As part of work on a new budget for 2011/2012, Seattle school officials are considering lightening the load on a crowded Garfield High School by shifting some students across the city. This and a slate of other proposals are outlined here by the Seattle Times:

To ease overcrowding at Garfield High, administrators are looking at opening a new program at Ingraham High aimed at attracting some of the gifted students who otherwise would be assigned to Garfield.

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The proposed new program would be modeled after one at Interlake High School in Bellevue, where students finish the rigorous International Baccalaureate program by the end of their junior year, then do internships or take college classes as seniors.

With the shift to neighborhood based school assignment, Garfield has faced complaints of overcrowded classrooms this year. CDN has reported that currently all APP Students are guaranteed an assignment to Garfield if they choose to go there.  Garfield’s current enrollment is about 1780 and approximately 455 are APP students, while the capacity of the school is about 1680.

CDN has learned new details about the armed robbery reported last week after three people arrived at Swedish Cherry Hill’s emergency room suffering from a pepper spray attack on a frozen, icy Seattle night.

 According to the Seattle Police report on the incident, a driver and two passengers were traveling on MLK, lost and looking for I-5 last Wednesday, the third straight night of freezing temperatures and icy conditions in the Seattle area. When they came to East Columbia, the driver told police they decided to turn east and then south on 29th. On the frozen side street, the vehicle immediately began to slide out of control before coming to a stop mid-block.

At that moment, according to accounts related to the police separately by the three victims, the vehicle was immediately surrounded by three people. The victims said a male wearing a black hooded sweatshirt walked up to the vehicle, pointed a black, semi-automatic pistol through the open window on the passenger side and demanded the passenger’s wallet and phone. Meanwhile, on the other side of the vehicle, another male started emptying a “large” can of pepper spray into the vehicle through the driver’s window and then began beating the can against the windows in an attempt to break them. At this point, the driver was able to drive away from the scene but not before all three occupants of the car had received a face-full of burning spray.

All three were treated for pepper spray exposure after they arrived at the emergency room about an hour later around 9 PM.

According to the report, the suspects were described only as two black males wearing dark clothing and a black female. A search for the suspects an hour after the victims said the crime occurred yielded nothing.

Our news partners at the Seattle Times have compiled maps that show the voting precinct breakdowns for three major statewide races decided this fall. There aren’t any huge surprises for the Central District but it is interesting to note where the pockets of support were strongest for the two initiatives in the mix — liquor privatization initiative 1100 and income tax initiative 1098. More telling is the sea of eastern opposition to 1098 which was defeated — and for Dino Rossi in the senate race. Rossi, of course, was also a loser. Is also a loser? Anyway. Here are the maps shared here by permission of the Times.

SENATE: Murray (52.36%)
 Seattle Times analysis 

INITIATIVE 1098 — income tax (No, 64.15%)
Seattle Times analysis 

INITIATIVE 1100 — liquor privatization (No, 53.43%)
Seattle Times Analysis

Black Friday, Cyber Monday, Small Business Saturday. That’s marketing. You spending your holiday gift money near home with business owners that live and work in your neighborhood? That’s smart. While it may not be the first choice people think of in the city for shopping, the Central District has plenty of unique gift giving opportunities that include the added benefit of keeping money in the community. We’ve included a picture of one of the area’s most successful retailers, Madrona’s Glassybaby. In the past, we’ve profiled other great CD places to shop like Immortal Dog and events like the Pratt Fine Arts annual holiday sale. But what are your Central District holiday shopping secrets? We’ll continue to update this post throughout December with holiday giving ideas and inspiration for shopping locally. You can help out by adding information about your favorite neighborhood shops or sales and deals you find. The more off the beaten path, the better. Happy (local) holidays.

The Molly Moon’s empire of ice cream shops is considering where to open its third store in the city following frozen treat domination in Capitol Hill and Wallingford. Madrona is on the short list. Want to help sway Molly’s decision? Like the Molly Moon’s to Madrona Facebook page. Or don’t. It’s your choice!

Molly Moon’s Shop Number Three…Where will it be?

Big News! Molly Moon will be expanding her Seattle ice cream empire with
the addition of a third shop in the summer of 2011. Unsure of what Seattle
neighborhood to call home, we will be parking Leo, in three locations over
the next three months to see where the most ice…cream-lovin’ Seattleites
reside. 

Beginning tomorrow Wednesday, Dec. 1 Leo will be parked in Madrona at
1435 34th Ave. for the month of December! Open Wed & Thurs 5-10pm
and Fri, Sat & Sun from 12 to 10 p.m. Kids who visit Leo tomorrow
between 6 and 8 p.m. will receive a free kid-sized scoop! 

