February 2009

For all routes, the Washington State Ferries Division is implementing several fare collection changes beginning today, Wednesday, Feb. 25.

Changes include:

Eliminating checks and Canadian currency as forms of payment

Separating the senior/disabled fare into two categories and offering

New ReValue cards for senior or disabled customers

Removing discounted single round-trip fares (senior, disabled, youth) from kiosks and the Ferries Web site.

The director of the city's Department of Neighborhoods, Stella Chao, presented her monthly report to the city council planning and land use committee, which included the accomplishments of 2008 and concerns for possible budget cuts in the coming year.

About $2.58 million in Neighborhood Matching Fund grants were awarded to community members in 2008, which was matched with roughly $2.7 million in "volunteer sweat equity and in-kind donations," said Chao.

The Neighborhood Matching Fund program provides money to Seattle neighborhood groups and organizations for a wide range of neighborhood-initiated improvement, organizing or planning projects.

"I think especially in this economic time, matching funds will continue to play a very, very important role for the City of Seattle," she said. "Because of the kind of volunteerism in the city and the desire to improve their communities and do community building."

Eighteen projects have been awarded to neighborhood groups so far this year, for about $212,000 in matching fund grants, which will be announced soon, said Chao.

The director of the city's Department of Neighborhoods, Stella Chao, presented her monthly report to the city council planning and land use committee, which included the accomplishments of 2008 and concerns for possible budget cuts in the coming year.

About $2.58 million in Neighborhood Matching Fund grants were awarded to community members in 2008, which was matched with roughly $2.7 million in "volunteer sweat equity and in-kind donations," said Chao.

The Neighborhood Matching Fund program provides money to Seattle neighborhood groups and organizations for a wide range of neighborhood-initiated improvement, organizing or planning projects.

"I think especially in this economic time, matching funds will continue to play a very, very important role for the City of Seattle," she said. "Because of the kind of volunteerism in the city and the desire to improve their communities and do community building."

Eighteen projects have been awarded to neighborhood groups so far this year, for about $212,000 in matching fund grants, which will be announced soon, said Chao.

Seattle Department of Transportation plans to lay a new asphalt surface on the southbound lanes of 14th Avenue South in the South Park neighborhood from Monday, March 9 to Friday, March 27, closing some southbound lanes.

The southbound lanes of 14th Avenue South between South Cloverdale Street and South Director Street will be closed off to thru traffic with traffic detoured 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Detour signs will be posted prior to the start of construction.

One lane will remain open for northbound traffic. The project is scheduled for completion this spring, but the work will depend on weather conditions.

On Feb. 26, I and the group No News is Bad News, are co-sponsoring an event at Seattle City Hall to discuss the future of journalism.

The event, titled "No News is Bad News: Seattle As a No-Newspaper Town?" was conceived and planned by a group of local bloggers, journalists and news readers.

The event will be held in the Bertha Landes Conference Room (off the 5th Avenue entrance) and is free and open to the public.  Registration is encouraged but not required.

No News is Bad News will feature a panel of speakers, but the focus of the event is on listening to feedback from the community. Attendees should arrive expecting to be part of a discussion where they can share their concerns and comments.

The forum will be moderated by a KIRO Commentator Dave Ross. Panelists include: Jay Rosen, a professor at New York University's Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute. In addition to writing Press Think, Jay blogs on the Huffington Post, sits on the advisory board of Wikipedia, and launched NewAssignment.Net, a site for open source reporting.

(Editor's note; This story has been corrected from an earlier version.)

The Seattle City Council voted today to amend an existing ordinance to create an exception to a requirement that museums in general industrial areas can only occupy buildings that existed as of Oct. 5 1987.

The council's planning and land use committee approved the change last week.

The vote allows the Nordic Heritage Museum to build a new facility at the site of the old Fenpro building on Northwest Market Street, west of 24th Avenue Northwest.

The museum has already completed a $5.1 million deal to purchase the 75,000 square foot building, located in the Ballard Hub Urban Village.

Eric Nelson, executive director of the Nordic Heritage Museum, has said he expects the museum to move to the new location by 2014. A new facility will be built, being designed now by Mithun Partners.

At a public hearing last week, Nelson told the committee that without the amendment, the museum would not be able to realize its vision of creating a "world-class" center for Nordic heritage for the community and city.

Rep. Clibborn says (Feb. 24) that Seattle City Council member Jan Drago knew last week that funding wasn't in the stimulus package and so did Mayor Greg Nickels.

So why then didn't Jan Drago and/or the Mayor inform the council of this fact before (Monday's) 6-3 vote to release funding and break ground on the Mercer project? 

The only rationale council members, and especially Drago, used Monday when giving Mercer the go-ahead was that the council needed to act now because stimulus funds were certain to follow.

"(The Seattle) Displacement Coalition calls for a re-vote and immediate retraction of release of funding for the Mercer Project." and hats off to Licata, Rasmussen and Clark for not getting on the bandwagon and voting NO to Mercer until all funding was lined up.

West Seattle residents were able to learn more about the plan to replace the Alaskan Way Viaduct and Seawall and present mixed opinions to the Washington Department of Transportation, King County, and the City of Seattle staff members at an open house on Feb. 24.

Last month, Gov. Chris Gregoire, King County Executive Ron Sims, and Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels announced their recommendation to replace the Alaskan Way Viaduct with a deep-bored tunnel. The law makers plans' include a 1.7 mile, deep-bored tunnel under downtown, transit investments, and modifications to the waterfront and downtown surface streets.

At an open house, project engineers were on hand to answer questions about the bored tunnel and other modifications as well as explain how to access the tunnel from West Seattle and Northwest neighborhoods, such as Ballard and Magnolia.

Questions from attendees were diverse, ranging from concerns about travel time increases to funding suggestions. While many found the open house informative, some still seemed anxious to see how the project will turn out.