Monthly Archives: January 2010

Local Events, Opinion, Volunteering and Giving

People’s Place fundraiser at El Centro tonight

People’s Place is a new homeless advocacy organization combining community support with professional advocacy to help chronically homeless people become stable. We are hosting a fundraiser and information session at El Centro de la Raza, 2524 16th Avenue South, tonight from 6:30 – 8:00 pm.

Auction items include arts and crafts created by our members, as well as packages that include a chance to spend time with local political figures—have lunch with Mike McGinn, go for a bike ride with Mike O’Brien, or enjoy drinks with Pete Holmes. All proceeds go directly to shelter costs for People’s Place members. Contributions are tax deductible.

Light snacks, good company, great cause—what better way to spend a Friday night on Beacon Hill?

The suggested donation is $35 at the door. For more information, see the People’s Place Facebook page or email peoplesplace@yahoo.com.  If you can’t make it to the event, please consider making a donation using the PayPal link.  Thanks!

(Melissa, who contributes the “Walking with Tica” column to the BHB, is a co-founder of People’s Place.)

Site News

BHB partnering with Times in local news network

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We are happy to announce today that we will be joining a partnership with the Seattle Times as part of their network of community news websites. (See the other sites here.)

This is not an acquisition or anything remotely like that, but instead, a collaboration between the Times and local independent news sites to make use of the strengths of each organization and improve news coverage for all of our readers. We remain independent as always.

We look forward to serving our neighbors on Beacon Hill better through this partnership, and we’re excited about the possibilities of this journalistic collaboration between old (the Times has been around for more than a century) and new media (the BHB has been around since October 2008, in a medium—blogging—that didn’t even exist 15 years ago).

— Wendi and Jason, editors, the Beacon Hill Blog

Photos

Look to the skies

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Apparently yesterday’s sunrise was amazing, though we missed it. Luckily for the blog, Joel Lee and Freeman Mester were paying attention to the sky and posted these amazing photos to the Beacon Hill Blog photo pool on Flickr. Notice that the cloud formations are very similar; the photos must have been taken at nearly the same moment.

Photo in Jefferson Park, by Joel Lee, and taken with a cell phone camera!
Photo by Freeman Mester.
Meetings

Organizational meeting for Festival Street music series on 1/25

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Paul Ray writes that the music series project for the Lander Festival Street has another organizing meeting on Monday, January 25 at 7:00 pm, at ROCKiT Space, 3315 Beacon Avenue South.

Since the first meeting we have decided to create an Ad Hoc group called “BeHi Music” to try and organize a series of 4 music events over the summer of 2010, performed at the Festival Street next to the Beacon Hill Link Rail station. This series would feature musicians who live, work or attend school on Beacon Hill or groups that contain members that fit that criteria.

This is still in the early stages, still trying to establish the feasibility and identify the steps necessary to make this work, and hoping to start working on actually implementing those steps soon.

Anyone interested in this project is encouraged to attend.

Education

Education roundup: Time for levies and open houses

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Photo by Doug Wilson.
School levy ballots should be reaching mailboxes throughout the city this week for an election officially ending on Tuesday, February 9. Two levies are on the ballot this time, a capital levy (Proposition 1) to replace the expiring Buildings, Technology and Academics levy approved by voters in 2004, and an operations levy (Proposition 2) which replaces the expiring three-year levy that voters approved in 2007 and have supported every three years since 1976.

Among other things, the capital levy includes funds for ADA/life safety systems installment at Mercer Middle School, along with renovations districtwide. Beacon Hill schools would also see funds for academic improvement, including Early Learning classrooms at Kimball and the Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) option program at Cleveland, and funds for improving athletic fields and making their lighting more energy-efficient.

You can read more about the levies or watch an informational video by Superintendent Maria Goodloe-Johnson at the SPS website.

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It’s open house season at local schools. We posted about a few recently.

Maple Elementary School is having an Open House and Math/Science Night on Thursday, February 11 from 6:30-8:30 pm at the school, 4925 Corson Avenue South. (Hat tip to neighbor JvA for the heads-up!)

Rainier Valley Cooperative Preschool is also holding an open house on Thursday, January 28 from 6:00 pm – 8:00 pm at the preschool’s home, Beacon Lutheran Church, 1720 South Forest Street (across Beacon from the library). They say, “Come meet our families and learn about our preschool: We encourage the whole family to come to the open house and check out the space and meet the teachers and community.” For more information, email rvcpinfo@yahoo.com or call 206-723-3115.

