KOMO reports a story that is both sad and frightening. A home in the 3200 block of 15th Avenue South was burglarized in the early afternoon on June 7, and when the family returned home to find the burglary, they also found their cat lying dead in the backyard.
The owner reported on the BAN mailing list that “at some point either my cat got in the way or wanted to be petted and was struck with enough force that it killed him.”
Police were able to lift prints from several locations in the home. The thieves apparently tried to kick in the back door, and when that failed, broke an upper window in the door.
Kids splashed happily in the Beacon Mountain spraypark last summer.If you want to splash around in the Beacon Mountain spraypark, you’ll need to wait until Wednesday. Seattle Parks tells us:
“We are making some adjustments to Beacon Mountain spraypark and have shut down the spraypark today, Mon. June 10th and Tues., June 11th. We anticipate it opening back up on Wednesday, June 12th.”
Roberto’s life was dedicated to building the “Beloved Community†through multi-racial unity and he deeply believed that poverty, racism and social inequity could only be eradicated if people of all races came together to do so.
In honor of Roberto and his legacy, the Third Annual Roberto Felipe Maestas Legacy Award will recognize two individuals, a woman and a man, who have exemplified Building the Beloved Community through multi-racial unity and working to eliminate poverty, racism and social inequity.
El Centro de la Raza will celebrate them and their contributions by making a $1,500 gift in their name to an organization of their choice. Award recipients will be recognized at El Centro de la Raza’s Building the Beloved Community Gala on Saturday, October 5 at the Washington State Convention Center in Seattle.
Legacy award applicants can self-nominate or be nominated by someone else. Recipients are asked to participate in a video interview and attend El Centro de la Raza’s Building the Beloved Community Gala.
Deadline for application submission is Tuesday, July 9 (Roberto’s Birthday) 2013 at 5 p.m. Pacific Time. Click here to access the application.
A rendering of a design for the 17th Avenue South side of the Plaza Roberto Maestas project.Kate Gill de la Garza of the Beacon Development Group wrote to let us know that the design review process for El Centro de la Raza’s south lot development, Plaza Roberto Maestas, will be delayed by a month. The Early Design Guidance meeting is now scheduled to take place on July 23 at 6:30 p.m. at Wellspring Family Services, 1900 Rainier Avenue South.
Kate said, “This is primarily because the State legislative process now looks like it will go into July, and while we feel confident in our momentum and financial scenarios on the project, we have decided to wait until we have more information in hand from the State budget process. Hopefully this will happen by July!”
Photo by Wendi Dunlap.Safe Kids Seattle, the Seattle Department of Transportation, Feet First and FedEx are starting a year-long partnership with Beacon Hill’s Asa Mercer Middle School, with a goal of improving safety and conditions for pedestrians in the area around the school. The kickoff event for this program is tonight (June 6) at 6 p.m., during the Sixth Grade Parent Welcome Night at Asa Mercer Middle School, 1600 S. Columbian Way.
As part of the project, FedEx is presenting the Safe Kids task force with a grant of $25,000 for work throughout the upcoming year to improve permanent walking conditions for child pedestrians in the Asa Mercer community. The task force will create both environmental changes in the area, and educational campaigns to increase pedestrian awareness.
Beacon Hill Blog: Please describe the three new projects you’re showcasing in this year’s Seattle International Film Festival. Two are shorts, one is a feature including your sand animation. Which project was the easiest and which the most difficult?
Tess Martin: The three projects I have in SIFF this year are two animated shorts directed by myself, A Walk in the Woods and They Look Right Through You, and then I have 7 minutes of sand animation in a documentary called Barzan directed by Alex Stonehill and Brad Hutchinson.
They are very different — A Walk In The Woods is a one minute short, the shortest film I’ve ever made! And it is animated with objects–sticks and leaves, etc. They Look Right Through You is a nine-minute short, and I was working on it on and off over 18 months, but was seriously animating for about 4 or 5 months. This one is marker and paint on glass with some time-lapses thrown in.
The sand animation in Barzan took me about 7 months all together. In some ways Barzan was the hardest because we picked some very challenging things to represent in sand, but the results were worth it.
