Dave George had just paid to renew his vehicle license tabs so he had doubts about a proposal by the Kent City Council to start charging an annual city vehicle license registration fee of anywhere from $10 to $20.
“Every time you blink an eye they tax something,” said George, of Kent, as he walked out of the Kent Licensing Agency office Tuesday at a strip mall along Washington Avenue South.
Derrick Focht has heard it before: A police officer becomes a hostage negotiator because of an ability to chat.
But it’s an ability to listen, he said, that helps a negotiator turn a potential crisis into a safe outcome.
“It’s a misnomer that you get on the phone with a gift of gab and talk,” said Focht, a Kent Police detective and one of three hostage or crisis negotiators for the department. “We do active listening.
A two-vehicle crash at the intersection of South 196th Street and 68th Avenue South (aka the West Valley Highway) Thursday night sent two people to the hospital. The call was first reported at approximately 7:50 pm.
Nearly 1,000 people, including 540 children, live in the 262 units at Birch Creek, formerly known as Springwood.
The King County Housing Authority, which owns the apartments, finished a $55 million, two-year renovation of the complex in June. The apartments, at 23760 129th Place S.E., just south of Kent Kangley Road, were originally constructed in 1970.
Tiller's Folly plays 7 p.m. July 15 at the city of Kent's annual Thursdays at the Lake concerts at Lake Meridian Park, 14800 S.E. 272nd St. The free summer concerts continue each Thursday through Aug. 12.
King County Councilman Julia Patterson initially wanted the county to get out of the animal control and sheltering business by this year.
But Patterson, whose District 5 covers much of Kent, said the newly formed Regional Animal Services of King County is the best option to give the county and cities more time to figure out a long-term solution as the cities take over more and more of the funding for animal control and sheltering.
Derek Yoshinaka tosses a tennis ball that two dogs playfully chase in a fenced yard at the Kent shelter of the newly formed Regional Animal Services of King County.
A co-owner of the Kent Predators professional Indoor Football League team said the team will return for a second season at the ShoWare Center.
Good times are about to roll again downtown at the 39th annual Kent Cornucopia Days.
More than 600 vendors will fill 19 blocks and draw an estimated 250,000 people to the July 9-11 festival that features food, crafts, a fun run, dragon boat races, music, a carnival and a parade.
Al Morgan grabs one end of the large belt attached to the coffin to help lower it into the ground on a partly cloudy morning at the Tahoma National Cemetery.
The job was just one of the various tasks Morgan and eight other inmates (all nonviolent offenders) from the Kent city jail perform each day at the cemetery in unincorporated Kent near Maple Valley.
The crew also picks up old flowers at grave sites, digs holes to place headstones and makes sure the rows of headstones are lined up straight.
Lake Meridian residents simply call Brad Omon the "pyro."
Omon works as a pyrotechnician for Olympia-based Fireworks Entertainment Inc., the company that will produce the 10 p.m. show for Sunday's 12th-annual Fourth of July Splash at Lake Meridian Park.
Kent Park officials had to close down the fountains June 27 at Town Square Plaza Park after someone dumped laundry soap around the granite ball water feature the previous night.
Dance moves that got Alexis Berrysmith in trouble in preschool now have become her passion.
Whenever Berrysmith heard music in class, she couldn't sit still. She would stand up and dance. Even if her teacher told her to sit down.
That's one reason Berrysmith started dance lessons at age 6.
hen Sue heard last month that Safe Havens, the Kent-based domestic-violence visitation and exchange center she has used for three years, would stay open, she had one reaction.
“I just bawled,” Sue said over the phone June 21. “I was so relieved. I felt like an inmate with a death sentence given life again. We are talking about life and death here.”
Sue said Safe Havens is the only facility where she feels safe enough to drop off her 5-year-old daughter for a court-ordered, one-hour visit once a week with her father.
Organizers count on local performers, food, arts and craft vendors to make the Kent International Festival such a strong community event.
The second annual free festival runs from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. June 26 at the Town Square Plaza Park at the corner of Second Avenue and West Smith Street.
Jenny Kolin initially started to teach Irish dancing in the 1990s at a class at Kent Commons before she formed the Rowan Fae Irish dance group in 1999.
Fourteen dancers from Rowan Fae are part of the 16-group entertainment lineup at the Kent International Festival from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. June 26 at Town Square Plaza Park, Second Avenue and West Smith Street, in downtown Kent. Rowan Fae performs from 2:45-3:15 p.m. at the main stage.
Maria Lopez, of Kent, learned to make nylon purses by hand from her mother as a child in El Salvador.
Now Lopez, 43, sells the purses as one of the many vendors at the Kent Farmers Market downtown along Second Avenue between Smith and Gowe streets. The market opened June 5 and runs 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. each Saturday through Sept. 25.
Participants this year at The Relay for Life of Kent blew away expectations of event organizers by raising more than $222,000 June 4-5 at French Field to support cancer research.
Organizers set a goal to raise $195,000 this year, similar to the amount hit in 2009.
"We completely shattered our goals," said Lance Goodwin, event chairman, during a phone interview June 7. "That's pretty exciting for us."
Nearly 1,400 participants on 96 teams walked in the 12th annual Relay for Life of Kent June 4-5 at French Field at Kent-Meridian High School.
Traffic buzzes by Panther Lake resident John Gehlman as he walks along the sidewalk next to the heavily traveled Benson Highway near Southeast 224th Street.
Cheryl dos Remédios pointed to where the water and rocks should be as she stopped the afternoon of June 17 between the sculpted split-ring berms at Mill Creek Canyon Earthworks Park on the eastern edge of downtown Kent.
