When I was hired as a part-time administrator for the Queen Anne Chamber of Commerce, I encountered a small, committed group of local business people determined to keep the chamber afloat. This group fought and scrounged to maintain a strong business community. Facing a growing transient population, an influx of night clubs, traffic congestion and cuts in funds for street and sidewalk maintenance, they continued to fight to maintain our shopping districts.
Concurrently the business community on Capitol Hill, namely the Broadway community ( while facing the same challenges as Queen Anne) gave up. They abandoned their efforts to keep Broadway a viable business entity and closed the doors to their chamber of commerce. Consequently the Capitol Hill business community proceeded to decline, the streets became clogged with public inebriates, kids aggressively panhandled and local businesses became inaccessible. Their store-front vacancy rate soared.
Recently our mayor and city council gave the Broadway business community more than $350,000 to bring that business district back to life. These funds are to be used to develop a chamber of commerce, install neighborhood banners and maintain and repair their sidewalks.
Queen Anne deserves the bucks
Well, I think the Queen Anne business community deserves some $$$$$. Granted, we may be one of the most affluent business districts in Seattle, but you would never know it by the looks of our sidewalks, streets and alleys.
Last week I did an alley walk- through with our new Department of Neighborhoods Director, Christa Dumpys. One of the alleys at the bottom of the hill is a cesspool. One passerby commented, "That gives Los Angeles alleys some competition." Another passerby said "It's worse in Tijuana." No comment.
We need funds for sidewalk repair, banners and street beautification projects. Our alleys need Clean Scapes; we want the city's help with sidewalk maintenance and enforcement. The Chamber and other local groups have fought for two years to implement the A.I.A. (Alcohol Impact Area) in our community.
As business people, we cannot take our location and customers for granted. We need to be constantly vigilant when it comes to the health and safety of our business community.
To the mayor and our city council: Let's be proactive with the Queen Anne business community. We want our share of those dollars to clean, repair and enhance; let's not wait until it too late. That is not cost effective.
To Kathy King, Hossein Soleymani, Patty McCall, Craig Wilson, Dave Peterson, Don Lagerquist, Jean Sundborg, John Coney, Chris Bihary, Jane Horowitz, Dave Gleason, John Gessner, Ellen Monrad, Dan Willits, Ann Pearce and all the other Queen Anne civic and business leaders who don't and won't give up. I applaud you.
Margaret Irvine is the executive director of the Greater Queen Anne Chamber of Commerce.
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