The salaries are from 2007 but we can almost guarantee they’ve gone up since we requested them 3 years ago with a freedom of information request. And if you would like to get some information from the City of Renton (like how much we really are paying in utility taxes). You can visit the Freedom of Information Act Letter Generator.  It’s time we expose just how many $100,000 plus salaries we the people pay out to City of Renton employees.

Let’s start with David Skelton.  A police sergeant with a base salary of $93,850 and was paid $49,237 in overtime for a total gross pay of $143,087.  Or how about Police Commander Kathleen McClincy with a base salary of $121,478 and overtime of $4,903 for a total gross pay in 2007 of $126,381.

It’s not just the Police Department.

How about Deputy Fire Chief Mark Peterson with overtime of $30,933 that bumped his gross income to over $150,000.

Over in the Community Services Department the Community Services Administrator, Therese Higashiyama, is making over $133,000. What the heck does she do?

And back over to the Police Department.

Twenty (20) of the one-hundred fifty-two (152) employees or 13% make over $100,000. And you thought our police department employees weren’t paid well enough didn’t you?

The Fire Department must have a better union negotiator because thirty-three (33) of the one-hundred twenty-four employees or 26% make over $100,000. Maybe they spent their overtime hours coming with a new name for the Fire Department.

So between the Police and Fire Deparment, we the Citizens of Renton paid out close to $2,000,000 in overtime in 2007.  We’ve mentioned this before but in the wake of the economy getting worse, we thought we’d mention it again.

Will any other Renton blogs cover this?  Probably not.

LA suburb residents march over high city salaries

BELL, Calif. – Several hundred angry residents from a modest blue-collar Los Angeles suburb marched Sunday to call for the resignation of the mayor and some City Council members in a protest sparked by the sky-high salaries of three recently departed administrators.

The residents of the city of Bell marched to Oscar’s Korner Market and Carniceria, owned by Mayor Oscar Hernandez, then to his home, demanding that he reduce his own six-figure compensation or quit.

Read the rest of the story at Yahoo News.

The article continues to discuss how the City of Renton will receive $1.7 million in “revenue” in 2012 if voters approve a countywide sales-tax increase. A better heading for the article would have been “Let’s tax the poor some more”.

In a recession the worst thing to do is raise taxes.  It’s been proven time and time again. Tax “revenue” goes down when you raise taxes. Period.  The article fails to remind everyone the City of Renton sales tax is already at 9.5% and this tax increase would take us to 9.7%.  When will they stop? 10%, 12%, 15%?  Do they forget that the “revenue” comes from taxpayers and it doesn’t just magically appear in the City of Renton coffers?  The government needs to cut back at all levels and Renton is no different.

We strongly encourage you to vote no on this in the fall. And it looks like you will. The Seattle Times has a poll they ran on July 16, 2010 and it doesn’t look good for those in favor of the sales tax increase.  The Renton Reporter has a similar poll and as of July 26, 2010 at 8:00 a.m. 69% of you are against the tax increase.

We’ll make a prediction right here that the Renton City Council unanimously endorses the ballot issue.  They have a pretty consistent record on raising taxes no matter what the tax is.

If you want to read the Renton Reporter article it is available here.  We also encourage you to take a look at the Local Sales and Use Tax Rates by City/County rate sheet available on King County’s web site and compare Renton’s high sales tax to other cities around King County.

Idaho reduced state jobs by 6.9 percent between June 2009 and June 2010, leading the nation in state government employment cuts, says the Rockefeller Institute of Government. 

Relying on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data released this week, the Rockefeller Institute says 28 states cut state employment, while 18 added state jobs. Idaho was easily the biggest job trimmer, trailed by Hawaii, which cut 4.5 percent of state jobs; Connecticut and Wisconsin, down 4.2 percent; Arizona, down 3.8 percent; Vermont, down 3 percent; and California, down 2.7 percent.

Read more at the Idaho Statesman.

Again, our salaries here in Renton aren’t as high as Bell, California but there are many people working for the City of Renton making over $100,000.  Read our Bureaucrat Salaries stories here or take a look at the salaries from 2007 yourself here.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

The City of Bell, California is undergoing a huge fight regarding the salaries of City of Bell Administrators.

While we may not have salaries as high as $800,000 here in the City of Renton, We do have lave lots of City of Renton employees making over $100,000.  Is it time to stand up and protest like the residents in the City of Bell?  Maybe so. If you need a reminder of the high salaries in the City of Renton, here’s a refresher link.  And if you want to keep track of our stories about high  bureaucrat salaries, bookmark this page.

