First, apologies. I'm sure a lot of you who come to CHS for news and information about Capitol Hill could care very little about the business and journalism end of things. Indulge me. This, in the end, is about Capitol Hill and quality news and information in your community.

If anybody is wondering about the information gathering process behind Fisher Broadcasting's attempt to build a network of Seattle neighborhood news sites, here is an example of what KOMO's effort looks like.

At 12:58 PM Wednesday, CHS posted this reminder about this weekend's Capitol Hill design charrette. It wasn't an extraordinary post but in typical CHS form, I've attended two meetings about this event and will be there Saturday to cover and participate in it. The post was one of seven (counting this one) we published during the day. Here is the original article about the Saturday event we linked to from the reminder.

Meanwhile capitolhill.komonews.com had not been updated since Tuesday.

Then, at 4:39 PM, CHS got a very interesting visitor. An employee on the Fisher Broadcasting corporate network (IP: 208.73.29.10) came to our homepage. Here is that visitor's activity log (Thanks getclicky.com! BTW, I named this IP address 'Carson from KVI' last summer after a producer I was working with for an appearance on Fisher's talk radio station)

At 4:55 PM, this visitor clicked on the link to CHS's design charrette post.

At 4:56 PM, he or she downloaded a PDF about the event that CHS received from the organizers.

Guess what happened nine minutes later.

At 5:05 PM, KOMO's Capitol Hill site posted this, its first and only post of the day:

You don't have to be furious. That's my job. But I wouldn't mind if you joined me in disappointment. We work hard at collecting useful community news and information here at CHS and everybody who participates in the site is a big part of that. There is room for a rich community of Capitol Hill sites producing original work. To see that work siphoned away in a few minutes of clicking, cutting and pasting is painful. To know how much effort Fisher is making to sell advertising on this kind of content -- that's where the fury comes from.

But if you're still not feeling it, what if I tell you this? Wednesday was not the first time Fisher has done this. I sent an e-mail documenting similar actions by employees on Fisher Broadcasting's corporate network to executive producer Kevin Cotlove on August 24th. Cotlove assured me that KOMO takes such accusations seriously.

So do I. I hope you will, too.

For another example of Fisher Broadcasting's recent activities, check out this article on Central District News.

In the recent Slog coverage of Crave's lost lease, neighbor jrrrl makes a suggestion for the displaced eatery:

Move to 15th. Can we please put a looong piece of masking tape along the middle of 14th ave? Yuppies stay on that side, hipsters stay on this side. Gays get to use both sides due to a grandfather clause, but only if they're still flaming. We will trade you Boom Noodle for the Canterbury.

I'm curious -- which team are you on? I usually (mistakenly) assume everybody is just like me. That would make you all disgusting, money grubbing, sell-out yuppies. Let's do a quick show of hands.

Radio Point, you've been nothing good to me. Surrounded by controversy and border disputes with our neighbors in the Central District, Radio Point is becoming more trouble than it's worth.

Radio Point, the tan triangle of confusion

From neighbor Dotty who knows a thing or three about these things:

as anyone who has lived near them knows, the towers are TV, and if you live near them you can't get KCTS both sound and picture (maybe this will change with digital?) and you get KUOW (radio) in your braces.  So no to Radio Towers.  TV Point or TV Towers or TV Towers Point would work fine.

They're not even radio towers. Very disappointed. Still, you're part of the family. We're housing a jar of crow buttons within your confines at CHS sponsor Central Cinema. Now we just need to come up with your new name.

Seattle Times
Originally uploaded by kriskiedis20

The Seattle Times today announced a community news partnership with CHS Capitol Hill Seattle and 3 other less important neighborhood news sites in Seattle, the West Seattle Blog, MyBallard and The Rainier Valley Post.

It's an exciting project for CHS to be part of and a recognition of the hard work and good technology behind this site. I'm also especially proud to have CHS prove itself in an environment still very much stuck on the idea that there is one authority on a news site. Yes, a small handful of main contributors and I do a large part of the heavy lifting here but our open, truly community driven format adds an amazing level of extra information gathering, reporting and, my favorite, serendipity to the mix. It's brave of the Seattle Times to work with us in this project. Of course, if they really want to get ready for the future, it's a must. The new partnership will also mean more attention and support for the rest of the Seattle Neighborlogs sites...

I'd like to take a moment to let you all know that we are extremely protective of our community at CHS and will go to great lengths to protect it. Our terms of service clearly spell out that anybody disrupting the flow of communication on the site is violating the agreement and will not be allowed to participate in the site.

On this list of disruptions that are disruptive to the community of CHS is falsely describing your relationship to the area. If you live in another city, welcome to Capitol Hill Seattle. If you come here to play a game, goodbye.

One step might be to remove user accounts that violate this agreement. Another might be to ban specific IP addresses. Another might be to take legal action to stop the abuse. As CHS grows, the opportunities and impact of abusing its community grow. But our resources deepen, too. It is built to foster and sustain community. Please respect -- and enjoy -- CHS.

Justin (jseattle)
(206) 659-1919

Earlier this month, neighbor bridget made a proposal:

As i was reading through the comments on the CHS playlist and "music to walk to on capitol hill" threads, i realized that people have good taste in music here!

i propose we have a capitol hill mix CD trade (or mix tape trade, if you're that old school). here is how it will work:

comment here if you would like to receive a mix CD made by one of your fellow hill neighbors, in return for a CD you make for them.

Let's make it happen.

1. Plan for a February meetup to facilitate the trades and get everybody together for a drink. RSVP and help select a date here. Be good to see you even if you don't want to be part of the music trade.
2. If you're in for the CD trade end of things, leave a comment on this post.
   
3. Don't know what the cut-off date will be. I'll update for that later. Bridget, if you are out there, I'll work with you on matching people up. I vote for random!
   
4. Let's go with standard CD format so discs play on anything and the endeavor is more like...

This conversation has me working on a Capitolhillseattle.com census. Details to come. I'm in a measuring the collective kind of mood. Add in this weekend's KEXP's pledge drive promotion countdown of the top 903 albums of all time and this question was inevitable:

What's your favorite album... ever?

I'm data driven so will not argue with the numbers -- my favorite album, it turns out, is Morcheeba's Charango (unsurprisingly not on Rolling Stone Mag's list of top 500 albums). You?

Interrupting the flow of neighborhood news and information for a few notes about the site. Here's the latest:

• Got a new shipment of CHS crow buttons in. They're roosting at CHS sponsor PizzaFusion on 12th Ave. Stop by and get your free button. If you find yourself on the east side of the Hill, you can also stop by Central Cinema for a free button.
• We just released an upgrade to our site search technology. Try it out -- here's a search for 'porn' on CHS.
• We're having a CHS meetup Tuesday night, 8p at Vermillion on 11th Ave. Some of us will be trading mix CDs, the rest of us will be hanging out and meeting neighbors. Here's a list of the CD swappers:
  jseattle
  final answer
  jeanineanderson
  bridget
  Uncle Vinny
  Yancy
  Avitania
  Rachel
• Thanks to dschonbe for helping us test out the new CHS Classifieds by submitting this elegantly succinct Valentine complete with slightly embarrassing nickname. Hi prickler! We drew dschonbe's name out of the hat to receive our CHS Bug Basher award -- we'll be in contact to arrange hand...

Sorry if you see some wacky stuff as we roll out the new bits. How do you like it?

First request is please don't make me regret my decision to bring this up by ganging up on anybody. Let's talk this out and see what we learn. Maybe there is nothing to it. But I am curious. CHS gets comments like this from time to time.

does this mean that CHS is going to consider that it's readership isn't 100% cap hill denzien? or are non cap hill residents still going to be the red headed step child?

My reaction to date has been, huh, they must not get it. The whole point of the site is its focus on one place and the ins and outs, news and information, events and, um, stuff that matter here. Or is it?

Maybe this is simply a call for the site to look at broader issues from time to time. I really liked having this post on the site, for example. But maybe it is something else.

So, I posit this for further exploration: What can CHS do to embrace its redheaded stepchildren?

Not saying I'll start doing any of them -- though this is a community blog so anybody can post -- but I want to get to the root of...

We've played this park image on our old CHS banner for all it's worth. Wesa's pretty pic of Volunteer Park served us well.

In early October, we planned a contest to replace the park image CHS banner. And we quickly canceled it after being, um, educated that contests are not the best way to achieve good design. Better, the comment masses said, was to hire an honest-to-goodness designer and set her to work designing her little heart out.

We were skeptical. The typical design budget for the typical neighborhood blog is approximately $0.35. We're not your typical neighborhood blog so we were able to up that a bit. But, really, it was out of the goodness of her heart helped by her knowledge that pumping out a super-hot CHS banner design would make her famous that we were able to hire our first ever CHS Design Intern -- EmilyP!

One morning meeting at Fuel Coffee and a few e-mails later, EmilyP submitted five proposals. Here is the CHS feedback she received at the time so that you can a) enjoy our version of the creative...

I see cruiser bikes all over Capitol Hill.  The problem is that they're never actually moving.  Instead they are locked up (and usually rusting away) or clogging up apartment building bike rooms.  Unless your entire life is isolated to a few north-south streets, our hilly 'hood is less-than-ideal for cruising around in a steel tank with limited gearing.  So why are there so many cruisers clogging up prime bike parking real estate?  Do all of those California transplants drag their beach bikes with them when they move?  Or are cruisers one of those impulse buys that "seemed like a good idea at the time"? 

p.s. J, just a thought, but how about adding some questions to the census to empirically test this.  e.g., "What kind of bike do you own?" and "How often do you ride your bike?"

Last night's CHS meet up at Vermillion was a hit! A handful of brave souls brought mix CDs of their favorite Capitol Hill-inspired songs and then exchanged CDs by drawing names out of a cup (or was it a helmet?). There were a few common artists (e.g., Tom Waits, various Ben Gibbard projects) but no common song or artist across all albums. We realized that we're all fairly greedy and decided that at the next exchange we should bring multiple copies of our mix in order to get more in return. In the meantime, we'll have to exchange our playlists instead:

Title: Running Up That Hill (prepared by Final Answer)

1. Formed a Band (Art Brut)
2. One More Time (French Kicks)
3. Dogs of Ba, remix (Mirah)
4. Metal Beds (S)
5. Convenient Parking (Modest Mouse)
6. Posse on Broadway, remix (Diplo)
7. Spectacle (Anna Oxygen)
8. Parentheses (Blow)
9. Fishing the Sky (The Appleseed Cast)
10. The Postman (The American Analog Set)
11. 1969 (Boards of Canada)
12. Southside Revival (Blue Scholars)
13. Dance (ESG)...

The mobile culture of Capitol Hill's apartment dwellers dominates this neighborhood and defines its look, feel and spirit.

The landowners might own a chunk of real estate in one of the most desirable areas of the city but they identify with the urban nomads. We need to celebrate our apartments. At CHS, celebration means deep, deliberate, minutiae-focused study.

In that light, we introduce the new CHS Reviews apartments section. It's an opportunity for apartment dwellers and the people who love them to recruit, discourage, critique and, yes, celebrate Capitol Hill's apartments. Got an opinion on the Charbern Apartments on Belmont? Let us know. Tell us about your love for the Whitworth. Sing the song of The Granada. Don't see your favorite apartment in the list? Add it here.

Let the celebration begin.

Any time you get responses like this in your OTHER category, you had better ask yourself some serious neighborhood blogger questions. Like, why was I born?

o You make it sound like a large house is the uber evolution of a CH resident. That's bullshit. In a condo. It's my THIRD home purchase, and I don't ever intend to live in low-density, environment-killing single-family homes. This question sucks.

o Nice apartment, west of Broadway, liquid enough to buy a home in cash but think it's a poor investment given research and economic projections.

o what is it with you and east of 15th?

o east of 15th, far from "quiet" and nothing to do with my home purchasing desires

o I don't understand the question

Here's the thing about Question 5 in CHS Census 2009 -- well, wait. Before I start defending myself and the question, let's look at the results:

So, um, the most common response category was 2.0 -- Nicer apartment between Broadway and 15th. Mildly interesting I guess. But was it worth this kind of criticism?

Those questions sucked by anon
... the "residential trajectory" question is total BS. You make it sound like a large house is the uber evolution of a CH resident. That's bullshit. I'm in a condo. It's my third home purchase, and I don't ever intend to live in low-density, environment-killing single-family homes. The way that question is written, you make it sound like the only reason anybody would ever want to live in a condo is because they can't afford to live in a single family home east of 15th. This sort of bias pisses me off and undermines the validity of any survey that attempts to be census-like.

Worth it? I'm a stubborn bastard. As much as the purpose of the census -- and this site -- is to learn about Capitol Hill and the people that live here, it is also about doing that study in interesting and new ways. I was dedicated to finding a few places to more tightly integrate the survey into the fabric of the site. So question #5 was born as a connective thread to a post that had run on CHS and left me wondering what would happen if we dug further into the topic. Here's the original article -- Phases of Capitol Hill Residency (CHR).

So, my excuse is the experience I am trying to build on CHS -- everything is connected. You can take your assumptions about my values and beliefs and file them away. Have your say about the importance of density or sustainability or unicorns. But keep your mind open to the possiblity that there is more to every situation. Focus on what you want to say, not tearing things apart. I know that at the heart of the matter, some of you wanted this survey to be more and question 5 (and a few others) limited its success. There can be more surveys in the future.

You can check out the complete CHS Census 2009 review here and a write-up on the directional question set here.

Here's a glimpse at you in infographic form.

We recently asked you each to choose -- gay, hipster or yuppie. Turns out, we'll have basically equal-sized teams at the next dodge ball tournament:

We can loan the hipsters a player or two, no?

We also measure how many comments you make each day. For parts of August and September, we turned on a registration requirement to leave a comment. As you can see, you didn't like that. So we turned it off. Good idea.

And, we even know when you wake up. Here's a look at the percent of visitors we receive in each hour of the day. Peaks around 9 a.m. Good morning, sleepyheads.

There are still a few more days to participated in the CHS Census 2009, flawed as a few questions might be.

Start the census

We have about 250 respondents so far. One question is an open-ended opportunity for you to provide feedback about CHS. I'll share all the data from the census when it's complete but here's a sneak peek Wordle style at the kinds of things you're telling me need to be fixed on CHS.

Your feedback Wordled

My favorite piece of feedback so far called for fewer 'self important' posts on the blog about the blog. Sorry. Here's the second in two days. Can't help it.

Liberty Bar Originally uploaded by Rob Gruhl

Hey yuppies, hipsters and gays, the votes are tallied and the notice is going out -- we're gathering at Liberty next Tuesday night at 6p. The little 15th Ave gay hipster yuppie bar won the right to host the soiree against other best-bartender-on-the Hill nominees.

Is Liberty's mix master truly worthy? If it's like any social gathering that I am usually part of, we'll put the 'tender to the test with long, rambling orders, offensive requests including Diet Coke and general awkwardness. But we'll make up for it with fantastic tips.

Liberty's happy hour runs 'til 7. The CHS crowd is usually good for about two hour of critical mass so show up by 7ish or risk having nobody to talk to but me or, gasp, strangers.

We haven't posted one of these -- as somebody, in classic fashion once described 'About CHS' posts -- self-important blog posts in awhile. So let's get it out of our system:

• Green thumbs: You may have noticed that we've replaced the old thumbs-up/thumbs-down rating tool on articles and comments with only a 'Recommend this' thumbs-up. Why? It was too easy for one person to make a drive-by negative impact by clicking the thumbs-down just because they disagreed. There was an increase in these acts of shallow commentary recently convincing us that it was time for a change. As for making it too easy to show approval, well, can't say this appears to be a problem in the cool, cruel world. Anything we can do to tip the scales of positivity seems healthy, no?
• Twitter Ads: Now we're just showing off. We've introduced a cool new ad format here on CHS that we think makes a lot of sense. Our new Twitter Ad template showcases a local business's social media message making an ad that's dynamic and, hopefully, interesting...

