School levy ballots due today

If these are still sitting on your kitchen table, better mail them in today! Photo by Wendi.
It’s election day, which means it’s your last chance to get your ballots either mailed in or dropped off for this election. There is only one neighborhood drop box in Seattle this time, and it’s downtown at the King County Administration Building, 500 4th Avenue (just east of Pioneer Square Station). You can drop your ballot off at the drop box until 8:00 pm, and no stamp is needed.

If you prefer to mail yours in, you can mail it anywhere — as long as you mail it early enough to be postmarked today. Don’t forget to sign the envelope on the signature line!

Need to refresh your memory about the two Seattle school levies on today’s ballot? Here’s a link to the voters’ pamphlet.

Beacon Bits: Anime, biking in Portland, local remixes

Anime collection photo by Paul Fisk (CC BY-SA)
There is an Anime Club event at the Beacon Hill library on the second Tuesday of each month (that’s tonight!) from 4:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. The club is free and open to all, with no registration required. Each month there will be new anime episodes along with old favorites, and guests will also enjoy new manga comics and Japanese snacks.

The Beacon Hill Branch is located at 2821 Beacon Avenue South, a block south of Beacon Hill Station. There is a free parking lot behind the building. For more information, call the branch at 206-684-4711.

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Beacon Hill neighbor Willie Weir of Yellow Tent Adventures, along with his partner Kat Marriner, recently did a “week-long, fully-loaded bike trip within the city limits of Portland. We’re talking tent, stove, sleeping bags. No reservations. No hotels. An urban adventure at its frugal finest!” Willie will discuss the trip in a lecture, “Portland: An Urban Adventure,” tonight at 7:00 pm at REI, 222 Yale Avenue North. More information on Facebook (login required), or see the REI page. (The REI page has conflicting information about the event’s cost — it’s either free or $5.00.)

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Two nice shots of the downtown cityscape view from the PacMed/Amazon building were recently tweeted by MarkPrivett and lassielas.

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Two remixes of Helladope’s “Just So You Know” by Blue Scholars’ Sabzi, including the “Beacon Hill Slumlord” mix. — Matson on Music, the Seattle Times

Crime notes: Tips, burglaries, and more tips

Map of selected items from bhwn.org. V - Vehicle thefts and break-ins, B - Burglaries, R - Robberies, S - Shots fired, O - Other.

Selected scanner items from bhnw.org:
1/13 10:30pm — Burglary: 22nd and Kenny
1/14 1:30pm — Burglary: 35th and Graham
1/15 7:15pm — Vehicle Theft: 15th and Lucile
1/18 3:00pm — Vehicle Break-in: 12th and Atlantic
1/25 9:30pm — Shooting / Weapons: 12th and Atlantic
1/27 1:45pm — Robbery: Beacon and Alaska
1/29 10:30am — Other: 32nd and Myrtle
1/29 12:30pm — Other: 13th and Atlantic
1/31 5:30pm — Vehicle Theft: Beacon and Morgan
2/1 3:45pm — Robbery: Beacon and Brandon
2/4 1:15pm — Vehicle Break-in: Beacon and Horton
2/5 2:30pm — Vehicle Break-in: 17th and Plum

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Collen wrote to the mailing list about a daytime break-in on January 21st at 18th and College where they smashed the bathroom window and took a computer, several iPods, and a camera. He also mentioned that his girlfriend’s car window was smashed a few nights later nearby.

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John Wright also wrote to the list about a car theft and recovery:

Just wanted to let you know that my friend’s car was stolen on Saturday, 1/23, between 10:30 p.m. and Midnight. It was a red 1998 Honda Civic 4-door. It was parked on 17th Ave S near Holgate. We didn’t hear anything, and our dogs (who bark at just about everything) did not make a peep.

It was recovered Sunday morning in the Bryn Mawr area of Renton. It was sitting in a ditch, stereo stolen, steering console trashed, windows open. Rear passenger door was tagged on the inside with a gang sign. They stole the De La Soul CD, but left behind the Nirvana and Nada Surf. 🙂

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From SeattleCrime.com‘s Robbery Round-up:

January 15th, South Seattle: A man ran inside Cleveland High School and told officers working off-duty at a basketball game that he’d been carjacked at gun point. The man told police he was parked outside the school’s gym when two other men approached him, put a gun to his head and demanded his vehicle. The report says the victim told the robbers “he was ready to die” and to “go ahead and shoot if he was going to kill him.” The victim eventually handed over the car and the suspects drove off.

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After the jump, two lists of very good advice from Felicia and Craig via the mailing list.
Continue reading Crime notes: Tips, burglaries, and more tips

Jose Rizal bridge repairs, then and now

The Jose Rizal Bridge rehab project is starting soon, and to facilitate this work, traffic on the bridge will be reduced to one lane in each direction for the next four months. A sidewalk on one side of the bridge at a time will be closed, and access for pedestrians and bicycles will be maintained on the opposite side. There will also be periodic lane closures on South Dearborn Street under the bridge.

The Rizal bridge was also a topic on the Seattle Municipal Archives photostream on Flickr yesterday, when this photo was posted:

Photo courtesy of Seattle Municipal Archives.