Beacon Hill Blog:They Look Right Through You combines interviews with pet owners and marker-on-glass animation. Had you used this style of animation before? What are its particular challenges? How did you go about obtaining the interviews for the soundtrack? What was Susie Tennant’s contribution?
Tess Martin: I hadn’t used marker-on-glass animation before. I was playing around and discovered that it’s very nice for animation because the marker can be easily wiped away, as opposed to paint, which is often stickier. I’d say the main challenge with marker-on-glass is that is requires a lot of drawing! You’re basically re-drawing the image over and over, and erasing where it was previously, so you have to be on your drawing game so to speak when you’re animating.
In October or November 2011 I put a call out on my neighborhood listserv for people who were willing to be interviewed about their pets. I got a lot of responses and spent a few weeks traipsing to people’s homes and talking to them with an audio recorder. I read about Susie Tennant’s situation in one the Seattle weeklies, because her and her family were raising money for her medical care. The story included one sentence about how her dog alerted her to the fact she had cancer. I asked her if she would be willing to share her story for my little film. She was gracious enough to accept, and her story is so compelling that it became one of the two main stories in the film.
Beacon Hill Blog: How was A Walk In The Woods animated? How long
did you spend in East Haddam, CT, where the film was made, and what did you do there? What were your impressions of the area?
Tess Martin: The film was animated with objects I collected in a big park that makes up a lot of the grounds of the I-Park artist residency. I won a residency there in August/September of 2012, and I was mostly working on They Look Right Through You during that month.But I had hit a wall with that film and had 4 days of the residency, so I decided to do something completely different.
I traipsed around the beautiful park, brought all the material back to my studio and created a story with it. I thought it would be fun to try to make it exactly one minute. So that’s how that happened — it’s the shortest production time of all my films! I then worked with my composer, Spencer Thun, to get a beautiful score for the film that hit all the emotional points in such a short time.
Beacon Hill Blog: Your work on Barzan was integrated into the documentary film. How much contact did you have with the film’s directors, Alex Stonehill and Brad Hutchinson? How did you go about coordinating with them? What are the particular challenges of sand animation, and had you used that technique before? (Does the sand tend to go all over the place?)
Tess Martin: I was approached by the Barzan crew and they showed me the cut of the film they had so far, and where they were envisioning the animated segments going, and what the animated segments needed to contribute to the film. Once I had a clear idea about that I storyboarded the scenes as I felt they should be, and then there was a little back and forth about particulars. I’d say we met about 4 or 5 times, with a lot of email. It was a very happy relationship because to their credit they were on board with most of my ideas even though it must have been hard to picture exactly what I was talking about.
Sand is great fun and challenging of course. You’re working with a very thin layer of sand on a flat surface, and yes, I was finding sand around my desk for a long time afterwards. You just have to be really careful not to bump the table or sneeze near your work.
Beacon Hill Blog: How long have you lived on Beacon Hill? How does it compare/contrast with other places you’ve lived? How does the neighborhood/community influence your work and your attitudes?
Tess Martin: Beacon Hill is the only neighborhood I’ve lived in in Seattle since I moved here five years ago. It’s certainly one of the most residential areas of a major city I’ve lived in, even though I live right on the main road, so for me the experience is probably less quiet than most Beacon Hill residents. But I love living in a quiet friendly place with other friendly people. I’d say the best thing I get out of Beacon Hill is its diversity — it’s nice living in a neighborhood where there are residents of all ages and ethnicities — it feels like the real world.
Beacon Hill Blog: What are your plans for the future?
Tess Martin: I’m working on a few films right now and I may be moving to The Netherlands for a Masters program at the end of the year — it’s still up in the air but could be very exciting.
This Saturday, June 8, westbound South McClellan Street will be closed between 23rd Avenue South and 20th Avenue South for repaving by the Seattle Department of Transportation. The street will close at 7 a.m. to repave concrete panels in the 2100 block.
The street will remain closed until about 2 p.m. on Sunday, to give the concrete time to cure. A detour route will be provided for westbound travelers: south on 23rd, west on South Spokane Street, then north on Beacon Avenue South to McClellan and Beacon.