CHS is built by you. Anybody can be part of the site to comment, publish articles, post pictures, create calendar events and more. You can participate with or without a CHS account -- you can leave a comment without joining the site, for example -- but being part of CHS gives you a lasting presence in your community news site and makes it easier for us to create an extremely open environment for everybody to be part of.

With all that as prelude, it's exciting to announced that we just zoomed through a fun milestone. Please meet CHS member #1000:

View Profile

Washington Ensemble Theater might not be the first type of neighbor you think of on Capitol Hill but the little theater (and Little Theater!) company is fitting from CHS's POV. Our ideal community is a mix of the people who live, work and play on the Hill. Some of us -- ahem, @jseattle -- identify deeply with the organizations they help drive. So, on CHS, your neighbor just might be a fringe theater group.

For a look at the other 999 members of CHS -- oops,...

A reminder that many of the cast of characters from CHS will be gathering Tuesday night at Poco Wine Bar for some happy hour fun. Happy hour prices are $2 off each glass and $8 off each bottle. CHS will be smuggling in a bottle of Arbor Mist to share.

We don't do the happy hours enough -- usually a lot of fun talking about everybody's life on the Hill and some of the fun connections that happen through the site. It's also a nice opportunity to thank a sponsor -- Poco has been a long-time supporter of the site.

CHS Happy Hour
Tuesday, 9/15 5-7p
Poco Wine Bar, 1408 E Pine St.

For many of the best CHS posts, the coolest information and ideas don't come until after the article is already written or the photograph cropped and posted. Here is our weekly celebration of recent high quality CHS comments. Thanks for being part of the site.

First, we feature a comment that appeared on a different Capitol Hill blog.

Submitted by kevinseattle on Mon, 2009-08-24 11:42.

This blog SUCKS! No original content everything comes straight from CHS Blog! Take a look at this post from 3 DAYS EARLIER: http://www.capitolhillseattle.com/2009/08/21/georgetown-inte...

It raises some valid and well-argued points, no?

It's been awhile since we heard from Vlad but he weighed in last week, pushing back on the idea that the city should create 'buffer' zoning between residential and commercial development:

RE: Hmmm... by Vlad Cole

response to max:

I live at 11th and Pike specifically because I like being able to walk from my front door to a bar and stumble back home. I feel safer living on streets full of a diverse crowd of people who are merrymakers, restaurant-goers, and so on.

Mixed residential and commercial neighborhoods are more vibrant. The idea of specialized zones for commercial vs. residential is an old way of thinking about cities and one that Jane Jacobs effectively discredited almost 50 years ago. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Death_and_Life_of_Great_Ame

So fie on your idea of "buffer" zones between bars and homes. Fie on creating residential-only areas and commercial-only areas. And fie on the suggestion that people are going to move out because a neighborhood has an active nightlife. I moved *in* as a result of this area's active nightlife!

I do like Comrade Bunny's suggestion of better soundproofing mandates in neighborhoods that are well mixed. The sort of low-end soundproofing that is standard for quiet (read: boring!) suburban neighborhoods just doesn't protect the sanity of people who want to live in more happening 'hoods. The cost burden of better soundproofing will have to get paid for somehow (lower margins for developers or higher prices for renters/purchasers, or a little of both). It could also be achieved through simple disclosures. For example, an ambient decibel reading disclosure as part of the listing process.

While we're working together to make things better, this comment wonders aloud why Sound Transit isn't able to start working immediately in the Capitol Hill station construction area on Broadway:

Three months wasted by Eric
I am still wondering why they are letting the property sit for three months rather than starting to dig now. OK, perhaps they cannot dig towards downtown until they get the I-5 work finished, but could they not start digging towards the U District?

