Sunday, March 9 there is a benefit concert for the Central Area Senior Center; direct donations are also needed

To save and sustain the Central Area Senior Center, a Benefit Concert will be held this Sunday, March 9 from 3 to 6 p.m. at the Paul Robeson Performing Arts Center, located at Rainier Beach High School, 8815 Seward Park Avenue South.  Performers will include J. Charles, Darrius Willrich, CT Thompson, Butch Harrison, IFE, Rachell Foxx, Surround Sound, Sheila Kay, Debbie Cavitt, Leo Camo, Funk E Fusion, and surprise guest artists.  Light refreshments will be available.  Tickets ($50) and info are at Brown Paper Tickets, http://thecentralbenefitconcert.bpt.me, directly from the Central Area Senior Center, or at the door.

Founded in 1972, the Central Area Senior Center is a volunteer-supported nonprofit resource providing services to support the emotional, social and physical well-being of older adults and their families.  It also hosts many public meetings, including those of the Seattle Community Council Federation and the Seattle Neighborhood Coalition.

If you can’t attend the benefit concert, please consider making a donation on-line at https://the-central.org/support/donate  or by U.S. mail at:  Central Area Senior Center, 500 30th Avenue South 98144.  And please help circulate this notice about the benefit concert and the importance of this neighborhood resource.

I publish community news in Seattle so I’m used to making things function on a tight budget and working with contributors of all types in an environment of relentless change. Creating new news things is a lot of fun and a spiritually rewarding affair for a journalist. Ending them never is.

The Central District News — published continuously, often 24×7, mostly 365 days a year since October 31, 2007 — will come to a close this week. The last day will probably be Friday. After that, the site will freeze and the archives and comments, pictures and etc. will just kind of hang there as a quickly decaying resource to some of the stories of the neighborhoods of Seattle’s Central Area from this strange and wonderful six years and change. I don’t have the heart to run through the best and most memorable right now. Maybe I’ll get to it later once the news flow has trickled to an end.

I have operated the site for the last few years after inheriting it from founder Scott in 2010 — when he wrote his “big change” post. Editor Tom gave the site its start on a new era — here’s his “big change” post in 2011 saying hello. You can find his work now on his own creation — the Seattle Bike Blog. Megan came on in 2013 to help keep CDNews alive. She has a hello post, too, and will probably have time for a “big change” post to say goodbye before the week is done.

Why this “big change” and why now? As a business, Central District News is a challenge. It has survived on advertising revenue and generous support from readers. We appreciate the opportunity to bring messages from supportive businesses to the community. We appreciate the support so many of you gave with subscription payments every month. We’re in the process of shutting down active subscriptions so you shouldn’t see any additional payments charged. If you would like your most recent payment refunded, let us know.

The revenue has been enough to sustain the site. It has not, however, been enough to grow the site. The people who have worked on it every day — Tom and Megan — were giving much more than they were getting. At least in the dollars and cents end of things. I thank them for doing such fantastic work.

Even with the challenges, we kept the flame alive for one consistent source of community news in the Central District for a long time. Trying to find a pace we could sustain, however, marked a change that many of you noticed and some of you challenged us on in recent months. What happened to my CDNews, a few asked? What happened to the hour by hour scanner reports Scott used to do? Why haven’t you reported about this? Why haven’t you reported about that? It was difficult — especially when we knew that, yes, indeed, the Central District News couldn’t perform at some of the lofty heights we’d reached in the past. We reported deeply when we could. But the opportunities were becoming fewer and fewer and the dissonance between the site’s standard coverage and larger news was becoming more and more confusing for readers — and editors, alike.

We will not leave a total void — and I have hopes the closure will open up opportunities for other voices to say more or say it louder or say it in a different way. Sites like the Seattle Medium continue to serve the community. My other site CapitolHillSeattle.com will continue to cover many issues that are pertinent beyond Capitol Hill and across Seattle’s central neighborhoods. Community radio station Hollow Earth is there to get the word out about neighborhood events, issues and ideas. But also know I’m aware we are leaving behind a gap. It’s part of why we kept things going this long. And, like I said above, ending things hurts.

Thanks for reading.

The Stranger has details of a weekend attack in which drag performer Ade Connere says he was targeted for being in drag:

“I was in drag, and at first I think they thought I was a real girl. Then one of them said, ‘No! That’s a dude!’ and then they grabbed me and knocked me down… one of them lunged over me, so I kicked him in the face, got up and ran.”

