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Seattle Parks and Recreation will host three open houses in April and May to propose to the community the possibility of standardizing park operating hours. The open houses will be held from 6:30-8 p.m. on Monday, April 27, at Green Lake Community Center, 7201 E Green Lake Drive N; on Monday, May 4, at Miller Community Center, 330 19th Ave E; and on Thursday, May 7, at Jefferson Community Center, 3801 Beacon Ave S.
As established by City Council ordinance, most Seattle parks are open from 4 a.m. to 11:30 p.m.; however the Parks Superintendent has the authority to make exceptions to this rule. Numerous exceptions have been made over the years in response to problems in some parks that include noise, graffiti, and alcohol and drug use. As a result, Seattle Parks and Recreation has a patchwork of park operating hours.
The purpose of this proposal is to reduce the opportunity for confusion about what each park's operating hours are, and to alleviate actual and perceived neighborhood safety issues.
Seattle Parks and Recreation briefed the Board of Park Commissioners on this issue in February, and will present the community's feedback to the Park Board in May to seek a final recommendation to the Superintendent. If standardization is recommended, it will require by City Council ordinance.
For more information, contact Community Connections Manager Mickey Fearn at (206) 684-8035 or mickey.fearn@seattle.gov or visit www.seattle.gov/parks/parkboard.
Greetings,
My name is Serena Lehman and I work for Cascade Bicycle Club. We are quickly approaching National Bike Month, May. Every year we have a big Bike to Work Day event with stations all around the city. Last year we had about 40 stations and over 23,000 people passed through these stations. Have you ever thought your neighborhood needed its own station? This year we are starting a Do-It-Yourself Station opportunity. This is open to everybody. This is a great opportunity to really engage your neighbors/community to think about cycling as transportation and to really personalize Bike to Work Day. Go to >http://cbcef.org/btw/btw_stations_diy.html for more information. This event is all about your creativity.
Serena Lehman
Outreach Coordinator
Cascade Bicycle Club Education Foundation
206.957.4439
Creating a Better Community Through Bicycling
Two new schools are moving to the Meany School building (next to Miller Community Center and playfield at 19th & Thomas) this fall, after the middle school has been closed (and its students dispersed to other schools).
Please join the Miller Park Neighborhood Association and Miller Community Center Advisory Council in welcoming the principals to our neighborhood. We're meeting with them at 7PM this Wednesday (April 15th: Tax Day!) in the multipurpose room on the lower level of Miller Community Center, 330 - 19th Avenue East.
We'll chat with them about their programs, share with them our previous experiences with the middle school, and explore what the neighborhood and schools can do to get along in a friendly and productive manner.
Who will be there?
- Mark Perry, principal of Nova alternative high school. The school (and Mr. Perry) have been across the street from Garfield school since Nova started.
- Martin O'Callaghan, principal of the Secondary Bilingual Orientation Center (presently on lower Queen Anne).
- Jeremy Doane, the new director of Miller Community Center, and other Miller staff.
- members of the volunteer advisory council for the Community Center (a group that you'd surely like to join).
- the Vice Principal of Student Life and the principal's executive assistant from Holy Names Academy.
- Dani Cone, the owner of Fuel Coffee, who will bring us COFFEE!
- YOU!
More details are available here. Hope to see you on Wednesday. Maybe there will be time to talk of other neighborhood interests.......
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‘Hyperlocal’ Web Sites Deliver News Without Newspapers
If your local newspaper shuts down, what will take the place of its coverage? Perhaps a package of information about your neighborhood, or even your block, assembled by a computer.
Minh Uong/The New York Times
Readers' Comments
Could start-up Web sites be an adequate replacement for local newspaper coverage?A number of Web start-up companies are creating so-called hyperlocal news sites that let people zoom in on what is happening closest to them, often without involving traditional journalists.
From the KEXP website:
On Friday April 17th, KEXP 90.3 FM will invade the Capitol Hill neighborhood. Capitol Hill won the “Hood to Hood” challenge during the 2008 Summer Membership Drive and we wanna thank Capitol Hill donors for their support with an entire day of live broadcasts and special events.
See their website for the locations they'll be broadcasting from, where the other events will be, and what discounts you can get as part of the festivities.
Dear Citizen,
Spring is quickly approaching and we are gearing up for Spring Clean 2009, Seattle's premier community clean up event and part of Mayor Greg Nickels’ Clean and Green Seattle Initiative. We cordially invite you and your neighbors to participate!
