Andrew Taylor

The Seattle Planning Commission and Neighborhood Planning Advisory Committee want your feedback about the current status of your neighborhood plan and the changes that have taken place since the plan was adopted.

In brief:

• City had in-person meetings to gather neighborhood plan info (see Comrade Bunny's report)
• they now have an online survey to gather more of that information. Do it by the 12th! See this CD News link.
• Here are some links to background information.
• They've agreed to have another in-person meeting for the Central Area and will welcome Capitol Hill and Pike-Pine representatives. Place and date (before Sept. 10) to be determined.

I encourage you all to fill out the survey and to come to the meeting.

A neighbor reports:

The virtual meeting deal is picking up steam. The Planning commission got a big bunch from Ballard, and last count was over 450 citywide (compared to just under 300 at the actual meetings). What this means is that the City will have more to work with from the neighborhoods that speak up and may pay more attention to them. If you haven't yet, fill out the questionnaire.

Editor's note: CHS has included a practice survey to get you in the mood. Got to believe it's getting better?

The Seattle Department of Transportation has started a blog, and started it with a bang, with lots of articles. Articles of note include:

• one about bike parking, asking for your desires for on-street bike parking.
• an article extolling streetcar use, with pictures of crowds of riders which they claim to be "typical".
• details of street parties you can attend, both today on Rainier, and in the future around town.

Your ballot for the Primary Election should have arrived by now (problems? Try here). It needs to be postmarked by August 18th to be counted.

Our recent election forum gave us some insight into the candidates for City Council and Mayor. Here are some views of the forum:

• A blow-by-blow Twitter report
• JSeattle's views
• Seattle Times report on the forum
• The Publicola report (with lots of off-topic discussion)

Assorted other on-line voting guidance:

• The Stranger's summary of the Municipal League's rankings.
• Publicola's report on the City Neighborhood Council City Council Candidate Forum
• Video of that forum (with sidebar links to many other video election resources).
• Seattle Times on the local school board race.
• A video Voters' Guide
• • Online Voters' Guides

And if none of those helps you decide, try this.

Vote as you please, but please vote. Thank you.

The Planning Commission wants to hear from you about the status of our neighborhood plans, and what's happened since the plans were adopted in 1998. They had a meeting for Capitol Hill and Pike-Pine a while ago. If you missed it, you can take part in a "Virtual Meeting", by going to http://www.cityofseattle.net/planningcommission/, where you can watch a video introduction, read the draft status reports for your neighborhood, and then answer the same questions that the participants in the actual live sessions answered. You've got till Wednesday, August 12th to do so. 

BTW, many of us couldn't make the meeting for the Central Area (conflict with election forum) AND thought that the Central Area, Pike-Pine, Capitol Hill, Madison-Miller & 12th Avenue areas should have been considered together. We're asking for a "make-up session" for all those neighborhoods in the next couple of weeks. You can weigh in on that by E-mailing Barbara E. Wilson, Planning Commision Director, barb.wilson@seattle.gov.

Below are links to some background information, and the official explanation of the process, from the August 2009 Department of Planning and Development newsletter.

Background information:

• Neighborhood Planning Overview
• Public Involvement process
• 1998 Central Area Plan
• The Pike-Pine Plan
• The Capitol Hill Plan
• The Madison-Miller plan (part of the Central Area Plan)
• Recent information about Madison Street redevelopment plans

Please take a few minutes to read up on what's happening in our neighborhoods, and tell the City your thoughts. Now here's the City explanation:

Monday July 27th, 6 - 9 PM at Mount Zion Baptist Church, 19th & Madison. Meet all the candidates for Mayor, City Council and the local School Board seat. We'll deal with each race in turn. Schedule below.

Details at http://tinyurl.com/cap-cd-forum

Who asks the questions? Well, you provide the questions! The longer (1 minute answer per question per candidate) questions are the ones you submit when you arrive. [OK, to keep things on-time the moderator reads the questions]

The lightning round questions (all candidates write a word or two and hold it up) will be from the ones you submit online: http://tinyurl.com/lightning-round

• 6:00 Greetings: Pastor Williams. Introduction
• 6:10 School Board Position 5 - Cullen, Helmstetter, Bass, Smith-Blum
• 6:35 Council Position 2 - Conlin, Ginsberg
• 6:50 Council Position 6 - Kaplan, Licata, Israel 
• 7:10 Council Position 4 - Bagshaw, Tobin, Carver, Plants, Bloom 
• 7:35 Council Position 8 - O'Brien, Williams, Forch, Miller, Royer, Rosencrantz 
• 8:05 Mayor - McGinn, Donaldson, Nickels, Mallahan, Garrett, Drago, Campbell, Sigler
• 9:00. Thanks. Disband, clean-up.

