The Seattle City Council, and Councilman Peter Steinbrueck in particular, deserve high praise and support for ignoring the mayor's budget proposal and voting to add 30 more police officers to a department that hasn't had an significant increase in the number of officers in 35 years.
When we heard some of Steinbrueck's numbers on what the police face in our city, we asked him to lay out the problem for our readers.
Do you feel safe in your home?
By Peter Steinbrueck
The Charter of the City of Seattle states that "there shall be maintained adequate police protection in each district of the City."
Do you feel we have enough police officers keeping our neighborhoods safe?
In September of this year, Mayor Nickels' delivered his proposed budget to the City Council.
Although the Ballard News-Tribune has opposed the tunnel option for replacement of the Alaskan Way Viaduct, we strongly believe it is the best choice. We are now down to two options to replace the aging and dangerous Viaduct - a new elevated highway or a cut-and-cover tunnel. Last month the City Council emphatically selected the tunnel option as well as opposed the elevated option. And the governor will announce her decision at the end of this month.
However, the issue is not just about replacing this single transportation infrastructure.
Thank you for your editorial urging the repair of the viaduct.
Are you aware of any good community groups that are supporting that option?
I was at a Downtown Association breakfast meeting a year or two ago, and they were saying that the trip from Ballard to Seattle would be lengthened from 11 minutes to 33 minutes, after the tunnel is built, because they will be re-routing the surface streets, and will loose some entrance and egress points.
Editor's Note: This letter was sent to Gov. Christine Gregoire with a copy to this newspaper.
We represent businesses in Seattle that will be most directly affected by any replacement project for the Alaskan Way Viaduct. We understand that current plans call for you to make a decision concerning the viaduct by the end of December and that a sense of urgency surrounds this issue.
water steps
Editor's Note: This letter was distributed to students, families, and staff of Seattle Public Schools last week.
Because we are committed to the health of our students and staff, we wanted to let you know about the latest results from Seattle Public Schools' ongoing water testing program. Water samples recently examined indicated levels of lead that are higher than the Seattle School District standard of 10 parts of lead per billion parts of water.
Corner Park
As the community is using the name Ballard Corner Park and it's working for us, then please respect the community that is actually building the park and let it be named Ballard Corner Park.
It's on a corner, it's in Ballard, and it is our park. Don't risk alienating an established and vested stewardship group with some goofy name, please. Emmett Watson has no significance to Ballard I am aware of.
Other than Bergen Place Park, I believe that it's the only Ballard Park that is mainly on a corner.
Driving across the Ballard Bridge, a visitor cannot help but notice the mass of fishing vessels and shipyards on Salmon Bay and the Ship Canal.
A new public safety package adopted by the Seattle City Council could add about seven new sworn police officers in Ballard by mid-2009, but some wonder if that's enough to address major staffing shortages in a police department that hasn't grown in decades.
The council revised the biennial budget proposed by Mayor Greg Nickels' to expand the Seattle Police Department by 37 officers at a cost of about $3 million.
Ballard High at long last is getting its very own multi-purpose synthetic turf field.
The Seattle School District and D.A. Hogan Architects, presented plans for the new multi-purpose field last week.
