Author Archives: Kaylee Osowski

Seattle, county move forward in fight against heroin deaths

Posted on by

Seattle Mayor Ed Murray and King County Executive Dow Constantine are moving forward with all eight of the Heroin and Prescription Opiate Addiction Task Force’s recommendations to battle the region’s deadly epidemic.

“Opioid addiction is killing people in our community, sparing no age, race, sexual identity, income level or neighborhood,” Constantine said last week. “The experts we brought together have provided us with the battle plan we need to defeat this epidemic — a plan to save lives, to make it easier for people to get the help they need, to prevent the devastating harm that addiction causes. Unless we are willing to let this suffering continue, we have an obligation to turn their plan into action.”

The nearly 40 experts from public health, criminal justice, hospitals, schools and treatment providers and researchers convened in March 2016 and released a report and recommendations in September. Continue reading →

Seven candidates file for Seattle City Council Position 8 race

Posted on by

No incumbent and Seattle’s new Democracy Voucher program has drawn seven candidates to the race for the at-large City Council Position 8 so far.

In November, Jon Grant, former director of the Tenants Union, announced his bid for the seat left open by longtime council member Tim Burgess’s impending retirement. Since then notable others have decided to vie for the job. Among them are Mac McGregor, a gender, diversity, and sex educator, activist, speaker, and coach, Teresa Mosqueda, political director for the Washington State Labor Council, and Sheley Secrest, local NAACP vice president.

10660100_10204351737221066_5828433409770086078_nMac McGregor
McGregor served on the Seattle LGBTQ Commission from 2011 to 2016. As The Gender Sensei, McGregor offers classes on self-defense, martial arts, and Tai-chi wellness. He is also a professional life coach, personal trainer, motivational speaker, and educates and trains groups on diversity and sensitivity, according to his website.

The Beacon Hill resident moved to Seattle from the Bible Belt in 2008.

“Even though there’re so many things we do right in Seattle, and we’re a progressive city in so many ways, we can do better,” McGregor told CHS. Continue reading →

East Precinct to get its own crime prevention coordinator — in a few months

Posted on by
Crime across all categories tracked by SPD was down slightly in 2016 compared to the previous year. The numbers show a big downward tick for overall crime in the second half of 2016 with December finishing up the year with the lowest reported crime totals for the month in five years. You can see the latest reports on the CHS Capitol Hill Crime Dashboard

Crime across all categories tracked by SPD was down slightly in 2016 compared to the previous year. The numbers show a big downward tick for overall crime in the second half of 2016 with December finishing up the year with the lowest reported crime totals for the month in five years. You can see the latest reports on the CHS Capitol Hill Crime Dashboard

For years Terrie Johnston has been the crime prevention coordinator for both the Seattle Police Department’s East and West precincts.

But after whittling down about 140 applications to a handful who were interviewed about two weeks ago, a selection and hiring process is underway for new coordinators at both the East and Southwest precincts. Continue reading →

Good Citizen to make way for Harvard Avenue School expansion

Posted on by
(Images: Harvard Avenue School)
(Images: Harvard Avenue School)
Good Citizen (Images: CHS)
Good Citizen (Images: CHS)
Good Citizen (Images: CHS)

Good Citizen (Images: CHS)

Another impending business closure on Capitol Hill illustrates the varied ways coincidences of similar events can form together to make you say, hey, what’s going on around here. This time, a loss for lovers of coffee and couches is a win for Capitol Hill’s two-year-olds.

With a strong demand for a toddler program, the Harvard Avenue School, which offers early childhood education through pre-kindergarten, is planning to expand into the Good Citizen coffee shop located on the ground floor of the school.

“There is an enormous demand for full day care since Amazon has brought so many new families to Seattle,” Andrea Hackman, founder and director of the school, tells CHS CHS. “The market is pretty saturated with half day preschool, but there are more and more families needing full day childcare (which we currently do not offer). Once we begin offering that I’m confident it will be extremely popular.”

The expansion means the end of one of the more curious experiments in the neighborhood’s recent waves of food and drink investments. Continue reading →

Sawant wants to strengthen Seattle’s laws against warrantless surveillance

Posted on by
One of the ATF cameras installed along 23rd Ave. (Photo: CHS)

One of the ATF cameras installed along 23rd Ave. (Photo: CHS)

With renewed concerns about the reach of the federal government’s surveillance, the chair of Seattle City Council’s Energy and Environment Committee wants to strengthen the city’s laws when it comes to warrantless cameras on City of Seattle property and assets like Seattle City Light’s utility poles.

