Climbing Originally uploaded by Aghman

UPDATE: Sunday 4:45 PM

• Seeing lots of search queries bringing people to site looking for updates and advice on road conditions. Please add a note if you have a second to share what you know. Updating the update: Here are two votes for I5 vs. 99 once you do make it down from the Hill -- Katelyn Hackett from Seattlest and WSDOT. Also, Madison is probably safest bet to I5.
• Update: Coming back from Sea-Tac? Southern approach to the Hill is advised in comments below. Take Rainier to 12th or 14th for a more gradually sloped approach to Capitol Hill, then work your way toward home from the top.
• Sea-Tac is a disaster. Making a few calls to see if the Madison to I5 route along the south side of the Hill is doable for anybody braving it.
• Metro says they'll be at half capacity again on Monday.
• City has updated its safety and services info like trash/recycling.
• Seattlest's MvB lives covered the lastest storm's impact on CHS from end to end in this photo essay.
• There are...

UPDATE:
The totals are in and the CHS endorsements for the 2009 fall election are official. We'll write up the endorsements in another post but you can see the vote totals blow. Thanks for your votes, delegates.

Original Post:
This should be interesting. Each of you has been given a paper envelope. Please proceed to your favorite chair and don't open it. Inside, you won't find this Web page. That paper stuff is your real life King County ballot. Put it in a safe place.

This page is home to the 2009 fall election CHS Endorsement Polls. The goal is to give the CHS community a say in the endorsement process. Because we have registered accounts, we're one step closer to making online polls more than Web traffic popularity contests. But one step might not be enough. I've yet to run an online poll process that didn't produce hiccups, screw-ups and cheats. Expect some of each here. That's politics.

Here is how the polls work:

• Registered CHS accounts may vote in each poll once
• Polls close Friday night at 9 PM...
(more)

CHS is an experiment in collaboration. When you leave a comment here, you are working with the group to expand the conversation. Users post stories, pictures and videos. More and more, we're finding ways to work together in significant ways -- I'm looking forward to seeing what Cheesecake and EmilyP cook up with his next video episode and her design skills.

In that spirit, we'd like to try another new thing -- CHS Giving Snowball 2008, an experiment in holiday giving. At the center of any community collaboration, there needs to be a driver. For Snowball 2008, it's neighbor pffft who wrote in looking for a way to expand his plans for holiday giving. Pffft will help get the Snowball rolling by throwing $100 in the group pot (see below) and pledging $400 to Northwest Harvest if we meet our $700 giving goal. Thanks pffft! CHS is also throwing $50 in the community pot to get things rolling. And there is no time like the present to get things rolling -- I'm hearing all sorts of anecdotes about challenges faced by...

Every time I go to Madison Market, I check out with a bad taste in my mouth. The checker is there, watching me to see if I take a bag so they can punish me with a surcharge. It's annoying. It doesn't make me bring my own bag - it just makes me annoyed with Madison Market and the holier-than-thou crowd. 

This is from a guy who drives a car that gets 35+ miles to the gallon. I bring bags to the store - when I haven't used them all for garbage bags. I am seriously concerned about global warming. But I am thoroughly annoyed by grocery bag fees.

I will be protesting the Block Party Crashers in spirit this weekend. This tax is a bad idea. It won't impact the amount of garbage Seattle hauls in any significant way (i.e. changing weight or volume by more than 1%), and it gives people who are on the fence about environmentalism a really bad feeling about it - by giving them an annoying reminder of the "nanny state" every time they check out. 

Ways we could *actually* make the city greener:

• tax gasoline<...

Forget the passive aggressive notes on your neighbor's windshield. Next time, use our handy flier.

EDIT:  We've heard the glue-paste critics out there and are happy to provide this updated flier.  Feel free to use either version.

Oh, and e.e. is more than willing to make a tooth brushing flier if that would be helpful for you, but please provide a valid email address so we know where to send it.

Happy parking!

