As 2014 comes to an end, the Renton Reporter staff is taking a look back at some of the stories that most affected our readers this year.
From the sale of major local business assets to the opening of a new playground to the final word on the UW strategic alliance and the death of a Renton City Council member, this past year provided us with a
lot of news and a lot of memories.
Here are some more of the stories that we followed this year:
Death of a councilmember
After a long battle with an illness, Councilwoman Terri Briere died Nov. 9. She was 63.
Briere was appointed to the council in 2000 and re-elected in 2002. Mayor Denis Law ordered all flags at city facilities be lowered to half-staff in her honor and the city hosted a memorial Dec. 11 at the Community Center that was packed with current and former elected officials from the city, region and state level and city employees, as well as friends and family from around the city.
Born and raised in Renton, Briere is remembered as a tireless volunteer for the city.
With Briere’s death, the City Council was tasked with selecting a new member to join their ranks and serve until November, when they would face the voters.
A total of 13 candidates were interviewed for the position during a three-hour Committee of the Whole meeting Dec. 2.
On Dec. 9, after just three rounds of voting, the council selected Ruth Perez, 46, as their newest member. Born in Mexico City, Perez has worked as a magazine editor, a production coordinator for television and as a cultural liaison and local media coordinator for the Washington State Department of Trade and Economic Development. She presently serves as the Chief Administrative Officer of Checkerboard Consulting Services, a Renton-based business consulting firm.
Perez will be sworn in Jan. 5 and will face re-election in November. If she wins, she will serve the remainder of the term, through 2017.
A new tax
Looking to fill projected gaps in upcoming budgets, the City Council this year approved the creation of a business and operation tax in the city of Renton.
The new tax will go into effect Jan. 1, 2016.
Though originally envisioned by staff as a 0.1 percent on all receipts of more than $5 million, business leaders asked the city to make the change in order to spread the cost out among more of the city’s businesses. That resulted in a new tax rate of 0.05 percent on all retail business and 0.085 percent on all other activities with a reporting threshold of $1.5 million in revenues per year.
With the new tax, the city eliminated the head tax for businesses that will pay the B&O tax, as well as adding a new business tax credit for new businesses with 50 or more employees worth $1,000 per employee for the first three years of operation.
Non-profits will also be exempt from the tax, though any retail efforts by nonprofit groups, such as Goodwill stores or St. Vincent de Paul shops, will pay the tax on those aspects of the business.
The new tax is expected to add about $5 million per year to the city’s coffers.
Officials said they needed to create the new tax, which is purposefully set lower than many of the surrounding cities, to deal with a projected $3.3 million budget gap in the future. Despite cutting more than $28.7 million from its budget since 2008, officials said the 2001 1 percent cap on property tax revenues passed by voters forced them to create the B&O tax because expenditures still rise at the rate of inflation.
