The Seattle Police Department is seeking the public's help in identifying a man who stole a woman's vehicle while she was visiting the Evergreen-Washelli Cemetery on Sept. 9.The white male is in his mid-20s, with a thin build, brown hair and a pale complexion (photo at right).Around 6 p.m., the man approached the woman, who was visiting her father's grave with her 9-year-old daughter, and asked to use her cellular phone. When she refused, he walked away. But he returned, carrying a large knife. He then asked the woman, "Do you want your daughter or your car?" The woman gave the suspect her car keys, while her daughter pleaded for him to spare her mother's life.
Beginning Nov. 1, sales of fortified beer and wine products will be banned in the University District. Malt liquors such as Colt 45 Ice and Olde English 800 will no longer be sold. Neither will wines such as Thunderbird.The Washington State Liquor Control Board (WSLCB) has designated the U-District as an Alcohol Impact Area (AIA). The Liquor Control Board adopted the AIA rules in July 1999 as a "tool for communities experiencing significant alcohol-related problems." According to Seattle City Council-member Tom Rasmussen, the problem in the University District is "chronic public inebriation." Pioneer Square adopted an AIA in 2002 banning the sale of single cans of beer and alcoholic beverages from 6 to 9 a.m. The city of Tacoma adopted similar resolutions in the Hilltop neighborhood. Articles in The Seattle Times, Seattle Post-Intelligencer and Seattle Weekly have all pointed out that the results from such regulations have not been ideal.According to a Times article from Aug. 31, "City officials have admitted that the strategy has not been effective."
Pop Quiz: What happened on May 3, 1907? Answer: Columbia City, an incorporated town since 1893, was annexed to the City of Seattle. Next spring marks the 100th anniversary of this milestone, and the Rainier Valley Historical Society plans to celebrate. We'll begin with a series of articles exploring Columbia City's history over the last century, and end up with a community event on Saturday, May 5. If you'd like to be involved in planning the party, please contact us!First on our tour of Columbia City history topics has to be the streetcar line. While there were certainly people living in the Rainier Valley long before the streetcar was built, Columbia City as we know it owes its existence to J.K. Edmiston and the streetcar line he built in 1890.Edmiston, a real estate developer, had just platted 40 recently-logged acres in the heart of the Rainier Valley. He called his prospective town Columbia, and named the major streets after historical explorers: Henry Hudson, Ferdinand Magellan, and Christopher Columbus (Columbus Street later became Edmonds). In order to get people out to his development, he built the Rainier Avenue Electric Railway, connecting Columbia to downtown Seattle. This was before Dearborn was cut through between First Hill and Beacon Hill, so a counterbalance ran underground at Washington Street to pull the streetcars over the hill and into the Rainier Valley.
According to Randy Spreadborough of Chimney Plus Service, homeowners can consult the Better Business Bureau (bbb.org), Angie's List ( www.angieslist.com), a consumer services website, and Craig's List ( www.craigslist.com/seattle), for more advice on chimney sweeps and preventing chimney fires. Spreadborough warned of scam artists now in the area who are unlicensed and unbonded and who hire untrained personnel. He wanted readers to be forewarned: these operations are blanketing the area with coupon drops, enticing the customer with offers of discounted "services," ultimately at great expense to the consumer.
Chimneys have been around since the earliest civilizations. People needed a source of warmth and a place to cook, and chimneys helped to serve that purpose. Traditionally, the chimney sweep has been romanticized as the can-do person, the one who cheerfully braves ashes and soot to make our lives better, such as the dapper chimney sweep in the childhood musical Mary Poppins.But what happens if fate showers you with sadness instead of joy, and the road to success is actually a dead end? Just ask Randall Spreadborough, 51, owner of Chimney Plus Service about left-hand turns in life and he'll tell you a story about rising up from the ashes of pain and disappointment. At the age of 44 he found himself a widower and the ladder of success he thought he was climbing was, in his words, " just propped up against the building." Stuck in a management position in a manufacturing firm, Spreadborough felt he had reached the end of his rope. After 20 years in the manufacturing industry, he was floundering. He was starting to fumble at work due to the devastation of losing his wife. The only thing he had left to go on, the only guarantee of what he could offer an employer, was the strength of his good name.
As landlord to over 24,000 low-income residents, steward of our public housing stock, and recipient of much of our housing levy funds, Seattle Housing Authority plays a major role in our community. But to whom is SHA accountable?  As a public corporation, SHA is governed by a seven-member board of commissioners, which approves the budget, sets policy and chooses the executive director. But who chooses the commissioners?After years of trying in vain to get our elected officials on city council to exercise effective oversight of SHA, the Seattle Displacement Coalition joined other housing, labor and social service organizations in Olympia in 1998. We succeeded in getting a new law passed expanding the board from five to seven members and shifting final authority for board appointments from the mayor to the city council. The mayor would nominate but the council would have final say. The law also shortened the term of commissioners and reserved two seats for residents of SHA properties.
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 want to pull an ostrich in the sand. For those who don't, here are a few little corporate factoids gleaned from our two twin-ish daily newspapers and their wire allies.
With thousands of skateboarders in Seattle and only two public skateparks, Seattle Parks and Recreation and a City Council-appointed task force are working on creating a citywide plan to help provide public facilities for the sport. Several locations have been singled out in Southeast Seattle.Using input from three public meetings and an open house held this past spring, the Seattle Skatepark Advisory Task Force has, over the last several months, drafted site selection criteria. A list of locations will undergo further consideration at three upcoming public meetings.
