April 2014

Information provided by King County Wastewater Treatment Division

King County’s contractor finished work on the 80-year old sewer pipe in south Ballard about a month ahead of schedule.

Shilshole Avenue N.W. will be fully open to traffic on the night of Friday, April 4.

The work had closed the Shilshole Avenue N.W. westbound lane near N.W. Dock Place since January.

The contractor put a new lining in the pipe. The new lining will help keep the pipe working to serve north Seattle into the next century.

The sidewalk detour will stay in place until the project is finished later this spring. Pedestrians should continue using Ballard Avenue Northwest to move around the site (see map in attached).

King County appreciates the community’s patience during this work.

FOR MORE INFORMATION:
24-hour Project Hotline: 206-477-5371
Website: Visit www.kingcounty.gov and search “Ballard Siphon”

Information provided by the City of Seattle

Couldn’t make it to Comprehensive Plan Update Open House and Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) Scoping Meeting on March 24?

No worries, we have scheduled five more open houses across Seattle. Drop in to learn about anticipated housing and job growth in Seattle over the next 20 years. We are especially interested in your take on the three planning alternatives proposed for study in an EIS. Are these the right alternatives to study for future growth? Are there additional topics you want included in the EIS? We’re taking comments through April 21. We will review and analyze your comments which will help us finalize the alternatives that will be studied.

We hope you can attend one of these meetings. If not, catch up with the latest news about Seattle 2035 at http://2035.seattle.gov

April 7
5:30 - 7:15 p.m.
Loyal Heights Community Center
2101 NW 77th St
Seattle, WA 98117

April 8
6:00 - 7:45 p.m.
Northgate Branch Library
10548 Fifth Ave. N.E.
Seattle, WA 98125

April 9
6:00 – 8:00 p.m.
Youngstown Cultural Arts Center
4408 Delridge Way SW
Seattle, WA 98106

April 14

Information provided by Food & Water Watch

On Tuesday, April 1st, at 2 p.m., Seattle City Council will vote on a resolution supporting a federal ban on the misuse of antibiotics on factory farms. Seattle could become the first city in the Pacific Northwest, and among the first in the country, to pass such a resolution. The rampant use of antibiotics on factory farms is linked to increased antibiotic-resistant infections in humans. In a recent report, the Center for Disease Control estimated that over two million people per year suffer from antibiotic-resistant infections, and at least 23,000 die from them.

What: Seattle City Council will vote on a resolution, co-sponsored by Councilmen Mike O'Brien and Nick Licata, in support of federal action to protect antibiotics, potentially being one of the first cities in the country to do so.

When: Tuesday, April 1st , 2p.m.

Where: Seattle City Hall, Council Chambers (2nd floor), 600 4th Ave, Seattle WA 98104

Information provided by Ballard High School

Four short films by thirteen students in the Ballard High School Digital Filmmaking Program have been named Official Selections of the National Film Festival for Talented Youth (NFFTY). This competitive festival showcases outstanding work by filmmakers age 22 and younger. NFFTY is a rare opportunity for high school students to share the spotlight with college students from our nation’s best film schools. This year NFFTY will feature 214 films from 30 states and 15 countries. Screeners made the selections from a pool of 800 entries. NFFTY opens at the Seattle Cinerama Theater on Thursday, April 24 and continues through Sunday, April 27 at the Seattle Center.
These short films by Ballard High School film students have been selected for screening.

Song for Anna by Lucy Harstrick, Isaiah Hoban-Halvorsen, Josh Vredevoogd & Kiana Wyld Stop Pretending by Marlene Anderson, Khasbold Bataa, Gabe Fabens, Zach Green & Lorenzo Rossi

Then & Now by Enjuli Chhaniara (’13), Dayan Flynn-Walsh (’13) & Ana Krafchick (’13)

Seattle Mayor Ed Murray will gather with neighborhood business district leaders to celebrate and announce the City’s Only in Seattle investments in 18 neighborhoods.

Neighborhood business districts receiving funding and support include: Ballard, Beacon Hill, Belltown, Capitol Hill, Central Area, Chinatown / International District, Columbia City, First Hill, Fremont, Georgetown, Lake City, MLK (Othello & Graham), Pike and Pine Downtown, Pioneer Square, Rainier Beach, Roosevelt, South Park, and University District.

WHEN: Tuesday, April 1, 2014 – 1:15 p.m. – 2:15 p.m.

WHERE: Bastille Café and Bar in Ballard
5307 Ballard Ave NW, Seattle, WA, 98107

· What: 36th District Town Hall

· When: Saturday, April 5th from 10:30am – noon

· Where: Demaray Hall, Room 150 at Seattle Pacific University - 509 West Bertona | Seattle, WA 98119

Topics up for discussion are the successes and failures from this past legislative session ann issues the community wants to discuss.

The event is free and open to the public.

By Cindi Rinehart

After 80 years of service of the West Seattle Grand Parade, one of the community's signature summer events, the American Legion Post 160 is passing on the stewardship of the event to the West Seattle Rotary Club.

The West Seattle Rotary Club's West Seattle Parade is scheduled for Saturday, July 19 at 11:00 AM.

Parade planning has already been underway for a couple months. Jim Edwards and Dave Vague will continue in their capacities as parade coordinators. A new address and phone number will be established soon, and applications will be in the mail in the coming month. In addition to the grand parade, the Rotary Club will continue to fund and operate the Kiddie's parade that precedes the main event. Also on the parade route that morning will be the 3rd annual Float Dodger 5k.

Due to the economic down turn of 2008 and the Legislature unable to provide funding, King County Metro Transit is facing dramatic cuts to bus routes.

The cuts will make up for an estimated $1 billion in projected revenue lost in sales taxes, a main contributor for Metro.

Starting in June, Metro will have to cut 17 percent of its services. 74 bus routes will be eliminated and another 107 others across the county will be revised or reduced.

Metro currently provides 400 thousand rides a day and the cuts will effect 80 percent of riders by having to wait longer and walk further to bus routes. Moreover, the cuts could mean a loss of an unprecedented 14 million rides annually.

“Riders already face crowded buses, and our growing county and economy needs more bus service, not cuts,” said Metro Transit General Manager Kevin Desmond last November.

“Temporary funding and reserves run out next year (June 2014) – and those were part of how we kept service running through the weak economy after the Great Recession,” Desmond said.

Sales taxes provide the bulk of Metro funding and the sales tax receipts are still below the 2008 levels according to Desmond.

This National Geographic film that frames the story of our planet’s changing climate by documenting the disappearance of glaciers.

Burien, Washington (April 1, 2014) - To celebrate Earth Day on April 22, the Highline Historical Society is presenting a screening of "Chasing Ice" (www.highlinehistory.org/Programs.html), the National Geographic film that frames the story of our planet’s changing climate by documenting the disappearance of glaciers. In 2005, photographer and climate change skeptic James Balog launched The Extreme Ice Survey, deploying time-lapse cameras across the Arctic to capture a multi-year photographic record of the changes in glaciers. Compressing years into seconds, these time-lapse photos irrefutably demonstrate that glaciers are vanishing at an astonishing rate.

"Chasing Ice" captures Balog’s evolving understanding of the severity of climate change, and also includes the story of the young adventurers who assisted the photographer in carrying out this project under brutal conditions.