On June 12, relatives, family and friends all went to watch our granddaughter receive her graduate diploma from Redmond High.
First of all, traffic was terrible. Took an hour-and-a-half to go over the tolled Evergreen Bridge. We were frustrated but dealt with that.
Parking near KeyArena on the street was sparse, so we went to the indoor garage. Not a bad price at $5 for three hours…but the ticket stub made the amount $9 and there was no attendant to discuss the price. The ceremony was wonderful and well organized and we enjoyed all the young people and our granddaughter with the smiles and proud faces they had and the awards given out.
Our next encounter was for our dinner at Bucca Di Beppo’s. Reservations for 15 of us made a year in advance. The place was packed. Parking was hard to find unless one paid a minimum indoor parking fee of $10 next door. We looked and found plenty of street parking behind the restaurant on 8th Avenue North. It looked suspicious, seeing broken glass all over the street. We were running late so we parked there anyway against our best judgment.
We had a good time with our dinner, excellent food and service, but that all changed when we went back to our parked cars. Right away we saw several distraught people standing beside their vehicles, broken into, busted glass and everything stolen. At least three cars and others that had left. We were lucky. Our car was not broken into, but we felt so bad for the others. It ruined their whole enjoyable night and ours, too.
My point to all this: Parking is expensive, even on the street and hours are much longer even on weekends. With all the business Bucca Di Beppo’s gets, they should be able to pay someone minimum wage to watch the street in back of their restaurant. How about the city putting cameras and put some of these people in jail for what they are constantly doing?
After this experience, none of us will go to Seattle very often. Traffic is terrible, street and pay parking is expensive and dangerous. Two years ago, my daughter’s car was broken into near Seattle Center and that was indoor paid parking. Seattle, a great city but we will go to restaurants and movies in Redmond instead. The city has a fine police force and is watching all the time, so incidents like this are rare.
Joe Giannunzio, Redmond
