On July 8, Bellevue College hosted a car show/event that severely disrupted traffic on 148th Street Southeast and the safety in local neighborhoods. The event had attendees racing through out residential neighborhoods. It was difficult to carry on a conversation in my front or backyard because of the noise. The college hosted the same or a similar event last year with the same results.

Following last year’s fiasco and complaints from the local fire station, college officials made a promise at a community meeting that they wouldn’t do that again. Apparently, they don’t really care about the community they are in because the same thing happened again last Saturday.

Ten hours of cars racing up and down residential streets, extremely loud exhaust and stereos and traffic at a complete standstill is too much. Neighbors in the area wouldn’t let their children play in their front yards because of the potential hazard of speeding cars. One neighbor was nearly hit in his wheelchair while trying to cross the street.

This year was pretty much the same as last year for the Bellevue police too. They had zero presence in the area to control the racing and traffic mess. With cars speeding and doing burnouts for hours all over the area, why were the police seemly in hiding? A quick tour of the college early Sunday morning revealed extensive amounts of broken glass and empty beer bottles. Since when is it acceptable to consume alcohol on the campus? An event of this magnitude should have been a permitted activity with police department approval. This should have allowed city officials sufficient time to review the anticipated impact to the community and to require an adequate security and traffic control plan.

I have planned events in the past with several thousand attendees, and in every town these events were held, we had to go through an extensive review by local and county law enforcement, the fire authority, the mayor’s office and several other city agencies as well.

Future activities like this should either not be allowed at the college or be more controlled by the city of Bellevue.

Steve Ellis

Bellevue