Please join the Leschi Community Council and its partners for the Annual Flo Ware Day Event on Saturday, May 14 from 12 – 4pm. 

Join us on May 4th for a presentation by Maggie Glowacki, Department of Planning and Development, on the proposed changes to the Shoreline Management Plan.  Ms. Glowacki will focus on the area between the 520 bridge and Seward Park at our meeting scheduled for Wednesday, May 4, 7:30 PM at the Central Area Senior Center, 500 30th S.

Also, our annual Flo Ware Celebration takes place on May 14 at Flo Ware Park, 28th & Jackson from 12-4. Food! Music! Performances!

Join the Leschi Community Council this Wednesday as we present the authors of “Seattle in Black and White The Congress of Racial Equality and the Fight for Equal Opportunity“.  The authors include: Joan Singler, Jean Durning, Bettylou Valentine and Maid Adams. 

“Seattle was a very different city in 1960 than it is today.  There were no black bus drivers, sales clerks, or bank tellers. Black children rarely attended the same schools as white children.  And few black people lived outside of the Central District.  In 1960, Seattle was effectively a segregated town.  Energized by the national civil rights movement, an interracial group of Seattle residents joined together to form the Seattle chapter of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE).”  Meet the four women who worked to change the perception of Seattle as one of most segregated cities in America.  These women launched a three prong attack on racism in the 60’s and they will talk about their efforts at our April meeting.

Come join the LCC in welcoming the authors of “Seattle in Black and White” on April 6 at 7:30 pm at the Central Area Senior Center located at 500 30th Avenue South. 

The Central Area has a rich cultural life, and a rich collection of arts and cultural organizations.

A panel discussion on Wednesday, March 2nd, will bring together representatives of the Langston Hughes Performing Arts Center (Royal Alley-Barnes) , the Pratt Fine Arts Center (Ann Suter), Washington Hall (Dana Phelan), and Coyote Central (Maribeth Satterlee).  The event will be held at the Central Area Senior Center, 500 30th Avenue South starting at 7:30.

The panel discussion will explore the roles of cultural organizations in our community and explore ways that the organizations can reach out and become better integrated with community life.

There will be ample opportunity for questions and answers.

This program is sponsored by the Leschi Community Council as one of its regularly monthly meetings.  All are invited.

The LCC invites its neighbors to join us for the first general meeting of 2011.  The scheduled guest speaker is Susan N. Platt, Ph.D. and her theme will be “Exposing Racism”.  She will also talk about her book ‘Art and Politics Now’ which is just out. She will have copies and will provide some remarks about the book as a whole. 

The Central Area Senior Center is located at 500 30th Ave S., one block south of Jackson and the meeting is to begin at 7:30 pm. 

We look forward to seeing the regular attendees as well as new faces. 

Neighbors are needed (please attend) to advocate for improvements to telecommunications services in underserved neighborhoods. We call the current situation “digital redlining” and everyone wants it changed. New initative will be announced to upgrade telecommunications services in underserved areas – Central Area, parts of Leschi, Queen Anne, downtown, Beacon Hill, Judkins Park.

When:     TUES., Nov. 16, 5:30 pm – 7 pm

Where:   Central Area Senior Center, 500 30th Ave. South 98144 

Info: [email protected] 206-322-8613       

“Closing the Technology Gap Caused by City & Broadstripe Contract”

• John Bjorn, Broadstripe, Vice President, Regional Operations
• Tony Perez, News from City of Seattle Dept. of Technology
• Jonathan Lawson, Reclaim the Media
• Information about Tacoma Click! (municipal broadband

Sponsored by Upping Technology for Underserved Neighbors (UPTUN) Upping Technology for Underserved Neighbors (UPTUN) — public meeting sponsoring representatives from Broadstripe, Reclaim the Media, City of Seattle, and City of Tacoma. The event focuses on Broadstripe’s lower quality and higher priced services within a franchise agreement with the City of Seattle. With other communication carriers in all other city neighborhoods, there is no similar contract. Meeting held at 5:30 pm – 7 pm, the Central Area Senior Center, 500 30th Ave. South 98144. “Digital redlining” is the term UPTUN uses to describe the current franchise agreement which binds consumers to using Broadstripe and discourages competition by other internet, cable and phone providers.  The meeting is open to customers, businesses and residents within the boundaries of the franchise agreement between the city of Seattle and Broadstripe.  Affected areas include parts of the Central District, Beacon Hill, Leschi, Queen Anne, downtown, Pioneer Square and Judkins Park.  These are “underserved” neighborhoods for obtaining competitive digital cable, phone and internet services. The UPTUN volunteer advocacy group holds meetings each quarter to ensure that improvements promised to the community are completed on schedule.  Since 2007, UPTUN’s group of volunteers from within underserved neighborhoods have worked with the City of Seattle and Broadstripe to obtain reliable cable, phone and high-speed internet services at an affordable cost,  similar to other neighborhoods in Seattle and other cities in the United States.  “This is economic and racial injustice left over from previous decades and everyone wants it fixed! We are committed to getting better internet, cable and phone service which is competitively priced. Our neighbors, households and businesses in parts of the Central District, Capitol Hill, Judkins Park, Leschi and Beacon Hill have suffered many years with lesser services than any other areas in Seattle”, says UPTUN Coordinator, Tracy Bier. Broadstripe is a Missouri based privately held company providing residential and business customers digital cable and broadband internet communication products. www.broadstripe.com For more information contact UPTUN Coordinator Tracy Bier via phone 206-227-2369 or email [email protected] or visit www.uptun.orgFor more information about the Broadstripe and city of Seattle contract, visit City of Seattle web site http://www.seattle.gov/cable/franchises.html 

 

Republished from the October Leschi News.

