The staff at Borracchini's Bakery, 2307 Rainier Ave. S., is proving that it's tough to keep a good business down by bouncing back from a violent armed robbery attempt within hours after gunmen stormed the South End store last week. According to the Seattle Police Department's incident report filed by officers Wells and Ornelas at the South Precinct, two men in their mid-20s entered the business at 5:31 a.m. on Tue., Sept. 12. The men wore dark clothing and one of them carried a handgun. Shortly before the officers arrived, a witness spotted one of the robbers fleeing the scene in an "older, dark-colored vehicle, slightly lowered to the ground" driving southbound along 24th Avenue South. At the scene, officers discovered two employees, one a 37-year-old man lying face down with "duct tape around his eyes, mouth, hands and ankles." Nearby lay another employee, a 43-year-old man, with "duct tape around his ankles."
As of July, the solid-waste division of Seattle Public Utilities (SPU) had all but eliminated any location except near South Corgiat Drive in Georgetown for a new truck-to-rail intermodal garbage-transfer facility.That's changed following comments at a series of three public meeting about the $70 million project, said solid-waste director Tim Croll. The Seattle City Council also had second thoughts about the Corgiat site, he added.Objections boiled down to "what if options" that included not building a third site at all and instead expanding the existing transfer stations in Wallingford and South Park, according to Croll. The city's other options including taking another look at Harbor Island as well as another Georgetown location on Edmonds Street. But the one suggestion for the facility that has taken many by surprise is the Burlington Northern Santa Fe rail yard in Interbay between the Queen Anne and Magnolia neighborhoods."Interbay had been eliminated for what we think are sound reasons," Croll said. But the public mentioned Interbay several times in meetings as a better location than the Corgiat site, he said.The possibility of using Interbay as the location doesn't set well with neighborhood organizations in Magnolia and Queen Anne. "The Queen Anne Community is absolutely opposed to it for a lot of reasons," said council president Ellen Monrad.
It almost sounds too good to be true, but a few simple changes to your diet can significantly reduce your risk of breast cancer-a disease that affects one in eight American women and more than 1,500 men annually."You just have to do a little planning," says Heidi Lucas, a naturopathic physician at Seattle Cancer Treatment and Wellness Center and former community educator at Bastyr University. "It's not difficult." Lucas is using the platform of Breast Cancer Awareness Month in October to point out the power of diet in cancer prevention and overall health. In the United States, one woman in eight either has or will develop breast cancer in her lifetime, according to the National Breast Cancer Foundation.This year, an estimated 211,000 women and 1,600 men will be diagnosed with the disease, and 43,300 women and 400 men will die.
Northwest Girlchoir recently returned from a successful 17-day European tour, performing nine concerts in Italy, Croatia and Slovenia. Twenty-nine local high school students participated in the tour, including Andrea Love, a resident of Magnolia. The tour was led by Northwest Girlchoir artistic director Sara Boos. The first stop on the tour was Venice, Italy, where the choir performed during a Mass at St. Mark's Cathedral. The tour also included five performances in Croatia, many in small, historic churches.The final concert in Croatia took place in Varazdin at the Church of the Assumption. The day of the concert, the choir learned that the elderly priest of the church had died that morning. It was a special privilege for the girls to sing "Lux Aeterna (Perpetual Light)", a text originally meant for a funeral, in his honor.
Trenches and square holes had already been cut into the concrete in the Snoqualmie Room at the Seattle Center. Nonetheless, organizers of the Vera Project held a symbolic groundbreaking ceremony last week to mark the progress of a program that began in 2000.Vera-which is an acronym for "Veri et recti amici" meaning true and sincere friends-is a musical venue and program run by and for youth.The program had been located for three years in the building that once held the Annex Theatre on Fourth Avenue in Belltown, but that building is gone now, noted executive director Shannon Roach.Vera Project board members worked out a deal with the city to relocate to one of the Northwest Rooms. "It's really amazing being at the Seattle Center," Roach said. The Seattle Center is easy to get to, and it feels safe, she added.
