El Diablo, the vibrant café famous for its Cuban coffee, flaming walls and little devils, has added a second level and brought heaven to the Hill. This week, the spiral staircase to heaven arrived, and the upstairs - an angel-filled celestial sitting room - is open. Clouds and cherubs decorate the walls and ceiling.
A relatively simple case of identity theft turned dangerous last December when a Kirkland mortgage broker with a shady past allegedly tried to convince her son to either intimidate, murder, beat up or blow up witnesses to the scam, and harm three children of one witness, according to court documents. The son, Nick Coan, allegdly "ratted out" his mother, Elizabeth Katherine Coan, but in a fatal twist in the case, he won't be able to testify because he was allegedly murdered by his girlfriend in January.
Residents of Tent City at St. John Vianney Church in Finn Hill are winding up their stay in February, and they will leave both friends and enemies behind when they're gone.The enemies include many in an organized opposition group calling themselves King County Communities for Fair Process (a.k.a. tentcitysolutions.com), roughly half a dozen of whom have picketed the camp and the church every Sunday since the homeless group set up camp.
16-year council veteran to fill Larry Springer's position. The Kirkland City Council has opted for the tried and true with the appointment of Dave Russell to fill Springer's shoes. Russell served on the City Council for 16 years and was mayor for two terms.
Son of Retailer missing, Spring proposes legislation, vacancies on city boards and commissions, other local news in breief
The Kirkland City Council allocates $100,000 per year for small capital projects identified and prioritized by the neighborhoods. The program cycles around the city, and each year four neighborhoods receive $25,000. This year, the Highlands is one of those neighborhoods.
The first phase of a tree restoration project in the Pike-Pine neighborhood comes to a close this week. But that work, which included the removal of a large number of trees planted along the sidewalks in the Pike Pine corridor, was not met with equanimity The project came about after discussions last summer about how best to use a portion of a large mitigation fund set aside for the Pike-Pine neighborhood as a result of Convention Center construction. This money has also been used to help fund a neighborhood crosswalk project as well as the Boren-Pike-Pine Park renovation project currently underway.
Sixty years ago, one of our neighbors was running out of the jungle leading 120 Army Rangers and the prisoners they had liberated from the awful WWII prisoner of war camp, Cabanatuan on the Philippine Islands. It was a daring rescue of roughly 500 prisoners, considering the camp had become a layover for the retreating Imperial Army soldiers. Our neighbor is Robert Prince. He was one of the veterans leading last year's Fourth of July Parade. I have looked all over for him. Many in town know, because of the phone calls they have received from me. But as yet I cannot find him
January in Bridle Trails - mostly cold, snow, freezing rain, regular rain. The park was lovely in white for a couple of days, so we went walking and took a camera. The fact that the horse kept freezing was no fun: frozen waters and picking up manure resembling golf balls! No matter what our weather, we can't really complain considering all the terrible events elsewhere.
Like many businesses throughout Seattle, Broadway Market Video on East Republican Street has been targeted by graffiti vandals. Recently, someone scratched their initials on all the store's plate glass windows. The damage is easily visible to passerby."This is gonna be an expensive fix," said owner Paul Dwoskin. If the windows are beyond repair, Dwoskin will have to replace them and apply an anti-graffiti coating to prevent further destruction.Dwoskin's story may sound like déjà vu for many business and property owners who are waging a quiet war against graffiti.
CAMP AL-SAQR, Baghdad - I saw my first sign of it through a Humvee window. Out on a patrol through the beautiful farmlands south of Baghdad, I noticed children walking home from school, doing what children do all over the world: playing, talking and running around like banshees. These kids can go down one of two roads: a stable future with a job and family, or the road of "jihad" and misery. It's really their choice in the end, but we have to show them the better of the two.
My father, Russell John Humphrey, finally passed away on a late Thursday night in January, more than two years after he became incapacitated by Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and cardiac dementia.He'd been so weak, and so dependent upon my not-too-healthy-herself mother, for so long that his final departure was anticlimactic.My mother had moved him into an assisted-care facility on New Year's Day. Ten days later, he fell into what the home's staff called "a light coma." That meant he was unresponsive, but they thought he could still hear what people said to him.Because we'd placed a "do not resuscitate" decree, the facility staff didn't give him a feeding tube. His system would shut itself down in due course, once there were no more nutrients to be scavanged from the organs and muscles.I saw him for the last time 10 hours before he died.
Kirkland Public Works is initiating a review of the traffic control needs on non-arterial residential streets in the North Rose Hill neighborhood. These neighborhood-wide reviews are done periodically for Kirkland's neighborhoods, and it is North Rose Hill's turn to be considered.
Recently, Capitol Hill resident Byron Schenkman was asked by Town Hall director David Brewster to organize a piano concert with other instruments to show off the venue's new Steinway. "His request fit in perfectly with my path, as I'm trying to do more chamber music with piano," said Schenkman. "Part of my interest in playing piano again, after focusing on harpsichord for so many years, was to open up the possibilities of working with other musicians."Schenkman is probably best known around town for his harpsichord skills and his leadership of Seattle Baroque Orchestra. But over the past few years, Schenkman has been forging a parallel career in piano and even performing a few solo concerts at Town Hall.
On the heels of last month's column and after comments from quite a few of you, I am continuing to raise the level of concern in Juanita about the public process and our need to stay involved. Looking at the Courier's publication valendar, this should reach you in time for you to make most of the public meetings scheduled or at the least, make your voice heard in the city via e-mail and letter. The first and probably most critical issue before us as a city is the Lake and Central project in downtown Kirkland.