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FALL BACK | This weekend marks the end of daylight savings time. Do not forget to change your clocks Sunday morning and check the batteries in your smoke detectors.
FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 1, 2013
Changes to parking lot hours downtown worries business owner By Brian Beckley bbeckley@rentonreporter.com
You want candy with that?
Tyler Starkenburg, 5, dressed as a cheeseburger, and his father Rick Starkenburg, do some early trick-or-treating downtown at this year’s “Olde Fashioned” Halloween Party. There were fun and games for all ages and, of course, candy. See page 19 for more photos of all the fun. Brian beckley, Renton Reporter
Changes to one of the city’s downtown parking lots has one business owner worried about the safety of her staff. Earlier this year, the city changed the public parking lot on the 200 block of Main Avenue from an all-day parking lot to a short-term lot that maxes out at four hours. According to the city, the idea for the lots was to provide a place for customers at downtown businesses and the fear was that the lot was being used by residents taking transit to work. This summer, a business owner brought the issue to the administration and a group was created to look into the matter. The city recommended converting the allday lot to four-hour parking, converting 60 spaces at the old city hall building, located at 200 Mill Ave., to free all-day parking and converting a series of street parking spaces from one-hour to two-hour parking. On Sept. 23, Nancy Cejudo, owner of Ben’s Loans on South Second Street, brought her concerns about the change to the City Coun[ more Parking page 9 ]
Fire chief ‘very concerned’ about potential 2014 budget gap Despite bright spots in the city’s economic forecast and budget, there is one department in Renton that is facing the potential of a budget crunch next year. According to Fire Chief Mark Peterson, his department could be looking at a gap of approximately $500,000 in the 2014 ledger. “I’m very concerned,” Peterson said this week. Peterson said his department is facing the funding shortage primarily because more than 10 percent of his 155-person department is injured or on light duty, meaning other firefighters and emergency personnel are being paid overtime to “backfill” those shifts.
“We try not to shut down equipment,” Peterson said. According to Peterson, the Renton Fire Department is slowly but surely getting older and “key parts” such as shoulders, knees, hips and especially backs can get hurt just doing the job. Peterson refers to police and firefighters as “occupational athletes” because of the amount of physical activity required on the job, which can be taxing. He said 78 percent of the calls to which the department responds are not fire, but emergency calls and many of those can involve the lifting of patients who do not necessarily fall in places that are easily accessible or allow proper lifting technique. Because of that, injuries can occur.
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Peterson also cites a change to firefighter pension plans that occurred in the late 70s. Under those rules, health insurance becomes the responsibility of the firefighter after he or she retires, which Peterson said has added to people staying on the job longer. On top of that, the 2008 recession hit the department relatively hard as well, lowering assessed valuation and hindering building and development in the city right at a time when the Benson Hill annexation added thousands to city’s population, increasing the call load at the fire department. “We weren’t getting the tax collections we were used to,” Peterson said. Adding to the department’s “perfect storm” of funding problems was the initia-
tive limiting revenue collection increase to 1 percent, no matter what cost increases might be, in this case 2 or 3 percent each year, according to Peterson. All of that has led to the potential $500,000 gap in Peterson’s $24 million budget. Peterson said part of the problem is that about 85 percent of the budget is locked up in salaries and benefits and cannot be used to help make up the difference. “We don’t really have that much wiggle room in our budget,” he said. Peterson began talking about the upcoming budget issues this fall during Public Safety Committee meetings and said he is “very concerned” that levels of service may [ more budget page 8 ]
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By Brian Beckley bbeckley@rentonreporter.com