Looking at the planned agenda for Monday night’s first 2011 meeting of the East District Council you might note an opportunity. Seems like a worthy community cause or three might get some attention on what looks to be a light bill.
Bonus: New city rep with the council from the Department of Neighborhoods Tim Durkan will be there to rope into your pet project. It looks to be a neighborhood activist’s dream set-up.
Here’s how long-time area activist Andrew Taylor described the council on CHS last year:
District Councils are part of the City Neighborhood Council system, Seattle’s desired way of exchanging information with its citizens. The City Neighborhood Council has (IMHO) stagnated somewhat of late, but is showing signs of renewed vigor.
That renewed vigor is being renewed again this year. The meeting will be held Monday at 6:30 PM at the Capitol Hill Library.
The East District Council has been — and was deliberately designed to be — a group that networks rather than making decisions for the entire, and very diverse district, which includes both Madison Park and Yesler Terrace. The Council does preliminary rankings on the Neighborhood Matching Fund’s large project applications from the district and also ranks DOT street fund proposals.
Council voting membership consists of representatives from various citizen and business groups in the District — each organization has one vote. Meetings are open to the public — and the agenda is usually somewhat more interesting than this one is! We frequently host elected officials and city department heads.
The Department of Neighborhoods update may take a while, since budget cuts required substantial, and not so good for our district, changes.