One of the highlights of last night's CHS happy hour was meeting a fellow CHSer who used to be an intra-apartment neighbor. We actually became aware of this through a post on CHS! This led to a conversation about how we meet our apartment neighbors. I know that Seattleites have a bad reputation for avoiding eye contact, but we CHSers are a friendly bunch*, so I assume most of us have met at least a few neighbors.

For me, the ice breaker has been having a newspaper subscription. At both of my last 2 apartments, the first people I met were fellow newspaper subscribers. Since so few of us remain, we must stick together.

*As we discovered at happy hour, the majority of CHS readers/writers have roots in the Midwest and, thus, have amazing small-talk capabilities.

Frankly, I often think it would be quite easy to never leave Capitol Hill. (For this exercise, let's pretend we don't work; which unfortunately, may be true for many of us.) Hillsters have just about everything within walking distance. Despite this, I make 3 regular exceptions. What are yours?

1) Dosas. Capitol Hill has North Indian food covered, but to my knowledge there are only two places in the Seattle metro area that serve yummy South Indian dosas -- Malabar in the U-District and Udupi Palace (!!!) in Bellevue. Yes, Bellevue.

2) Yarn. I've written about this before. Still no change.

3) Haircut. My cutter/stylist moved from Capitol Hill to Ballard and I liked her so much that I continue to make the schlep out west.

We're all neighbors here on Capitol Hill. Let's get to know each other. Presenting the CHS Capitol Hill Seattle Census 2009 -- 29 questions about you and your life on the Hill.

Start the census

The goal of this survey is to learn a bit more about the CHS community and Capitol Hill. Some of the questions will be asked again next year so we can analyze continuity. Some of the questions are one-of-a-kind for 2009. Anybody can participate. The results will be shared and the anonymous data will be made available to everybody. There are 29 questions. You do not need to answer every question and may come back to the survey at any time to change your answers or add new ones until the census closes on Sunday, Jan. 11 at 11:45PM.

I'll share results starting the following week and make the anonymous data available at that time. If you have any suggestions for next year's survey, leave a comment.

Thanks to my Twitter beta testers for feedback. I did what I could to keep what people liked and drop what people didn'...

Get all sorts of interesting ideas from the Capitol Hill Community Council. Vice prez Charlette Lefevre of Broadway's Museum of Mysteries adds another peculiar one to the pile -- Capitol Hill currency:

We like it. Especially if it means we get to make a fun poll to choose the new bills.

Thanks to Erik98122, Avitania, Smohundro and Yancy9a for images. Funny money courtesy Festisite.

I spent the past week in Barcelona, jealous of all their great pedestrian-only streets.  Lots of the streets are so old and narrow that they’re pedestrian-only by default, but some are wide enough that they could easily have been converted into just another auto dominated street, and many were.  But luckily many were not, including the most famous, Las Ramblas, a 1.4 kilometer long pedestrian boulevard in the heart of the city.  This got me thinking about how much better some of our heaviest used pedestrian streets (North Broadway, Pike/Pine, 15th) could be if they devoted even a little bit more space to pedestrians, instead of the cars that dominate the space today.  Here’s my vision of a Las Rambla-ized Pike Street (from Broadway to 11th).

Pike Street as it looks today

Pike Street with two lanes of traffic replaced with a pedestrian walkway complete with outside seating for Cafe Vita and Quinn's.

Pike Street as it is today

Pike Street La Rambla-ized between Broadway and 11th St.

Unfortunately, in the near future, a change like this to a major street like Pike or Broadway is probably a pipe dream, but there has been talk of closing Nagle Place to cars.  This would be a great use of that barely used street, especially because of the proximity to the coming light rail station and the possibility of relocating the Broadway Farmers Market there.  I was also excited to see that the development on 11th/ Pike included the little retail lined "Mews", definitely a step in the right direction!

This sums up my frustration over the last several days...

Remember the time capsule celebration of the arrival of settlers on Alki 157 years ago? Here's where you can tell the future what you were up to on Capitol Hill today.