The Seattle Times article is interesting for a number of reasons:

• The development is right in our area, at 23rd & John/Thomas
• I first heard about the project a while ago, when contacted by a resident
• I ran it past a small developer (both he and his projects are small) I've know for years and posted a Miller blog article about it.
• Eric Pryne, the author of the Seattle Times article, contacted me for my comment: I put him in touch with the neighbor, and circulated his request for comments on the Miller listserv. I presume that a couple of the comments in the article resulted from those efforts. Media lines blurring yet again!

 2) Return to the church hall at Mount Zion Baptist Church at 6 PM on Monday July 27th for our Capitol Hill/ Central District Election Forum. Our school district's school board candidates, and ALL the candidates for City Council and Mayor will be there.

 All the details (and flyers to download & share) are at: http://tinyurl.com/cap-cd-forum

 The candidates will be answering the questions that YOU submit on postcards when you arrive (12 words or fewer, get thinking).

 There will also be a lightning round for each race, with the candidates all simultaneously writing 1 or 2 word answers to display to you.

 You may submit your lightning round questions at http://tinyurl.com/lightning-round

February of last year saw hundreds of us converging on Mount Zion Baptist Church, at 19th & Madison, for the Democratic Caucus. It's time to go there again, this time for a more local political purpose. Some Central District neighbors and I have arranged a combined Central District & Capitol Hill election forum, which is being co-sponsored by (among others) the Capitol Hill Community Council and the East District Council.

At the forum, which will be on Monday July 27th from 6 to 9 PM, you'll be able to submit questions to all the candidates for Mayor and City Council and for the local School Board position, and hear how they cope with them. If your question doesn't get pulled out of the hat, you should be able to grab the candidates before and afterwards to grill them.  All the details of the election forum are posted here, together with flyers for you to share. Here's the approximate schedule, in case you can only come for part of the event:

6:00 Start: 5 minutes Welcome (Pastor), 5 minutes intro etc.

1) 6:10 School Board position 5: Cullen, Helmstetter, Bass, Smith-Blum

2) 6:35 Council position 2: Conlin, Ginsberg

3) 6:50 Council position 6: Kaplan, Licata, Israel

4) 7:10 Council position 4: Bagshaw, Tobin, Carver, Plants, Bloom

5) 7:35: Council position 8: O'Brien, Williams, Forch, Miller, Royer, Rosencrantz

6) 8:05 Mayor: McGinn, Donaldson, Nickels, Mallahan, Garrett, Drago, Campbell, Sigler

7) 9:00. Thanks. Disband.

This is an all mail election: ballots mailed out around July 30th - return them by August 18th.  Registration by mail, and address changes, deadline was July 18.  If you are not registered in Washington State you may register in person by August 3.  For more information see: http://www.kingcounty.gov/elections/registration.aspx or call 206-296-VOTE (8683)

Don’t forget to register to vote! July 18 is the deadline for registering online http://www.kingcounty.gov/elections/registration.aspx

Or you can register up until Monday, August 3 in person at the King County Elections Office. http://www.kingcounty.gov/elections/aboutus/directions.aspx

Central Area & Capitol Hill Election Forum: 6 - 9 PM Monday July 27th @ Mt. Zion Baptist Church, 19th & Madison.

Front page story in today's Seattle Times: Starbucks on 15th is reopening soon as "15th Avenue Coffee and Tea". Didn't we hear that news around here on CHS, say back in June?

Somewhat ironic that the Seattle Times article also reports that Starbucks executives was snooping on (and emulating) local businesses:

Victrola Coffee Roasters saw the Starbucks people a lot more often.

"They spent the last 12 months in our store up on 15th [Avenue] with these obnoxious folders that said, 'Observation,' " said Victrola owner Dan Ollis.

He thinks it's interesting that they spent all that time in his shop, which serves wine and beer, then applied for a liquor license to sell wine and beer at 15th Avenue Coffee and Tea.

Can we expect the Seattle Times to start getting more like CHS soon?