September 2008

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.

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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.

Mayor Greg Nickels is looking for two new members to serve on the Landmarks Preservation Board, one (1) Historian position and one (1) Structural Engineer position.

The 12-member Landmarks Preservation Board makes recommendations to the City Council for landmark designation and reviews all proposed physical alterations to designated features of landmark properties.

The Board is composed of two architects, two historians, one structural engineer, one representative each from the fields of real estate and finance, one member from the City Planning Commission, a Get Engaged

The Seattle Department of Transportation is conducting a review of the Residential Parking Zone program in Seattle.

The program is designed to help residents who live in congested areas by discouraging long-term parking of non-residents on residential streets.

Staff is looking at all aspects of the program, including program goals, permit issuance, zone creation, and enforcement practices.

A Seattle City Council committee approved legislation to update the city's 38 neighborhood plans created a decade ago, and neighborhoods gaining more mass transit service will likely go first.

In 1999 the Seattle City Council approved 38 neighborhood plans in many of the city's neighborhoods designed to support anticipated population growth around the city over the next 20 years.