Police are looking for a man who is suspected of perpetrating several check scams in which he orders items and then says he has a $200 traveler's check to pay for them. However, a check is never produced, and the suspect runs off with the change and sometimes the items.
Since the founding of the Boys & Girls Clubs of America in 1860, youths have had a place to go after school to socialize, engage in sports and various activities. The first club in King County opened in Greenwood in 1943 and is now known as the North Seattle Boys & Girls Club, at 8635 Fremont Ave. N. Now, after more than 60 years of activity, the facility has closed due to health concerns. The children have been relocated to other locales, and tests are currently underway to find the cause of illnesses.The club officially closed Jan. 28, but problems have been occurring since December. During the heavy rain storms, the building experienced flooding that caused problems in the club."As a result, we moved the youths out of some of the program areas because [the rooms] were wet," said Daniel Johnson, president and CEO of Boys & Girls Clubs of King County.Shortly after resolving the flooding issues, staff members began complaining about not feeling well. "They had some mild discomforts, [like] headaches," Johnson explained. "We had an expert do some air-quality...testing."After deliberation and several more tests, the club closed. More in-depth studies and tests are now being conducted.The Boys & Girls Clubs of King County will have a community meeting on the closure on Feb. 25 at 7 p.m. at the Greenwood Senior Center, 525 N. 85th St.
Smoke exposure damages store product, doors remain closed Jennifer Hill had prepared for this, though she never expected it would happen. On a lazy Sunday afternoon, Feb. 3, she received a phone call from the office-never a good sign-with shocking news: a fire had broken out, exposing her precious cargo to the damaging effects of smoke. She got the call from her husband, Brent-who was helping out around the shop-after two of her employees noticed the faint smell of smoke in the air. He rushed downstairs, only to be greeted with the glow of flames. While none of the five people present were injured, more than $110,000 worth of Hill's product at Hilltop Yarn was rendered rubbish, as her shop's newly installed central light system failed and caught fire.
For just a few hours on Feb. 13, a group of experts and neighbors meeting in Fremont were able to think creatively instead of solemnly, as they conceptualized ways of preventing suicides on the Aurora Bridge. As efforts and ideas for the Aurora Bridge Suicide Prevention Fence project continue to gain momentum, architects, engineers and concerned residents collaborated last Wednesday for a threehour design meeting at B.F. Day School. The result was a handful of new ideas for suicide prevention along the historic George Washington Memorial Bridge, which spans Queen Anne hill to the south and Fremont to the north along historic State route 99. In 2006, the state Department of Transportation (WSDOT) began taking steps toward suicide prevention along the bridge by installing a half dozen 24-hour hotline phones.
The Lady Falcons of Seattle Pacific University battled past two determined in-state foes last week to run their season record to 22-0 and remain ranked second in the nation in NCAA Div. II. The SPU women bested a fierce Western Washington squad on Feb. 16 with a grind-it-out 58-48 win, though not without sustaining more than the usual assortment of knocks, cuts and bruises. There were many scrums for loose balls and rebounds, as well as two lengthy time-outs when players went to the floor hard while battling for possession.
When two mangy coyotes moved into Discovery Park 13 years ago, they ate my two kitties. So when I saw another coyote on Jan. 3, I was really alarmed. I went to the "living with wildlife" meeting on Jan. 7 to listen to representatives from Seattle Parks & Recreation, PAWS, Woodland Park Zoo, Dept. of Fish & Wildlife and the Seattle Animal Shelter. They did not allow any debate on whether the coyotes should live in Discovery Park. These big guns ganged up on us and predetermined the outcome, and we people who have most to lose had no say-so.
Here we go again. The first round of Washington state caucuses played out on Saturday, Feb. 9. This year, it seemed that attendees at the 36th Precinct caucus-at least those of us at Catharine Blaine School-were either political junkies like me, or first-timers driven to participate after the debacle of a Bush presidency and some 12 years of a Republican controlled Congress that has turned a relatively peaceful nation with a vibrant economy into a world bully with a $9-trillion ($9,245,678,771,478.10 and counting) debt.
Finally, the first crocus joins the blooming snowdrops. The narrow leaves were up and I could see a bloom stem, but it always takes the sunshine to force open the blooms on these species crocuses. Close to my front door there is a large pot holding a Japanese maple tree, and this becomes the perfect place to plant these diminutive early spring bloomers.
