July 2007

Massive housing demand here

Building permits for 1,550 new residential units in Ballard have been issued in the past 18 months by Seattle's Department of Planning and Development, and there's more to come.

Much of that development has been in the form of condominiums and town homes.

According to Gunnar Hadley, a realtor with Ballard Windermere, 60 percent of everything sold here for the first five months of the year were condominiums and town homes. Hadley, who specializes in condo sales, called that an "impressive" statistic.

"That's truly crazy," he said.

Neighborhood
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3rd Avenue bus corridor to stay

Transit buses will continue to use Third Avenue as a priority corridor when the transit tunnel opens next month.

The decision was made based on "the outstanding success in moving buses quickly and efficiently through downtown," said Mayor Greg Nickels.

The decision to continue bus service on Third Avenue during peak hours will allow Metro Transit to reorganize surface bus routes and balance transit traffic across downtown. "By every measure, using Third Avenue for buses has been a very smart move," said Nickels.

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Kohl-Welles seeks to restore voting right

Despite a Washington State Supreme Court decision, Sen. Jeanne Kohl-Welles, D-Seattle, says voting rights should not be denied to those who have served their time but have been unable to pay their fines.

"While I respect the wisdom and experience of the plurality, in this matter I believe they (the court) are misguided," Kohl-Welles said. "Those who have served their sentences and followed the process to have their voting rights restored should not be denied this fundamental right over unmet financial obligations.

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Gets scholarship

Rebecca Louise Smith, daughter of Ballard residents Peter W. and Cheryl L. Smith, received a $1,500 President's Scholarship for the 2007-2008 academic year from Western Washington University.

President's Scholarships are awarded to approximately the top 8 to 10 percent of incoming freshmen and transfer students, and are based on superior academic achievement.

Smith is an incoming freshman at Western and earned a 3.77 GPA from Ingraham High School.

Neighborhood
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Activity heats up at Ballard Boys and Girls Club

On a typical summer day, kids are attending baseball camps, playing basketball, going on field trips or working on computers at the Ballard Boys and Girls Club, where the motto is "the positive place for kids."

All this makes the club a busy place with sports camps alone bringing in 150 kids daily. The club has an annual membership of 1,800 and also runs three day care programs in the Ballard, Magnolia and Queen Anne area. "This is one of the busiest clubs in the city.

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The businessman

At Large in Ballard by Peggy Sturdivant

Last Saturday I visited the Sunset Hill Barbershop and sat in the chair with my feet on the metal footrest. The barbershop has been there for 100 years but I'd never been inside. The single-chair shop was warm and the barber Donna Williams said business is often slow on hot Saturdays. But especially this day, "what with everything going on."

Just across the street on 32nd Northwest a farewell party was in progress encompassing three storefronts and decades of memories.

Neighborhood
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High flying flags

The flags were flying in the wind last week in the parking lot of Viking Bank. From right to left: United States, Finland, Iceland, Denmark, Sweden and Norway. The flagpole was moved to the bank's parking lot from Bergen Place after the park was redesigned.

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The art of man-camping

Man-Camping, for the uninitiated, is just how it sounds: Men camping with their buddies, doing things that they can't or won't do when the girlfriends, wives or children are around.

This can include playing cards for huge (imaginary) sums, staying up very late, eating indiscriminately, saying naughty words and not bathing.

Last weekend, I was reunited with a few pals who I used to hang around with before I was married.

In those days, we would play poker and ride our motorcycles around and sometimes misbehave.

After twenty-five years I figured I could

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Speaking out against Federal Way Annexation

To the Editor:

Where is all the news about the east Federal Way annexation?

The city stands to gain about 20,000 residents added to the estimated 85,000 already there and a search of the keyword 'annexation' on the Federal Way News website comes up with no results.

Seems like an important enough issue to warrant some space.

Being against the annexation, I am pretty interested in as much information as is available to help figure how this issue was thrust upon us with such a short time to consider the permanent consequences.

For example, wh