Also note that the council went into a “closed session”.  These are PUBLIC officials.  Everything should be done in PUBLIC.  City of Bell officials, Like City of Renton officials, seem to forget who pays their salary.

 Once you’ve read the story, be sure to check out the related stories. And remember, we have a local newspaper but do you think the Renton Retorter would ever do a story like this. Nope!

And as you’re reading the story, just replace the words “City of Bell” with “City of Renton”.

Investigating Bell:  A Los Angeles Times Special Report

Is a city manager worth $800,000?

Bell residents are not happy about high salaries

High salaries fuel anger in Bell

Bell council members under investigation for $100,000 salaries

Video: Why do Bell officials make so much money? The Times’ Jeff Gottlieb explains.

Bell city manager might be highest paid in nation

Bell council found loophole to allow big salaries

City Manager received alcohol counseling after DUI

Shouting interrupts Bell meeting on high salaries

An emergency meeting of the Bell City Council to decide the fate of three top administrators who are among the highest paid in the nation got off to a rocky start Thursday afternoon.

Residents angry about the salaries demanded that the discussion be held in public view. But city officials said the personnel matters needed to be discussed behind closed doors, prompting some in the crowd to start shouting. The incident interrupted the meeting briefly, but the council began taking public comments before going into closed session.

Read the rest of the story at the Los Angeles Times Blog.

BELLEVUE, Wash. — Despite resistance from the Bellevue City Council, Sound Transit’s governing board on Thursday chose the west side of 112th Avenue Southeast through South Bellevue as the preferred route for East Link light rail.

A majority of Bellevue’s City Council wanted the future $2.4 billion line to run through an abandoned Burlington-Northern Santa-Fe rail corridor just east of Interstate 405. Sound Transit mostly dismissed that option months ago because it wouldn’t connect with the South Bellevue Park-and-Ride, where a chunk of weekday riders are likely to catch the train

Read the rest of the story at KOMONews.com.

While they may argue it is summertime, we would argue that with the dry weather we’ve had the ground is getting harder and one big rain will was everything into the stream.

The City of Renton seems to have a double standard here.  Private citizens are required to put up silt fences but yet developers are not.

Here’s an e-mail from Claudia Donnelly sent to us:

There are two new houses going in close to Greenes Stream above me.   No mitigation required by the planner!    I have the plat document that says:

“To ensure that disturbance of the wetland and buffer does not occur during and after construction, the ERC placed a mitigation measure on the project that silt fencing be installed around the wetland, creek and associated buffers during construction and permanent fencing be installed after construction”.

The City of Renton has decided that no silt fences are required.     Last year, when my husband and I added an room onto our house, we were required by DDES to put up a silt fence even though the stream is 60 feet away from our house.

Renton — like I’ve said before — doesn’t care about the environment………..

Claudia

Story courtesy of King5.com

RENTON, Wash. — If you’re driving this weekend, prepare yourself for a big mess.

A key section of Interstate 405 is shut down for construction work - and it will have a major impact on almost all surround highways, roads and bridges.

For 33 hours this weekend, Interstate 405 will be closed in both directions between Highway 167 and the Maple Valley Highway (Highway 169). Crews closed all lanes of I-405 at 2 a.m. Saturday. The road is expected to re-open at 11 a.m. Sunday. CLICK HERE to view map of closure.0

Read the rest of the story at King5.com.

It has impressive environmentally friendly features everywhere you look. Some of them include banks of windows for lots of natural light, recycled beams from an old high school, rubber flooring that doesn’t require chemicals, drought tolerant landscaping, and a filtration system that circulates fresh air all day long.

Read more of the KING 5 investigation here.

Editors note:

This data has been available for years.  The University of Washington created an application called Busview over 7 years ago.  If you want to read the history of the project, it is available here.

This is the same data that Microsoft and Google use to feed their bus route and bus mapping systems.

And why in the world would King County need to be publishing restaurant reviews?  How about they review some of their bus stops.  We’ve got a couple of locations in mind that could use some sprucing up.

by TERESA YUAN / KING5 News
KING5.com
Posted on June 29, 2010 at 7:53 AM at King5.com
SEATTLE - These days it seems like there’s an app for everything. Now, King County is considering using new apps to give residents access to public information via the Web or mobile applications.

For Jen Joyce of Seattle, getting ready for work revolves around her smart phone.

“It’s pretty sad to say it (smart phone) has my life on it,” Joyce told KING 5.

Every day, Jen saves ten minutes with one mobile app in particular — One Bus Away.

Read the rest of the story at King5.com.