September 2008

This has to be one of least thought-out ideas I've ever heard of in this city, ("City proposes dumpster free alleys" Sept. 10) and there have been some doozies.

Isn't the city AGAINST plastic bags? Currently any method of transport from business-to-dumpster works (paper bags, boxes, dumping straight from small receptacle). What about raccoons, dogs, and animals?

Waste goes out in afternoon, doesn't get picked up till tomorrow - they don't think that waste will be strewn from one block to another?

I am writing in response to the Sept. 3 article written by Michael Harthorne titled "Noise complaints start already." Ballard Landmark is a brand new retirement community and the residents and staff are thrilled to be a part of this wonderful community. We have been welcomed by the businesses and the people of Ballard and feel we will be an asset to this community.

The residents living here realize that a certain amount of noise comes with urban living and to date; we have only had one 'complaint' regarding the noise.

The economic news is downright gloomy: King County is looking at a large budget shortfall. So is the state. And we all know the federal government has been borrowing to meet its obligations at home and abroad.

Energy prices are up; housing prices are down. As energy prices cycle through the economy, food and commodity prices are on the rise, and real wages are eroding.

For those of us living in Seattle, the situation is not quite as dismal as elsewhere.

The Ballard Homes for All Coalition is preparing to create car camps in neighborhood parking lots this fall for homeless people living out of their vehicles.

Rep.

Some Crown Hill residents are concerned that housing Fire Station 35 temporarily on the playfield of the former Crown Hill School will hold up plans for a new public park, already held up for the past two years.

Fire Station 35 needs the temporary location while the station at its current location, 8729 15th Avenue Northwest, is rebuilt to meet earthquake safety standards and modern firefighting practices.

Mayor Greg Nickels' plan to allocate $2.5 million to the Phinney Neighborhood Association toward the purchase of its school district owned building was met with questions about budget restrictions at a City Council meeting last week.

"We put together a project readiness assessment and examined how the organization managed business systems, staff and leadership," said the mayor's senior policy advisor Paul Fischburg at last week's City Council Planning, Land Use and Neighborhoods Committee meeting.

After more than a year of negotiations and many years of uncertainty, the Small Faces Child Development Center Board of Directors has placed before the Seattle School Board a purchase offer that will decide the future of the former Crown Hill Elementary School.

The former Crown Hill Elementary School building is one of several surplus properties being sold by the Seattle School District.

The decision to make the Aurora Bridge more dissuasive to potential suicides has brought up mixed feelings to potential designs for a planned suicide-prevention barrier on each side of the overpass.

Because the bridge is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, a citizens' advisory committee formed to ensure the fence design reflects community values and issues, has decided the barrier should be removable for major maintenance and should not deface any part of the original bridge.

Aiming for a 12-foot- high fence, the committee discussed at a public meeting las

Chris Ragsdale covers a lot of ground chasing after his 14-month-old son Caden at the Ballard Commons Park, but put a bicycle under Ragsdale and he can cover even more.

This summer Ragsdale, 31, won the National 24 Hour Challenge in Michigan for the third year in a row in only his third year of competing in the event.

Money the city set aside in March to help renters displaced by apartment-to-condominium conversions has sparsely been used, but the program has been extended two months to aid those not eligible for assistance from a new state law.

The state Legislature passed earlier this year a bill requiring developers to provide relocation assistance equal to three month's rent to households earning 80 percent or below the median income. The new law went into effect August 1.