Bellevue Patch Week in Review

Here are some of the top headlines from this past week, and some articles you may have missed:

When Rachel Beckwith celebrated her birthday in June, she encouraged people to contribute to her $300 goal toward Charity: Water, a nonprofit that helps developing communities in Southeast Asia, Africa and Latin America establish safe sources of drinking water. She died in a multi-car crash on Interstate 90 just weeks later , and the story of her birthday wish went international, hitting MSNBC, CNN and Britain's The Daily Mail.

Rachel's Charity: Water page has raised more than $718,000 so far from more than 20,000 donations, which the nonprofit says will help 35,938 people.

Steve Lacey was just a passerby when his BMW was struck and he was killed last Sunday in what Washington State Patrol called road rage incident that did not involve him.

His colleagues, which included coworkers at his current workplace Google and his former employer Microsoft, remembered him as a  talented programmer, a family man and a well-rounded person who could talk about books, movies, pop culture and music. Lacey was originally from England.

The SUV driver that troopers say struck Lacey's BMW, Patrick Rexroat of Mountlake Terrace, was charged with vehicular homicide and was booked in jail on $1 million bail. Read the update to that story on .

Sound Transit's chosen East Link route includes a tunnel for downtown Bellevue, one of the options that united the Bellevue City Council -- which has been divided on parts of the East Link route.

However, before any further development is done on the downtown tunnel, which would go along 110th Avenue Northeast where the current Bellevue Transit Center is, Sound Transit and the city of Bellevue have to sign an agreement on how the cost of the $276 million tunnel will be paid for.

In a draft term sheet that was reviewed by the Bellevue Council last week, but not signed, Bellevue covered $160 million of the cost through property acquisition, tax breaks and other activities. But several members of the Sound Transit board expressed concern over how the transit agency would pay for the $116 million on its table, and how the city and transit would split any cost overruns.

Voting against the Bellevue tunnel were Sound Transit board members King County Councilman Larry Phillips and Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn (McGinn also opposes another tunnel because of concerns over cost overruns -- the one proposed to replace the Alaskan Way Viaduct through Seattle).

Today is the last day to catch Bellevue arts weekend in downtown Bellevue. Three arts festivals converge -- the Bellevue Festival of the Arts, the Bellevue Arts Museum's artsfair and the Bellevue Downtown Association's Sixth Street Fair. . Also check out our profile of artist Suzanne Tidwell,

This week's Family Roundup asks two experts, Kim Estes of Savvy Parents Safe Kids and Jim Bove of the Redmond Police Department, on ways to keep kids of all ages safe online, at home and in the car.

Captain Mike Holliday, commander of the Civil Air Patrol’s Overlake Composite Squadron, updates us on a . Media Footprint's Karen Fujii, who blogs about small business, nonprofits and marketing, explores whether it makes sense for an organization to create its own blog in her blog post "."

Speaking of creating a blog for your organization or business, are you interested in adding your voice to Local Voices? Contact me at venice.buhain@patch.com for more information about blogging on Bellevue Patch.

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