Author Archives: Kelsey Hamlin

About Kelsey Hamlin

Kelsey Hamlin studied Journalism and Law, Societies & Justice at the University of Washington. For three years, she has focused her work around social justice issues, legalities and policies.

Dance Underground, an open space for Capitol Hill dance communities

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In an underground dance studio on 15th Ave E, you can find Ilana Rubin — hair wisped and face flush — running around or behind her desk fresh out of one workout or another, her office strewn with Halloween decorations.

Rubin runs Dance Underground, a 14-year business running a 45-year-old dance studio. The studio was first opened by Shirley Jenkins when it was called Strong Winds Wild Horses. In fact, it’s the very place Rubin met her partner more than two decades ago doing Argentine tango. Rubin herself has been a dancer all her life, harking back to her roots in Israel.

The space itself contains two spacious studios with christmas lights lining the wall-length mirrors. It certainly has a homey, lived-in feel to it through the walls and the ceiling but it’s welcoming.

“To me it’s just a part of that old Seattle that we keep talking about that’s disappearing,” said Barb Duff who uses the space for BaDi dance and exercise. “From what we do for a living, you’re just not going to find a 2,000-square-foot, unobstructed studio with a hard sprung wood floor anywhere with these cookie-cutter Ikea showrooms.”

Duff and her BaDi coworker Dina Love came to Seattle from the East Coast a while back. For them, the studio is reminiscent of New York’s “gritty dance studios” because of its ambiance. Continue reading →

Man charged in string of fake FBI agent robberies including $130K rip-off in Central District

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The man the FBI says impersonated one of their agents and robbed a Central District business of nearly $130,000 has been arrested and charged, officials announced Friday.

Steven W. Fisher, 43, has been charged with attempted robbery, robbery, and five counts of impersonating a federal officer, according to the announcement from the Western District of Washington’s U.S. Attorney.

In a January robbery reported on by CHS at the time, investigators say Fisher claimed to be a Federal Bureau of Investigations agent investigating a suspicious transaction at 23rd and Jackson’s Red Sea Finance.

According to the SPD report on the incident, a worker at the “bank/savings and loan” was closing up for the night around 7 PM when the suspect knocked on a metal security gate, showed a badge, and said he was FBI. Once he was let in past the security gate, the phony agent told the worker he had conducted a “bad transaction” and asked to see the records for the day. “(The victim) pulled up his transaction record on the computer as S1 looked on,” the report reads. Continue reading →

With staff become owners, Capitol Hill’s Liberty Bar carries on

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New Liberty co-owner Brandon Paul Weaver

As Capitol Hill craft cocktail bar Liberty transfers over to new, younger hands, founder Andrew Friedman plans on starting a new company allowing restaurants and bars to brand their own drinks. It’s called Industry Spirits.

“It’s very difficult for them to legally own their own brands,” Friedman said. “We’d work with them for brand identity and sell and distribute for them…  it’s never been done before.”

Last year, CHS reported on the changes as Friedman worked on a plan for Liberty Bar to be cooperatively purchased and operated by the staff. After working out the details, though, it turned out only two staffers wanted the responsibility: Andrew Dalan and Brandon Paul Weaver.

New Liberty manager Dalan said the hardest part about the transition has been paperwork. Continue reading →

Seattle City Attorney race proves a battle over reform

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Holmes
Lindsay

As City Attorney Pete Holmes battles challenger Scott Lindsay for the office, both face challenges connecting with Seattle’s communities of color where justice and police reforms remain paramount concerns.

The two attended a debate hosted by Africatown last week, a nonprofit dedicated to preserving and developing the Central District’s African American community. The audience heard Lindsay’s motto of “Seattle needs to do more” or “be better” throughout the forum. For the incumbent Holmes, his case was about showing citizens and especially communities of color he has been doing “more” all along.

The forum’s questions addressed issues facing the African American community. When  Lindsay was asked how his work as City Attorney would impact that community, he attacked Holmes’ diversion program for youth funding. Continue reading →

Moving on from streetcar extension plan, city also ditches Broadway bike and street improvements

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At the end of 2016, CHS reported that a $28 million plan to extend the First Hill Streetcar north on Broadway — and, in conjunction, improve the streetscape and extend the street’s protected bike lane — was put on hold by City Hall and changes in the Capitol Hill business community. 2017 was supposed to be a year for revisiting the plan.

No need. $3 million worth of planning for an extension and the street changes will remain packed away and some of the millions already collected from grants to make the construction happen is now being handed back.

“I would describe it as indefinitely deferred,” the Seattle Department of Transportation’s transit and mobility director Andrew Glass Hastings tells CHS. “That project is pretty much designed. That design is still useable should we decide in the future, in conjunction with stakeholders up on Capitol Hill.” Continue reading →

Officer charged with theft for skipping 55 days of work in the East Precinct

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East Precinct cop Michael Stankiewicz has been charged by the King County Prosecutor for getting paid for days that he was not actually working.

