The Kent City Council last week approved a $1 million cut to the city’s 2011 general fund budget, and another $288,000 reduction in the city’s street and youth-fund budgets this year because of an unexpected major drop in revenue from the city’s 6 percent telephone-utility tax.
“This is one more hit,” Kent Mayor Suzette Cooke said in a phone interview Tuesday. “We can’t seem to get a break. It took us all by surprise.”
Cooke hopes the city gets a break from any Green River flooding the rest of this winter.
That’s because the city plans to use its $1 million flood-emergency fund set aside in this year’s budget,to plug the hole in the general fund left by the drop in telephone-utility tax revenue.
“Hopefully, we are still in a position where we do not need to use the flood money,” Cooke said, of events in the months ahead.
Jury selection is expected to start Wednesday at King County Superior Court in Seattle for the man charged with stabbing to death a Kent woman in 2007.
King County prosecutors charged Randall Edward Connor, 31, with first-degree murder for killing Merianne Lorentson, 24, in her East Hill apartment.
Kent Predators quarterback Charles McCullum shares a hotel room with another player and gets one meal per day as an Indoor Football League player.
The team covers the cost of the hotel and meal for McCullum and about 16 other out-of-state players on the 30-member squad. The rest of the players are from the Puget Sound area and most have full-time jobs. Players are paid $225 per game for their only football income.
A 32-year-old Burien woman was sentenced Friday to a minimum of 26 years in prison for first-degree rape of a child, first-degree child molestation, sexual exploitation of a minor and dealing in child pornography in connection with the rape of a 4-year-old girl as well as sending videos of the abuse to a pedophile in California.
Hollie Beston received the same sentence that her ex-husband Brian K. Beston, 36, of Kent, received in June on the same charges in connection with the girl.
Kent guitarist Ryan Johnson and Federal Way drummer Dennon Cowen just kind of blankly looked at each other the first time they met for a jam session.
Their fathers, Robert Johnson and Doug Cowen, are Boeing co-workers and suggested last summer that their musical sons meet.
"They didn't say a word," Doug Cowen recalled.
Now, about eight months later, the pair, along with vocalist Jeremy Cooper and bass player Derek Karn, are part of Thrilliant, a Kent band that plays a mix of punk, rock and metal.
The Oregon man charged with first-degree murder in connection with the death of a Kent city employee remains in a Portland jail nearly 10 weeks after his arrest.
William L. Phillip Jr., 30, continues to fight his extradition to Washington to face the murder charge for the May 21 stabbing death of Seth Frankel.
Find a friend to take your photo in front of the ShoWare Center marquee in Kent if you would like to win a pair of tickets to one event each month for a year at the arena.
King County prosecutors have charged a 29-year-old Kent man with second-degree attempted child rape after he allegedly agreed to have sex with a 13-year-old girl in response to his Internet advertisement seeking a mother-daughter threesome for sex.
Gary Ridgway spends all but four hours per week in solitary confinement at the Washington State Penitentiary in Walla Walla as he serves a life sentence without parole for the murders of 48 women.
Caitlin Cardier grew up in the 1990s listening to SWV, also known as Sisters With Voices. Now the 21-year-old Oregon singer will open for the rhythm-and-blues group at the ShoWare Center in Kent.
Tom Crandall might give up on buying some property near the Green River in Auburn after what he found out at a Federal Emergency Management Agency flood insurance map meeting Monday night in Kent.
"The property I'm looking at is in the floodplain," said Crandall, of Kent, as he pointed to a map he received at the meeting. "If it floods, the speculation is it would be devastated."
Barry Saunders tried to fight off tears as he told a packed Kent courtroom Friday that he was truly sorry that he shot and killed a 17-year-old boy in 2008 during a fight inside a crowded Southcenter Mall in Tukwila.
Kent residents and business owners near the Green River will soon find out how new preliminary Federal Emergency Management Agency flood-insurance maps could impact them.
FEMA will present the new flood maps at an open house from 6-8 p.m. Feb. 7 at the Kent Senior Activity Center, 600 E. Smith St.
Shawn David Gulseth pleaded not guilty Thursday in King County Superior Court in Kent to a charge of first-degree murder in connection with the Dec. 21 stabbing death of his Kent girlfriend at her apartment.
Diane DeMeerleer used to love living in The Lakes neighborhood of Kent, along the Green River close to a popular walking and biking trail that stretches for miles through the city.
But that love has faded, ever since a heavy rainstorm in 2009 damaged an embankment next to the Howard Hanson Dam and raised the threat of flooding. Kent city officials placed giant sandbags atop the Green River Trail, and they will remain there until the dam is fully operational after repairs, probably by the end of 2012. Sandbags also surround the 26-unit condominium complex where DeMeerleer lives.
A developer might finally take over the half-built parking garage in downtown Kent to construct a mixed-use development that could include apartments, a hotel, and maybe office and retail space.
Kent Mayor Suzette Cooke revealed the upbeat news about the project during her sixth annual State of the City address Wednesday at the Kent Chamber of Commerce monthly membership luncheon at the ShoWare Center second-floor banquet room.
The financial troubles continue for the ShoWare Center in Kent as the 2-year-old arena lost money for the second consecutive year in 2010.
It didn't take long for Keith Evans to start tracking down several of his former players after the Kent Predators hired him this month as coach.
Evans has signed at least four players who played under him last year in Wenatchee to join Kent's Indoor Football League team, which is now in its second year. The Predators open the 2011 season Feb. 25 at the ShoWare Center.
Larice Roop remembers as she watched her daughter Spencer sing in the crib even before she could talk.
But last week Roop watched her 14-year-old daughter win the Kent-Meridian High School Idol contest. And on Jan. 29, Roop will see her daughter compete in the first "Kent's Got Talent" show at the Kent Senior Activity Center.
Shawn David Gulseth, the man charged with first-degree murder in the connection with the Dec. 20 stabbing death of his Kent girlfriend at her apartment, is scheduled to be arraigned Feb. 3 at the Norm Maleng Regional Justice Center in Kent.
