Redmond resident Scott Harlan, with the help of initiative guru Tim Eyman, is leading a charge to put the traffic enforcement camera debate on the November ballot — and let the people decide.
Harlan, along with Nick Sherwood, Alex Rion and Eyman are the co-sponsors of Redmond Initiative No. 1 — “Let The People Decide on Red Light Cameras in Redmond” — which will ban the use of cameras to catch traffic violators and fine them unless approved by the City Council and voters.
There will be plenty of action Saturday at Redmond’s newest medical facility — both inside and out.
Evergreen Hospital Medical Center will be giving the community a preview of the new Redmond facility, which will include primary, urgent and emergency care, from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. before it opens for patients on Monday (March 21).
There will be children’s activities, adult blood pressure checks, CPR lessons, and Ask the Expert booths where you can ask brief questions of a health care provider. There will be self-guided tours and light refreshments.
At the same time, medical workers from the Service Employee International Union (SEIU) Healthcare 1199 Northwest chapter, will be picketing outside of the new facility, which is located in Bella Bottega Shopping Center at 8980 161st Ave. NE.
Bruce Thomas and his group of homeless “myth busters” are returning to Redmond, pending city approval.
Thomas, a homeless man and camp advisor for Tent City 4, along with Dave Rogerson, pastor at St. Jude Catholic Church on Education Hill, filed for a temporary-use permit with the City of Redmond last week to bring the homeless encampment back to the church property for the third time in five years.
Construction of a new addition at Redmond High School (RHS), with an estimated cost of $19 million, will begin this summer and be completed by fall of 2012, when ninth-graders are added to the mix at the district’s most-populated high school.
A two-man work crew is putting the finishing touches on a much-needed facelift of the wooded picnic shelter at historic Anderson Park in downtown Redmond.
The renovated picnic shelter, which was full of rotted timber and roofing, will be open to the public later this month — just in time for spring and summer use, according to David Tuchek, City of Redmond assistant manger of Parks and Recreation Operations.
It was just past midnight last Friday night when Scott Moe experienced a traumatic wake-up call that put life in perspective.
Moe, a teacher at The Bear Creek School and coach of the boys’ basketball team, was driving to the school after Friday night’s heartbreaking state-tournament loss in Mount Vernon when he saw a smashed-up Honda Civic off to the side of 208th Avenue Northeast.
He saw a man on a cell phone calling 911 and another man — who was ejected from the car — lying in pain with what appeared to be a crushed pelvis, Moe said.
There were no injuries and no traffic tickets issued after a semi-truck pulling a cargo container flipped over on its side trying to make a left turn from Redmond Way onto 148th Avenue Northeast late Thursday morning.
The Lake Washington School District (LWSD) and the Lake Washington Education Association (LWEA) agreed to postpone teacher contract negotiations until next year.Education Association (LWEA). This extension will extend the current contract to cover the 2011-12 school year. In January, members of the LWEA voted to approve the contract extension more than 96 percent.
A Redmond man faces first-degree malicious mischief charges after a road rage incident last October, when he allegedly threw his bicycle at a car after the driver honked at him.
The alleged combatants, bicyclist Chad Olson, 42, and driver Ben D. Han, 46, each gave Redmond police different accounts of the Oct. 16 confrontation, according to charging papers filed last Friday in King County Superior Court.
Redmond residents will have to dig deeper into their pocketbooks when they recieve their 2011 King County property tax bills this week.
The good news is that assessed home values nudged up a bit in Redmond this year — a good sign compared to last year when property values plummeted. However, voter-approved levies and bonds will mean a tax hike of around 6 percent for Redmond homeowners, according to numbers released last week by the King County Assessor’s Office.
A 50-year-old man was arrested early Saturday morning at the downtown winter homeless shelter after he pulled out a knife and threatened to stab another man.
A temporary nighttime homeless shelter was set up at the Old Redmond Schoolhouse last month and Redmond police got a call at 1:22 a.m. about a confrontation between two men involving a knife in the front of the building at 8703 160th Ave. NE., according to Jim Bove, Redmond Police Department (RPD) spokesman.
If Redmond Mayor John Marchione wins his re-election bid, he will be getting an 18 percent raise — the first mayoral pay bump since 2005.
The Redmond City Council voted 7-0 to increase the mayor’s annual salary from $106,000 to $125,000, starting Jan. 1, 2012, at the council’s Tuesday night meeting at City Hall. The council also agreed to review the mayor’s salary every four years at the beginning of each election year.
For the eighth straight year, chef/proprietor John Howie is bringing top-notch Northwest cuisine to the Super Bowl.