The process is slower and more restrictive than that of other cities, causing hold-ups or cancellation of several broadband upgrade projects planned for 2012 and 2013. Robert Kangas, a Beacon Hill neighbor and member of UPTUN, released a presentation comparing Seattle’s process with that of other cities. It’s worth reading if you wonder why your house is still stuck with 1.5 Mbps DSL.
In February, Bruce Harrell sent a letter expressing support for a broadband pilot project on Beacon Hill to the North Beacon Hill Council. The project would allow CenturyLink to deploy two fiber-to-the-node sites and provide homes near the sites with 80-100 megabits/second broadband speed before the end of 2013. If successful, the approach could be followed in other parts of Beacon Hill and Seattle.
On Wednesday, June 5th at 2PM, the Public Safety, Civil Rights and Technology Committee of the Seattle City Council will discuss the proposal. The discussion will take place in the City Council Chambers at Seattle City Hall. The Committee will discuss the issue in its next scheduled meeting on June 19th and vote on whether or not to support it. If the proposal is approved by the committee, it will then move forward for review and approval by the whole Council. The agenda for the meeting is available here.
In addition, there will be a presentation and discussion of the pilot project tomorrow night (Tuesday, June 4) at the North Beacon Hill Council meeting at 7 p.m. at the Beacon Hill Library. Representatives from CenturyLink will present the details of the pilot project and be available to answer questions. Details of the two areas for the pilot can be viewed in this document.
Much depends on the support of the community. A number of Beacon Hill residents will attend the meeting on Wednesday to testify in support of the pilot project, but more support is needed. Please show your support by attending the meeting if you are available or by sending an email to Bruce Harrell (bruce.harrell@seattle.gov) and other City Council members.
Here’s the agenda for this week’s meeting at the Beacon Hill Library at 7 p.m. on Tuesday, June 4:
7:00-7:10 Introductions, Greater Duwamish Council and Department of Neighborhoods updates, raffle sales
7:10-7:25 Broadband in Beacon Hill (Mary Taylor, CenturyLink): CM Bruce Harrell proposing a pilot project in Beacon Hill; Public Safety, Civil Rights and Technology committee meets Wednesday, June 5, at 2 p.m.
7:25-7:45 Pacific Medical Center Tower (Judith Edwards)
7:45-7:50 NBHC revised bylaws
7:50-8:00 Raffle last minute sales and drawing
8:00-8:15 Happening on the Hill/Community Calendar
Beacon Bazaar at Beacon International School, Sat 6/8
Beacon ROCKS, Sun 6/30
8:30-8:55 NBHC Board meets in Beacon Hill Resource Center (open to the public)
The council is also holding a raffle:
“Please support our community council and enter to win fabulous prizes including gift cards at Victrola, El Centro parking pass, Tippe and Drague and many more local businesses. The grand prize will be one free permit (and insurance ) to use Roberto Maestas Festival Street. Proceeds support NBHC overhead for the Beacon Hill Resource Center and Roberto Maestas Festival Street.
“Tickets: $2 each/3 for $5 (Buy tickets from any board member in the neighborhood or at the NBHC meeting)
“Raffle drawings will be held at our June NBHC meeting and June Beacon ROCKS for the grand prize.”
Students perform on unicycles at the 2012 Beacon Hill Festival. Photo by Wendi Dunlap.Tomorrow, Saturday, June 1, from 11 to 4, the Beacon Hill Festival returns for a fine day at sunny Jefferson Park. (It’s June already?!) This is the 21st annual event; it’s a neighborhood fair, but also a fundraiser for scholarship programs at Jefferson Community Center.
At noon, Mayor McGinn and other local dignitaries will be there for the American Planning Association Great Places Award ceremony, honoring Beacon Hill as one of the APA’s “Great Places in America.”
The day will also include live performances from local schools and artists; a silent auction; 40 vendors, food including hot dogs, teriyaki, and burgers; bouncy houses, Frisbee demos, and we are also promised the chance to “play catch with a robot from Franklin HS Xbot Team!”
