space is probably not large enough to accommodate many others, but those of you conducting home-business would be included in this group. And don't fret...Renton allows reasonable home business, as long as certain conditions are met. I helped draft this ordinance many years ago. I'm sure this will be a topic discusssed.

( See the business outreach meeting notice by clicking here )

The King County Council has approved 1.7 million dollars of County funds to help us defray that costs of annexing the Benson Hill neighborhood. This was money we were counting on based on an agreement we had reached with the County last year, and the money is earmarked for new equipment, hiring, and other start-up costs related to Benson hill. So it is not exactly a windfall, but it will certainly help prevent existing Rentonites from having to take a hit in service as a result of the annexation.

Our City's annexation specialist, Marty Wine, worked very hard to put this agreement in place. She did an outstanding job bringing this funding to us.


Marty Wine


Here is the complete story, covered very well by the Renton Reporter:

CLICK HERE!

(Kari Kopnick is doing a series of articles about life on Benson Hill, and how things are changing with annexation to Renton)

I was thinking about laundry on a trip through my neighborhood the other day. I mean, laundry, boring, drudgery, right? Yep. I mean, OK, it’s not like my great grandmother’s day when you really had to DO the laundry with a fire to heat the water, and the lye soap you made yourself, and the scrubbing done by hand. That’s true. But it’s still a pain. My laundry room isn’t one of those cute ones like you’d see on the TV network. It’s a dark little space with, well, lots of laundry in it!

Over the years of raising kids I’ve had different systems to get our clothes from yucky and dirty to clean and organized. There was a period of denial that there even was laundry. That led to monstrous piles of laundry—I used to even joke we’d become a new religion that involved worshipping the laundry gods and those piles were our offerings.

Well, then when the babies were a little older and I could breathe every other day I decided to do laundry once a week. Wednesday was laundry day. I had to go out and buy more socks and underwear for everyone, and by Tuesday we all were dressed a little oddly, but it worked.

Then when I worked the swing shift for a few years my husband came up with the ultimate system for laundry. He’s an engineer, and I’d highly recommend an engineering degree for anyone planning to run a house; either that or a brain that works like his.

This is what he did: the laundry gets washed and dried all day. Our laundry room is off the kitchen so you always know when the washer and dryer aren’t running because it’s quiet. So in the morning you can get thru two loads. Add one before dinner and one after and even my soccer-playing-dirt-collecting family gets through it all. Then, here’s the brilliance: everyone takes a laundry basket of clean clothes to the biggest bed in the house. You dump it all in the middle of the bed and then sort it as fast as you can—by throwing every sock and shirt and every last thing at the person it belongs to. I have three boys, so it works great. Well, unless one of them lays down in the middle of the bed, then the other kids just pile laundry on top of them!

So this system has worked for a couple of years, but now everyone is busy with, teams, clubs, plays and friends. All that fun is taking up our evenings. So heading through my neighborhood I came up with a new idea. These brilliant folks, neighbors of mine, have their washer and dryer OUTSIDE! Right in the yard! Hey, maybe they even use rainwater, and wind power to run them. I can get behind this. I’d take a nice nature walk, pass through some bushes and trees, walk along next to the other appliances (not sure why they’re out there yet…..I’ll let you know if I figure that one out). And then with June Cleaver-like pep, I could cheerfully wash my family’s clothes. I would be almost like my ancestor women. It would combine fresh air, exercise and clean clothes. Perfect.



But wait? What about when we really, legally, officially become a part of Renton over here on Benson Hill? I wonder what our new city is going to say about a washer and dryer (and freezer and stove) outside in the front yard?

Hmmm, I’ll have to think on this one.

Kari Kopnick, above right, is part of the 17,000-person Benson Hill annexation area. Kari has agreed to document her experiences in transitioning from life in King County to life in Renton. I promise you will enjoy her writing style. This is her first installment.

___________________________________________________

Here it is December. Finally. For me November was one of those months where you put your head down and charge through everything without even looking up. Whew, so glad that’s over. So, here it is, December, I have a little time to breathe again, and hey, today there was a beautiful snow fall! What a great time to go for a walk in my neighborhood. I hadn’t been for a nice walk in a month.

I headed out the door. The snow was falling, my kids had been out in the snow and had a great time. It was my turn. As I walked up the hill by my house it was almost twilight and the some of the neighbors had holiday lights on their houses that were starting to turn on as I walked past. It was so pretty! As I walked my thoughts wandered to what happened in the month I worked straight through.

“Hey! I know one really big thing!” I thought as I walked past the neighbors with a 20 foot tree decorated just like the tree Charlie Brown chose. “We’re really part of Renton, now!” That’s right, the most intense local election I’ve ever followed happened in November and now my Benson Hill neighborhood is really a part of the City of Renton.

So, I wondered, what does that really mean? I mean, yes our schools don’t change and our water services are still provided by the same folks. When we call the police they’ll come faster that the sheriff could, that’s great. And our taxes will go up a couple of lattes worth every year, sounds worth it. Come on though, what does it REALLY mean!?

I know; cheaper admission to Henry Moses Pool on those super hot days in the summer. OK, that’s good, that’s really good. But what else? Well, at Renton River Days we get to stand proud as real City of Renton residents. No more cousins from unincorporated King County! And our streets will be maintained, our zoning enforced, and what used to be a struggle to figure out who to call (stray dog? King County or Renton?) is no longer a question. We’re part of Renton. We’re Rentonites.

I like that. Rentonites. Very cool.

And the walk was excellent.







(above) Two of Kari's sons enjoy the December 1st snowfall

I've been in touch with a few excellent writers and a couple additional photographers to help me add frequent interesting content to this website.

I'm very pleased that starting in December, Kari Kopnick will begin documenting and sharing her first-hand experiences and observations as her King County neighborhood transitions into the city of Renton. Kari and I expect this process to be interesting for many months, given the size of the annexation and all the new employees that will be added. Kari is prepared to keep us informed until the dust settles. Right now she is working on some other writing assignments, so she won't be able to begin for a couple of weeks.





Kari Kopnick