Howie, a longtime Redmond resident who owns Seastar Restaurant & Raw Bar and John Howie Steak in Bellevue, will be representing Washington state the night before the big game at the “Taste of the NFL,” a strolling food and wine event, held at the Fort Worth Convention Center.
A bathroom fire at a Redmond retirement home early Saturday morning did not cause any injuries and was quickly doused, thanks to a sprinkler system and fast-acting staff members.
There may be an asterisk next to it, but it’s still a win — and a big one for the Redmond High School boys’ basketball team.
Junior Conner Floan converted a layup with 12.5 seconds left as the Mustangs held off top-ranked Garfield, 46-45, in a 4A Kingco showdown of division leaders Tuesday night at Redmond High. The heart-stopping win — Redmond’s first victory against a No. 1 team since beating Frankin in 2006 — set off a court-rushing celebration by Redmond students and fans.
“That could have went either way, we are fortunate that it went our way at the end,” said Redmond coach Jeff Larson, whose team won its fifth straight and improved to a Crest Division-leading 7-1 record and 10-4 overall.
Diagnosed with lung cancer in March of 2009, first-year Sen. Andy Hill faced a grim future — and with each stage of treatment, the prognosis only got worse.
The cancer started in his left lung, but spread to the right one. Surgery would do no good because the cancer had already spread to the lymph nodes. Doctors could only tell Hill to wait and see if the chemotherapy and radiation would improve his condition.
Staring at the possibility of death, the 47-year-old Redmond resident never wavered. Instead, he only worked harder to find a solution.
“I wasn’t getting the best of news from the very start, but at the same time I felt like it wasn’t my time,” said Hill, a husband and father of three who never smoked in his life and lived a healthy, active lifestyle. “I felt like I was going to beat it. I kept thinking I have to find that silver bullet that will take care of it and I kept very positive.”
In October of 2009, he was approved by a clinical trial in Denver to use a drug called crizotinib, a white pill which is part of a new arsenal of “targeted” cancer therapies. Hill and his wife, Molly, call the pill “a miracle.”
The pill was developed over the past decade to keep tumors in check by blocking the production of proteins that make cancer grow. In other words, instead of attacking all proteins, like chemotherapy, which scorches the whole body, crizotinib, just eliminates the cancer-spreading proteins, creating no side effects and a stronger, healthier body.
Since he started taking the pill in October 2009, the cancer tumor continually subsided and the chest scans since February 2010 show no cancer at all. He is not cured from cancer, but he has regained his strength and is doing things, such as jogging, hiking and skiing, he once thought he would never do again.
“I call it a huge miracle,” Molly said. “We are just incredibly lucky. I knew we could do it.”
Every other month, Hill travels to Denver to get a chest scan to make sure the cancer has not reappeared. So far, so good.
Armed with a can-do attitude and plenty of family support from his wife, daughters Katie, 14 and Allie, 12 and his son, Charlie, 10, Andy, a retired Microsoft software designer, remains cancer free.
“We never thought once that he wouldn’t beat it,” Molly said. “We kept thinking we were going to get through it.”
Icy road conditions caused a Lake Washington School District (LWSD) bus to crash into a Puget Sound Energy transformer Monday morning on a hill in the Overlake neighborhood.
There were three students on the bus and no one was injured, according to Kathryn Reith, communications director for LWSD. The bus was on it way to Audubon Elementry School when it hit some ice, slide off the road and hit a transformer at 4720 164th Pl NE at around 8:15 a.m.
An aspiring fireman and beloved “big-time father,” David “Moose” Thompson could light up the room with his humor and made a living out of helping others — of all ages.
Less than two years ago, Thompson, along with his wife, Lilly Reasor, and four children moved to Redmond from Colorado “looking for a fresh start,” according to Thompson’s good friend Josh Funkhouser, who still lives in Colorado.
“I talked to him on New Year’s Eve,” Funkhouser said. “They sounded good and happy.”
Just hours after talking to Funkhouser on the phone, Thompson and his four boys — ranging in age from 2 to 12 — died in a fire that quickly raged through the Sammamish Ridge Apartments, at 14820 Redmond Way, where he and his family lived.
The Lake Washington School District (LWSD) will not have to lay off any teachers this school year despite unexpected state budget reductions to education, according to Kathryn Reith, LWSD Director of Communications.
The Redmond City Council approved a two-year budget package that features a bump in property taxes, approximately 50 layoffs, along with slight increases in water/wastewater and business license fees.
In addition, city employees will get a one percent Cost of Living Allowance (COLA) increase in 2011 and possibly additional increases in 2012, depending on next year’s union negotiations, according to Malisa Files, the City of Redmond Financial Planning Manager.