George Washington's English ancestry is a well-known fact, but I must admit I was rather surprised to learn Abraham Lincoln's family also was of British origin-a fact that was most emphatically stated during an interview with a very precise, very British lady several years ago. Miss Lonsdale was (and probably still is) the local genealogical expert & keeper of the records of the village church in Hingham, Norfolk, England. In a terribly posh, very British accent (which was very difficult for my radio audience to understand), she assured us the early Lincolns were people of wealth and stature.
"I'd like to make it clear to the people who run the Democratic Party that I will not support Hillary Clinton for president. Enough. Enough triangulation, calculation and equivocation. Enough clever straddling, enough not offending anyone. This is not a Dick Morris election. Sen. Clinton is apparently incapable of taking a clear stand on the war in Iraq, and that alone is enough to disqualify her. Her failure to speak out on Terri Schiavo, not to mention that gross pandering on flag-burning, are just contemptible little dodges."- The late syndicated columnist Molly Ivins, in a Jan. 20, 2006, column, written about a year before her death.You said it, Molly.
This list of crimes was compiled from censored police reports and written by Dennis Wilken.Neighborhood Watch works Officers received a call Feb. 12 about 2:30 in the afternoon of a burglary in progress from an alert neighbor of the victim's on Third Avenue West. An officer, who noted he was wearing a full police uniform (as opposed to culottes?) arrived two minutes later. He was advised by another officer that the suspect-a white male in his 20s, about 5-foot-9, with brown hair, a dark baseball hat, a black jacket and a description that fits three-fourths of the under-30 population on Queen Anne-was seen running away. About 30 minutes later officers located the suspect, evidently not blending far enough in, on West Mercer. The suspect was transported back to the scene, where the alert neighbor identified him. Money gone bad
Puccini's "Tosca," about to open at Seattle Opera, has a rich history that will influence the way the production is lit by designer Connie Yun. Not only does Puccini's opera feature locations still in existence, but the set for this particular production also uses design principles from the 1930s. "'Tosca' is a show very clearly set in a specific time and places, and you definitely have to take that into account," Yun said. "You have to ask, 'Would there have been stained glass windows in that church?'" The set for Seattle Opera's production was designed by Thierry Bosquet for San Francisco Opera's staging of "Tosca" in its 1997-98 season. Since the season celebrated the just-completed renovation of the opera house, Bosquet's set paid homage to the production of "Tosca" that inaugurated the building in 1932.
If someone had told me what "The Spiderwick Chronicles" is about before I saw the movie, I certainly would not have been thrilled about going.A spooky house... goblins and ogres and fairies... a redemptive adventure for unhappy kids... Zzzz. In this era of Harry Potter and "Enchanted" and "Stardust" and etc., how much whimsical fantasy at cineplexes can we put our kids-or ourselves-through?Little did I know how good "Spiderwick" would turn out to be.
Every once in a while you see a stage performance that is so riveting, so incredibly right on, that you are stunned by its power. There's one of those performances in Stone Soup Theatre's current production of two short plays by Edward Albee. As Jerry in "The Zoo Story," Alex Samuels shuffles onto the small stage with a three-day beard, hair unkempt, shirt hanging out from unpressed trousers and dirty red Converse high tops on his feet. Stumbling into and past a garbage can, he stops before the well-groomed Peter (J.D. Lloyd), who sits on a park bench reading. Jerry begins a conversation that can't end well.
Queen Anne resident 'earns her daily bread' with ToscaWhat is it like to walk onto an opera house stage, face an audience of 3,000 and sing the role of Tosca? For Awilda Verdejo-who has sung roles like Tosca, Aida and Norma around the world-it is simply her job. More than an opera singer, she is a woman who sings opera. "I am a singer; I am a mother; I am a wife; I am a cook," Verdejo said as we visited in her home in Queen Anne. "I would feed my children, take a shower and go to work. This is how I earned my daily bread. It was hard work. As for all people, the work sometimes excites you, and sometimes not as much," she added. Verdejo has always sung. But behind the joy of singing is the discipline of an athlete. Athletes work out before a game; opera singers warm up the voice before going on stage. Each singer learns how to exercise the voice, what foods to eat, and so on.