Following Leo’s December stint in Madrona, Seattle’s favorite ice cream
truck will move to Queen Anne in January and will spend all of February in
Ballard. Stay tuned for updates on Leo’s Queen Anne and Ballard
whereabouts.

Sequoia sempervirens, originally uploaded by brewbooks.

Seattle University officials have invited the community to join them for this year’s lighting of the SU ‘holiday’ tree, a giant Sequoia tree in the middle of campus that some believe should be left alone and not damaged by another year of decorating. UPDATE: Seattle U tells us the decision was made to light a different campus tree — so, no controversy, just holiday cheer!

From SU’s The Spectator:

“If you look at the tree, you will see that it is dying … it’s browning at the top” said David Madsen, associate professor of history and medieval studies.

A few other members of the faculty expressed their concerns about the tree lighting to the Spectator after word of the cost circulated. Madsen notes that he got messages from approximately 15 other staff members in response to an email voicing his concern sent to both the Spectator and many members of the faculty.

“My main concern is the environmental stress on the tree. Half of the root structure is paved over – which is not ideal … does it make sense to add more stress?” said Gordon Miller, director of environmental studies who expressed similar concerns about the health of the tree – though he was unaware what the exact cause of the browning was.

Over on sister site Capitolhillseattle.com, we’ve posted a report card for how the city and Metro handled Seattle’s Thanksgiving 2010 snow .

Overall, compared to 2008/2009, it seemed like things were better this time around. Disagree?

Remember that rock hampering the Madison Valley project we wrote about before the Thanksgiving week snowstorm made slush and ice the main underfoot worry? It’s still there — and it’s still has further tunneling on hold while Seattle Public Utilities tries to figure out how to remove the stone from the path of its future storm drain.

We’ll talk with SPU for an update but when we last discussed the problem with the Shaft 5 project manager, the crew still wasn’t sure just how big this nuisance of a rock is. SPU said it could be up to 60 inches wide when we talked last week. It lies in the dirt beneath the pavement in front of Bailey-Boushay House. It doesn’t yet have a nickname. SPU just calls it “the rock.”

In the meantime, drivers in the area should be ready for delays as work to deal with the rock continues:

Drivers near the intersection of E Madison Street and 28th Avenue E should be prepared for intermittent detours and brief lane restrictions as crews perform minor drilling and potholing necessary to locate and remove the obstruction without impacting adjacent utilities

Though boring is on hold while the rock problem persists, excavation in Washington Park to prepare for tank construction has continued.

A man living in the 300 block of MLK Way called police Saturday afternoon to say he’d been robbed at his own back door. It wasn’t until police arrived that the man told them what the thief had stolen.

In the 1 PM Saturday afternoon callout, the man told police that a black male in his 20s came around to his back door and demanded his “dope,” according to a police radio dispatch. The suspect then fished cash from the man’s pocket and fled the scene.

A search of the area didn’t turn up the suspect — of the drugs — and a K9 unit was not available.

In a testimony to everything that is good about social technology, Skip, the wayward golden lab, was reunited with his family this day after Thanksgiving 2010 thanks to two CDN posts and a few connective comments.

In a post timestamped Friday, 11/26/10, 1:17 PM, cdres3 broke the sad news. A lost doggy had been found in the neighborhood:

We found a dog behind Garfield High School with a collar but no tags.  The dog is yellowish, maybe around 50-60 pounds and has recently had a hair cut.  We can’t keep him/her because we have an older dog that objects to sharing his space.    Animal control is closed today so we took the dog to Rainier Veterinary Hospital (their number is 324-4144) to check for a microchip.   The microchip was registered to an address in Issaquah and the vet couldn’t get through to the numbers listed on it and they said they would keep the dog and keep trying to call the owners.   Tomorrow they’ll send the dog to Seattle animal control when it opens.

Three minutes later, another post appeared on the site from neighbor Carrie:

Beautiful golden lab “SKIP” he is ten years old, just took himself for a walk without permission

Has a plaid collar for the holidays. No name tags its a new collar.

GARFIELD NEIGHBORHOOD AREA

It took seven more minutes for Arch to connect the story.

As Carolyn later said,

Another win for the CD News!

This is community!

We’re just happy to be here for the connections to be made. And, now that we’re feeling all warm and fuzzy, queue a comment or three scolding Skip’s family, another chiding the finders for not going door to door to find Skip’s home and another saying this is a good reason we should all pack a gun when walking the street. No comments from Skip, though. Skip’s just happy to be home.