“At least I think that the members of the public agree that Seattle must stand up to any kind of big brother idea, and also I would like for the city to protect its residents without having any real expectations for cooperation from federal agencies,” District 3 representative and committee chair Kshama Sawant said.

“I don’t think we should expect that in normal circumstances, certainly, we should not expect that from a Trump administration.” Continue reading →

One year, 250,000 pints of Optimism

Posted on by
img_2017

Hakala and Gilmore, left, along with the Optimism crew (Images: CHS)

Happy birthday to brew, Optimism Brewery.

Optimism Brewery opened its doors at Broadway and Union in December 2015 and is celebrating one year of making beer on Capitol Hill this weekend.

Gay Gilmore, who founded the brewery with her husband Troy Hakala, said they always dreamed of opening the brewery in their home neighborhood on Capitol Hill, and the support they’ve received has been hugely rewarding.

“The response has been so awesome, we just want to say thank you,” Gilmore said.

In the first year, 61,000 people visited Optimism’s taproom, and the brewery has sold 1,000 barrels or 124,000 250,000 pints of beer. In addition to Capitol Hill-brewed beer, Optimism’s-16,000 square-foot brewery has become a popular space for politicians, city officials, nonprofits, and residents to hold parties and events. Continue reading →

Seattle Seed Company finds new space to grow on 12th Ave

Posted on by
(Images: Seattle Seed Company)

Sander Kallshian became interested in gardening and the environment as a kid.

His family had a garden, and he started an environmentalist club with a neighborhood friend. With some humidifiers and forest wallpaper, he transformed his room into a rainforest.

“I was kind of the environmentalist of the family,” Kallshian told CHS.

That interest has now grown into an online and in store wholesale and retail seed and garden business that recently relocated to the retail space below a new microhousing development at 12th and Yesler. Continue reading →

LGBTQ poetry festival brings art, ‘Queer Resurgence’ to Capitol Hill

Posted on by

LGBTQ poets are preparing to battle until the best wordsmith emerges in the first Queer Resurgence on Capitol Hill Poetry Festival.

Seattle Poetry Slam is launching the new festival featuring a poetry slam competition, panel discussions, and workshops Sunday through Tuesday.

Ebo Barton, booking and events coordinator for Seattle Poetry Slam, said the festival was born from the effects of Capitol Hill changing and the desire to bring art and an LGBTQ presence back.

Barton told CHS there’s been a lot of positive feedback about the event, and many are looking forward to the workshops.

“Folks are really excited to have these actual conversations while doing art … in a place where we feel as comfortable as we can,” Barton said. Continue reading →

Live from Capitol Hill: the Last Week in Trump newsletter

Posted on by

64b84587-e4cb-4bef-9b0c-0546e9395aeeSeattle politics and government have offered plenty for Sol Villarreal to fill his two-year-old weekly newsletter Sol’s Civic Minute. And then Donald Trump got elected.

Capitol Hill resident Villarreal had sprinkled some Trump news into Civic Minute, but decided to test out a second newsletter focused on the president-elect. In early December he published a post on Medium about Trump with a survey asking readers if they would like the info in an email. The answer was “yes” so Last Week in Trump was born.

Since then, he has been refining the newsletter with the help of subscribers. The most popular part of the first post on Medium was the inclusion of the conservative side, providing most Seattleites with views differing from their own. He has continued to do that in his beta test of the letter.

“It’s important, I think, for the political conversations that we have (to consider the other side) because we can address each other more effectively if we are talking to each other instead of over each other,” Villarreal said. Continue reading →

HALA Capitol Hill: The dense want it denser — the not so dense, not so much

Posted on by

While the young urbanists of Capitol Hill might be disappointed the city’s Housing Affordability and Livability Agenda zoning change proposals for Broadway probably won’t create three-hundred-foot apartment towers, Seattle officials are ready to face opposition in other parts of the neighborhood where even relatively modest height boosts are planned,

Generally speaking, Jesseca Brand with the Seattle Department of Neighborhoods said, residents in already dense areas, especially on Capitol Hill and First Hill are more accepting and see the proposed changes being pounded out through 2017 as a good thing. Areas on Eastern Capitol Hill, to the south, and in the Central District where single-family streets are more common are more apprehensive and are concerned about “cultural and economic displacement.”

“Our hope is that the community feels they can shape this program neighborhood by neighborhood,” Brand said at last week’s HALA open house organized by city planners in a more fun than you would expect for this kind of session venue — Capitol Hill’s Optimism Brewing. Sometimes a drink is required when discussing the future of Seattle’s central neighborhoods. Continue reading →