As a measure of Andrew Taylor's community involvement, consider the year 1989. How many had cell phones or computers, much less e-mail? The Web was something spiders made. Google was a character from an old comic. But Taylor has been volunteering on behalf of the Miller Park neighborhood since those dim, dark days. And in so doing, his tenure at the helm of the Miller Park Neighborhood Association likely makes him the longest continuously serving member of a Capitol Hill community organization.
John Marshall not only sells poetry but is known to write it very well. Now Marshall, who - along with this wife, poet Christine Deavall - owns the poetry-only bookshop Open Books: A Poem Emporium in Wallingford, has won the prestigious 2007 Field Poetry Prize. Marshall’s winning manuscript, “Meaning of a Cloud,” has just been published by Oberlin College Press, which sponsors the contest.
Locals work to develop bus riders union The idea of starting a Citizens Transit Campaign caught fire during a debate earlier this month following a Feb. 1 showing of the documentary "Bus Riders Union" at the Rainier Unitarian Universalist Center. The film is about the mid-1990s campaign for better bus service in Los Angeles, and its local showing inspired local bus riders. Organizers of the debate cited carbon reduction goals, rising gas prices due to global warming and peak oil prices as driving the need for more frequent and reliable all-day local bus service, with good connections to expanding regional bus and rail.
Students at the Center School will help organize and manage the flow of an estimated 16,000 students from around the state who will descend on Seattle to hear the Dalai Lama and potentially others speak in Key Arena April 14.The students from schools throughout the state will be bused to Seattle Center to hear the religious and political leader of Tibet speak about compassion. Desmond Tutu and Nelson Mandela are also expected to attend the The Seeds of Compassion event.
The Laser Beams of Magnolia Community Center have won it all, toppling the Garfield opponents 43-36.Last weekend the team won the Seattle Park and Recreation Youth Basketball Championship. The team competed in the Bronze division for boys 11 years of age. It was the second season in which most of the boys on the team have played together.
At the halfway point of a program designed to inspire kids to read, Seattle Public Schools (SPS) is reporting that more than 720 million words have been read so far, with the campaign continuing through the school year.Since the SPS launched the Read a Million Words, Seattle campaign in October, kids at elementary and middle schools and at libraries throughout the city have been plowing through books by the wagon load. At Cooper Elementary in West Seattle, nearly every student has reached the quarter-million word mark, and others are close to the half-million mark.
Two solar panels that recently appeared peeking over the Emerson Street Bridge on 15th Avenue West aren't the only solar panels positioned along Seattle thoroughfares. The Seattle Department of Transportation (SDOT) uses single-solar-panel installations to warn motorists that the Alaskan Way Viaduct is closed to traffic during regular inspections, according to SDOT spokesperson Richard Sheridan.
Developer wants to upzone to add more townhomes to project A proposed townhome project near Magnolia Village had minimal to no support from several speakers last week at a public meeting held by the Department of Planning and Development (DPD). The project at 2200 32nd Ave. W. would require an upzone from the existing single-family zoning to allow 10 three-story townhomes to be built in four buildings on property south of the Bartell drugstore and parking lot, according to the land-use application.
First United Methodist Church chooses Lower Queen Anne for $17 million site When the Seattle First United Methodist Church lost its home in Downtown Seattle to a developer, a search was launched to find a new home for the longtime congregation. They chose Lower Queen Anne. "We got assistance from the developer to look at properties for the construction site," Pastor Dave Gillespie said.
He's a big kid and in more ways than one. For one, Sam Farley stands 6 feet plus. He is an eighth-grader and a straight-A student at St. Anne's Catholic School atop Queen Anne Hill. And on Friday, he will carry his school on his shoulders at the 2008 National Geographic Bee State Qualifiers in Tacoma. Farley will join 99 other students from public and private schools throughout the state in a head-to-head battle of wits, and he's not really nervous at all.
There's a reason you don't see the Googie style of architecture that defines the defunct Denny's restaurant in Ballard - it's butt ugly. The idea that this should be retained as a distinctive landmark or historical preservation is not just ludicrous, it shows a complete lack of taste, aesthetics and common sense on the part of the Seattle Landmark Preservation Board (SLPB).
I read with interest of Kitty Brown's discovery of Starbuck's boxes on her front sidewalk (March 12). It seems to me that Ms. Brown might have first responded by calmly calling Starbucks corporate office to inform them of the situation and then taken her displaced anger outside and cleaned up the boxes; setting them aside until someone arrived to take care of the situation.
At about 7 a.m., last Wednesday, the Greenwood neighborhood's normal aural offerings of birdsong, huffing joggers and the occasional car starting up, was obliterated by the f-ta-f-ta-f-ta-f-ta of helicopters from hell that literally hovered in place for no fewer than 45 minutes to report on a neighborhood traffic accident that affected just about nobody but those involved in the crash.The accident occurred north of the Aurora Bridge at 85th and Greenwood streets. Commuters easily avoided the area, taking a couple of side streets before getting to state Route 99 or crossing farther toward Interstate 5 where real traffic situations were occurring. For some reason, not one but two traffic helicopters (one filled with KOMO AM's Paul Tosch, who spews his traffic reports every 10 minutes) deemed it important enough to shatter the morning tranquility of the neighborhood with their window-rattling rotors and anemic, self-important reports.
Seattle's Wild West police chief, Gil Kerlikowske, who has never seen an officer do anything bad, may finally be caving in, just a little, to pressure. After the Seattle P-I did a long, thoughtful, fact-filled series on how violent the force has gotten under his watch, Kerlikowske is revamping the department.According to The Seattle Times, Kerlikowske is creating an Office of Ethics and Professional Responsibility. That's the good news. The bad news is that the new position will be staffed by one of the chief's own employees, Capt. Neil Low. Kerlikowske has a clear history, highlighted by the recent P-I series, of not firing and seldom disciplining rogue officers.
April Fool + 1 April is the first as some do sayIs set aside for All Fool's DayWhy this really should be soNot nor they themselves do know But on this day are people sent On errands of pure merriment Actually, despite the rhyme, I do know "why 'tis so." The origins of All Fool's Day are rather obscure, dating back to the Roman Saturnialia and Greek mythology but more likely to France in 1564, when Charles IX changed the old Georgian calendar making April 1 New Years Day, causing a great deal of confusion.