Mayor proposes adding SPD surveillance cameras around Pike/Pine, Garfield High School

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Harrell last week in Seattle’s Real Time Crime Center (Image: City of Seattle)

Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell is proposing legislation that would bring Seattle Police Department surveillance cameras to Capitol Hill’s Pike/Pine nightlife district.

CHS first reported on the plan in December as Deputy Mayor Tim Burgess included the proposal during a public safety meeting with the neighborhood’s business community sparked by ongoing challenges around street crime and drug use around the Broadway-Pike/Pine core and Cal Anderson Park.

Last week in a press conference to tout the success of SPD’s Real Time Crime Center, Harrell’s office said the mayor backs an expansion of a pilot program that already has cameras along Aurora Ave, 3rd Ave, and in the International District to include areas around Cal Anderson and Pike/Pine.

The mayor’s office is also backing expansion of the 24×7 surveillance program to include the area around Garfield High School where the city and the district are spending thousands on security upgrades and community services to counter deadly gun violence that has marred the campus.

Garfield is also being considered for a pilot program beginning this fall that would pay for a Seattle Police School Engagement Officer on the campus.

The Harrell administration says it recently proposed legislation to the Seattle City Council that would expand “the geographic areas where City CCTV cameras can be installed, including public streets and sidewalks around Garfield and Nova High Schools, the Capitol Hill Nightlife District, and the SODO Stadium Area,” according to a statement from City Hall.

“The legislation also authorizes the RTCC to view and record SDOT traffic cameras at select intersections and along major arterial roads in the city,” the mayor’s office adds. Continue reading →

For first time since pandemic, King County Superior Court handled more than 5,000 criminal cases last year

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(Image: King County Superior Court)

The King County Superior Court is still recovering from the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a presentation scheduled to take place at Tuesday’s meeting of the Seattle City Council public safety committee.

According to the presentation (PDF) from Ketu Shah, Presiding Judge, King County Superior Court, the court saw more than 5,000 criminal cases filed in 2024 — the highest total since numbers plunged during the pandemic due to closures, restrictions, and staffing issues.

Meanwhile, the bloated backlog of pending cases that surged above 6,000 in 2020, came in at just over 4,000 last year, up slightly from 2023. Continue reading →

CHS Pics | 70+ pictures as Capitol Hill Block Party goes two days and ’21 plus’

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The grown-ups seemed to enjoy the vibes as the Capitol Hill Block Party went “21+” for the first time this weekend.

“I love that it’s 21 plus…. we get to have fun and not worry about, you know, other people’s kids,” one CHBP veteran attendee told CHS. “it allows us to have a little bit more freedom.”

CHS reported here on the paring down and scaling back of the annual Capitol Hill music festival that also reduced its schedule to two days as the production from the folks behind Pike/Pine institutions including the Neumos and Barboza family, Lost Lake Cafe, the Comet, and Big Mario’s streamlined the long-running event. Continue reading →

Seattle Fire’s ENERGY 1 battles damaging electrical vault fire below Broadway

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(Image: Seattle Fire)

Seattle Fire Department crews including its ENERGY 1 Energy Response Unit battled a major electrical fire Saturday afternoon across from a busy Capitol Hill Station.

SFD reported it responded to the electrical fire just after noon at Broadway and John behind Dick’s Drive-In.

Nearly an hour later, Seattle Fire reported its ENERGY 1 unit had extinguished the fire but not before substantial damage in the Seattle City Light vault.

SCL tells CHS the fire was caused by equipment failure and that full restoration of service from the systems utilizing was a complicated endeavor. “It was a complex restoration process that required several pieces of equipment to be repaired or replaced within the vault system,” a SCL spokesperson said.

Reports of internet outages in the area were being blamed on a power outage by service providers hours after the incident. Continue reading →

County can’t yet say who will run it but officials answering as many questions as they can about possible Broadway Crisis Care Center

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The Kirkland center

There are many questions surrounding the plan to locate one of five county Crisis Care Centers at Broadway and Union. One of the biggest — who will run it? — can’t be answered yet due to county procurement policies.

