It can be a formidable task to replace a well-known and highly regarded organizational figure. Take Capitol Hill Housing, where Chuck Weinstock served as executive director for 19 years before stepping down last month. During his tenure, the affordable housing provider grew considerably and became an almost universally admired organization at the forefront of Seattle's affordable housing debate.Chris Persons relishes taking on challenges. As Capitol Hill Housing's new executive director, Persons said that the opportunity to overcome challenges is one of the reasons he took the job.
Seattle Public Utilities will propose two storm-relief options to Madison Valley residents whose homes have been flooded over the last few years. Both options, officials say, should handle the type of rainstorm that occurred last December, when local resident Kate Fleming was drowned in her basement.The first option, which would cost $16.4 million to $18.8 million, would involve the demolition or moving of 17 homes in the 200 block of 30th Avenue East for a park and part-time pond.
For a developer, the devalued house on a million-dollar property may instantly become landfill once they demolish it, but demolition isn't always the answer. In Madison Park, with historically significant homes, the tension between appreciating these homes and realizing the value of the property without the home has already started to make an impact on the neighborhood.On Sept. 9, Madison Park neighbors bid their farewells to the last little cottage left on 43rd Avenue East. But something was different about this farewell. They didn't say goodbye and watch a wrecking ball slam into the house. Instead, they waved at the house as it was put on a barge to be sailed away on Lake Washington.
Inspired by the Hebrew phrase tikkun olam ("to repair the world"), Madison Park resident and Medina elementary-school teacher Lisa Rossman has set out to do just that.During a recent medical leave, she came up with the idea of collecting bicycles for residents in Croatia, who don't have the means to pay for transportation, she said. So far, she has collected nine bikes and has found storage in a Madrona garage for the bikes she'll receive - all by just merely asking.
My two years with Uncle Sam was over, and I stepped happily back into my life in Madison Park. Up until that time, I had not taken kindly to orders and would rather have turned any criticism into humor. In the early '70s, while working for a conservative engineering firm downtown, my superior asked me to join him in the conference room to discuss a difference of opinion I had had with a project manager. After reprimanding me, he paused and said, "Let's get lunch."Over a turkey sandwich and martinis, he gave me his advice. I sat silently listening to his olive-induced wisdom. As he chewed on the green fruit, he asked, "How do you think I treat people?"For him to turn this criticism of me into a heartfelt query was a complete turnaround. Showing respect, giving him credit, talking with him (not to him) and sharing our thoughts made it possible to decode his behavior.
There are changes afoot in Madison Park, and in spite of the best efforts of all who have made an effort to spread the word, too many of us are still unaware of what's been contemplated and what has been accomplished. It seems in this day of instant and constant communication from all corners of the globe, it becomes more and more difficult to communicate with our neighbors. Take Historic Madison Park (HMP), for instance.
Your Sept. 8 car show notice ("Car Show to Put Legacies in Motion") seems to say the exhibit had only eight cars in it. I wasn't able to come to see it, so my only information is from your report.Since my first, in 1947, I might have owned as many as 200 old, odd cars, many of which I've driven to Madison Park from 1950 to now - not to car shows but to The Attic and the Red Robin to have a beer.
Over the years, I've noticed a decrease in one thing throughout Seattle: a free restroom. With the rise of drug use by homeless downtown occupants and a migration of transient University District inhabitants toward Capitol Hill, many businesses have really put their foot down on making sure that only customers are able to use their restrooms.
Everyone old enough to pay rent knows that the lack of affordable housing in Seattle has reached crisis proportions. Yet in response to the removal of several thousand low-income housing units in our city to condo conversion, demolition, speculation and redevelopment, the mayor wants to give subsidies and incentives that will spur still more of the very kind of development and speculative activity that has caused this loss in the first place.
NICOLE GONZALEZI'm not following local politics at all. I keep up more with national isues. I know it should be the other way around. Instead of the news I watch Comedy Central. I know this isn't the right answer, but I probably won't vote.
I'm in a nostalgic mood again. And it's not just because I've got another photo history book coming out. (It's "Seattle's Belltown," due in November from Arcadia Publishing. Thanks for asking.) It's also post-equinoxal time. Time to settle in, hunker down, turn on the indoor heating, and reminisce. And this particular week is when we say goodbye to the recently departed Walt Crowley, who began his public life documenting student radicals, then in recent years devoted himself to preserving a whole city's memories at HistoryLink.org. So here are a few Broadway memories, dating from my own first impressions of the street from the mid-1970s.
My father and his two brothers, good first-generation German boys, who despite harder lives than what's on offer for most white folks nowadays, hitched up their belts and worked away their newly minted American lives. I miss them and wish they were still around so I could ask them what they made of George W. Bush's world.I ended up knowing a bit more about my mom and her siblings, because the Irish side of the family turned out to be more social and longer-lived.
I look forward to attending my monthly Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU) meetings. The camaraderie of being around others who appreciate unionism, free doughnuts, and the chance to win $100 in the pot draw are a fun way to spend a few hours each month. Aside from these frills, there is the serious matter of management-labor disputes. The plethora of these disagreements reinforces the need for employee representation, yet often brings to bear the difficulty in maintaining union harmony.
It's always been a shoestring-budget type of operation, the Columbia City Cinema, but that has never quashed the humor-ladden, independent spirit of theater owner Paul Doyle. His latest newsletter e-mail sent on Sunday, Sept. 30, is a prime example. Doyle and his die-hard cinematic cohorts preface it by saying it's a letter they didn't want to send before posing a question to the community:"You know the iceberg we've been trying to avoid since we opened? Here we are standing on the bridge of the Cinema Titanic and we've finally hit it.
DESIGN REVIEWS: • 201 W. Harrison St. (3007688) for a six-story apartment building (approximately 36 units) with ground-level commercial (retail and four live/work units) over below-grade parking. At the early design guidance meeting, the applicants will present information about the site and vicinity; the public may offer comments regarding the design and siting of a mixed-use development on the subject site. The meeting will take place Oct. 17 at 6:30 p.m. at Queen Anne Community Center.