If you drive across the Ballard Bridge and then turn right, almost immediately, onto N.W. 51st Street, you'll come across a large building on the right that has a lot of old fire engines (excuse me, apparatus), parked therein. This is the home of the Last Resort Fire Department (LRFD).I was recently given a quick tour of the facilities by fellow Magnolian Bob Thelen. Believe me, it was quite a sight, and I spent a very interesting couple of hours talking about antique fire apparatus.Thelen and his son Billy, 15, have been involved as volunteer members of the LRFD for just over a year now. Current LRFD membership stands at 20, with eight drivers, nine associates and three (10-15 year old) junior associates. Previous membership has numbered up to more than 40 uniformed members.The LRFD is a nonprofit, charitable corporation that is dedicated to the acquisition, restoration, preservation and display of classic antique motorized fire apparatus. First officially begun in 1969, the LRFD started when a handful of dedicated individuals banded together to form what is now the largest collection of antique motorized fire apparatus in the Pacific Northwest.
I've been working on a term paper for one of my classes for school, Child Abuse & Neglect. The topic I have chosen for this particular paper is corporal punishment. There has been much debate over the use of corporal punishment, whether it is abusive or effective.I'm also in another class, Parent-Child Relationships, which relates in many ways to my other class, and particularly my research topic. As I've been conducting research for this paper, in the hope of creating a thoughtful debate between the two stances on the matter, I have been shocked by how incredibly biased most of the research is. Some of it is objective, but most of it (for either position) is slanted simply to prove the point of the researchers.Then there are the articles written by others, who may be experts in some field (psychologists, social workers, etc.) who write of their opinions, and then back them up with the same subjective research I've been finding.Even in my textbooks, authors take a clearly biased stance on many issues, including corporal punishment. This alone has led me to question the validity of what schools are teaching, along with what researchers are "finding." This makes me wonder: what sources are parents seeking out to help them in their parenting? Are these sources objectively backed up with solid research or proven effectiveness? I am not, it must be said, here to present or argue my current opinion on corporal punishment. Through my frustration and analysis of different views and research, I've been led to a conclusion that I think is the only answer for the whole debate.
Editor's note: The following letter, written by Magnolia resident Christine Atkins, was sent Aug. 31 to Scott Minnix of the city's Department of Neighborhoods.We the residents of the neighborhood adjacent to the Fort Lawton Army Reserve have concerns about the closing and surplus of the reserve.Our neighborhood is unique: it is comprised of dead-end streets; is adjacent to large tracts of green space and park properties; is in close proximity to the Puget Sound and Ship Canal; is home to the largest colony of Great Blue Herons in Seattle; serves as a wildlife reserve/corridor; and is in development transition.We request that the city and the federal government take a close look at the impacts and uses of future tenants of current Army Reserve property on our neighborhood. These uses must not have a negative effect on our parks, the greater community of Magnolia and our neighborhood.The Fort Lawton Army Reserve is adjacent to our neighborhood along its north and east boundary, and to Discovery Park-a 534 acre natural area park-along the south and west boundaries. Discovery Park is the largest city park in Seattle and occupies most of the former Fort Lawton site.Our neighborhood is nestled between Discovery Park, the Army Reserve, the Kiwanis Ravine-an urban forest and wildlife corridor-and the waterways of the ship canal.
A scramble to stake a claim to surplused military property at Fort Lawton has begun, and residents in the surrounding community by Discovery Park have already expressed concerns about the changes coming to their community.The decision to shut down the 38-acre Fort Lawton Army Reserve Center was made in 2005 as part of the Defense Base Realignment and Closure Act, and the military gets first dibs on any of the property, according to Linda Cannon, deputy director of the city's Office of Intergovernmental Relations.In fact, the Department of Veterans Affairs has already requested that it be given one of the newer buildings at the northwest corner of the base, Cannon said.As for the rest of the property, priority will given to housing and services for the homeless, along with public-benefit conveyances that might see the property turned over to Seattle Parks and Recreation, Cannon said. Furthermore, if there is property left over, it could be sold off to private developers, she added.The city has stepped in to act as a Local Reuse Authority (LRA) to help determine who gets what, Cannon said of an arrangement that the mayor and the city council have both approved. "Being the LRA put us in the middle of the federal process." But the federal government will have the final call on the disposition of the base property, she said.
For the city of Seattle - with its prickly traffic problems and notorious bureaucratic sluggishness - it is the question of the hour, the decade, perhaps even the century: Above, or below? Radically different, or haltingly similar?The number of alternatives for fixing the decrepit Alaskan Way Viaduct and adjacent seawall now has been narrowed to just two, down from an original list of 76 concepts that have been bandied around in a seemingly endless series of public meetings. Those alternatives are as follows: building a stacked tunnel, by a method known as "cut and cover," or the creation of an elevated structure similar in its basic design to what now exists along the vaunted Seattle waterfront.These choices were presented to the public last Thursday, Sept. 24, at the monthly general meeting of the Magnolia Community Club (MCC) held in the Catharine Blaine Elementary cafeteria and presided over by MCC president Vic Barry. The meeting, which featured a number of presentations and addresses by various public officials, ran well over two hours and was - relative to past meetings - sparsely attended by members of the Magnolia community.
Dear Neighbor of Fire Station 20:As you may know, earlier this year I sent to the Seattle City Council a proposal to rebuild and expand Fire Station 20 at its existing site on 13th Avenue West. In the Fire and Emergency Response Levy, approved by voters in November 2003, we proposed to replace the small and aged Fire Station 20. Station 20 is in the worst condition of the 33 stations in our system. It does not meet current code requirements or the daily needs of our firefighters, and it is seismically unsound. Its age and condition render it unsuitable for remodeling or seismic upgrades to extend its useful life. For more than a year and a half, the Seattle Fire Department and the Fleets & Facilities Department worked to find a site for a new Station 20 that would meet the Fire Department's needs while maintaining or improving response times. Using established standards, they researched and canvassed properties over the entire service area, and scrutinized additional sites at the request of community members and city councilmembers. More than 20 sites were reviewed in this process.
The most ironic thing about our sound-bite, text-message culture is the overwhelming part corporations now play in our everyday lives. The ironies abound. Like big tobacco companies paying for smarmy commercials about kids not smoking, and big national breweries most famous for pale, light watery beers that look like a form of human waste rather than beer, talking about drinking responsibly. As if we believe they mean that.Just buy a pint, not a six-pack.Yeah!The truth is available for those few remaining Americans who don't want sound bites, such as "Kill an Iraqi for Iraqi freedom," or "Drive faster for safer roads." But most seem to wanna ostrich it.For those who don't, here are a few little corporate factoids gleaned from our two twinnish daily newspapers and their wire allies.The Washington Post reports that the amount of nicotine, the most highly addictive part of the commercial cigarette, has increased 10 percent in the past five years.The trend was discovered by the Massachusetts Department of Public Health. Massachusetts is a blue state that requires tobacco companies to measure and report their nicotine content.Total nicotine has increased an average of 16.6 percent in the past five years, and the amount of nicotine per gram increased 11.3 percent in the same time period.More than 90 of the 116 brands tested fell into the increased-personal-risk-by-nicotine category.
I thought I'd stayed away too long, that if I once knew how to be in Manhattan, the time had passed. But after leaving JFK and weaving through Queens in a taxi vying for speed points, I find my footing again in a city that reeks of a zillion past lives plus my own. And from this point on, I'm so far on the other side of estrangement I'm at home again: I enter my favorite diner, order a bagel with a smear, smile when I'm called sweetheart by a waiter I recognize.I have always been both thrilled and repelled by the constant, buzzing life of this city; in awe of its tolerant sidewalks that bind millions together while, at the same time, bias keeps them apart. And while the names of certain neighborhoods have changed, their effect on me is the same.
The location of a replacement structure for the aging Magnolia Bridge has been chosen after a few starts and stops, but now the Seattle Department of Transportation is asking the public for its thoughts on design details.But it didn't quite work out that way at a public meeting SDOT held last week in the Catharine Blaine School auditorium. "It was kind of interesting," said project manager Kirk Jones. "Most comments did not have anything to do with the structure."Instead, among other concerns, Magnolians at the meeting wanted to know how SDOT could slow bridge traffic as it reaches the Magnolia Bluff. "It's an issue that was brought up early in the process," he said, noting, "It's not really a bridge problem."
STEVE WAGNER"I like the change of seasons because it makes me feel alive. The temperatures go from warm to cold. Leaves go from green to colorful. And even the shorter days ... the contrast makes you appreciate life."RANDI LEFEBVRE"Autumn is my favorite time of year. It is magical. Last fall I got out of my car near Diablo Coffee and there were brightly colored leaves whirling - they whirled around me, my body. It was wonderful! Autumn is also a great season to share with young children."