Here is my less-than-historically-notable diary thus far:

• Midnight:30: Went to bed after covering the Republican at Summit fire (or Belmont or whatever street it ends up being listed on).
• 6:30a: Woke up to 1-year-old hand-to-the-face
• 8:30a: Called a potential beta site owner for Neighborlogs
• 9:30a: Planted butt at Fuel on 19th where I am still working despite sunshine day outside.

Hoping to make it out and about to get a few pictures, etc. But help me out -- what are you up to? Comments please.

Despite the fact that it is but one of a handful of Hill restaurants that serve the dish, 12th Ave's Lark is the target of an ongoing animal rights protest against foie gras. The Northwest Animal Rights Network has pledged to picket Lark every Friday night until fatty goose liver has been removed from its fancy pants menu. This has been going on for weeks but things have were stirred up considerably this weekend by a series of Slog posts about the protests. The Slog's position: NARN should focus on larger abuses in the agribusiness industry and that the geese, relative to other animals like factory processed pigs and cows, aren't suffering to produce the expensive delicacy. The comments, predictably, are a mix of seemingly robot-produced comment SPAM in support of NARN with a good representation of the 'boy are Seatte liberals stupid' crowd mixed in.

Lark is reportedly digging in and holding its foie gras ground -- and, Slog says, foie gras sales on Friday nights are actually up. Olivar's Philippe Thomelin must...

Purple Mark
Originally uploaded by Siege N. Gin

On Saturday, community members and city officials will gather in a parking lot at 16th and Howell to celebrate the start of construction on a new Capitol Hill park.

Only one problem: Nobody knows what to call it.

According to Paula Hoff of Seattle Parks neither of the two upcoming Capitol Hill parks have official names yet. Her department will be putting out a call for names, Hoff said, probably on Monday.

But why wait for Monday. We like to keep CHS neighbors out in front of this kind of stuff. Let the community group think begin. Here are some of the ideas we kicked around last fall when the process started (and was supposed to end):

Summit at John An angled, sloped walkway separating a grassy grade and community garden plots. With skateboard element and picnic area	Howell at 16th A level turf area in the middle of the site, bordered by a collective garden to the north and a crushed rock plaza and allee to the south
Non-Person Candidates Summit Park (literal) John Park (bad idea) Paradise Park (neighbor suggested) Starbucks Park (too corporate but if they write a check)	Non-Person Candidates First Church Park (too religious) Group Health Park (too medical) Capitol Hill Park (too obvious)

We've attached the general rule set from the Parks Department for guidelines to follow. Here are a few highlights:

7.5.2. In naming a park or facility, the Committee will consider geographical location, historical or cultural significance, distinctive natural or geological features, and the wishes of the community in which it is located.

7.5.3. In naming community centers and other facilities, the committee will give considerable weight to the names that reflect the geographic location that gives identity to the community.

7.5.4. Parks and recreation facilities may be named for a person subject to the following conditions: the person must be deceased for a minimum of three years, and the person must have made a significant positive contribution to parks, recreation, or culture in the community without which the park/facility may not exist, or in which the individual’s contributions enhanced a program or facility in an extraordinary way.

The City will bear the cost of the plaque or monument indicating the name of the individual for whom the facility is named.

Neighborhood activist and CHS contributor Andrew Taylor also set us straight on one key aspect of park naming rules -- the person doesn't necessarily have to be dead to be honored:

Homer Harris Park (on 24th, near the YMCA) was named after a living person: Dr. Harris attended the naming ceremony a few years ago.

An anonymous donor gave a megabuck or so for the project. Dr. Harris (who died recently) was a revered local African-American athlete and doctor.

Nonetheless, the rule HAS been broken, so if you do want to campaign for a park named after a living, or recently dead, person, there is a precedent.

That opens things up for Purple Mark -- who is very, very alive.

