I am organizing a group of neighbors and friends to support Marriage Equality and wave Approve Ref. 74 signs on Election Day.
Event Details. 7:00am-8:30am on Election Day (Tuesday, Nov. 6) @ MLK & Rainier Ave. S
~ Wear appropriate clothes in case it rains.
~ Take the light rail or park on any side street and meet us at the big intersection of MLK & Rainier Ave. S in front of Franklin High School and across from Starbucks.
~ Bring your Approve Ref. 74 yard sign or borrow one of ours.
Please call Eric @ 206.387.6255 if you have questions.
If anyone else on Beacon Hill is planning election-related activities for Tuesday that the neighborhood should know about, let me know and I will compile them into a post that will go up on Monday.
This is part of a map on the Greener Skies website labeled “Future South Flow Arrival Procedures Over Current Flight Track Density, North of Airport.” See the full map here.As reported yesterday in the Seattle Times, the FAA has approved the new “Greener Skies” flight method to land planes at Sea-Tac Airport new way to land planes at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport received final approval from the Federal Aviation Administration on Thursday.
In this method, arriving planes would approach the airport in a smooth descent, instead of the stairstep pattern they currently use. According to the FAA, this will save millions of dollars in fuel use per year, and it will also be safer, by reducing the potential for miscommunication between pilots and air traffic controllers.
Though the plan has these advantages, many residents of neighborhoods under the flight path are concerned about Greener Skies’ auditory impact. Information that has been published about the changes implies that the plan would condense the flight path, possibly sending more flights over Beacon Hill than current flight paths do. Neighbors including North Beacon Hill’s Quieter Skies Task Force requested a meeting with the FAA to discuss the plan and ask questions about the very technical information that has been published so far.
The FAA turned down the request for a meeting on Greener Skies, but offered to hold a general meeting about air traffic on October 23. The meeting was then cancelled, due to the unavailability of a key FAA official.
Erik Stanford of the Quieter Skies Task Force sent out this letter to supporters yesterday:
“The FAA and the Port of Seattle abruptly cancelled our meeting just 5 days before it was scheduled. The meeting was cancelled within hours of receiving the following agenda:
FAA to compel the Port of Seattle to install more noise monitors
FAA to fund the Port of Seattle to purchase, install and actively monitor the devices
Determine process for expanding the use of “Fly Quiet†procedures for Sea-Tac departures (in lieu of a “Noise Abatement†flight pattern)
Explain what “fly Quiet†procedures/protocols are available? Being utilized? (ex: powering back on departure, lowering landing gear closer to airport, etc.)
Extend the current FAR Part 150 Noise Study for Sea-Tac Airport to include 98144, 98118, and 98108.
We have rescheduled the meeting for Tuesday, November 13th from 6:30pm to 8:30pm at the Cleveland High School Theater located at 5511 15th Ave S. Translation services and refreshments will be provided.”
According to the Times, less than 15 percent of arriving Sea-Tac flights will use the new plan next spring, starting with Southwest Airlines and Alaska Airlines. The FAA will gradually expand Greener Skies over time.
The nearest dropboxes to us are downtown and in Renton. There is also the West Seattle drop van, which closes at 5 p.m. And there is an accessible voting center (where you can also deposit ballots) at Union Station, but that also has limited hours.
Voting by mail is, generally, an improvement that promotes more participation in the voting process than the old polling system. But we should not assume that it has solved all accessibility issues, nor that vote-by-mail means that dropboxes are unnecessary. At the very least, it is not right to require payment (even of a mere stamp) to vote. But there are other reasons dropboxes are useful. For example, the polls are open until 8 p.m. on Election Day, and last minute votes are just as valid and acceptable as any others. (Otherwise, we’d close the polls earlier.) In most areas, there is no way to get something mailed that late, so a dropbox is the only way to vote in the late afternoon or early evening on November 6.
There used to be more dropboxes in the city, but King County Elections had to remove many of them to save money. Saving taxpayer money is good, but shouldn’t every quadrant of the city (at least) have a dropbox, or at least a van? North of downtown, there are three options, all north of the canal: two dropboxes and a van at the University of Washington. South of downtown, there is only the limited-hours van in West Seattle. Shouldn’t there at least be an attempt at equity here?
I know not every neighborhood can have a dropbox. It’s a problem that we provide so few of them, but I understand that with current financial reality King County Elections cannot put dropboxes everywhere we might want them. But shouldn’t there be an attempt to distribute them fairly? And wouldn’t it make sense to put dropboxes in a part of the city that has many lower-income voters who may prefer to use a dropbox to save a stamp, or who may not have easy automotive access to dropboxes further away?
For those of us in North Beacon Hill, the downtown dropbox is not too far a trip. But Southeast Seattle is a large area, and it’s not as easy for everyone to get downtown as it is for most of us on North Beacon. If Magnuson Park can host a dropbox — one of three locations north of the Ship Canal — Southeast Seattle ought to at least warrant the presence of a van to pick up ballots in future elections.
(While we’re at it, Bellevue and Mercer Island residents could use one too.)
The search is on for three armed men who robbed a family while dressed up as the Grim Reaper on Halloween night.
Police said three men dressed in black “grim reaper costumes” knocked on the door of a home near 17th Avenue South and South Ferdinand around 9:15 p.m.
When the family opened the door, the men pulled out handguns and made their way into the home.
The gunmen forced a man who lives at the home into a bedroom where they took “a large amount of cash, gold earrings and a necklace, and a CD wallet,” according to police.
The men fled on foot, heading east on Ferdinand, and remain at large. A description was not available.
No one was injured in the incident.
Anyone with information on the case is urged to call police immediately at 206-684-5535.
Here are a few photos from yesterday’s DÃa de los Muertos event at El Centro de la Raza. Were you there? Tell us about it in the comments. And if you like, share your photos in the Beacon Hill Blog photo pool on Flickr. (All photos in this post by Wendi Dunlap.)
This banner was displayed at El Centro de la Raza’s DÃa de los Muertos event in 2010. Photo by Leslie Seaton via Creative Commons/Flickr.
The community is invited to “honor the ancient ones” at El Centro de la Raza’s DÃa de los Muertos Opening Night tonight, November 1, from 5:00 – 8:30 p.m. at El Centro, 2524 16th Ave. S. Admission, dinner, and parking are all free.
Tonight’s event will include dinner served from 5:30 to 7, and the ofrenda (memorial) exhibit from 5 until 8:30. Ofrendas in the exhibit were made by groups including Ameyaltonal Danza Azteca, From Hiroshima to Hope, Infant Mortality Prevention Network, Las Poetas del Monton, Youth in Focus, and more.
The ofrenda exhibit will be open through November 15, from 10 a.m. until 6 p.m. on weekdays, except for Thursdays, when the hours will be 12 noon to 8 p.m.
El Centro is hosting other DÃa de los Muertos events this month. On Thursday, November 8 from 6 – 7:30 p.m., there is a two-part work shop on “The Symbolism and History of La Calavera ‘Catrina'” by Araceli Jaime, and “Analysis of the Aztec and Mayan Calendars” by Esmael Lopez. The following Thursday, November 15, poet Raúl Sánchez will read in English and Spanish from his debut book, All Our Brown-Skinned Angels.