“I escaped with a couple of bloody knees, a scrape on my side and a scraped wrist,” Ade says.

Connere told the Stranger he did not contact police following the early Saturday morning incident near 13th Ave and E Cherry because his last experience reporting a bashing to police “was more traumatic than the attack.”

CHS has reported on two current hate crime cases being pursued by the King County Prosecutor including this February attack on Boylston and an assault last July near Minor and Pine.

Meanwhile, the court proceedings for accused Neighbours arsonist Musab Musmari continue following the 30-year-old’s plea of not guilty to a charge of first degree arson. Musmari has since retained a new lawyer. According to court records, he’ll be represented by criminal defense lawyer Jeffrey Cohen. No hate crimes have been filed in the case.

Newly elected Seattle Mayor Ed Murray who is gay and lives on Capitol Hill has decried what he says is a rise in anti-LGBTQ violence. While many have called for more active efforts to counter gay-bashing and hate crimes, the most visible measures to date have been limited to rallies and awareness campaigns.

Connecting E Union to E Madison and Mt. Zion Baptist Church, a quarter-mile stretch of 19th Ave now honors Rev. Dr. Samuel B. McKinney for his nearly 50 years of service in the community.

Dignitaries were on hand on the rain-soaked Sunday afternoon for a dedication at Mt. Zion of the new honorary street signs.

Rev. Dr. Samuel Berry McKinney, third from left, was honored during services Sunday (Images: Alex Garland for CHS)

The new avenue honors the 87-year-old pastor who left the pulpit in 1998 after 40 years leading Mt. Zion.

“The City of Seattle is fortunate to be home to outstanding community and religious leaders who have done much to shape the conscience of Seattle,” the resolution for the newly designated route stated.

“Dr. McKinney’s voice echoed beyond the walls of the church and into the halls of local and state governments,” The Seattle Medium writes about the new avenue. “He worked to raise awareness of the needs of the less fortunate, regardless of their race. His work to bring social justice to Seattle created an extraordinary legacy.”

Opting for a route with a simpler crossing at E Madison and close connections to the schools along the way, Seattle Department of Transportation planners have chosen to move forward with the “Hybrid” option for a bicycle and pedestrian friendly parallel to the 23rd Ave corridor.

The Miller Park Neighbors group announced the selection last week.

The route will begin at I-90 and pass up through the Central District along 26th and 25th Ave before a jog over to 22nd north across E Madison to Capitol Hill. For 21st and 22nd Ave, the hilly terrain and lack of a straight route between Galer and Boyer will present some of the biggest challenges to cyclists. Planners liked that the crossing at Madison is simpler and the streets provide easier access to the Miller Community Center and Capitol Hill. The route also has more pre-existing traffic calming features with roundabouts and double-sided parking than options on the east side of 23rd.

We wrote previously about the options under consideration and the plans for the greenway that will complement a $46 million overhaul of 23rd Ave. The 23rd Avenue greenway is likely to be the longest greenway in the city. Through a mix of signage, pavement markings, speed bumps, roundabouts and other traffic-calming features, greenways attempt to encourage more people to walk and bike to their destinations. In addition to providing an off-23rd route for a calmer, quieter trip north and south, the greenway will also help bridge the gulf created by heavily-traveled E Madison. We wrote about more ideas for calming the mighty flow of E Madison and the latest on the big project to overhaul 23rd Ave here — Downtown ‘Pike-Pine renaissance,’ 23rd Ave reinvention — time to cap I-5 and repair E Madison’s grid?

SDOT explains its decision on the hybrid route here on the greenway project page:

SDOT evaluated four potential routes on the east and west sides of 23rd Avenue for the greenway. Ultimately, a combination of the previously reviewed routes was chosen. This “hybrid” route offers the best features of the considered routes and avoids many of the potential problems.

The hybrid route will run from I-90 north on 25th/26th avenues. Then it will turn west at E. Columbia Street, providing a new signalized crossing for bikes and pedestrians. Then the route will go up 22nd Avenue to E. Madison Street, where it will cross over to 21st Avenue and continue north.

Potential features of the greenway include:

• Pavement markings and signage to alert motorists  to expect people bicycling
• Improved crossings to make it easier for pedestrians and people on bicycles to cross
• Way-finding to let people know where and how far away the neighborhood destinations are located
• Median islands, traffic circles, curb bulbs and speed humps to help keep speeds low and drivers from using neighborhood streets to avoid main streets.

The changes are planned to begin being implemented this summer with a goal for the greenway work to be complete before the end of the year: