The Seattle Times has posted their endorsements for district 5 (Includes most of the Central Area), giving the nod to Andre Helmstetter and Kay Smith-Blum.

Seattle Times endorsements for Seattle School Board

Matt Durham, aka “cdguy“, my youngest brother, my only brother, died earlier today at the unreasonable age of 30.

He leaves behind a family who loved him very much, with some who wish they would have told him so much more often.

He was smart, gifted in art and music, and unfailingly loyal to those that were close to him.

He was born on Groundhog Day in 1979 in Lubbock, Texas. On that day, his older brother and his dad picked out a gift, a plush stuffed dog, from the large bin of them at his dad’s pharmacy and took it to him in the hospital. He almost didn’t survive his early days, when a medical issue initially stumped the doctors at Lubbock General. Luckily his grandfather, an immensely knowledgeable and resourceful small town doctor, was on hand and immediately diagnosed the problem, leading to a healthy baby. 

He was one of the most fun, energetic kids you could meet. In his preschool years, he developed a talent for flushing his older brother’s Star Wars figures down the toilet, and could almost always be found dressed as a little super hero, with either a reversable Batman/Superman cape, or a Spiderman outfit that would stir him to tell people “I’m going to fro my web at you!”

As a kid he maintained his good cheer even when his older brother did mean older-brother things to him. To this day, that brother cringes at knowing that Matt once told a beloved elementary school teacher that the thing he most wanted in the world was for his brother to be nice to him.

He would spend long summers at his grandparent’s house on Lake LBJ, where he would swim and fish and and ski and jetski up and down the length of the lake. His skin would tan to a dark brown, his hair bleach to near blond, and the bottom of his feet would turn black from his careful avoidance of shoes. He would sit in his granddad’s lap and steer the family boat, chirping excitedly all the way. When not in motion, he would sit on the porch with his family and talk almost non-stop.

In 1989, Matt took a trip to the great Pacific Northwest with his grandparents and brother, starting in Oregon, through Washington to British Columbia, and then back south again. He insisted that they stop at every aquarium that came across their path, no matter how homely looking or disreputable it might appear. He caught enormous salmon at the mouth of the Columbia, and gazed at trees in sizes and numbers that were unthinkable to a boy from the high, dry plains of Texas. He even survived the occasional punch to the arm or verbal fight that would erupt after too much time spent in the cramped back seat of a rental car.

Matt’s brother vividly remembers when the family said goodbye to the brother in the stairwell of a hot, un-air-conditioned dorm in College Station Texas. The brother saw tears streaming down Matt’s 13 year old face, and soon found himself to be in tears too. That was the first time the brother realized that he too often took his family’s love and presence for granted.

Matt was by far the most athletic member of his family. He was successful at basketball in elementary and junior high, before his Durham height became too great a disadvantage. In high school he joined the Monterey Plainsman baseball team, coached by the legendary Bobby Moegle. Playing outfield and using his speed as a pinch runner, his team won the Texas 5A Championship in 1996.

He graduated from Texas Tech in 2002 with a degree in bio-chemistry. He had always wanted to follow in his granddad’s footsteps and become a doctor, but his grades and test scores weren’t quite enough to get him there. He worked in a Lubbock ear, nose, and throat doctor’s office for several years, eventually becoming office manager and known for keeping a busy, multi-doctor, multi-million dollar office in tight working order.

In his college years, Matt developed an unexpected artistic streak. He picked up painting and produced a series of unique, amazing portraits of friends and family. Like a lot of the best art, he gave them to his subjects as gifts, things that will be forever cherished by those who hold them.

He also had amazing music skills. Although he could not read music, he could hear anything and reproduce it on the piano or guitar. He learned entire classical piano pieces by ear and played them almost flawlessly.

In late 2006, Matt’s brother invited him to move up to Seattle and join him on a crazy adventure, to become the #2 employee of a new software start-up. It was a risky move, as Matt didn’t have a formal tech background and the two brothers had hardly spent any time together since the older one left for college fourteen years earlier. But Matt came prepackaged with some key qualities: intelligence, an amazing work ethic, eagerness to learn, and no need for fancy living.

