The boy thing
By Lauri Hennessey
We have a son who came to us after two girls. That means he has gone to Camp Fire with me for five years. It also means he sings in the chorus with his sisters, sells Camp Fire candy at Thriftway, and watches musicals.
First ladies - maybe even first gentlemen
By Georgie Bright Kunkel
First ladies over the years have played their respective roles, some having a great deal of influence. An early first lady was quick to remind her husband not to forget the ladies when his attention was on equal rights for men in our Constitution.
Eleanor Roosevelt rose above the snide remarks made about her looks to assist her husband who, because of his disability, could not be as active in the presidency as he would have wished.
The angst over remodelling Chief Sealth High School and building a new Denny Middle School adjacent has some good argument on both sides, but this is a simple case of the cost for anything will skyrocket if the School Board dithers.
The $125 million project was approved by voters one year ago as part of a $490 million bond issue. The ballot measure specifically said that Sealth would be upgraded, not completely rebuilt along the lines of what the district did with West Seattle High School a few years ago.
Team seeks to improve record
By Dean Wong
With the season half over, the Ballard Beavers boys basketball team is looking to improve on it's fifth place standing in KingCo's Mountain Division.
Ballard is 1 and 6 in league play and 7-6 overall, after losing to Franklin 58-42 last Friday. The Beavers hosted South West Roos, a team from Australia on Jan. 8 and beat the visiting team 63-37.
Under the bright lights of Key Arena on Dec.
chosen in secrecy
An opinion on two questions raised in Mathew Miller's article (Jan.9, 2008, "Selection process hit on viaduct group"):
How were the committee members chosen and what is this committee supposed to accomplish?
Since 30 members were chosen largely in secret by the three most socialistic liberals in the area, it is certain there will be no conservative input.
As to accomplishment, can anyone possibly expect 30 diverse special interest representatives to come to an agreement on anything?
Bureaucracies are not constructed to ar
History is what a community thinks it is, and we think the former Denny's will be a far better gateway to Ballard than another rather shapeless and characterless condominium designed in cookie cutter fashion by developers seeking to cut costs, not design unforgettable buildings.
We believe the city's Landmarks Preservation Board should vote on Feb.
Tough talk on the viaduct replacement seems to be a reversal of decision. After the 2001 Nisqually Quake our governor and Legislatures allocated $2.8 billion for the viaduct replacement. This was a firm promise in regards to the public safety. Seven years passed and we still don't have a viaduct replacement and we won't until a new option is decided by 2012, some 11 years later. Looks as though the safety of the public was put on hold.
The two options on the table are a surface street/transit and an elevated structure. We have both now but not to the liking of some.
Having lived in Ballard for many years - I'm now in Missoula, Mont., and we just saw the last Denny's here disappear - I'd have to seriously say as an architect (having just seen interior views) that this building is definitely worth saving, There's always politics and money, but at some point, you've got to say "enough."
Our desire to express fun in design is worthwhile, not silly. The building anchors the corner and says, "Welcome to middle class Ballard." Not too differently than the Bardahl sign or even the Space Needle does for Seattle.
With his goals set high and his appointment book filled with meetings, Eric Nelson, the new executive director of the Nordic Heritage Museum has been busy.
"I've hit the ground running. It has been a whirlwind, meeting the board, stakeholders and neighborhood organizations. I was given a list of 250 organizations and it will be my priority to go out and meet people," said Nelson. He started his new job on Jan. 2.
Nelson has big shoes to fill, replacing long time director Marianne Forssblad, who helped found the museum 1980 and built the museum from the ground up.
The Seattle City Council passed legislation to update Seattle's noise ordinance to ease conflicts between noisy bars and nearby residences.
The new noise thresholds are still to be determined by the city's Department of Planning and Development, but the updated code will include a set of financial penalties for club and bar owners found to be in violation.
Council member Sally Clark, who chairs the committee in charge of reviewing nightlife laws, said the current noise code is inadequate because it's based on subjective measurement standards.
"The way the code
