April 2009

Ms. Courtney Rowley and the Ballard High School Choir have been invited to participate in a performance of Randall Thompson’s Frostiana on Monday May 31, 2010, in historic Lincoln Center.

Members of the choir will join with other outstanding choruses selected from around the world to form a festival chorus, accompanied by the Distinguished Concerts Orchestra International. Dr. Giselle Wyers will be the guest conductor for the performance as well as serve as clinician for the residency.

Dr. Jonathan Griffith, Artistic Director and Principal Conductor for DCINY states:

“The Ballard High School Choir received this invitation because of the quality and high level of musicianship demonstrated by the singers and the exceptional recommendation given by Ms. Rowley’s choral colleagues. It is quite an honor just to be invited to perform in Lincoln Center. These wonderful musicians not only represent a high quality of music and education, but they also become ambassadors for the entire community. This is an event of extreme pride for everybody and deserving of the community’s recognition and support.”

The Admiral Theater is hosting a hootenanny Sunday, May 3, and it should be a humdinger. That’s because the bands and sing-alongs will honor legendary folksinger, songwriter and humanitarian Pete Seeger who turns 90 the same day.

A portion of the proceeds will go to the Northwest Folklife Festival. The show is called “For Pete’s Sake: Sing!” and is divided into two sections.

First, the 90-minute PBS documentary “Pete Seeger: The Power of Song” will be shown at 4 p.m. The theater will then be cleared. At 7 p.m., a live program featuring bands and sing-alongs will run until about 10 p.m. Video clips of Pete Seeger’s appearance at Seattle’s 1997 Northwest Folklife will be spliced into the live performances.

Longtime Seattle folksinger Tom Colwell and his nine-piece Southbound Odyssey band will be the featured musical act. Other performers include the Clallam County Band and eight members of the Seattle Labor Chorus that formed at the 1997 Folklife Festival where they played with Seeger.

Mayor Greg Nickels has introduced four Seattle police officers assigned to middle schools, including Denny, as part of the Seattle Youth Violence Prevention Initiative.

The officers will focus on crisis intervention, guidance and mentoring. They will wear “soft” uniforms – knit shirts with the Seattle Police Department logo.

“We know that middle school can be a difficult time for young people, and we want to help," said Nickels. "This partnership between the city of Seattle and Seattle Public Schools puts four officers in our schools to provide a guiding hand and an open ear – with a goal of preventing violence among our youth."

“Schools are a reflection of the larger community and it is the collective responsibility of the community to provide for the safety and well-being of our children,” said Seattle Schools Superintendent Maria L. Goodloe-Johnson. “I applaud the city of Seattle for its commitment to partner with us for the benefit of our students. We are proud to have these four middle school emphasis officers join our Seattle Public Schools team.”

Janet Seckel, a resident of West Seattle, was part of a finance office team at the 70th Regional Readiness Command’s Finance Office that received the prestigious U.S. Army Reserve “Fiscal Year 2008 U.S. Army Reserve Command Financial Management Team Award.”

All members of the team – Office Director Bob Fowler, Deputy Wayne Severson and team members Seckel, Connie Martin, JoAnn Thomas, Christina Preston, Sandra Weegmann, and Richard Person – went to Atlanta for the presentation of the award, March 31, 2009. The award was presented to the group by the U.S. Army Reserve Command Financial Director Steven Farmer during the annual USARC Financial Managers Workshop in Atlanta, Ga.

Each member of the team under Fowler and Severson received a $250 incentive award, a U.S. Army Reserve Command certificate of appreciation and a U.S. Army Reserve Command medallion paperweight for their part in supporting the mission that led to the winning of this award.

Residents of Calvary Lutheran, the West Seattle SHARE shelter that had planned to move into the vacant Calvery Lutheran Church in Ballard, said they would still be willing to move into the neighborhood, but maintain that sex offender and warrant checks are unnecessary.

According to a letter sent to Our Redeemer's Lutheran Church April 22, the residents believed that Our Redeemer had dis-invited the shelter because SHARE refused to comply with a request for sex offender checks on its residents.

The residents were mistaken and are back in formal communication with Our Redeemer, according to the letter.

SHARE agreed to comply with background checks for Tent City 4 in Redmond.

