Architecture for Kids
March 29 to April 2
Grades 3-5
Monday-Friday
9:00 AM to Noon
Emergency Shelters
Fee: $95
Grades 6-8
Monday-Friday
1:30 PM to 4:30 PM
Town Planning
Fee: $95
For additional information, see:
Karen O’Connor, the Senior Public Relations Specialist for Seattle Parks and Recreation, told us about a new addition to the Arboretum. There is a guided tour available today at 5:30 and a public meeting for those interested next Tuesday March 16. Here is what she told us about Pacific Connections Garden:
The Pacific Connections Garden is one of the key components of the Washington Park Arboretum’s 20-year Master Plan for renewal and marks the first major new exhibit in the Arboretum in almost 50 years. The 14-acre garden will be located at the south end of the Arboretum and feature five eco-geographic immersion forests surrounding a central welcoming meadow and a series of stunning entry gardens. The forests will be comprised of temperate-climate plant communities from Australia, New Zealand, China, Chile, and Cascadia.
Construction begins in late spring for the “Gateway to Chile.” This is part of the second phase of the implementation of the Pacific Connections Garden.
We invite you to a public tour on Wednesday, March 10, 2010 at 5:30 p.m. and a public meeting on Tuesday, March 16, 2010.
Attached is the flyer with detail information. We encourage you to come and learn about the upcoming improvements for the Washington Park Arboretum which include the removal of some native trees to make way for the planting of over 70 Chilean trees and the restoration of the overgrown Holmdahl Rockery.
It’s easy to get envious in the neighborhood news biz. Other spots are gifted with exciting things like cougars and whales and bears (oh my!). So it’s cool when we get some of our own.
We spotted these two eagles flying in slow circles over Immaculate Conception Church:
And here’s an unidentified hawk we saw sitting in a tree at the corner of 22nd & Cherry:
We checked in with Kedra Olsen on Bar 19. Here is what she shared with CDN:
“Yeah – I have EVERYTHING except for one spec sheet (waiting on one guy. I am headed to pick things up in person from him tomorrow). With that said, we are submitting 2 sets of plans (we are asking for a small variance to the health code requirements) – one will have all the health department requirements, and one with the variance we are asking for. These all get submitted and dispersed to the health dept, the plumbing division of the health dept, and the planning dept. Our designers says it might take a couple of weeks to wade through the bureaucracy, but likely a lot longer. We hope that we have permits by the end of April and will start construction in May — we are hoping the build is basic enough to take 6 to 8 weeks – so summer is likely. For sure before July!!”
While the weather has lately been turning towards thought of summer grilling, the last couple days ought to be a reminder, we’ve got lots of gloomy days ahead where a bowl of soup is a perfect dinner.
We’ll be hosting the 2nd Central District Soup Swap in our Colman/Judkins Park home on Wednesday, March 24th.
Last year’s event was a great way to meet neighbors through out the CD and go home with a nice mix of soup for your freezer and we can’t think of why this year’s won’t be just as lovely.
We’re going to broadly define the CD so that if you live North of Atlantic, South of Madison, East of 14th and West of 30th, we’re inviting you!
You can read about Soup Swap (it’s a craze that started right here in Seattle) at www.soupswap.com. For this swap, you’ll want to bring 6 one quart containers for frozen soup. We won’t be specifying its vegan or meat qualities: make what you like. It’s just important to make sure it’s in quart containers and you’ve got six!
We’ll open our house at 6:00 pm for mingling and drinking some wine, with the Telling of the Soup and swapping to commence promptly at 7:00. We’ll have snacks and mingling can go on and on, but if you’re in dash, we should be finished by 7:30.
Of course, if you want to swap soup but can’t make the time, you’re welcome to drop the soup off or send it with someone else, but proxies pick last.
Finally, we’ll ask that everyone bring some caned foods or pasta for the St. Mary’s food bank in Jackson Place.
Email Knox to RSVP and get the address.
Are those flying around I-90 traffic reporters or is this related to the attempted robbery at the Bank of America by the Red Apple?
Those are really annoying!
Over fifty Central District residents packed into a Seattle University class room last night to voice their concerns and (some) to support the 22nd Avenue Re-Entry House Project. John Hayes, the Director of Community Relations for the Seattle Police Department, moderated the meeting. Hayes reminded attendees that they should premise the discussion on the fact that the re-entry project will happen. The audience should focus on making the project mutually agreeable to the neighbors and its founders. New Hope’s efforts are consistent with a national movement among historically black churches to deal with the problem of a shortage in offender reentry housing.
James Kenny, an Assistant Seattle City Attorney, spoke after Hayes and cautioned the assemblage that even if a good neighbor agreement is reached between Black Dollar Days Task Force and the 22nd Avenue Block Watch and Community Group, this would be a civil agreement between two parties. In other words, the police and city prosecutors will not be responsible for enforcing the agreement. Click thru the main photo at left for photos of the draft good neighbor agreement (I will update with a .pdf if Kenny sends me one).
Bill Wolfe from the Washington Department of Corrections then confirmed that Corrections would not have oversight of the 22nd Avenue House in its initial stages. When pressed by an audience member for the reason, Bill Wolfe responded that the current project had “too many issues”.
The audience was then split into five smaller groups and charged with reviewing a draft good neighbor agreement (distributed by Kenny) and offering questions and/or issues as input. Here are some issues that neighbors had regarding the re-entry house. Some of the issues raised echo the concerns expressed in the 2/25 Letter to Reverend Jeffrey.
The plan for 18 loft-style apartments at 12th & Fir was one of the more ambitious projects of the real-estate bubble years. Now it’s shaping up to be the Central District’s poster-child of real-estate and banking woes, and how the resulting ownership confusion can leave us all with an unstable mess.
The property at 151 12th was purchased by PbElemental in late 2007 for $575,000 and the old auto shop that sat on it was demolished the next year. But the mixed-use project never made it past the first set of design reviews, and it was cancelled last year. PbElemental also defaulted on the bank loan that was used to purchase the property, the corner lot was taken over by Evergreen Bank.
But the empty lot was left in a state of disarray. The city cited it last year for an unstable, unretained slope along the back and side with no erosion control, putting neighboring properties at risk of damage. According to the citation (attached above), the city is requiring a geotechnical engineer to evaluate the site and for countermeasures to be designed and installed to prevent further problems.
And as the site has sat empty, it’s also become a target for dumping. Trash is piled up in various places, and old TV sets and computer monitors are broken and strewn about the property. Earlier in the year, Capitol Hill Housing, which owns other property along 12th, paid to have a junked car moved off the lot.
The story got more complicated in January, as Evergreen Bank was seized by the FDIC and sold to Umpqua Bank of Oregon, putting Umpqua in charge of the derelict property and any others that may have been a part of Evergreen’s load portfolio.
The site is currently incurring fines of $500 a day as long as the problems go unfixed. And after sending four notices to the owners about the violations, the city planning department has forwarded the case on to the city attorney’s office for legal action.
We made numerous attempts to contact PbElemental for comment on this story. A man who answered the phone there said he couldn’t speak to it, and attempts to reach a company executive were unsuccessful.
Seattle is going to place its hat in the ring to test an ultra-high speed broadband network and is asking for your help.
What Is This About?
The City of Seattle will respond to a “Request for Information” from Google for a pilot program that Google is doing to build and test ultra-high speed broadband networks. If we are successful, Google will select one or more neighborhoods in Seattle to participate in their pilot program.
Google’s plan is to launch an experiment that Google hopes will make Internet access better and faster for everyone. Google’s networks “…will deliver Internet speeds more than 100 times faster than what most Americans have access to today over 1 gigabit per second, fiber-to-the-home connections. [Google will] offer service at a competitive price to at least 50,000 and potentially up to 500,000 people.”
How Can You Help?
On behalf of your neighborhood, organization, or business, you can fill out the section of Google’s Request for Information (RFI) that is geared toward residents and community groups. Responses are due back to Google by March 26.
This section of the RFI allows neighborhoods, organizations, or businesses to make their pitch to Google for why Google should build a fiber-to-the-home network in a particular area of Seattle. The questions in this section focus on (a) why Google should pick a particular neighborhood for their pilot; and (b) what’s the type, quality, and price of current internet services in that neighborhood.
How Do I Fill Out the RFI?
Below are step-by-step instructions for filling out the residents and community groups section of the RFI:
1. Go to Google’s website http://www.google.com/appserve/fiberrfi/
2. Click on the “Get Involved” button.
3. Login (if you already have an account).
4. If you do not have an account, click on “Create an Account Now.” Follow the instructions for creating an account – this will include responding to an “email address verification” email that Google will email to the address you provide them.
5. Go back to where you were in the Google website and click on “Nominate your Community.” This will bring up the list of questions that you will respond to on line, and submit to Google when you are finished.
Questions?
If you have questions about how to fill out the RFI form, please contact Diane Clausen (phone number is 684-8151; email is [email protected]).
If you have questions about the Google RFI project in general, please contact Tony Perez (phone number is 386-0070; email is [email protected]).