Reflecting on her recent trip to Europe in last month’s News, Diane Snell noted a stark difference in daily life there. In many of the cities she explored, it is “possible to do without cars.” Across that continent, there is a long history of building and maintaining public transit, and the private automobile has never completely taken over. Right here in Leschi, ours was originally a community of transit and pedestrian-oriented development. Former Leschi Community Council President Wade Vaughn documents in his terrific local history, Seattle Leschi Diary, that Yesler cable cars running as often as every three minutes made even some well-to-do businessmen give up their buggy for daily commuting.

 

When the private automobile came along, things began to change in Leschi and across the United States.  Today, we’re suffering from the abandonment of urban railways, but our city’s blueprint retains the shape of the streetcar and bicycling networks it was built around.

 

We’re living at the tail end of an era in which the car was king, and we’re paying for it in poorer health outcomes sedentary transportation modes generate and the climate is paying for it as the fumes from ever more difficult and risky fossil fuels overheat the planet. But there is hope in the younger generation, which the U.S. Department of Transportation notes is driving less and owns fewer cars than previous generations. As texting-while-driving crackdowns continue, watch for this trend to grow among a generation more committed to connecting than cruising.

Some of this is why last month the Leschi Community Council voted to join Streets for All Seattle.  We also joined because we ride transit, we walk and we bicycle. Maybe we also hope we can one day become more like the civilized, people-oriented places that Americans can only enjoy as European tourists today.

 

Along with more than 60 other partner organizations in Streets for All Seattle, we believe that walking, bicycling and transit should be the easiest means of transportation in Seattle. And we are ready to work with our elected officials—many of whom have also said Seattle can do better—on sustainable transportation options. Streets for All Seattle has identified a number of potential funding sources—to the tune of $30 million dollars—for walking, biking and transit infrastructure.

 

This is the time to make ours the city we all want it to be. Our ambitions are for Seattle to become America’s most walkable city, a place where car ownership is not a prerequisite for gainful employment, where cyclists and transit riders never feel like second class citizens.

 

Our current situation, however, remains that we face cuts in Metro service hours, threatening to leave our fellow Seattleites stranded, and we’re not funding the Bicycle and Pedestrian Master Plans that give us the options we need for our health and our future.

 

For more about Streets for All Seattle, and to get involved, contact LCC Executive Committee member Nate Cole-Daum or visit www.streetsforallseattle.org.

Have you purchased your duck?

Starting Monday, August 30th, all BluWaters began selling mini ducks in-store for a rubber duck charity race to be held on Saturday, September 11th, at the BluWater Bistro in Leschi.   All proceeds benefit the Officer Brenton Memorial at 29th and Yesler, where he lost his life while on duty, that will be dedicated on the first anniversary of his death, October 31, 2010.

BluWater has set a goal of raising $10,000.

Derby Ducks can be purchased individually (ask a hostess) or with a drink special (ask a bartender or server)  An individual Derby Duck costs $5.00, with a drink special Daiquiri Duck costing $7.00.  Ducks can be left in the store of purchase or you can come to BluWater Bistro on race day to enter your duck.

The Rubber Duck Derby will begin at noon on September 11th

Buy a Derby Duck to support a good cause and to participate in the prizes, music, food and fun.  You do not have to be present at the Duck Derby to win the prizes:

1st Place – $1,000 BluWater Gift Card

2nd Place – 1 year of car detailing (once a month) from Final Touch Detail

3rd Place – Ride the Duck Gift Certificate for four

Best Dressed Duck – TBD

Join your neighbors at Powell Barnett Park on September 11th from 1-4 for an afternoon of entertainment by Banda Vagos http://bandavagos.com/home.htm and KlezterBalm http://www.klezterbalm.blogspot.com.  Juggling and facepainting will add to the fun.

There will also be a performance of “People in Parks: Powell Barnett” http://parkways.seattle.gov/2010/02/02/langston-hughes-performing-arts-center-presents-people-in-parks-black-heroes-and-heroines

UPDATE:  Garfield High School Drumline is unable to perform at this event.

Friends of Powell Barnett Park

w/ co-sponsors Leschi Community Council, Seattle Parks and the Langston Hughes Performing Arts Center, and Dept of Neighborhoods

Update from the planning committee for the Brenton Memorial:

• Quiring Monuments of Seattle is donating the materials and labor for fabricating the sculptural elements of the memorial.
• Other local businesses have also offered to donate materials as well as the use of their equipment.
• SDOT has approved the permit required for the memorial space.  Further discussion will be taking place regarding replacement of the street curb and adjoining sidewalk.
• Community work parties will take place on the 1^st three Saturdays of October.  Additional details will be provided in future updates.
• Cash donations to-date: $1,290; Value of donated materials to-date: $8,000.  Remaining to reach goal: $16,710

Early next week, the CDNews will be displaying a graphic to track the progress of the $25,000 fundraising effort.

You can make your tax-deductible contributions  through PayPal to [email protected] (Please reference the Brenton Memorial) or by check to:

Leschi Community Council
Attn: Officer Brenton Memorial
Po Box 22391
Seattle WA 98122-0391

Thank you for you support.

 

Further information about the Memorial can be found at

http://centraldistrictnews.com/2010/08/12/leschi-neighbors-p