Fire department says the cause of Wednesday night’s fire at Republican and Belmont appears to be candles that squatters were burning in the vacant structure.  There were no injuries and the flames did about $100k in damage to the old house that was for sale and ready to be torn down. SFD says the investigation is closed.

After a long absence, during which we made due with a selection of pre-prepared sandwiches, wraps, and salads, Victrola has found an in-house sandwich maker to provide snacks to go along with their usual selection of caffeinated and new and growing selection of alcoholic beverages. I haven’t noticed whether their new sandwich chef has tweaked the menu or if they will be sticking with the classics.

Busy and fun weekend on the Hill. Here are a few links to catch you up and getting you moving forward.

• CHS coverage of the Prop 8 rally in Volunteer Park
• Seattle Gay Scene says police underestimated Prop 8 protest crowd size. My estimate was smaller too — 4k — but I was guessing the crowd on the green in Volunteer Park. The ranks definitely swelled when the marching started.
• Summer of love? Seattle’s autumn of Don’t Stop Believing.
• cap to the hill discusses the fine balance between admiration, stalking when it comes to appreciating your neighborhood classical musician.
• SPD has details of the Friday night/Saturday morning assault incident we reported earlier with a little help from Twitter.
• Feds agree to pitch in $813 million for Capitol Hill light rail construction and the University Link project.
• Tonight is Blogsgiving 2008.

If it’s not too early for around-the-clock Xmas music, it’s not too early for Capitol Hill holiday dog photos.

Photo: Heather McCutchen/Wander & Scrawl

Saturday, while all the Prop 8 activities were in full swing, a group of neighborhood dog lovers gathered at the Plymouth Pillars Off-Leash Area to celebrate Holidog and raise some cash for COLA — Citizens for Off Leash Areas. Sorry to be telling you after the event but if you’d still like to help, check out the COLA web site.

I asked Seattle neighborhoods that have already gone through light rail construction what Capitol Hill should know about the process. Here’s an interesting answer from Beacon Hill:

It would be worth talking to some of the folks who were involved in the NBHC and the Beacon Chamber of Commerce back in 2004-05, I believe, when construction issues and mitigation methods were being addressed. I was involved in the noise issue and can suggest some ways to address this. The Beacon HIll construction required a variance of the standard noise rules and an application was made available for public review and a public comment meeting was held. My first suggestion to the Capitol hill folks would be to find someone in the neighborhood who knows permitting, contracting, or general construction issues. As a last resort, pool your money or get a grant to hire a construction management professional to spend a few hours here and there reviewing documents. I found a few substantive errors in the noise permit application. Prior to the noise permit, a survey of ambient noise will be done and this will need strong critique as well. Second, get people to go to the comment meetings. Hardly anyone showed up to the Beacon Hill noise permit public meeting.

Third, distribute the final noise conditions and complain when they are not met. Consider setting up independent noise monitoring equipment or convincing ST to contract out the noise monitoring and committing to distributing data to the local community group for review. ST will rely on complaints for enforcement, even when noise limits are exceeded.

The basic principal to remember is that there are laws, contract specifications, and unenforceable promises. Just because Sound Transit promises something doesn’t mean they have the ability to deliver. It became obvious after a while that ST relies on complaints to deal with nuisance issues such as noise and parking. Assign neighbors to be “enforcers” and come up with some sort of call list so that it doesn’t look like there is one crazy person in the area that calls on every little issue. Some of the community-impact issues should make it into the design and contract specifications from the start, so that ST can’t just say their hands are tied. This is another opportunity for help from a construction management person.

One other thing on Parking. THis issue isn’t a huge deal on BH, as there is a decent amount of parking surrounding the site, but this needs to be anticipated on Capitol Hill. On BH, the plan was for EL Centro to lease their south lot to ST for contractor parking. It wasn’t long before that area became equipment staging and contractor employees started parking in the neighborhood. ST basically said this is not enforceable and was limited to “encouraging” the contractor to make the El Centro lot more available to employees. This could have been prevented by a temporary residential parking zone and some enforcement, but the El Centro lot was justification for not being creative with this issue.

I was able to attend the anti-Proposition 8 rally in Volunteer Park yesterday and it was a great show of force in support of civil rights for my LGBT friends. I shot some video and added a few photos and music. Since the presidential election a few weeks ago, we’re politically galvanized and know now that our voices will be heard.

Hey, it’s kind of late notice, but some friends and I are getting together Tuesday night for tea at Shinka to benefit the Olive & Summit park, as blogged earlier on CHS. 

I posted a calendar item about it… how about 8pm? Come out and say Hi if you like tea and city parks!

El Tajin‘s passing may be lamentable, because it offered inexpensive and tasty Mexican fare. And it’s sad to see that light rail construction may have killed off an ailing business on Broadway.  However, one thing I probably won’t miss is their X-rated drinks menu.  Does anyone know what was up with that?

Twitter neighbor ay1ene reports a crazy scene in the early hours of Saturday on Pine:

Picture: Twitter user ay1ene

ay1ene:

I’ve never seen so many cop cars in one place. Something bad happened by Linda’s in Capitol Hill.   about 17 hours ago from txt 

There’s a woman laying on the sidewalk being attended to by EMTs. The store at Pine and Boylston is trashed.   about 17 hours ago from txt 

Apparently there were a couple fights followed by looting. Nearly every cop in Seattle must be here.   about 17 hours ago from txt 

There’s at least one person on the ground inside the store. I hope everyone is OK.   about 17 hours ago from txt 

A fight broke out in the parking lot across the street. The cops are yelling at them with megaphones.   about 17 hours ago from txt 

Sounds like the market in the area called the Pine Food Store. Real-time 911 confirms a call to the area around 1:45a. We’ll check scanner archives and give SPD a call to see what other details they’ll cough up.

Thanks for adding all the great shots from today’s rally and march to the CHS flickr pool. Here are a few of our favorites.

Also, most interesting flickr Prop 8 Seattle photos: