Spirited, yet amicable, candidates forum features sharp questions from Seattle residents about developmentSpirited, yet amicable, candidates forum features sharp questions from Seattle residents about developmentHow to plan and manage urban growth might be the most pressing issue facing development-crazy Seattle, and it was certainly the big question confronting a panel of city council candidates at last week's growth and development forum at the Yesler Community Center.
RUSTY WILLIAMS, SEATTLE "As a lifelong Seattleite, I enjoy preserving the long time tradition of Seattle's premier summertime celebration: Coming down the night before, drinking my @$$ off, and sleeping through the races."
Who knows what a gumshoe is? In the late 1800s, gumshoes were the latest innovation of gum rubber soles on shoes, much like the modern sneaker. The word "gumshoe" itself would later evolve with language. To "gumshoe" would mean to sneak around, since the new rubber soles were so quiet it was the perfect choice for thieves and robbers. This mystery of gumshoes is at the center of the first Mystery Week, going on in the Phinney Ridge neighborhood Friday, Aug. 10, through Aug. 19.
The Blue Angels, that is, for Seafair Weekend, to the dismay of some (see Madeleine Wilde in the Opinion section) but probably the delight of Eric Stern, who shot these pictures.
The Big Howe Improvement Project (B-HIP) group has signed a contract, and work could begin as early as Aug. 20 on installing new playground equipment at the field near the Queen Anne Community Center, B-HIP co-chairwoman Eleni Ledesma has announced.The contractor is PJM Construction, which is owned by Queen Anne resident Pat McClure, the contractor involved in a similar project for Bayview-Kinnear Park, which is scheduled for an opening ceremony on Saturday, Aug. 11.
A clerk working at the Queen Anne Smoke Shop in the 600 block of Queen Anne Ave. N. chased down and allegedly stabbed a Queen Anne man around 9 p.m. Aug. 1. The man was wounded in the lower back and did not suffer life-threatening injuries, according to police spokeswoman Reneé Witt.The suspect, Mohamed Umer, told police the other man had hit him in the head with something that caused him to bleed following a disturbance in the tiny store.
When Babs Moser heard a chainsaw buzzing away in Kiwanis Ravine near the railroad tracks the morning of July 25, she told her husband, Bob Clymer, to take a look from their home on Lawton Lane West."So I came out [with binoculars] and saw these guys," he said, adding that he could see one tree shaking as well. Clymer was suspicious because Kiwanis Ravine is on park property, and he called police. Clymer also held up his camera to get a shot of the three men, "and they dodged to get out of the open space."The parks department will send letters out to residents in the area warning them that cutting trees on city property is illegal.
Magnolia residents Jim Dyer and his partner, Stuart Vincent, received Outstanding Citizen awards at a City Hall ceremony Aug. 2 for the rescue of an elderly woman with Alzheimer's disease after she wandered away May 15 from her home in Magnolia and fell down an embankment.It was the seventh annual award ceremony, which included 38 for Outstanding Citizen and 23 awards for Heroism. Police Chief Gil Kerlikowske noted that police officers receive awards all the time. "But six years ago, we also took an awful hard look at what people do for the police department."
Call us crazy, but we'd bet a few doubloons the SeaFair Pirate above is saying, 'Aaarrrgghh!'
A years-long struggle to find a location and build a new skateboard park at the Seattle Center appears to have ended following a unanimous Seattle City Council vote on Monday afternoon, Aug. 6.The council chose the Pavilion site at Second Ave. N. and Thomas St. as the preferred location. The vote this week eliminated an earlier, unanimous recommendation by council member David Della's Parks, Education, Libraries and Labor Committee to build a new skateboard park at the current location of Everett DuPen's Fountain of Creation sculpture and wading pool just north of KeyArena.
How to plan and manage urban growth might be the most pressing issue facing developmentcrazy Seattle, and it was certainly the big question confronting a panel of city council candidates at last week's growth and development forum at the Yesler Community Center.The Aug. 2 forum featured a series of hardhitting and unusually sophisticated questions posed by a moderator, followed in turn by minuteto90secondlong answers by the panel, which featured both incumbents and challengers for various city council positions.
Just a day or two of cool weather, and my Maxi belle bush bean plants have significantly slowed their prodigious output - or did they stop producing as a protest to the screaming Blue Angel jets?Everyone has an opinion on this Seafair tradition - the blogs are full, the voices angry or petulant. Each year I swear I will not write about it, yet the four-day weekend and the soul-defying noise arrives and consumes four midday hours each day. Hard to ignore. Even harder to watch the distress shown in frightened pet faces. And then to calculate the now-famous carbon footprint for the weekend of flyovers?
I've heard all my life about how fast time flies.And having been raised Catholic, I was forced to listen to long, mournful, weekly fire-and-brimstone sermons from Father James Lunn, a melancholy, old-style, Irish priest who seemed to feel you mustn't enjoy life unless you wanted to burn in hell for "eternity."Somehow, though, even while in Uncle Sam's company during our Vietnam adventure, I had some kind of natural buoyancy, or inherent stupidity (God loves those of us who have a hard time learning life lessons); I never took all the death and destruction around me and mine seriously. I knew I would escape, if not unscathed, at least semi-whole.<br
The recent weekend move of a 1906 Craftsman house from the 200 block of Boston St. to the 2500 block of Fourth Ave. N. was quite a spectacle. I attended a good portion of the all-night-and-into-the-morning event, which provided a great chance to socialize with dozens of neighbors. (As one person said, "Who needs block parties when there are events like this?") In addition to the daunting logistics of ducking under telephone, bus and cable television wires, a fair number of trees had to be trimmed to accommodate the house's passage.<br
I've had some time to mull over the great YouTube Democratic debate on CNN, and I've decided I'm less than thrilled with the results.CNN, understandably, promoted this event as the next great breakthrough in the theater of presidential politics. I'm sorry to say that was not my impression. Theater, yes; but a breakthrough or enlightening, no. I almost expected Chuck Barris to bang a gong on a couple of occasions.