Calvary Lutheran resident Nickolaus Hendel said SHARE conducts these checks in tent cities but not for its indoor shelters because those are easier to self-police and have a monitored entrance and exit.

SHARE residents conduct their own interviews with prospective residents before they are allowed to move into the shelter and maintain that this practice keeps both the residents and the community safe.

In a unanimous vote, the full Seattle City Council approved the authorization of $24.2 million in levy proceeds to go towards 29 parks and open space projects.

Out of nine playground renovations and four ball fields getting some of the pot, Ross playground and the Seventh Elect Church site in Ballard are included.

Ross playground, located between Ballard and Fremont, will have $450,000 worth of improvements and renovations from the 2008 Parks and Green Spaces Levy approved by voters last fall. Play equipment will be replaced, as well as safety improvements to the existing playground area.

The upgrades will bring the play area in compliance with current play area safety standards and guideline efforts of the American Society of Testing and Materials (ASTM), the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) as well as meeting the requirements of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).

Purchased with 2000 Pro Parks Levy and other funds, the Seventh Elect Church site, which will for now be called the Ninth Avenue Northwest Park Development, will get $200,000 in this years parks levy funding.

Swedish Medical Center recently signed a contract with The Polyclinic to partner with the multi-specialty clinic in their implementation of the same Electronic Health Record (EHR) system, Epic , that Swedish uses between its four campuses, including the Ballard, and roughly 40 specialty and primary care clinics.

According to a press release from Swedish, once Epic is available to The Polyclinic’s physicians, who are all on the Swedish medical staff, it will provide them real-time access to a patient’s medical history, eliminating the need to physically transfer medical records from one facility to another. 

Both organizations share the vision of "one patient, one chart," which means regardless of where a patient is seen, their entire health record will be available to the physicians caring for them.

Dining Out For Life, a Seattle tradition where local restaurants donate 30 percent of their proceeds from one day to Lifelong AIDS Alliance—is one restaurant shy of matching last year’s participation despite a much worse economy.

Already,155 restaurants have signed up to participate in the event on April 30. Lifelong AIDS Alliance is calling on one more restaurant to join in order to match last year’s participation.

"It’s a great testament to Seattle restaurants that we’re only one shy of the commitments we had last year,” said Trevor DeWitt, Lifelong’s community relations coordinator. “We’re incredibly grateful for each restaurant’s participation. If we get 156 or even 157 restaurants, it will just show how resilient Seattle is and how we care for our community.”

Lifelong hopes this year’s Dining Out For Life fundraiser will help make up for recent cuts in government AIDS funding and a decline in individual giving. Last year’s event raised $250,000 to support Lifelong’s critical care services for people living with HIV, AIDS and other chronic illnesses. Lifelong’s counting on this year’s event to be just as great a success.

During the months of April and May in celebration of Earth Month, Seattle Public Schools students, staff and volunteers are participating in numerous environmental projects throughout the district.

Environmental studies and projects support Seattle Public Schools’ strategy to strength and align science and math curriculum as part of the district’s strategic plan, Excellence for All , according to a release from the district.

This Saturday, April 25, Arbor Heights Elementary volunteers will trim ivy and weed to beautify their school’s front entry and playground between 9 a.m. and noon.

From 9:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. that same day, Schmitz Park Elementary will be hosting its annual Spring Clean. Thirty to 40 volunteers will work with students and staff to weed and mulch their landscape and garden beds.

The Feedback Lounge, a new music-themed bar in the Morgan Junction, is scheduled to open this Saturday night, April 25, at 6 p.m.

New details including the food and bar menus can be found at the bar's new Web site.

The bar is located in the Beveridge Place's former home near California Avenue Southwest and Fauntleroy Way.

Co-owner Jeff Gilbert described the vision for the new establishment as “a rock bar…but nice.” Each of the three owners, Gilbert, Paul Larkin and Matt Johnson, have worked in the music industry in the past. Their passion for all different styles of rock music will be reflected in their new bar, they said.

The bar’s three 60 inch plasma screen televisions will play various music videos including live concerts at The Gorge. Gilbert has gotten a license to program the entertainment himself and promises to play everything from KISS to Frank Sinatra and certainly a lot of local music.

The Feedback Lounge will also boast a promising collection of rock memorabilia from collectors around the area and a display of rock photography.