Category Archives: Local Events

Local Events, Meetings

Breakfast, groceries, and bowling among upcoming events

For more details on each item, follow the links.

THURSDAY 3/4 (today):

FRIDAY 3/5:

SATURDAY 3/6:

MONDAY 3/8:

THURSDAY 3/11:

SATURDAY 3/27:

THROUGH 3/31:

Local Events, Meetings

Connecting: Learn from Lafayette, expand fiber, spur Broadstripe

Fiber optic bundles. Photo by pasukaru76.
Glenn Fleishman continues to dig into internet access issues at Publicola with another excellent article on municipal fiber and lessons learned from Lafayette, Louisiana.

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Reclaim the Media, the Northwest Media Action Grassroots Network, and the Hidmo Community Empowerment Project are cohosting a community meeting on fiber broadband on Wednesday, March 3rd, from 5:30 to 7:30pm at Garfield Community Center, 2323 East Cherry Street.

Speakers will include: Malkia Cyril from Oakland’s Center for Media Justice, Tony Perez from the City of Seattle Department of Information Technology, local business owner Andre Helmstetter, Scott Durham from Central District News and David Irons of Broadstripe.

More details at CDNews.

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$84 million grant to expand Internet in Washington “The expansion will add 57 libraries, 22 government facilities, 38 medical centers, two tribal service centers and four community colleges.” — Seattle P-I

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Upgrade Technology for Underserved Neighbors (UTUN), a Southeast and Central Seattle neighbor group, has formed to advance internet access in our part of the city. They’ve met often with the City of Seattle and Broadstripe to work out a plan to improving service to residents in Beacon Hill, Judkins Park, Leschi, and the Central District.

Expect an online survey coming soon and a Community Forum with Broadstripe and the City of Seattle representatives Thursday, March 25th at 5:30 at the Central Area Senior Center
(500 30th Ave S) where they will be presenting an update to neighbors about their latest improvements.

For more information and to keep up-to-date with UTUN activities, contact Tracy Bier via atbier@msn.com or 206-227-2369. Previously.

Local Events, Neighborhood Pride, Volunteering and Giving

Applications and donations now accepted for Beacon Hill Festival XVII

Photo by go-team from the Beacon Hill Blog pool on Flickr.

The 17th annual Beacon Hill Festival is coming Saturday, June 5th to the Jefferson Community Center at 3801 Beacon Ave S. Applications for vendors are being accepted now and must be submitted by May 7th. Donations for the silent auction fundraiser are sought, and tax-deductible donations and sponsorships are also welcomed.

PDF application forms for vendors, auction donations, and sponsors are available from the Jefferson Community Center page on the Seattle Parks and Recreation website.

If you have questions, contact Tiffani Harris, Assistant Recreation Center Coordinator at tiffani.harris@seattle.gov or call 206-684-7481.

Beacon Bits, Food and Drink, Local Events

Beacon Bits: Green Eggs, Helladope, LED streetlights, and sukiyaki

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Green egg photo
Photo by camera-caritatis
It might be just a bit too late to catch their show tonight, opening for Goodie Mob at Neumo’s, but you can still catch Helladope at the Showbox SoDo on March 5th (opening for Snoop!), and then at their album release party at Nectar in Fremont on March 12th. —Matson on Music in The Seattle Times

Not enough? The Musik Lounge has a Q&A with Helladope, too!

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Seattle City Light is in the process of testing various types of LED streetlamps in pilot neighborhoods, seeking to bring more reliable, more efficient, and longer-lasting lighting to your street.

Follow the progress of City Light’s LED testing program online. West Seattle Blog has a bit more. This program has been a long time coming. Capitol Hill Seattle talked about it almost a year ago.

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At 6pm on Friday, March 5th, the Jefferson Community Center will be celebrating Dr. Seuss‘s birthday with a movie, crafts for kids, and actual green eggs and ham! Bring your appetite. The community center is located at 3801 Beacon Avenue South.

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Not a novelty color, but the next evening, Blaine Memorial United Methodist Church is again hosting its annual Sukiyaki Dinner, benefiting homeless women and children. Dining hours start at 4pm and end at 7. Take out hours run from 2 to 7pm. Tickets are $10 for adults and $7 for children 11 and under. Blaine Memorial is located at 3001 24th Avenue South.

