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East District Neighborhood Council: Meeting Highlights

I attended this month’s East District Neighborhood Council meeting on behalf of Unpaving Paradise. It was a great: UP told the Neighborhood Council about John and Summit and the Neighborhood Council told UP about all kinds of interesting local policy developments. The highlights are below:

The good news from Stella Chao, director of the Department of Neighborhoods

  • The Department of Neighborhoods didn’t get hurt by last fall’s major city budget cuts; they actually got more money from the mayor for the Neighborhood Matching Fund. Good news for neighborhood project types.
  • In the middle of last year, the DON also received $500K to jumpstart acquisition and development of P-Patches. The DON’s priorities are to find and develop more properties as fast as they can – Stella hopes that they can move forward this year. DON has already submitted a spending plan to the mayor’s office – Stella believes that they will be able to get 600-800 new gardeners in the program with this plan. This is on top of the 2 million dollars that is going to come from the newest Park’s Levy. 

City policy update from City Council President Richard Conlin

  • A new tree protection ordinance will be coming before the Council this week. The main points are that a property owner can’t cut more than three trees greater than 6” in diameter on their property each year, and the definition of exceptional trees is being expanded to include groves (a group of trees that operates as an ecological unit).  This is an interim ordinance – a more extensive ordinance will be rolled out this summer which will include incentives for landowners who preserve the trees on their property.
    This ordinance does not apply to street trees or trees in parks, but it does apply to the school district and the Housing Authority
  • Because of the tough economic climate, more money has been made available for food banks and human services. Programs receiving more funding include food banks, food delivery services to the homebound, and outreach to get more eligible Seattle residents signed up for food stamps.
  • The Council is also looking at creating an economic recovery strategy for Seattle. On top of adding funding to human services, the Council is planning on reaching out to the business community, accelerating capital investments in order to create jobs, and finding ways to aid the Seattle arts community.
  • Another result of the tough economic climate: the City Council decided to step back from asking the Washignton State Legislature for their usual list of funding requests. Instead, the Council asked the legislature fully fund K-12 education and to find a stable funding source for public health programs.
  • Last but not least: Dennis Saxman was unanimously elected to be the East District Neighborhood Council’s representative on the Neighborhood Matching Fund Citywide Review Team
    Congratulations, Dennis, and have fun reviewing all those nifty neighborhood project grant proposals…like the one for John and Summit.

    ~~~

    The next meeting of the EDNC will be at Yesler Terrace in April. For more information on the next meeting or the EDNC in general, contact Jose Cervantes, East District Neighborhood Coordinator: [email protected], 206-684-4574.

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    Andrew Taylor
    15 years ago

    Many thanks for the meeting notes, which are all as I remember the meeting.

    FYI: a more up to date (and legible) Neighborhood Districts map is at: http://tinyurl.com/bgapac

    Comrade Bunny
    Comrade Bunny
    15 years ago

    Mayor Nickels’ Strategy to Boost Payrolls: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/politics/2008735147_ni