A spokesperson for the King County Department of Community and Human Services tells CHS they can’t reveal if the Arizona-headquartered service provider Connections that is operating its transformed Kirkland location as the first in the planned $1.25 billion network of five facilities across the county has made a bid to also operate the planned Broadway center. Continue reading →

With a familiar name on the list, process begins to fill City Council’s North Seattle seat

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A veteran of the Seattle City Council who was there when City Hall made the transition to district-base representation is a finalist to fill the gap leading North Seattle’s District 5.

Former member of the council Debora Juarez has been selected as one of six finalists to hold the seat until the 2026 election following the resignation of Cathy Moore.

The six will take part in an appointment forum Monday night then the council will meet on July 22 to interview the finalists. A vote on the appointment is scheduled to take place on July 28th. The successful candidate will need to gather a simple majority of five votes from the council. Continue reading →

Pikes/Pines | Capitol Hill’s house sparrows live in apartments

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A male House Sparrow. (Image: Russell Sutherland via Flickr)

I was in a rush to get out of town a few weeks ago and needed a quick meal. A quick detour took me up to Broadway and there I was, waiting in line with a dozen other mostly sober people at Dick’s on a Thursday evening. When I stand in lines these days, I try really hard to not reflexively reach for my phone. Sometimes this means I have awkward conversations or eavesdrop on awkward conversations. Mostly I daydream and consider my surroundings. In this case, I looked down to see several small brown birds, one with a handsome black bib, picking at bits of food and other detritus around our cueing feet.

They were House Sparrows, Passer domesticus, birds so common that like gulls and pigeons, they often get overlooked. As a kid I’d reflexively leave them off my bird lists along with European Starlings and today still occasionally mark them with an “X” rather than counting them on eBird, which purists consider a cardinal sin. They are one of the most widespread wild birds in the world, inhabiting every continent, native or introduced. Continue reading →

This week in CHS history | Chappell Roan Block Party crowds, 2023 Broadway street racing shooting, 2020 ‘Solidarity with PDX’ protests

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Outside the gates, thousands also enjoyed the CHBP 2024 show

Here are the top stories from this week in CHS history:

2024

 

A Capitol Hill Block Party 2024 hangover: Pike/Pine festival bends but doesn’t break despite massive Chappell Roan crowd


Continue reading →

Capitol Hill Block Party 2025 grows up

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(Image: Capitol Hill Block Party)

A grown-up Capitol Hill Block Party will debut this weekend as the music festival makes its first run as a pared down, two-day, 21+ only event. The CHBP’s neighborhood producers are watching how the new format unfolds and planning for the future. 2028 would mark the 30th edition of the festival, one of the few ticketed, multi-day music festivals on the planet to take place on city streets Continue reading →

‘Let the people have rat’ — Work party restores Cal Anderson Park mural

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A symbol of Capitol HIll’s “Hot Rat Summer” has been restored — partially — on the historic Cal Anderson Gatehouse.

Dedicated neighbors, artists, and two members of the Seattle City Council gathered on the hottest day of the year so far to restore the surprisingly radiant rat mosaic after the city painted over it in what some are calling a bureaucratic blunder and others see as an act of erasure.

“It’s such a beautiful mural that’s taken so many hours,” said Bug, a Vegas transplant new to the city, who showed up solo to help uncover the piece. “Just to cover it up, like, out of spite? It didn’t make sense to me. Especially in a city that’s so filled with art.”

Bug, who said they first saw the mural on Instagram and later learned it had been painted over through Reddit, wasn’t the only one moved to act. Other dedicated mural appreciators were there. “I just came and did it on my own,” Bug said. “This is the second time I showed up to uncover it.”

The mosaic mural was painted on the side of the landmarked Seattle Public Utilities Gatehouse building above Cal Anderson’s reflecting pool. It has became a source of neighborhood pride in the spunky expression of a neighborhood dedicated to having a good time despite any hard times and challenges. That made it all the more surprising when city crews painted over it.

Seattle City Councilmembers Joy Hollingsworth and Alexis Mercedes Rinck joined residents Wednesday to help gently scrub the white paint off the rat. Continue reading →