All the excitement from the streets of Seattle’s East Precinct on the last day of March 2010:

As we reported last week, SPD stats indicate that burglaries and other crimes have taken a dip in the last month, and our analysis of police reports on SeattleCrime.com appears to confirm that. But while the number of break-ins to neighborhood homes and businesses is down, a few large incidents have kept the total value of losses very high. 

Here’s the full round-up:

• 3/21 – 800 33rd – $7,250 – Unspecified property stolen from detached garage
• 3/2 – 2800 E. Denny Way – Problem tenants failed to pay the water bills, didn’t fix a broken window, stole a dresser, and a month after they moved out they broke back in and took the small-claims court paperwork that the owner was going to use to sue them
• 3/17 – 1800 24th Ave – $290 – Burglars broke a side window and stole 50 CDs and a gym bag
• 3/19 – 1400 18th Ave – $0 – Someone entered Tougo in the middle of the night, set off the alarm, and ripped the thermostat off the wall thinking it was the alarm
• 3/4 – 1600 E. Union – $0 – Someone tried to kick in a woman’s door in the middle of the night. She yelled and evidently scared them off
• 3/12 – 100 20th Ave – $1,600 – House was broken into while housesitter was away. Unspecified property was taken from inside, and a car was stolen from the driveway
• 3/6 – 1600 S. Jackson Place – $0 – Front door was kicked in, but burglars were evidently scared off by the neighbors dog, who is described as the only witness to the crime
• 3/13 – 1800 S. King – $0 – Two Makita chop saws stolen from a garage
• 3/7 – 1800 S. Weller – $1,000 – Man heard a noise out in his detached garage and found that someone had broken into the garage by pulling plywood off of an opening. No details on what was taken
• 3/8 – 800 23rd S – $9,300 – Man was only gone for an hour when someone broke in through the front door and stole a laptop, Rolex watch, 2 camcorders, 2 credit cards, and $120 in cash. The man suspects a neighbor my be involved

Finally, on March 19th there was a break-in to a commercial building in the 1400 block of 31st S. The alarm went off, and the security cameras captured the following:

The unknown suspect was described as a W/M approximately 5'10", medium
build, wearing a dark ball cap (no logo), a dark sweatshirt, gloves and
denim jeans.  The suspect was also wearing a large black backpack with a
white stripe down the middle.  The suspect made entry through the front
door of the Mount Baker Ridge Building located on the East side of 31st Ave
S.  After making entry the suspect broke one of the cameras facing the
front door located on the first floor.  The suspect then made his way to
the second floor where he made entry into the locked suite # .  The
suspect was inside the building for approximately 4-5 mins and exited
through the same door he entered from.
It is unknown what was taken from suite # .

Our cute little art deco fire station is too cramped for a modern fire fighting force, and is scheduled to replacement thanks to the fire facilities levy that was passed by voters in 2003.

The city has purchased the lot on the southwest corner of MLK & Jackson, and designs for the new building there are now 60% complete. The two-story, 11,235 square foot fire house will sit right on the corner, with equipment bays that face MLK and a parking area that will sit on the west side of the lot.

Here’s the updated renderings:

Looking south across Jackson:

Looking west across MLK:

The second-floor of the southern section of the building will contain a large space for firefighters to live, including a large kitchen, a day room with TV and seating for 9, a gym, 8 bunk rooms, 4 bathrooms with showers, and outdoor terraces on the east and west sides.

The first-floor living space will contain the station office area, two private offices and sleeping quarters for officers, two more full bathrooms, and a lot of storage space for gear.

I just put an event in the calendar, but in case you aren’t looking there – this Saturday, April 3rd, is your chance at free pizza and beer courtesy of Central Cinema – all you need to do is come out and help us weed, clean, and re-plant the Union Street Public Gardens! Come plant, weed and pick up litter along E Union St 1-4pm this Saturday, April 3rd. Meet at 23rd & Union at 1pm.

We have plants ordered to fill in the gaps in our Union Street Public Gardens along E Union from 20th-23rd Avenues. IMPORTANT: Please provide your own gloves, shovels, trowels and litter grabbers. We’ll provide instructions, planting maps, compost bags for weeds and litter bags for trash.

Will Little at Cortona Cafe is offering hot or cold tea for us during the afternoon. Then there’s beer and pizza at Central Cinema at 4:30-5pm-ish as your thank you, along w/ a showing of The Secret Garden. So go home, wash up, get your spouse, partner, kids and come back for a party!!

“This project is funded in part by a Neighborhoods Matching Fund award of the Seattle Department of Neighborhoods.” Many thanks to DON, Keith Geller Landscape Architect, Will Little Cortona Cafe, Allison Cummings & John Stewart plant counters extraordinaire & Kevin & Clinton Central Cinema. And huge thanks to Jean Tinnea, without whom this project wouldn’t be happening.

On March 29th there was a power outage in the area of Fir and 20th.  The power outage started around 5:30 pm, there were city work crews seen working on the corner of Alder and 19th and electricity was heroically restored at approx. 8:30 pm.  Many local residents were effected and presumably either ate dinner in the darkness or went somewhere else for supper.

Here’s what shakin’ out in Seattle’s East Precinct:

There’s not enough police in Seattle to keep a constant eye on your section of the neighborhood, much less on your specific block. But odds are that at any one time, there’s a good proportion of your neighbors who are home and can help keep watch for shenanigans. 

But the key to making community crime prevention effective is good organization. You need to really get to know your neighbors before you can accurately say whether the man coming and going from their backyard should be there or not. A well organized block watch creates those kind of communication channels and creates a tighter knit community around you.

The Leschi neighborhood is trying to get to that next step of coordination, and Jane Cunningham and Tracy Bier are taking the initial stab at getting everyone together to make it happen. So if you’d like to have more eyes on your street, and build a stronger community in the process, then make plans to attend the All Block Watch Meeting this Thursday at 7pm.

SPD Crime Prevention Coordinator Mark Solomon will also be on hand to help out and give people some practical tools to ease the process. Contact Jane at [email protected] if you’d like to know more.

Cheeky Cafe, which we first mentioned back in January, is quickly coming into shape in the corner retail spot at 17th & Jackson. Construction crews are working to build out the kitchen and dining area of the space in the large unfinished space in the new Squire Park Plaza building.

We got an email from Wendy Wong, the restauranteur, who told us that they’re currently shooting for an opening in mid May.

Wendy also said that the concept has changed a bit in the last couple of months too. They’re now planning on initially focusing on serving dinner instead of breakfast. But those of you hankering for a breakfast spot may still get your wish – Wendy said they will consider starting a weekend breakfast if the demand is there from the community.

You can read more about Wendy’s plans for the restaurant and keep tabs on their progress via their new blog: http://blog.cheekycafe.com/

From a wet and windy Monday in Seattle’s East Precinct:

Here’s the culprit behind the disruption of the #27 bus. An alder tree has fallen across Lake Dell Ave up near the top of the hill from the steep embankment east of Leschi Elementary.

City crews are now on the scene, preparing to remove it, but you should expect the closure to last through the morning.

The tree also took down some phone and electric wires, so appears that some of the neighbors on this side of the hill will be without service.

We saw one pedestrian who allowed to get across on the east side, opposite the downed wires, but its likely that all access will be blocked once work starts to remove the debris.

Update: 12:14pm – The tree is now removed and one lane is being opened back to traffic. Other lane anticipated to open within 30 minutes