West Richland Real Estate Blog

Yes, if you were driving around Bird Hill this afternoon, you may have seen me out in the yard … cutting the grass! In February! The first lawn-cutting of the year usually happens near Cari’s birthday, which is in early April. Today’s lawn-cutting happened before my mom’s birthday, which is next week.

What on earth happened to winter? Actually, I’m not complaining. I’ll take a winter like this any time. And there’s two bits of good news: The tulips seem to still be alive despite the overnight freezes, and the lawn looks pretty darn good for February.

I’ve been going to the new Club 24 Express Fitness for a couple weeks now — since it first opened, actually. Nice facility, staff is nice, never too crowded, etc. Very happy with everything, except this: the view from the treadmills.

Do you have any idea how difficult it is to stare at a grocery store while you’re trying to lose weight? To spend 30+ minutes watching moms and dads come out with a cart full of delicious food, their kids frolicking across the parking lot with a candy bar in hand?

Woe is me…

I just published something on my personal blog that explains why I love where we live. Not sure why I put it there instead of here, but oh well. If you’re a fellow West Richlander, you might appreciate it.

The first snow of the year has arrived in West Richland! Here are a couple photos taken on Bird Hill right at/near the South Highlands Community Park. Can’t really see it falling, but you can see it starting to cover the streets.

The National Weather Service says 1-3 inches are possible by tomorrow morning.

“We don’t have much crime” is always one of the first things I say to people who ask what I love about West Richland and why we’ve decided to settle here. And I’ve seen some reports (and blogged about them) that tell how low West Richland’s crime rate is.

Now, the West Richland Police Dept. has launched an online map that shows crimes that have happened within the city limits.

That’s a screenshot of incidents between November 1st and November 30th. (You can click for a larger version.) You’ll notice that I’ve unchecked the “PUBLIC” category from the left column and you should probably uncheck some other categories, too, to get a real snapshot of actual crimes. (The “ALARM” category, for example, shows police responses to false alarms, which don’t count as actual crimes.) You can move your mouse over any of the lettered incidents to learn more about what happened.

According to this KEPR-TV story, Police chief Layne Erdman says the online crime map isn’t costing the city any more money.

You can reach the West Richland Crime Map online at this URL:

http://map.citizenserviceportal.com/default.aspx?agency=wrpd

Note that it may not work with all browsers and you may have to download Microsoft’s Silverlight software.

File Police Reports Online

Also new is an online tool for sending reports and information to the West Richland police department. Obviously you don’t use this for emergencies, but if you want to report things like traffic problems/violations, theft, or malicious mischief, you can use this URL:

http://report.citizenserviceportal.com/Report.aspx?agency=wrpd

I have a feeling this may be both helpful for the PD in that they’ll get more information and reports from the public, from people who may not have otherwise called or visited the station … but it also may create a lot of nuisance/busy work for the department. We’ll see.

In any case, I think these are very cool developments. Hats off to the West Richland PD.

KEPR-TV ran an interesting news report last night on West Richland’s growth — and how sales tax revenues are still lagging behind other sources. I think “poised for growth” is probably the best phrase to use. We’ve seen a lot of growth in recent years, including the new Bird Hill retail development, but city officials are saying we still don’t have balance. Here’s the KEPR story link, and I’ll put the video below.

West Richland: Triple the Population, But Not Triple the Revenue