Victoria and local contributors Andrea Givens and Simon Knaphus will be at the Garden House tonight for a reading, discussion, and celebration of the book, billed as “a collection of concrete tips, suggestions, and narratives on ways that non-parents can support parents, children, and caregivers in their communities, social movements, and collective processes.”
All ages are invited and welcome to attend. The Garden House is located at 2336 15th Ave. S.
Missing/Lost… reddish golden medium male Poodle since Halloween from the Beacon Hill area. Woman claiming to have found our dog was said to have given him to someone who identified themselves as the owner. Chewy is a service dog for a nine year old child with Autism, so it is extremely important that we get him back. If anyone has seen him or has given him shelter since his disappearance, please call the owner Debra at: 206 518-7064 or 206 271-7698. Thank you.
The PDF contains a wealth of information about the project, including artists’ renditions of the building, floor plans, shadow studies, cross-sections, and more. The project will be a six-story building with residential units ranging from studios to two-bedroom units, including three units designated as “affordable housing.”
The Design Review Board will meet on Tuesday, November 13 at the Wellspring Services Community Room, 1900 Rainier Ave. S. to discuss the project and how well the design addresses the priorities established at the previous Early Design Guidance meeting. At this meeting, the public will be allowed to comment, but the comments are limited to design considerations.
Photo by Robert Stinnett via Creative Commons/Flickr.It’s Election Day! Time to get your ballot in, either by mailing it before the last pickup today, or by delivering it to a ballot drop box before 8 p.m.
The nearest drop boxes to Beacon Hill are located downtown, at the King County Administration Building (500 4th Ave), and in the International District at the accessible voting center at Union Station (401 S. Jackson St.). Both are open until 8 p.m. There are no drop boxes in Southeast Seattle.
If you have lost or damaged your ballot, you can vote the old-style way in a voting booth at the accessible voting center, until 8 p.m. tonight. Bring your identification. There have been lines there for this in the past — in 2010, the wait was more than 3 hours during the evening hours. Get there early if you can. If you are in line at 8, you will get to vote.
This cute dog wants to go home.Neighbor Maureen writes:
Found Black Male Dog Poodle Mix on Beacon Avenue South of the VA Hospital around noon today. He has a collar but no ID tags. Not chipped per our vet. Very sweet!! Please call 303-589-1468 (I am in Seattle.).
This is a Lego version of the proposed Findlay Street Christian Church development project. Photo courtesy of Findlay Street Christian Church.
The long-delayed Findlay Street Christian Church project at South Bayview Street and 14th Avenue South on North Beacon Hill may be moving forward after all, so they are hosting a benefit concert to celebrate and raise funds for the project.
The church, previously located in Hillman City, sold its property some years ago, planning to move to Beacon Hill and develop what they have described as “an ambitious, forward-looking, mixed-use building that included worship space and multi-unit affordable housing.” But in January of this year, a church statement said “Unfortunately, we have run into a number of unforeseen setbacks and have so far been unable to get the project off the ground.”
Now that things are moving forward, they plan to celebrate (and raise funds) this Friday, November 9, with a concert featuring two a cappella groups, 545 Express and Shot in the Dark. Along with the music, guests will be able to see a large Lego rendering of the planned building, created by one of Findlay Street’s youth members.
The concert is at 7 p.m. this Friday, November 9, at Mt. Baker Park Presbyterian Church, 3201 Hunter Blvd. S. The suggested donation is $10.
The next North Beacon Hill Council meeting is this Tuesday, November 6, at 7 p.m. in the Beacon Hill Library meeting room, 2821 Beacon Ave. S. As always, all interested neighbors are welcome to attend.
This month’s agenda:
Introductions
Design Review on 17th and McClellan Project
American Planning Association award – planning a party
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.)
Tonight at 7 p.m., ROCKiT is co-hosting a free book release event for Don’t Leave Your Friends Behind: Concrete Ways to Support Families in Social Justice Movements and Communities