On August 15th, a lieutenant noticed a discrepancy in Stankiewicz’s scheduled work day when the officer was absent, according to the charges. The lieutenant then checked other logs, saw a pattern, and notified respective commands. The Office of Professional Accountability (OPA) acted on its investigation of Stankiewicz on August 29th, inducing the officer’s paid suspension.

Once the OPA found the accusations grounded, the prosecuting attorney was notified, and Stankiewicz was put on unpaid leave. Of the 321 days the OPA checked, the investigation found the Marysville resident got paid 55 separate times where he made $49.29 an hour but wasn’t working.

The total amount of unwarranted pay Stankiewicz is charged for taking: $23,905.65.

Stankiewicz was previously cited for excessive force in 2015 in which he received eight days suspension. In this incident, he was found to have unnecessarily lifted a sitting, arrested individual only to knock out the man’s legs from underneath him and choke him.

The defendant will be arraigned on November 6th at the King County Courthouse.

Capitol Hill’s turn for upzoning: HALA process to begin next month

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Earlier this month, Mayor Tim Burgess signed off on the Uptown neighborhood’s rezoning but that was only one part of a 30-year plan. Seattle’s Mandatory Housing Affordability (MHA), which sits under the larger Housing Affordability and Livability Agenda (HALA) program, puts Capitol Hill and Central District up next in the Seattle City Council process.

The mayor’s office will hand Capitol Hill, Madison, Ballard, and the Central District over to City Hall next month for the start of the rezoning process. This is when the Council will work out the upzoning details and timeline. The majority of zoning slated for Capitol Hill will change to Low Rise 3 and Neighborhood Commercial 3 and 2 zones (or NC3 and NC2, at 75 feet or 55 feet height maximum). They mostly permit one more story. These categories have square footage limits codified in them as well.

The City Council will likely vote on Capitol Hill zoning changes in 2018, but Jesseca Brand with the Seattle Department of Neighborhoods said we’ll see housing built under the framework before 2021. Continue reading →

Election 2017: Which school board candidate is best for Capitol Hill kids?

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Last week, concerns about the challenges faced by a Seattle Public Schools elementary campus on Capitol Hill were a reminder of just how challenging it is to maintain — let alone build — the system amid tight budgetary environments and further squeezing from Olympia. November’s election to select new school board members will be one step in helping the district’s children grow and, hopefully, thrive.

DeWolf
Vasquez

Seattle Public Schools District 5 representing portions of Capitol Hill and the nearby of Central Seattle presents a spirited November contest. candidates, Zachary DeWolf and Omar Vasquez, tried their best to make their case at a recent forum held in the Madrona neighborhood.

Vasquez was previously a Summit Charter Schools board member. Since running, however, he has distanced himself from the work and updated his online resume information.

“I don’t always have control over my work profiles,” Vasquez said. “I’m not hiding anything about this.” Continue reading →

Meet the one woman holding down SPD’s Bias Crimes Unit

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SPD Detective Beth Wareing (Image: Alex Garland)

While the Seattle Police Department has kept track of biased crime cases for decades — it has to be reported to the feds — a unit dedicated to investigating the reports is only a few years old. It sits underneath the homicide and assault units. The person in charge? Detective Beth Wareing.

She’s technically a coordinator but she reads all the cases, knows where they are and answers questions. The hallmark of bias crime, Wareing said, is random selection — a stranger suddenly choosing to do something hateful to a person with little or no warning. “It’s one of the things that makes them a little difficult to solve,” she said. The department says only 39% of reported bias crimes in 2017 have resulted in charges.

The number of reports, so far, never goes down. “It’s a challenge to say what is completely responsible for increases,” Wareing says. “It is possible it’s in an increase in bias crimes, people are reporting more, officers are doing better at identifying characteristics in a case, or demographic trends have been increasing interactions between people.”

The reality is, however, it’s rarely one factor. And things like politics and media coverage matter.

“One of the things I’m seeing in Seattle is people in Seattle are aware,” Wareing said. “They tend to be pretty active, they read the news. We get a lot of concerned citizens calling in.” Continue reading →

‘Java with Jayapal’ in a Broadway cafe: Trump, GOP banking on resistance fatigue

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(Images: Alex Garland)


Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) met up with the Capitol Hill community Wednesday morning for some intimate updates and Q&A. The session inside Broadway’s Espresso Vivace showed the representative is busy doing the best she can to block Trump-esque bills with little time to push her own agenda through Congress.

“I mean, in reality, on the floor, our game is unfortunately a lot of opposition,” Jayapal said Wednesday. “We don’t get the opportunity to put bills forward the way they should be, or even craft them. There used to be hearings where you could offer amendments and reasonable people on both sides of the aisle would support a sensible amendment. That really happens hardly at all.”

As a result, Jayapal says she puts her priorities elsewhere. She explained to the gathered group that her focus remains on constituent services, getting more people involved, changing the makeup of who is involved, and being present in communities.

Jayapal is still able to find a way to move some efforts forward. Continue reading →