Man feared drowned in Lake Washington

By BRAD WONG
P-I REPORTER

A 40-year-old Renton man is believed to have drowned in Lake Washington. His sailboat was discovered Friday morning on the eastern side of Mercer Island without him, police reported.

Emergency officials found his 25-foot sailboat around 9:30 a.m. in the 4100 block of East Mercer Way, Mercer Island Police Cmdr. Leslie Burns said.

“The fact that the boat was washed ashore leads us to believe that something happened to him that was unintentional,” she said.

The man, whose name has not been released, told his roommate Thursday that he was going to take his dog sailing and spend the night on the boat.

He was last seen in his boat leaving a private Seattle marina around 4:30 p.m. Thursday. Officials believe he was heading to the Barbee Mill area, on Lake Washington’s western side in Renton.

A Mercer Island resident called police Friday morning to report that a boat had washed ashore.

Mercer Island’s marine patrol arrived and officers found personal items and a flashlight on the boat.

The Coast Guard dispatched a helicopter to search for the man and marine units from the Seattle police and King County Sheriff’s Office also were dispatched.

Emergency teams searched for four hours but were unable to find the man or his dog.

“Unless we get additional information, we probably won’t do any additional searches,” Burns said.

Investigators do not suspect foul play. Burns was uncertain whether the man had a lifejacket on the boat.

Officials were are trying to inform the man’s mother, who lives outside the Seattle area.

I was with a small group of friends and family as the Wietzel house left Tukwila, for its trip to Renton and ultimately Seward Park (see blog below).

see all the pictures by clicking here!

Okay, I normally don’t comment much on national news, since so many other bloggers take care of that. But the San Francisco tiger attack happened in the zoo I frequented in my youth so I could not help take special interest.

The San Francisco zoo’s new tiger enclosure was not there the last time I visited, but today I read the news that they built only a 12 foot wall to keep the tiger in! 12 feet? Anyone who has ever owned a cat could tell you this is not enough. That sounds like the equivalent of trying to contain my housecat with a 18″ high wall. And he does not eat people! (I think my cat can jump four or five feet with a running start).

Here is the story Click Here.

Perhaps the zoo designers should have a look at this youtube video:

My wife and daughter pose in front of the tiger at Point Defiance a few weeks ago…I don’t know how tall their containment wall is, but I hope it’s more than 12 feet!

So, it’s almost Christmas now. I’m done shopping and wrapping and done with most of the baking. And I’m thinking I’d like to go to church.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I go to church every Sunday. And I go to church every Wednesday. I even go to church every Friday, but I don’t really go to church. I work for a church. My kids hate it, but every week I tell the congregation that it’s an honor to serve them. Guess my kids just really want me to serve them! But I get to serve a whole congregation of kids and families as their Director of Religious Education.

So, I’m the one ironing the angel costumes and printing a zillion copies of the script for the holiday pageant, because they always get lost in kids’ rooms. I’m the one recruiting people to staff the nursery, and bring in birthday cakes for the un-birthday party. I’m the one who sits down and has a lap full of three and four-year-olds. I love my job.

But, I don’t really get to GO to church. Sometimes I sneak in on a Sunday and catch some of the sermon. Sometimes the music director asks me to be in the guitar band and I stay for some of the service, but usually I’m covering a busy Sunday School class here, or playing the tough guy there or chatting with a reluctant 6-year-old over some hot chocolate.

This Christmas season I decided I want to go to church and just sit down, not get there early or stay late, and I certainly don’t want to be the one vacuuming up the fake snow. So I went looking in my community, near Benson Hill for a church that’s at least kind of a match to my personal theology.

The first thing I did was to google Renton churches. I can’t believe how many churches there are in Renton! A quick count brought me to about ninety. Ninety! Well, now I’m beyond thinking about sitting and singing hymns and hearing a great message of hope and renewal. Now I’m on to thinking “ninety churches”! How many people does that represent? I know it’s a huge number of people who probably attend church on a somewhat regular basis.

And that doesn’t even count the people who attend another house of worship; folks who are Muslim, or Buddhist, or Jewish, or Sikh or who follow the Baha’i faith, or any of the other people who follow their own brand of living a good life.

It makes me think what if we all, all of us from all of those churches and all of those houses of worship and all of us who don’t get to GO to church but live lives committed to love and compassion, if all of us took the spirit of Christmas to heart. We could change our city, and our whole world to be a place of care, and compassion where no one ever went hungry and no one was ever old and alone.

I suppose it’s that gingerbread rush; that feeling of hope and joy and peace and potential. It’s OK, you know. I’m not complaining. I like a little gingerbread high.

I did find a service to go to—not easy when I work the regular Sunday morning and Christmas Eve at my home church. It’s a family service with kids and music and a pageant. Guess I just can’t get away from that! It’s OK. Really, It’ll help me hang on to the hope and love and the dream of neighbors caring for neighbors at least until New Year’s Eve.

Kari Kopnick

The Renton Reporter published a great story on Toni Nelson’s years of council service and her involvement in the Renton community. I had the pleasure of sitting next to Toni at the city council dais for almost a decade, as we worked through countless issues. She was a lot of fun, she knew everything going on in our city, she put the community above everything else, and she was great at running meetings. We will miss her. I wish her the very best in her retirement.

Click here for the Renton Reporter story.

Investigators are still piecing together the events that lead to the death of the jogger on Duvall a week ago. Our police are going to have to put together and document many details. While surfing the web, I found the blog of a personal injury attorney who described the legal issues that can come up if the driver in this Renton case claims a medical condition, including a sneezing or coughing fit. See his blog entry here