Beacon Bits

Beacon Bits: Bonsai reward, parking warning, produce deliveries

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BeHi Bonsai T-shirt
Win this shirt from BeHi Bonsai. Photo from BeHi Bonsai.
Point BeHi Bonsai to your favorite yard sculpture, and maybe get a T-shirt for your trouble.

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Don’t rely on chalk marks to let you know when you need to move your car and avoid a ticket. Parking enforcement is going hi-tech — Craig Thompson on the BAN list via KOMO

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Recently featured at Capitol Hill Seattle, Full Circle Farm got a writeup by Beacon Hill neighbor Allison in The Weekender:

“I have to say, having produce delivered right to your neighborhood is probably one of the most convenient amenities of living in a city. Especially a city surrounded by farmland. (…) I haven’t had to go to the market in ages and it really forces us to prepare meals using things I would never buy like turnips and beets.”

Crime

Hicks pleads not guilty to aggravated murder

The Seattle Times reports that Daniel Hicks pleaded not guilty today to two counts of aggravated murder in the shooting deaths of his girlfriend and baby daughter last month near 13th and Ferdinand. Prosecutors now have 30 days to determine whether to seek the death penalty.

Jennifer Morgan, 28, and her daughter Emma, 13 weeks old, were both shot multiple times with a .45 caliber handgun on December 21. Hicks was arrested in Santa Cruz, California on December 28.

See previous reports here.

Local Events

Symphony to perform for free at Mercer school tomorrow

Photo by Emi Yañez.
The Seattle Symphony Orchestra will perform a free community concert at 7:00 pm tomorrow night, January 19, at Mercer Middle School (1600 South Columbian Way). The concert is open to the public — and, yes, we said free. Thomas Hong is the conductor, and the featured soloist is violist Amber Archibald.

The scheduled program includes works by David Diamond, Gustav Holst, Georg Philipp Telemann, Samuel Jones, and Felix Mendelssohn.

The concert is part of the Symphony’s ACCESS Project (Artistic and Cultural Community Engagement with Seattle Symphony), dedicated to bringing classical music to underserved communities throughout the region.

Local Business

From coffee to kung fu and yoga

Neighbor Jann VanOver reports via the Beacon Hill mailing list that the former Grown Folks Coffee site at 4878 Beacon Avenue South reopened recently as the Jun Hong Kung Fu and Sports Association, with martial arts and yoga classes.

Their Facebook page says, “Here you are not a customer, you are a brother, a sister, we are a family, we are shaolin kung fu.” They’re having an open house on January 23.

Beginning yoga classes are $10 a session, on Wednesdays and Fridays from 7:00-8:00 pm, and Saturdays and Sundays from 3:00-4:00 pm. Martial arts classes and practices are also offered throughout the week.

Crime

Crime notes: Middle school emergency management, Police Academy XII, bad JitB

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“He called me from a school phone to tell me that he was going to stay late to finish his math test. I waited, then noticed none of the other kids were coming out.” Beacon Hill neighbor (and frequent BHB photography contributor) Bridget Christian and her son had a frightening experience yesterday, when Washington Middle School was put under a “shelter in place” (similar to a lockdown) after a man in the area called in a threat to kill kids. You can read her story on Flickr.

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DOA, CSI, I&R and more explained. The Seattle Police Department is now taking applications for the Community Police Academy, an evening class starting Thursday, March 18th, 2010 once a week for 10 weeks.

From the SPD Blotter:

The Community Police Academy is designed to provide Seattle residents with an opportunity to learn firsthand about the job of a police officer and how the Seattle Police Department works. Classes focus on patrol procedures and operations, internal investigations, the criminal justice process, crime scene investigation, bias crimes, narcotics, SWAT, use of force, defensive tactics, firearms/mock scenes, domestic violence, elder abuse, and arrest procedures.

Apply early as space is limited. Applications must be submitted by Friday, January 29th. Visit the SPD Police Academy website or call 206-684-8672 for more details.

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3am taco and jalapeno popper craving? SeattleCrime.com has a feature on our nearest Jack In The Box, “The Worst Jack In the Box In the Country”.