Our post about the City of Seattle's lack of innovation in making data and information available to the citizenry raised an interesting point regarding the openness of the system and the risk of corporate involvement in the public sector.

public data should be provided using open standards using Free Software whenever feasible by Phil Mocek
Given the influence of our monopolistic neighbor to the east, implementation of such a project would require extra vigilance to ensure that data are provided using open standards via a Web site that doesn't cater to bugs in Internet Explorer or require a bunch of proprietary plug-ins be installed in the user's browser. Microsoft would likely want to be involved, but regardless of any altruistic intentions they might have, I doubt their ability to focus on doing something in a manner best suited to creating a public good and not to trapping more computer users in their web of bad UI, network security as an afterthought, and forced upgrades

Mike with curls left this grumpy and creatively worded missive against filling the Cal Anderson fountain with bubbles:

.. ho, ho ...fuck vandalism by Mike with curls
Such stupid stuff is fun to middle schoolers, but it is high grade vandalism ... some fool painted the cone a few months back as well.

The water feature is the best in the city and the most compelling action in the park. Those who fuck it up are fools, stupid, wrecking a giant community project and need o spend a few nights in jail.

No truck for such antics, at all.

Love that park, play your sad-sill-juvenile soap jokes on friends in the shower.

Turns out, he has a point:

Not too funny, really by kayzel
Every time someone does something like this, the water feature's rather complex and sensitive filtering and draining mechanism is compromised, and considerable time and (taxpayer) money are spent to get it functioning again. With shrinking maintenance dollars, if this keeps up, Parks may shut the fountain down completely. Think about it. Surely there are other ways to enjoy the park.

And kazyel oughta know -- she's a member of the Cal Anderson Park Alliance. You going to argue with that?

Meanwhile, we heard from a happy new Cap Hill business owner:

Yea for Capitol Hill! by Leah
Thanks for the great mention. I am so excited to be relocating to Capitol Hill -- I think the energy of the area, paired with all of the wonderful existing businesses -- will be great for us and our customers. We are very excited to become part of the neighborhood!

Back to the grump, here's a not-so-favorable review of the big 500 Pine Party/marketing event that went down in the Havana parking lot last week:

bleh by Lezzy Minell
how much money were they given to put this together? should've donated it to charity. it was lame, poorly organized and crammed into a small space. the decor looked like a garbage dumpster threw up in the parking lot. it was clearly catered to the pseudo-hipster crowd of capitol hill but that is not what the 500 pine block was about as it was inclusive of all capitol hill and seattle residents

Matt, left, and Scott at the Bottleneck Lounge

Matt Durham, designer of CHS and the entire family of Neighborlogs sites, died suddenly on Tuesday. He was 30. You can read more about him in this tribute written by his brother Scott.

Matt, Scott and I worked together to build the Neighborlogs service and the businesses of our 3-person company, Instivate. I can't really think right now about how things will be without him. I can only think of my teammates -- one who I won't get to work with and laugh with again and one whose loss I can't begin to comprehend.

CHS will continue to bring you news and information about the neighborhood this week and beyond. Life moves on and we'll catch up and ride along. Same goes for you. Catch up. Move on. But give your loved ones an extra squeeze.

Here is the short story:

• CHS is growing and on a good path to surviving as a component of the Capitol Hill community and a business
• CHS is happy to announce that former Capitol Hill Times editor Doug Schwartz is joining the site later this month
• CHS is happy to announce that we now have Larissa the amazing intern plugging away to make the site awesome
• CHS has the opportunity to make people like Doug and Larissa an even bigger part of the site
• To do this CHS needs your help

The CHS Pledge Drive runs Tuesday 5/5 to Monday 5/11.