After a visit to Seattle in February of 2007, Matt decided to take the plunge and moved into his brother’s upstairs apartment later that May. With only a few information sharing lessons and a few books, Matt quickly became an expert in the world of CSS and HTML and applied his native artistic talents to the world of computer graphics. He could solve almost any problem in the world of web-page coding, even the endlessly frustrating ones with Internet Explorer. He ended up designing every user interface used in Instivate’s family of products, with the exception of the old crusty one you’re viewing now which predated his arrival in Seattle. He and his brother worked together better than they could have ever thought, getting to know each other all over again as adults, amid two and a half years of working together in the same cramped upstairs office. His brother’s respect for his talents and dedication grew every day.

Matt’s family is still struggling to understand his sudden death, and wondering how we’re going to get by without him. He is survived by his mother Susan and father Paul, his brother Scott, his maternal grandparents “Mer & Granddad”, and his paternal grandmother.

He will be greatly missed, and will be an example to all of us that youth doesn’t ensure anything, and that it’s never too soon to tell those close to you that you love them, that they’re great, and special, and that the world would never be the same without them.

Services are not yet scheduled, but will most likely be held later in Texas.

One thing that’s nice about this job is that we get to hear a lot of rumors and then try to put some facts to them. A recent one going through the grapevine is about a series of sexual assaults in Madrona, supposedly driving a public meeting on the topic for Wednesday night at Madrona Park.

We’ve made a series of phone calls this morning, but have so far only come up with one fact: a report was taken on July 5th from an incident where a man groped one teenage girl while she was waiting with her friends outside the deli near 34th & Union. SPD spokesman Mark Jamieson said that the suspect approached the girl, whispered spanish in her ear, groped her, and then left. He is described as an hispanic male, late 20s to early 30s, 5’4″, 130-150lbs, thin, with short black hair. 

Jamieson also said that he’s checked with detectives in the department’s Sexual Assault Unit and they aren’t aware of any further pattern of incidents from this suspect or any others in Madrona.

The department’s detectives are also unaware of any public meeting for tomorrow night. East Precinct police leadership also didn’t know anything about any potential meeting.

Got some tips or facts that we missed? Let us know in the comments below and we’ll continue the investigation.

Here’s the scoop from a rare cloudy summer day in Seattle’s East Precinct:

Did know you can also follow the CD Scanner on Twitter @cdscanner? It’s true!

Tonight is Night Out, a nationwide event for neighbors to get together and meet people around them.

Last week we asked people to let us know if they had an event planned for their block. So far the area between Union & Cherry is winning the neighborhood spirit competition by a mile.

Here’s a map of of all the ones we’ve heard about so far:

Is yours not on here? Leave a comment below and we’ll add it.

There’s a big fire response to a house near 26th & Fir. The fire is under control, but there is still some smoke coming out of the rear windows.

It appears that the house is empty, possibly undergoing a remodel, and there’s a for-sale sign out front.

Seattle police are also here investigating the incident. I heard one neighbor telling them that some problematic neighborhood kids have been seen in the house before, in addition to an ongoing series of disturbances they’ve been causing on the block.

Update: 11:42am: Sue Stangel from the Seattle Fire Department just told us that the fire has been ruled accidental, caused by improperly discarded smoking materials. As to whether those smoking materials were left by someone who had permission to be in the house, she said that “there was no criminal intent.”

The Central Area Motivation Program has named Andrea Caupain as their new Executive Director. She’s been with the non-profit agency for six years, and had been serving as interim director since 2007. CAMP Board President Grover Johnson says that her promotion was motivated by the way she guided the agency through the last six months of economic turmoil.

CAMP was founded in 1964 to combat poverty in the Central Area, and is currently focused on programs such as low-income energy assistance, youth job training, and food bank services.

If you’re interested in volunteering at CAMP, stop by their offices in the old brick firehouse at 722 18th Ave, or you can donate to them online.

From Seattle’s East Precinct, Monday, August 3, 2009

Our fantastic Neighborlogs intern Lucas Anderson headed out to Umojafest this weekend and got some cool photos of the action there:

Luckily this was a wreck that looked a lot worse that it actually turned out to be. Four kids were riding in the back of a yellow cab at 13th & Cherry when it was struck by a white Honda. An officer at the scene told me that they only sustained minor injuries, and were being taken to the hospital as a precaution. Two were small enough to share the same stretcher in the ambulance.

It wasn’t immediately clear who was at fault in the accident.