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Late addition: Jefferson Community Center hosts the 3rd annual Black History Month Community Forum. Organized by the local chapter of Blacks in Government, the theme is “surviving and thriving in a down economy”. City Council members Bruce Harrell and Sally Clark, Langston Hughes Executive Director Royal Alley-Barnes, and Kitsap County Auditor Walt Washington are on the list to speak. It runs from 6:30 to 8:30pm tomorrow night (Thursday) at 3801 Beacon Avenue South. — Via Publicola

Clean and Green, Education, Local Events

Busy times ahead at El Centro de la Raza

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Making tamales. Photo by Noema of Intercultura y Cocina, via Creative Commons.
El Centro de la Raza has a lot going on in upcoming weeks at their building at 2524 16th Avenue South, including cooking and language classes, free tax prep, and electronics recycling.

Graciela Gonzalez, El Centro’s Human Services Director, is teaching a class on making tamales. The class fee is $50, and students will be able to take home a dozen tamales along with the recipe. Each class is limited to six students. The class dates are Saturday, March 20, from 10:00 am to 12:30 pm, or Saturday, April 17, also from 10:00 to 12:30. Sign up at Brown Paper Tickets.

El Centro’s conversational Spanish classes will begin on Monday, April 5, and will continue on Mondays and Wednesdays from 6:00 pm to 7:30 pm until June 9. Students will be able to learn Spanish with other adults in a relaxed, yet professional setting. The class fee is $300. Here is the registration form.

All proceeds from these classes go to support El Centro’s human service, child and youth, and education and skill-building programs.

As we wrote in January, United Way of King County is providing free tax preparation services to low-income taxpayers at El Centro. Tax assistance is provided in English and Spanish by volunteers who are trained and certified by the IRS. The free tax prep services will be on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 5:00 – 9:00 pm and Saturdays from 10:00 am – 2:00 pm until April 15.

Those eligible for the free service include anyone whose household made less than $50,000 in 2009, and who is filing a basic tax return only (no rental income, business taxes, or sale of property or stock).

Lastly, El Centro has joined up with Cartridges for Kids to collect used electronics. Cartridges for Kids recycles the used goods, and then gives a
small donation to El Centro. You can contribute old iPods, cell
phones, video game consoles, printer cartridges, digital cameras, DVDs, and more.

The Cartridges for Kids box is in room 304, on the top floor of the El Centro building at 2524 16th Avenue South. If you have a large amount of stuff to drop off, or if you are unable to come up to the top floor for medical reasons, please call Elliott Jones at 206-957-4652 to work out the logistics.

Local Events, Meetings

Upcoming events: Camp, music, Duwamish, art, etc.

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Saturday, February 20th, 2 to 4pm: Camp Long at Jose Rizal Park

Monday, February 22nd, 7pm: Beacon Hill Music organizational meeting. From Paul Ray:

Jessie at ROCKiT space has again generously offered to host this meeting about organizing a Beacon Hill music series at ROCKiT Space (3315 Beacon Ave S., Seattle), on Monday Feb. 22nd at 7pm.

Things are starting to move along in our efforts 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.

Our permits were approved for 4 events, spread out over 4 Sunday afternoons, June 13th, July 11th, August 8th, August 29th, YEAH!

With the dates approved we are at the stage to start taking the steps to make this happen. The next hurdles are paying for the permits and the event insurance (and determining exactly how much the insurance will cost) and getting electricity to the site. But with the dates approved we are ready to start organizing the production of the events, including musician selection, communications and publicity, community outreach, and making plans for the staging on event days, etc. One of our goals at this meeting is to assign some actual tasks to some actual volunteers.

Anyone interested in this project is encouraged to attend.

Wednesday, February 24th, 10am to 4pm: Hanford Steps clean-up. From Jorji Knickrehm:

It’s been a long time since we worked together on the Hanford Steps! Let’s put a little work in, to make sure it looks good and is safe this spring. The weather is lovely and we’ve scheduled a work party. It’s during the week because the Larson Casteel Landscape company has graciously agreed to help us dig out blackberry, and they need to set the schedule (they owed us a little more time from our last grant). We’d love all of you to join in if you’re home from work and have an extra shovel.