Please consider supporting CHS today

• $250 and above -- thank you gift: Assign a CHS story. We write about whatever topic you give us
• $100 and above -- thank you gift: First 10 givers get CHS gift pack
• $25 and above -- thank you gift: Choose a date for your 'sponsor of the day' message on CHS
• Any amount -- thank you gift: Invitation to CHS thank you wine party

Make sure to add your e-mail in the pledge wizard so we can contact you about your gift and details of your CHS story assignments

Here is the long story:

Why should you support a for-profit Web site run by an ex-Microsoft employee with a neighborhood blogging start-up who lives in one of the wealthier ZIP codes in Seattle? CHS is and always will be an advertising supported business. It is not a nonprofit or a public utility. The site is organized and managed to provide community news and information as a business. Some of the articles, pictures and information is provided by contributors for free. Any contributor that wants can become part of the revenue sharing program and be compensated as fairly as possible for their work. So, many of the articles, pictures and much of the information on this site has a cost. To keep the business running, we sell advertisements to local businesses that either want to support the site, want to have their messages presented to a very focused, very local audience, or both.

This is how CHS will continue to grow. Today, depending on which data source you look at, more than 15,000 different people a month visit the site -- somewhere north of 1,000 every day.

That is a large enough audience to build a business on and, I hope, a testament to the quality experience this site provides to the people who live on and care about Capitol Hill. CHS currently makes about $1,100 per month in ad revenue. About 60% of that goes to site contributors. It is a long road to success.

But sometimes, there is opportunity to zoom ahead. I am happy to announce that a familiar Capitol Hill face is joining the team this month. Former Capitol Hill Times editor Doug Schwartz will begin contributing to CHS in mid-May. I'm happy to have him particpating at any level but I want to jumpstart things and be able to pay Doug and creative people like him to play an even bigger role in the site. We also have brought on an intern because, 1) we can use the help and 2) we hope to pass along some of the knowlege and fun of running a neighborhood news and information site. Given these changes, it is time for yet another CHS experiment.

We will continue telling the stories of Capitol Hill no matter if you give or not. But the media landscape is shifting and CHS has an opportunity to leap forward today. With your help, we can make a jump and bridge the period of growth to the level at which CHS is a fully sustainable business that can afford to bring in great people like Doug and adequately compensate them without pledge drives. We don't plan to do this every year -- in fact, it's very likely we'll never ask for something like this again (learned to never say never, however -- once said we'd never, ever ask for money like this but now look at us!). If this kind of pledge drive is required again and again, there are better ways to structure what we're doing and CHS will change. But this drive can help make sure we never get there.

In return for your support of the site, there are some gifts available to help repay your pledge. You can review those at the top of the post. The $250+ level gives you the ability to play editor and assign CHS to write about any Capitol Hill topic you want. Our gift pack for the first 10 givers at $100+ is made up of a few nice thank yous from CHS sponsors including Tidbit Bistro and Northwest Film Forum. Anybody who gives $25 or more can designate a date to have their sponsor message shown on the site. Plus, all givers will be invited to a special thank you wine party at Vino Verite later this summer. Please provide your e-mail address in the pledge form when giving so we can contact you about your gift (and only! about your gift). But the bigger trade, of course, comes from the continued dedication for CHS to cover Capitol Hill and build a place for people to share the Hill's news, information and stories.

We hope you'll consider giving today.

CHS Pledge Drive -- Tuesday 5/5 to Monday 5/11

Oh, and if you'd rather support us the old fashioned way, buy an ad and share your message with THOUSANDS.

Thank you!

When I first moved my site to the Neighborlogs service last spring, there weren't a lot of templates that I liked but I decided to sacrifice look and feel for functionality. Recent site feedback reminds me that it is time to move forward on the look and feel part of things. Soon -- very soon, perhaps -- I'll be updating CHS with a new look. I'm starting work on the transition today. To get an idea of what the new CHS will look like, you can see the new template in its deployment on TheSouthlake.com.

TheSouthlake.com

The new look isn't perfect -- but it addresses my biggest concerns about the way the posts appear (hard to read long lines of text) and the general lighter feel (kinda murky now). Like any change, I'm sure the new design will bring its share of new problems. That's ok -- don't want this neighborhood blogger to get bored, now, do we?