Po Dog, the new hotdog vendor coming to the hill, recently blogged about its troubles trying it install a mural on the southern blank facade of 1009 Union Street - adjacent to a parking lot.  Laura Olson sent CHS email explaining the issue:

We had a design drawn up from John Osgood and had to ask the owners of the parking lot behind us to use a few of the parking space for a couple of days to clean the wall and get the mural started. They in turn, wanted to see the mural and made the decision that we would not be allowed to use their lot for cleaning and painting because  "they felt the depiction of a man eating a hot dog would carry an unwanted double meaning" and did not approve of the "cartoonish" nature of the mural. The property owners also commented that our mural "does not meet the needs of the Capitol Hill neighborhood" and may decrease their property value.

Chris Pardo of Pb Elemental (Po Dog's architect) says the objections of Po Dog's landlord and the parking...

In city living, a mile can mean a real difference in micro neighborhood flavor and vibe.

A few months ago I moved within the Capitol Hill neighborhood, a distance of just over a mile. Both micro 'hoods are on the hill, both are similarly close to Cal Anderson Park and the future light rail station. Both are eclectic and open-minded. Both are fine residential neighborhoods. Yet, there's something in the details. Kids, dogs. Blackberries, figs. Cityscape, sunset. Mad Market, Top Pot.  Here's my move:

 And  how the micro 'hoods compare:

I like both neighborhoods for different reasons. It is easier to get home to Mad Market from a night of socializing in Pike/Pine area. Pho noodles are cheap and plentiful on north end of Broadway. Worse street maintenance in Top Pot, better sidewalks in Mad Market.  Mad Market wins for happy hour, Top Pot wins for brunch.   Top Pot is quieter, Mad Market is lively.

Which is the better micro 'hood? It depends. Are you a night owl or a lark? Do you prefer strawberry or chocolate? 

EDIT: Over one month later they are still playing religious songs that can be heard at least six blocks away. The songs marking noon and 6:00pm go on for a minute. I understand that church bells evoke a nostalgic response from many of the commentators, but I find it hard to believe that if an Islamic call to prayer were blasted over the neighborhood you would approve.

For those of you who live within earshot you have probably already heard the All Pilgrims Church Christmas chiming. Starting on November 30 they have been banging out such classics as "Oh come all ye faithful" to mark the passage of time.

I have lived four blocks from them for over three years and this is the first December that they have chosen to create noise pollution every half hour. While Broadway is far from a quiet street and it has its fair share of obnoxious music (think Panache's love of Cher for instance) the bells at All Pilgrims have a far greater radius of impact.

While All Pilgrims should be commended for their inclusive style to...

With Seattle's 2009 fall election approaching, a choice voters made in 2008 will soon create even more open space on Capitol Hill. From the property taxes collected by the 2008 Parks Levy, money is being set aside to purchase land for another new park on Capitol Hill and the community process has begun to gather feedback on our parks needs -- the city was even out on Park(ing) Day collecting ideas and suggestions. The project will join the spaces created on Summit at John and on 16th at Howell in a wave of new grass and p-patches on the Hill.

But where to put the new Capitol Hill park? The funds are intended to create a park within the Capitol Hill Urban Village, the area ringed in red in this map (the purple line is the light rail tunnel path, btw).

Chip Nevins, acquisitions planner for Seattle Parks, said the decision on where to put the next Capitol Hill park will hinge partly on the Summit/John and 16th/Howell locations:

The Neighborhood Park Acquisition portion of the Pro Parks Levy specifically named two projects to help implement the Capitol Hill Neighborhood Plan: Capitol Hill Park Acquisition: (“Acquire one or two sites listed in Capitol Hill Neighborhood Plan”) and Bellevue Substation Acquisition (“Acquire Bellevue Substation”).

The Bellevue substation wasn't available (and wasn't a great park site) so an alternative site (John and Summit) was proposed by Park staff and agreed to by the community.  The other park that was acquired (16th and E Howell) was proposed by a member of the community.

In this case we would be looking for a park that complements those acquisitions by filling a need in another part of the neighborhood.