Spring Clean looks to citizens like you to mobilize your community around lending a helping hand in cleaning up Seattle’s public spaces. This program is a partnership of citizen volunteers and Seattle Public Utilities, the Department of Neighborhoods, Seattle Parks and Recreation, and Seattle Department of Transportation.
Please see below attachment to help get you started:
Dates: This year, Spring Clean kicks off Saturday, April 4th through Saturday, May 30th.
Typical Spring Clean Projects: Past projects have included litter pickups, storm drain stenciling graffiti paint-outs, and invasive plant removal. Please note that all Spring Clean projects are on public property.
City assistance: The City provides participants with special litter pick up bags, waste disposal permits, tools, and support materials for media outreach. This support is provided free of charge.
Project Registration: To get started on planning a project, please return the attached Spring Clean 2009 Registration Form. Upon receipt of your completed registration form, we will send you a comprehensive information packet.
If you have additional questions, please call the Spring Clean hotline at (206) 233-7187 or visit www.seattle.gov/util and search “Spring Clean.”
We look forward to working with you!
Sincerely,
Gretchen Muller, Spring Clean Coordinator
(206) 684-0570
On June 27th the Rock ‘n’ Roll Marathon will take place: it will go along Lake Washington and up and down highway 99, but otherwise doesn't look like it will impact our neighborhood much.
Unlike the other Seattle marathon, this one is eager to seek our input and hear our concerns:
This is a friendly reminder that Rock ‘n’ Roll Seattle Marathon & ½ Marathon staff will be in town this week hosting information sessions where you can learn how this special event may affect your business, organization or community group.
If you have not already done so, please email SeattleCommunity@eliteracing.com to confirm an appointment time and include complete contact information (organization’s name, main point of contact name, title, phone, email, address), or call 800-311-1255 and ask for Danielle.
Information Sessions Will be Held in Seattle on:
Wednesday, April 8
Choose from: 1:30 pm, 3:00 pm or 4:30 pm
Lake Union Park Naval Reserve Armory, Officers Club #217
860 Terry Ave N, Seattle, WA 98109
Following the December 2007 flooding in the Madison Valley that drowned one resident, and filled many houses with sewage laden water (yet again), the City of Seattle started planning how to prevent such tragedies happening again.
Many millions of dollars have been assigned to the project, and several meetings have been held to keep neighbors updated on the City's plans. Guess what.. it's time for another meeting!
The issues in a nutshell, as I understand things (in case you've forgotten):
- Many, many years ago, downtown and Madison Park (then separated by virgin forest) were connected by a cable-car that ran along what is now East Madison Street.
- There was a deep valley on that route, roughly between Cafe Flora and Lake Washington Boulevard. It was (I'm guessing) bridged with a wooden railroad trestle. Such trestles were typically built of wood: wood rots around here, so it was surely preserved with creosote.
- People soon realized that creosote-coated wood trestles burnt well, and typically solved such concerns by burying the trestles in dirt. That's certainly how it looks, if you stand on Madison Street east of City Peoples' and peer down off the sides into the Madison Valley.
- The filled-in trestle, of course, blocked the previous stream (which drained from the Madison Valley thorough the Arboretum to Union Bay).
- A big pipe was installed, but it clearly isn't up to the job of helping all our rainwater on its way.
City has a 2 part plan to keep the valley dry:
- A big retention pond to catch the rainwater and let it out slowly into the sewer system. That's been built (map) but is being enlarged.
- A new drainage pipe will be built, to convey extra water to another retention pond, between Washington Park playfield and E. Madison Street, to hold spillover water until it can be carried away in the sewers.
All this is detailed in a City website, and will be explained, examined and discussed in a meeting this week:
- Wednesday April 8th, 6 - 8 PM
- Garfield Community Center gym, 2323 E. Cherry Street.
Come and have A Drink with Doug Schwartz:
Tuesday, March 31 beginning at 5:30
Elysian Brewery 1221 E. Pike.
8AM Monday: water in our toilet (at 20th & John) flushes a rusty brown color. Is this a general problem or just me? Yes, the water in the tank's brown, also.
I note that there's an active fire call at 2014 E. Denny: you can hear an alarm in the building and there are fire-trucks but no smoke. I suspect that one of the fire-trucks returning from the call (5 units dispatched, 2 there now) stopped by the fire-hydrant at the bottom of my yard to refill its tanks, and that stirred up rust in the pipes.
UPDATE 2:06PM by jseattle
Talked to the fire department about the morning call-out. Spokesperson says a dryer fire was extinguished by automatic sprinkler system this morning around 7:30AM in this multi-family housing near Denny and 21st Ave. Damage was limited. No details on whether any trucks filed in the area.