This is probably a photo of the 12th Avenue South Bridge (now Jose Rizal Bridge) in spring 1917, when a mudslide destroyed the southern (wooden) approach to the bridge. The bridge was later repaired. The Jose Rizal bridge was built in 1911, and is the oldest steel-arch bridge in Washington state. This 1912 photo shows the familiar shape of the bridge that many of us cross daily.

Husky Promise at Cleveland, STEM contract approved

Tomorrow from 1 to 2pm, the University of Washington Husky Promise financial aid program will be at Cleveland High School:

Learn about the Husky Promise program – how it works, how it’s benefitted current UW students, and what it takes to qualify for the program. Meet University of Washington students who have excelled in their pursuing their passions at UW. And find how college tuition and programs like the Husky Promise may be affected by the outcomes of the current legislative session in Olympia.

More at the Husky Promise blog.

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The Seattle School Board approved the $800,000 contract for the Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math program starting at Cleveland this fall. From the Seattle Times:

Under the new boundary plan, Cleveland will no longer be a neighborhood high school. Instead, it will be an “option” school, one which students must sign up to attend and with spaces assigned by lottery if necessary.

The STEM program will be phased in, starting with freshmen and sophomores this coming fall.

Read the rest in The Times.

El Centro requests DNS appeal be dismissed

El Centro de la Raza has requested to the City of Seattle’s Hearing Examiner that the appeal of the Determination of Non-Significance filed by Frederica Merrell be dismissed, citing their own involvement in the neighborhood planning process, the impact on their property, and appeal issues said to be ‘not ripe’ for the premature involvement of the office of Hearing Examiner. If not dismissed, they have requested that the appeal be restricted solely to the legal issue of the proper execution of Washington Administrative Code sections 197-11-055 (Timing of the SEPA process), 197-11-060 (Content of environmental review), and 197-11-228 (Overall SEPA/GMA integration procedures).

The full letter as provided to us by Estela Ortega of El Centro de la Raza is after the jump, or available as a PDF here.

Continue reading El Centro requests DNS appeal be dismissed

Opinion: “Post Alley” or empty lot?

Possible development on Beacon Avenue, depicted in the Neighborhood Plan Update.
Are you tired of looking at gravel lots surrounded by wire fencing next to the Beacon Hill Light Rail station?  Do you dream of potential businesses that would be perfect for our community?  The comments on Joel’s post “Beacon Hill’s Post Alley” indicate community support for development around the light rail station.  For any development to occur, the North Beacon Hill Neighborhood Plan Update must be approved.

That plan is being challenged.  A community member has filed a petition with the City of Seattle Hearing Examiner (see the earlier news post in the BHB) calling the update process into question and requesting that the DNS (Determination of Nonsignificance) be vacated. Concerns listed in the petition include construction noise, increased traffic, lack of specific guarantees regarding service improvements, and overall disregard for community opinion and the existing neighborhood plan.

Simply put, it’s a request for DPD to be required to throw away over a year’s worth of community input and other work on this project—essentially starting the entire process over.

“Increased density is a worthy goal… We need housing, employment, and services for our future neighbors.”

Neighborhood, City and transit groups have worked hard to update the North Beacon Hill Neighborhood Plan in a way that respects the core values of our community and includes the reality of introducing mass transit into the neighborhood.  Two critical considerations for an urban neighborhood served by mass transit include increased residential density accompanied by increased employment, service, and other business development.

Increased density is a worthy goal for our neighborhood: people should live and work near transit. We need housing, employment, and services for our future neighbors.  This doesn’t have to/shouldn’t mean increased vehicle traffic—the entire point is that new residents will be using light rail.

If the North Beacon Hill Urban Village is ever to develop, we must move forward as a community.  Change can be challenging, but it’s also an opportunity to improve.

Get involved.  Learn more about this issue and take action to make Beacon Hill the place you want it to be.  Please attend the North Beacon Hill Council meeting on Thursday, February 4 at 7:00 pm.  Meetings are held at the Beacon Hill Public Library. The full agenda is here and also here.

(Melissa is a columnist for the Beacon Hill Blog and recently wrote about the Neighborhood Plan Update in her column “Walking with Tica.”)

Neighbor files petition against Neighborhood Plan update process

Community comments posted at the Neighborhood Plan Update open house in September 2009. Photo by Wendi
North Beacon Hill resident Frederica Merrell has filed an appeal with the City of Seattle Hearing Examiner, regarding the Determination of Nonsignificance (DNS) of the North Beacon Hill neighborhood plan update process.

In the appeal (read it in full here), Merrell states that North Beacon Hill residents and visitors will be “directly and significantly impacted” by the changes, including changes to zoning, density, protected views, pedestrian/bike/auto access, and more. She states that, among other problems, the Department of Planning and Development (DPD) erred in making a determination of non-significance, failed to take necessary steps to assess the impact of the plan changes, and also failed to give proper notice to the community.

The appeal requests that DPD’s DNS for the North Beacon Hill plan update be vacated, and DPD be required to take other actions including additional community notification and environmental impact analyses.

The Neighborhood Plan update process began in Fall 2008 and continued through 2009 with community meetings and open houses in March, May, and September, resulting in the recently published update.

(ed. note—Frederica has occasionally contributed opinion articles to the Beacon Hill Blog.)