Rebecca provided 20 years of planning service to the City of Renton, and had input into just about every land use decision we made over the last decade. She lived on a small acreage just outside of Renton, so I often enjoyed talking to her about animal husbandry on small parcels. She was a great planner, and will be a terrific asset to Stanwood. Read the article here!

Our Renton backyard mustang gets his hoofs trimmed every two months. We don’t need to put shoes on him most of the time, because he was a wild-born horse. As a product of natural selection, he ran up to 50 miles a day in the desert without shoes the first ten years of his life.

Also, Renton’s soft wet ground is pretty easy on horses that don’t spend too much time on streets.

But Zeus seems to enjoy his trims, as you can see from this photo. And the farriers (hoof care specialists) all seem to like him.

After teasing that he was going to invite Councilman King Parker up to the microphone to sing us some tunes instead of flipping on the lights, Mayor Denis Law, joined by children, lead that crowd in the Ivars clam lights countdown last night. At the end of the countdown …after a brief pause… hundreds of thousands of lights illuminated the darkness over Coulon Park.

Within minutes, a flotilla of sparkling holiday ships from the Rainier Yacht club paraded by the docks of the park. Docks and ships were both covered with spectators.

Carolers sang in the main picnic shelter around a cozy fire, and visitors embarked on horse-drawn carriage rides. It was a perfect night at the park.

It was also a fun venue for snapping pictures of friends and lights.

Mayor Denis Law leads the countdown to turn on the lights

Why does it seem like our state always has more trouble than the other 49 in dealing with holiday displays? A year or two ago things went crazy at the airport, with the “holiday trees” doing the hokey-pokey (in, then out, then in), and this year we are being nationally ridiculed because of an atheist’s sign criticizing religion right next to the “holiday tree” (and right where we have placed a “holiday nine-branched candelabrum” in past years). Here is the story .

Isn’t there some other way to better manage all this? Maybe we should agree that the atheists (or secular humanists, or whatever the correct term is) can put their display in the capitol building on the summer solstice, and let people of Christian and Jewish faith use the display space on the end of December.

Do we need to become the nation’s laughing stock every holiday season? I’m sure we could be handling this better.

The Seattle Times published a story today about a man held on suspected child-abuse charges. The abuse incident may have occurred in Renton, Kent or Seattle, and our police are involved in investigating. Mayor Law filled us in on this yesterday.

—–Original Message—–
From: Denis Law [mailto:DLaw@ci.renton.wa.us]
Sent: Monday, December 01, 2008 3:51 PM
To: Don Persson; Greg Taylor; King Parker; Marcie Palmer; Randy Corman; Rich Zwicker; Terri Briere

Subject: Child abuse

Dear Council Members,

You may hear some item on the news involving the assault of a 2-year-old in the Renton Highlands. The youngster was first brought to Valley Medical Center by his mother and transferred to Harborview’s Pediatric Intensive Care Unit in very critical condition.

According to medical personnel, the child was suffering with severe bruising, trauma and a possible head injury in addition to other injuries. Police suspect that the victim was assaulted on multiple occasions and have the mother’s boyfriend in custody for investigation. Police are unsure where the assaults took place and are looking at locations in the Highlands, Kent and Seattle. The prognosis for the child is very poor. We’ll let you know as we learn of new details.

Denis