According to Lise Ward, senior real property agent for the city, there are a few specific attributes Seattle Parks will look for. "In general, we look for neighborhood park sites that are at least 10,000 sf in size," Ward told CHS. "We are also trying to fill gaps in urban villages where there is more than a 1/8-mile to 1/4-mile walking distance to a park."

This map created by CHS shows Capitol Hill's park coverage using a very fuzzy approximation of the walking distance factor.

That measure leaves a swath of Capitol Hill between Broadway and 14th Ave and Harrison and Aloha relatively park-less. So here's where CHS is plotting the next Capitol Hill park. We'll leave it to you to figure out which 10,000+ sqft plot of land should be used.

View Capitol Hill Park Zone in a larger map

Beaujolais the Australian shepherd mix is lost on Capitol Hill and a woman who says she can talk with animals is helping to track him down. Bridget Pilloud sent the following note to CHS this morning:

We could use the help of folks in your neighborhood. [My client] recently lost her dog in Capitol Hill. She was visiting a client and her dog, Beaujolais, ran off. Beaujolais is a young aussie mix that’s very shy. [My client] adopted him only a few weeks ago, and he’s been at large for nearly a week.

I’ve been in contact with him for the past few days, and it seems that he’s hanging out by a shady park. [My client] has put up many  signs, and is in contact with animal control. Beaujolais is micro-chipped.

Before [my client] adopted him, he had been the victim of a hoarder, and had been brutally attacked by other dogs. She is quite worried and wants him to come home.

Could you post something on your site?  If anybody sees him, [my client] would love a phone call so that she can track him and hopefully bring him home.

Pilloud runs Pets Are Talking and specializes in 'intuitive animal communication.' If you've seen Beaujolais, send CHS a mail and we'll pass it on.

Last year Seattle area voters approved adding 36 new miles of track to the soon-to-be operational light rail system, a huge step towards sustainability. While a light rail station was already planned for our humble neighborhood, the new package came with a small but transformational inclusion for the hill: a new streetcar from the International District to Broadway.

The past few weeks have seen a lot of controversy over this new mobility improvement. Some suggest constructing it sooner. Some don't want it built at all. Some want it put down Broadway. Others say 12th would be better. Well, while I may not be a transit guru the likes of STB, I would like to present a case for why a streetcar down 12th Ave would be the best use of our money by not just adding a form of transportation but helping an entire community blossom.

View Larger Map

First of all, why a streetcar? Why not, as Councilmember Tom Rasmussen suggested, just use the money for more metro buses instead? Admittedly it's a non-issue because voters specifically...

Tonight is Linda's 15th birthday party. Seattlest can tell you more about the drink specials, free t-shirts, etc. Hoping to swing by tonight for a picture or two before heading off to other business.

What were you up to in 1994? And, for bonus points, do you remember the first time you went to Linda's? I can't, sadly. But, statistically, it was most likely a summer night on the back patio with a bunch of friends jockeying for a table.

As for my 1994, I was a sophomore at San Jose State University. I wanted to be a reporter. I had a shaved head and thought Pearl Jam sucked. I wore shorts every day of the year when I wasn't at work. Didn't go to bars. Drank peach schnapps bought at a 7-11.

cap to the hill's white on black

We're proud of cap to the hill -- they set out to have a different voice on the Hill and tell the stories from some of the slices of life we miss here on CHS. We've supported them from the beginning. They call us momma.

If only all Hill neighbors looked like this

Now that they're all growed up and a big blog, they can mother Hill blogs of their own. Recently, they welcomed Capitol Hillebrities to the spotlight. Now, we don't know Capitol Hillebrities -- and we really only just recently met cap to the hill. But here's a toast to more stories of the Hill on teh Internets -- even if the stories look way more glossy and beautiful than my neighbors (sorry neighbors, but it's true).

Like we said in the headline, we have a gift for the new site. Having worked in the "online space" for a decade, we're a little Web tech obsessed. So checked out whether the domains capitolhillebrities.com and hillebrities.com are available. They are -- or, they were. We snapped them up before the forces of...