On Monday night I joined a nighttime walk-about with the Southeast Seattle Crime Prevention Council (SSCPC), a nonprofit community group committed to addressing crime and public safety issues. Roughly 25 neighbors from the Rainier Beach, Beacon Hill, Mt. Baker, and Othello neighborhoods joined security officers from Sound Transit and Seattle Police officers from the South [...]

We’re having an open house this weekend at your City Hall, and I would love to invite you to attend! City Hall will be open Saturday, January 28th, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.   Please come on down and enjoy local music and food, learn about resources the City provides, meet me, my colleagues, and [...]

We held the first meeting of the new Parks and Neighborhoods committee Thursday, January 19, 2012. See the meeting agenda. Our committee attendance was VERY small, due to icy conditions on the roads.  I missed our usual crowd, but I’m glad people were wise and stayed warm and safe at home. One important note for [...]

Yesterday I went to Olympia with fellow Councilmembers Tom Rasmussen, Richard Conlin, and Sally Clark as part of our Seattle for Washington strategy. Being in Olympia yesterday was like being inside a snow globe. Outside, that is. Inside the Capitol Building, it was abnormally calm and quiet because of the weather forecast. We Councilmembers divided [...]

I fully support marriage equality legislation and want it to pass in the Washington State Legislature this year. The reason?  I don’t think it’s fair to say to one group of people, “Yes, you can marry”, and to another, “No, you can’t”. People don’t choose who they love. Gay and lesbian couples should have the [...]

I know this news is everywhere, but here’s a friendly reminder that tolling starts on the 520 Bridge between Seattle and the Eastside on December 29. There’s lots of information out there, but here are a few key things to know.  What are the rates? Toll rates vary by time of day and on weekends. [...]

I want to commend the efforts of the Roosevelt neighborhood. At a time when we hear “NIMBY” tossed about so flippantly, these neighbors did exactly what we wanted of them, and what we asked of them. They created a Neighborhood Plan, accepting–even enhancing–growth and density in Roosevelt, not fighting it. I extend a genuine and [...]

Applications to the Neighborhood Projects Fund (NPF) are due on February 1, 2012. I would like to take a moment to strongly encourage neighborhood leaders to apply. This fund provides a great opportunity to tackle projects that create community, and to promote all kinds of projects, including things like neighborhood greenways. The NPF can be [...]

The 2008 Parks and Green Spaces Levy –thanks to our generous and inspired voters –provided $146 million for parks and green space acquisitions, park improvements, trails, p-patch improvements, shoreline street-end access improvements and urban forestry work. Last week in committee, our Acting Superintendent Christopher Williams gave us an update on how that work has been progressing. [...]

I’ll never forget the day that my friend, Jim Ellis, described a “little project” he was working on called the Mountains to Sound Greenway. The decade was the mid-90’s. Jim, of course, is the hero who has been credited for cleaning up Lake Washington, creating Metro, bringing us a major convention center and so much [...]