Rainier Valley residents were witness to shots fired into a car on Rainier Avenue on Thursday, Sept. 21, at 4:09 p.m. A 911 call reported shots fired, and moments later the Seattle Police department's dispatch office began receiving multiple calls about a car crash in front of Jack in the Box at the intersection of Rainier Avenue South and South Director Street. According to police, two cars were idling next to each other at the intersection of 51st Avenue South and Rainier when a dispute broke out. Shots were fired into the passenger side of a late model Honda and struck the driver and the passenger inside before it drove off. The bullets missed a pit bull puppy asleep on the back seat. However, two blocks north of the gunshot incident, the driver lost control and struck a light pole. Seattle Police Department's crime scene investigation team responded, took over the area to gather evidence and is currently aiding in an ongoing investigation.
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. 21, at the monthly general meeting of the Magnolia Community Club held in the Catharine Blaine Elementary cafeteria. The meeting, which featured a number of presentations and addresses by various public officials, ran well over two hours.Never a light consideration, replacing the 53-year-old viaduct has now become one of the city's most pressing priorities.
Alsace has been a border region for most of its long history. It was a German territory in 921, a French territory by 1648, German again in 1871 and French again after World War I.Ann Watkins' mother, Marie Bader, was born in Alsace at the time it belonged to Germany. During World War I, the French army advanced to Marie's small farming village. She fell in love with an American named Law Watkins who served among its ranks. (Like others who were eager to fight, he had joined the French army before the United States entered the war.) After the war, the two married in Paris and returned to the states on a troop ship.They settled in Cresson, Pa., where Law worked for a coal mining company, like his Welsh and Scottish ancestors. He quickly became president of the company, and rich as well. He employed many servants in his household, including a chauffeur. Law was an early auto owner.Ann is the third of Law and Marie's four children. She was born in 1922 in New York City, in a "lying in" hospital where wealthy mothers-to-be spent the last few weeks of their pregnancies before giving birth.Although the family had a cook, their vegetable garden in Pennsylvania was Marie's domain. As a child, Ann whiled away hours in the garden, sometimes pulling a carrot out of the earth and putting it directly into her mouth. "I can still taste those good, fresh, dirty carrots," she says.
The vocal quintet Archiglas will perform sacred and folk music of Russia at Episcopal Church of the Ascension on Saturday, Oct. 7, at 7 p.m. Archiglas will also participate in the celebration of the Holy Eucharist at 10:15 a.m. on Sunday, Oct. 8.Archiglas, which means "outstanding voice," is an a capella choral ensemble from St. Petersburg, Russia. Their previous Northwest tour in 2002 also included an appearance at Ascension, and their return is looked forward to with great anticipation, said Charlene Kern, chairperson of Ascension's Music Ministry. The concert will feature music from the classical and sacred works of several composers including Tchaikovsky, Ippolitov-Ivanoff, Rachmaninoff, Balakirev, Tchesnokov, Diletsky and Shvedov. The ensemble will then change to traditional costumes to perform folk and other secular songs from Russia's rich musical heritage.Each member of the group, directed by bass-baritone Dimitry Vorobjev, sings professionally and has received advanced musical training at the St. Petersburg Conservatory.
The Mayor's Department of Neighborhoods has awarded $15,000 to the John Hay Foundation to support the design and implementation of a Friendship Garden at John Hay Elementary School.The impetus for the project came from the family of Siri Mayo, a third-grader at John Hay who died of cancer in April 2005. The Mayo family wanted to give something back to the school, both to honor the spirit and courage of their daughter and to celebrate the spirit of friendship and strong community support they experienced during her illness. Siri's parents accepted the award from Acting Director of Neighborhoods Bernie Matsuno at an awards ceremony at the Youngstown Cultural Arts Center on Sept. 12.
The Welsh have a great capacity for music, song and story. I was recently invited to a showing of "Camelot" as part of a Welsh function on Queen Anne. The Welsh claim King Arthur as their special hero; I was asked many questions on the subject of Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table and came up with the following, which I'd like to share with you. Camelot was Arthur's capital where, according to legend, he reigned over the Britons before the Saxon conquest in the sixth century. It is not found on any authentic early map. However, the words "Cam" and "Camel" do occur as elements of British place names of pre-Saxon origin. The oldest known stories of Arthur never refer to Camelot as such. The first mention is in "The Romance of Launcelot," written by Chrétien de Troyes between 1160 and 1180. Three centuries later, Sir Thomas Malory makes Camelot the chief city of the realm, where the Round Table was housed; he sometimes equates it with Winchester, where the great cathedral stands.Yet, at one passage of his work, Malory seems to place Camelot farther to the north, at Carlisle.
On a bus heading for Capitol Hill the other day, riders not lost on their cell phone or hiding out with their iPod heard a disturbing thunk somewhere around Group Health.The cause of the noise, the Thumper if you will, was a heavyset woman with her scant dark hair in curlers, half wrapped in a dirty pink scarf.The recipient of the tough love-because the thump was the sound of a little human's head banging into the closed window he was excitedly looking out of, at a dog or a fire engine or something equally irresistible -was a young boy of no more than 5 or 6 years of age.The kid first looked shocked, then began to sob after his loving adult caretaker said: "I ain't tellin' you to sit still again, Lamond."On a bus heading up Queen Anne Hill only a few days earlier a woman and her little son, both dressed to the nines, had their own version of the brutal spat enacted near Group Health.Evidently the little boy had reached for something in one of Mom's shopping bags that he'd been told to leave alone.This time the sound was of a slap, hand to hand, not a head being thumped against unbreakable glass.Much harder to take was the long explanation that followed the slap and was still going on three stops later when your obedient bystander departed said public conveyance."When Mommy tells you not to touch something, Aaron, she means it for your own good. You must obey Mommy. Do you understand?" is the short version.