The plants we put in last year are doing well for the most part, but blackberry and morning glory are trying to take over again. We need to dig out these invasive weeds while they’re young and weak. The more we dig them out, the weaker they will return. Weeding will be the main task of the work party.

Clean-up is weather-permitting. Jorji is bringing treats! You bring a shovel and/or pick, gloves, a treat for sharing if you can.

Wednesday, February 24th, 5pm: Airplane noise workshop, from Marco Milanese, Community Relations Manager at the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, (206) 787-7734:

Part 150 Noise Study Public Workshop Set for February 24th in Des Moines

The first in a series of public workshops for Sea-Tac Airport’s Part 150 Noise Study is scheduled for February 24th at Mount Rainier High School (22450 19th Ave. S.) in Des Moines. Doors open at 5 PM, with the program beginning at 5:15 PM. The Part 150 Study will look at ways to reduce aircraft noise impacts on communities. Throughout the study, the public is invited to participate in the solution and recommendation process through active engagement in a series of topical workshops.

The February 24th workshop will include a brief presentation followed by facilitator-led, small-group working sessions designed to gather the public’s input on refining the scope for the Part 150 Study. So, please review the meeting agenda and come prepared with ideas.

February 24th, 6:30 to 8pm: Via Steve Louie, the Greater Duwamish council meeting at Georgetown City Hall. Agenda:

6:30 to 6:40pm — Introductions, Judith Edwards, GDDC -Chair
6:40 to 6:50pm — Councilmember Sally Bagshaw
6:50 pm-7:00 pm — Councilmember Mike O’Brien, Parks, Seattle Center, and Waterfront Planning, Seattle Public Utilities and Neighborhoods
7 to 7:30pm — Q&A
7:30 to 7:45pm — Neighborhood Projects Fund, Judith/Steve
7:45 to 8pm — Announcements Park Safety/Rangers, Brock Milliern
Open

Updated 2/23 with revised agenda from Steve Louie.

Saturday, February 27th, 9am to 4pm: Credit Smart and First-Time Home Buyers seminar at El Centro

Saturday, February 27th, 6 to 10pm: Nepo (A humorous approach to the serious art of living)

Local Events, Meetings

Rep. Hasegawa hosts telephone town hall tonight

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Photo of Rep. Hasegawa
Rep. Hasegawa. Photo from housedemocrats.wa.gov
At 6:30 tonight, State Representative Bob Hasegawa will be phoning about 30,000 households in the 11th district (which includes most of Beacon Hill west of Beacon Ave.) and inviting those who answer to join in a one-hour “telephone town hall.”

If you want in on the call but you don’t want to find out if you’re one of the randomly selected participants, you can also call in by dialing 877-229-8493 and entering PIN code 15515.

Following the phone-hall, Rep. Hasegawa will also be hosting an in-person town hall meeting on Saturday the 20th at South Seattle Community College’s Georgetown Campus, Building C, Room 208 at 11am.

Rep. Hasegawa is looking for suggestions on how to make the 11th district and the rest of the state a better place to work and raise a family and, in these last three weeks or so of the current legislative session, help in deciding how to tackle the state’s budget deficit.

Thanks to Joel Lee and Heather Dwyer for sending this in.

Local Events

“Beacon Hill Music” series dates selected

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Paul Ray reports on last Monday’s organizing meeting for a music series at the new Lander Festival Street: 

We have decided to apply for permits for afternoon concerts on four Sundays, June 13, July 11, August 8, and August 29, for afternoon concerts. The Special Events Permit Committee meets early in February so we should find out soon if those dates are approved.
 
Partly due to comments made (and the points in those comments) on the Beacon Hill Blog about our meeting announcement, we decided to name the group “Beacon Hill Music” because for some people the term “BeHi” just rubs them the wrong way and others may not automatically realize it stands for Beacon Hill. But we reserve the right to still use “BeHi Music” for some purposes, such as cool t-shirts.
 
The music series itself will be called “Beacon Rocks” but with a tagline something like “and swings, raps, jams, sings, strums, etc.” to be clear about the diversity of musical styles we intend to include.
 
Thanks for everyone’s interest and as we reach any milestones (such as getting permits approved, starting to seek out musicians, etc.) we will definitely keep the community informed.

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.)

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.