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BUSINESS | Are Microsoft’s Puget Sound layoffs a good thing? [17]
ARTS | ‘Giselle’ plays Meydenbauer during Arts Fair Weekend [9]
SPORTS | Khan family expanding family legacy on squash court, bringing World FRIDAY, JULY 25, 2014 Championships to Bellevue in 2015 [15]
Council OKs more red-light, speed cameras for Bellevue Contract extends contract with monitoring firm BY BRANDON MACZ BELLEVUE REPORTER
The Bellevue City Council on Monday approved expanding the use of red light cameras in the city for the next five years. The five-year contract extension with
American Traffic Solutions adds three more red light cameras and an additional school zone camera to the five currently operating in Bellevue. Bellevue Police reported in March a revenue gain of $2.3 million over the four full years of operating the photo enforcement program, paying $249,000 annually for the ATS service. The department also reported a 48-percent decrease in infractions at these
targeted locations from 2010 to 2013. The city had been operating on a monthto-month agreement with ATS since May while council awaited answers to enforcement questions. Traffic enforcement cameras were authorized by the council in 2009, with two school speed zone cameras at Stevenson and Lake Hills elementary schools and redlight cameras at the north and southbound
Nine routes affect Bellevue area
Hundreds of artists, craftspeople to show their skills at 3 areas downtown
BY BRANDON MACZ BELLEVUE REPORTER
selection of foods from around the world, including the cuisine of Greece, Germany, France and fusions from Asia. The Bellevue Festival of the Arts, entering its 30th year, is a juried arts and crafts fair organized by artists allied with the Craft Cooperative of the Northwest. It was founded on the idea that its proceeds should go back into the community. The festival donates to nonprofits such as the Lifelong
The King County Council has approved the first 161,000 hours of Metro transit reductions that cuts seven bus routes and revises two serving Bellevue starting Sept. 27. Monday's vote came a week after the council failed to pass legislation detailing plans for moving forward with a potential 550,000 total cuts in Metro service over a longstanding revenue shortfall. Councilmember Rod Dembowski had called for a delay on July 14 to allow the council's transit committee to review a revised ordinance that was substantively no different than what had been agreed to the week before. The transit committee passed the legislation to council with unanimous approval July 15. "We should be growing the system," Dembowski said, pointing to growing transit ridership. "It's tragic that we're cutting it." Another 188,000 service hours are to be cut in February, barring an upward trend in the county's economic forecast and review by an ad hoc committee that Monday's approved legislation will create. County Executive Dow Constantine will be a member of that committee. Bellevue Transportation Director Dave Berg said the city will continue to oppose revising Route 271, which is to be rerouted from the Bellevue College campus to 148th Avenue Southeast in cuts proposed for next year. Students and faculty also widely oppose the revision. "It's not a very hospitable pedestrian route, especially for
SEE FAIRS, 8
SEE BUS CUTS, 8
BY DANIEL NASH BELLEVUE REPORTER
Bellevue Arts Museum’s ARTSfair fills the west side of Bellevue Square. COURTESY PHOTO
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County council passes bus cuts
Arts fairs everywhere More than 300,000 people are expected converge on downtown this weekend for the city’s ninth annual Arts Fair Weekend, the confluence of three simultaneous arts festivals in the city’s core. Bellevue Arts Museum’s ARTSfair, the Bellevue Downtown Association’s 6th Street Fair and Craft Cooperative of the Northwest’s Bellevue Festival of the Arts will showcase more than 730 artists and craftsmiths from Friday, July 25, through Sunday, July 27. In its 68th year, the ARTSfair is the most senior of the three fairs. It is older than the BAM itself and, in fact, led to the Pacific Northwest Arts & Crafts Association’s founding of the museum in 1975. Exhibitors will include painters like Richard Hall, photographers like Zeny Cieslikowski and metalworkers like Malen Pierson. Fifteen mediums, including fashion, furniture and jewelry, will be represented. The main ARTSfair will be held in the Bellevue Arts Museum and the west parking garage of Bellevue Square. The 6th Street Fair will take place in the courtyard outside the Bellevue Galleria, in the shopping center’s pedestrian corridor, along 108th Avenue Northeast and along namesake Northeast Sixth Street. Under the theme “A Taste of the Arts,” Downtown Bellevue’s fair will offer a large
intersections of 148th Avenue Northeast and Bel-Red Road and southbound 148th Avenue Northeast and Main Street. Council on Monday approved expanding the photo enforcement program to include red-light cameras at Northeast Eighth Street and 116th Avenue Northeast westbound, Northeast Eighth and 112th