March 2009

A well-attended crowd dropped into the Leif Erikson Lodge March 28 to take part in the Taste of Norway/Norwegian Heritage Day festivities.

On the menu was pickled herring, lafse, krumkeke and other traditional dishes.

A feast for the eyes and ears, including the Norwegian Ladies Chorus of Seattle, Norwegian Male Chorus, traditional Bunad parade, Barneleikarringen of Greater Seattle and the ubiquitous accordion player Richard Svensson, was also served.

Judy Swanson was demonstrating "rosemaling," or flower painting on dishes and small pieces of furniture, while Jeff Iller displayed his handmade tools, belts and figures carved from wood.

The magnetic center of the festival seemed to emanate from the Kaffestua kitchen, and in the center of the kitchen was Norse Home resident Elie Glaamen, rolling dough with a heavy pin.

"I'm almost 102," she enthused.

For Tony Hoyt, coffee has always been a deep-rooted passion. The West Seattle native first started working in the business at a stand outside Nordstrom in Downtown Seattle when he was 25 years old.

“I was just doing something that I loved and I was addicted to coffee,” Hoyt said.

He opened the Java Bean in 1989 just outside the original Morgan Junction Thriftway. It was West Seattle’s first coffee cart.

“It was an immediate success,” Hoyt said. “We were so warmly received by the community over there.”

Seven years later, Hoyt moved the business down to Luna Park where he traded in the cart for a café.

“I love the café atmosphere,” Hoyt said. “It’s a community gathering place to talk about politics, come together with people in your neighborhood and share.”

Since the Java Bean first opened, Hoyt has always prided himself on the quality and origins of his coffee. Java Bean sells only 100 percent fair trade, shade grown, organic coffee and brings in top items from four different local bakeries.

A number of Ballard-area organizations received Neighborhood Matching Funds at a March 24 ceremony.

David Francis of the Carkeek Park Advisory Council accepted a matching fund award of $9,650 for the park’s Outdoor Arts Festival. This temporary exhibition will host 10 organic sculptures set to decompose.

Rosemary Boros of the Carkeek Watershed Community Action Project was award a matching fund of $1,200 to go toward the installation of 75 plant identification markers for the Carkeek Wildlife Demonstration Garden.

Vision Greenwood Park received $15,000 toward the creation and design for the newly enhanced and expanded park at 602 N. 87th St.

Carkeek Park preservationist and environmental activist Nancy Malmgren took the occasion to speak about the importance of Carkeek’s ongoing caretaking, and the park’s 29th-annual Earth Day event April 18.

The public is invited to attend the orientation, then canvass the neighborhood to discuss the importance of effective water disposal, including the elimination of pesticides and pharmaceutical disposal in wastewater. They will then return to the park and tour its pump station and storm water treatment plant.

Three West Seattle organizations recieved Neighborhood Matching Funds from the Seattle Department of Neighborhoods at a March 24 event.

Sustainable West Seattle received $14,935 toward this year’s May 3 festival.

Southwest Community Harvest received $14,850 for its 2009 Edible Garden Fair and Tour.

Friends of the Duwamish and the Duwamish Tribe were awarded $15,000 for their Duwamish Diaries project. The project will document the living history of the Duwamish Tribe and river.

Mayor Greg Nickels and Seattle city councilmember Sally Clark hosted the event, which gave money to 18 organizations citywide.

Nancy Woodland is the executive director of Westside Baby, a non profit organization in White Center. With an annual budget of only $143,000 they manage to distribute, by their estimate, more than 1.25 million in children's clothing, toys, books, diapers, cribs and car seats to low income families from its overcrowded facility.

An amazing 96 percent of Westside Baby's funding comes from personal gifts.

Nancy brings an interesting background to this work. She is an attorney and in the past handled child abuse cases for the state of Washington.

When she became a mother she planned on becoming a "busy" stay at home mom, but just a few years into motherhood, she was recruited by the founder of Westside Baby, Donna Pierce. The work entails coordinating with more than 100 other charitable groups who bring their requests for specific items on a daily basis.

Nancy compared her former career to her new role by pointing out, "I helped abused children get into safe situations... but in that role you're arguing with people all day long.... at Westside Baby you don't argue with people. Nobody really argues against helping kids."

You might have seen the sandwich board that says “Arcane” on the corner of 15th Avenue Northwest and Northwest 58th Street across from Ballard Market. If you follow the arrow, it will take you to Arcane Comics and More, located at 5809 15th Ave. N.W.

Arcane has become one of my favorite places in Ballard and has as much awesome literature gracing its shelves as any bookstore on Market Street.

For many years, comics were regarded as childish entertainment at best and a dangerous influence on young minds at worst. But in the past 25 years, comics have become regarded as a rich and expressive artistic medium.

The once-maligned comic has been reborn as the graphic novel, which are essentially several comics bound in book form. Graphic novels such as “Maus” by Art Spiegelman and “Persepolis” by Marjane Satrapi are even being read as literature in high schools and colleges.

The limitless format of the comic allows artists to describe events, such as the Holocaust (“Maus”) or the Iranian Revolution (“Persepolis”) to readers in new and powerful ways.

The Seattle Parks Board has recommended that the Superintendent approve a proposal to expand the dock at Seacrest Park so that the King County Water Taxi, previously named Elliott Bay Water Taxi, can start year-round operations in 2010.

Accommodating year-round service requires a new floating dock at Seacrest Park with a wider, longer gangway. New concrete floats would also provide greater stability and easier access for kayakers and other small boats.

Mike Beck, acting director of the King County Marine Division, explained that changes to the dock’s shape would also allow the water taxi to dock perpendicular to the shore so that it does not have to sweep as close to scuba divers as necessary when parking parallel to the shoreline.

In 2008, after the King County Ferry District took over the Water Taxi, a record high of 182,000 riders used the service. Now, the district has recommended the service become year-round in 2010. Currently, the Water Taxi runs from April through October.

Members of a local gang, the Bloods affiliated West Side Street Mobb, have been charged with various offences including promoting prostitution.

According to court documents, the gang members forced at least 13 young women and girls into prostitution through violence and coercion. All of the women’s earnings were collected by gang members.

DeShawn “Cash Money” Clark, 18, faces the most serious charges, including human trafficking in the second degree, promoting prostitution in the first degree and two counts of promoting commercial sexual abuse of a minor.

His associate Thomas Lamarreo Foster has been charged with two counts of promoting prostitution in the first degree and one count of assault in the second degree.

The two were each accused of forcing multiple women, ages 17 to 19, into prostitution after repeatedly assaulting and threatening them both.

The gang members advertised sexual encounters with many of the women on Craigslist, according to court documents.

Foster was accused of forcing the mother of his two children into prostitution. According to court documents he repeatedly assaulted her, including one incident of strangulation

Last week, I wrote about the cuts our state budget is facing and that we would be releasing our Senate budget proposal sometime this week, and the House would release its proposal shortly after that.

I have learned in my years down in Olympia that everything during our legislative sessions is subject to change, and our budget roll-out has proven to be no different. As I told you last week, our latest revenue forecast reduced our expected tax collections by another $500 million. With this news, we needed just a little bit more time balance our budget – now facing a $9 billion shortfall.

Our operating budget will now be released to the public Monday at 10:30 a.m. That afternoon at 3:30 p.m., the Senate Ways and Means Committee will hold a hearing on the proposed budget in Senate Hearing Room 4 in the John A. Cherberg building. The hearing will continue on Tuesday at 5:30 p.m. in the same location if more time is needed to hear public testimony.

The fourth-floor hallway of the Swedish Medical Center was packed with onlookers March 27 for the ribbon cutting for the new Swedish Community Health Medical Home.

The new primary-care clinic, which officially opens for use March 31, is the first at Swedish, and in the country, to open utilizing the medical home model exclusively from day one. The medical home model involves a patient-centered team of caregivers as well as information technology to provide better access for patients.

Washington State Secretary of Health Mary Selecky said the new medical home is a needed rebirth of the old idea of family doctors.

“What we know is that people who have a medical home get better care,” she said during the ceremony.

The clinic will also serve as a Family Medical Residency training site.

Carol Cordy, the Community Health clinic administrator, said the new clinic will bring medical care to a broader range of patients, whether they have insurance or not.

Instead of relying on insurance, patients at Community Health will pay a monthly fee, Cordy said.