Neighbor Appreciation Day, February 9th

Saturday, February 9, 2013, marks Seattle's 19th annual Neighbor Appreciation Day.

This is a day when we can reach out, create new bonds, and express thanks to those who live or work around us.

The celebration began in 1995 when Phinney Ridge activist Judith Wood suggested that the City designate "a special day to celebrate the goodness in those around us and to reach out and strengthen our bonds to each other."

Seattle Mayor Norm Rice then proclaimed the Saturday before Valentine's Day as Neighbor Appreciation Day. The observance has grown every year since.

So what can you do on Neighbor Appreciation Day?

Here are some suggestions:

• Plan an activity for your neighborhood such as a block party, potluck, or work party. This website provides ideas, tools, resources, and templates to help community members organize an activity. Once scheduled, the event can be posted to the events calendar. 
• Attend one of the many community activities listed on the events calendar. Many Seattle Fire stations along with Seattle parks and neighborhoods are hosting celebrations and work parties.
• Send Neighbor Appreciation Day e-cards to your neighbors. The selection features artwork from past winners of the Neighbor Appreciation Day Student Art Contest.
• Share a story or two about your favorite neighbors. Community members can post stories about great neighbors or their neighborhood.
• Share the photos of your activity with us on flickr.

Information from www.seattle.gov/neighborhoods/neighborday/

Tim Burgess supports a Comprehensive approach to Lake City

Back in the mid to late 90's, hundreds of Lake City residents and business owners worked many hours with the city to develop the Lake City Comprehensive Plan. The overarching theme of the plan was to “create an atmosphere of safety”. There was concern at that time that increasing density would bring urban problems to the area. The Plan was to mitigate them by providing physical improvements to our public areas and supporting positive commercial and recreational uses of our neighborhood.

Many of the requests were for sidewalks, open spaces, a new community center, ways of improving people’s perception of Lake City so they will get out of their cars and walk / shop, crime prevention through design, etc. All these are needed just as badly now as they were 15 years ago.

Our public spaces are where we form connections with our neighbors and we need to feel safe using them. The current conditions are an impediment to us forming a sense of community and identity.

At the Full Council meeting on Monday, a resolution was passed to review and further implement our neighborhood plans. Later that day, Councilmember Tim Burgess wrote a letter to city staff regarding Fire Station 39 and our neighborhood Comprehensive Plan.

The letter emphasized a comprehensive approach that honors our neighborhood plan as well as our feedback that we have given at the two Public Involvement Plan meetings ( here and here ) regarding the concentration of extremely low income housing and the lack of other much needed assets and services - like sidewalks, civic space, and recreational programming.

In addition, the letter directed the city to:

- Create a status report on our Comprehensive Plan ( full plan here / adoption matrix here ) to review what has and has not been completed as well as updating the city contacts for each action item. 

- Create a report on current efforts to increase safety, economic development, and housing opportunities for a variety of income levels ( mixed income model ). 

- Provide a timeline for an update to our Neighborhood Plan.

- Look at the Pierre Visioning efforts when updating the Plan. 


An update of this policy document will help us rethink and / or re - emphasize our needs in a way that the city can act in a coordinated effort with us to realize them. We have a significant opportunity here to participate in the development and governance of our neighborhood and we should seize it. Many things being discussed now have the potential to bring millions of dollars in capital investments to our neighborhood: the Pierre's stated intent to redevelop their property, the BEX IV ( if it passes ) will be providing millions of dollars for new schools and remodels of nearly every school in our area, and  the possibility that we would get a high priority for a new community center on the next Green Space Levy are all near realities that will significantly and positively impact our community.

Open publication - Free publishing - More comp plan

DPC block party singer featured on David Letterman last night

Recently we wrote about Ray Dalton, the Seattle singer that joined members of Douglas Park Cooperative for our annual block party and helped lead our kids parade with his powerful voice.

Along with local hip-hop artists Macklemore and Ryan Lewis, Dalton's memorable voice has shot to the top of the charts with the track "Can't Hold Us."

Well, last night Dalton, Macklemore and Lewis were the featured artist on the David Letterman Show in the Ed Sullivan Theater. Their performance was flawless. You can see the video below. Watch until the end to see how Letterman mixes up the artists and creates a mildly awkward moment.

North Helpline thanks community, needs continued support

Recently our own Lake City North Helpline went through a crisis.

In December KING/5 reported that 2012 was the worst year yet for the food bank. They serve more than 1,700 people a week and giving from corporations and foundations was down. Donations at the time were also dwindling.

North Helpline Executive Director John Klevins looked at the numbers and realized something drastic had to happen for the organization to continue to operate. So he stopped drawing a salary in October and some staff took pay cuts so the emergency services and food bank could continue helping people in tough situations.

"This food bank is about love. This food bank is about transforming lives," Klevins told KING/5.

This week the organization sent out an update letter saying that because of an "inspirational" level of community support during the crisis, they have returned to their full array of food bank and emergency services.

But the letter also stresses the need for continued donations. 

"Of course, now that we have moved beyond our financial constraints of 2012, our focus must be placed on creating a new and more robust financial future," said the message to donors and the community.

The message also reminds who North Helpline's clients are. They are your neighbors, friends, family members and those you see in your community.  They could be any one of us.

"It just takes one lost job, a few missed mortgage or rental payments and a bad illness and we could all be in our long lines."

You can learn more about North Helpline on their website by clicking here.

You can donate here.

The KING/5 report is embedded below.

Lake City Library Calendar on DPC website

A screen shot of the Lake City Library calendar on their website

The Lake City branch of the Seattle Public Library regularly hosts educational programs and events. Some of these are events that would benefit many in our community. The challenge sometimes can be to get the word out.

This is something we have heard from neighbors and event organizers many times. It can be difficult to know all that is going on in our own community.

People in our neighborhood are working to solve that problem.

The Lake City Library has a wonderful online calendar and we have embeded the RSS feed from their calendar on the right column of the Douglas Park Cooperative website.

To find out more about a particular event just click on the item in the RSS feed and the details will pop up. We hope to have a similar feature from the Lake City Community Center in the future. The exchange of information is an important part of what will better our community.

Update: We have also imported info from their calendar into our Google calendar featured on the right of our website. But we are unsure if it will automatically update so that is a test of the data.

Neighborhood support needed Monday evening for skate spot

Click this image to view larger and to see ideas for the skate park

Correction: An earlier version of this post had an incorrect number date. The meeting is in fact Monday the 28th.

Members of our community will give a presentation to the Seattle Parks Department Levy Oversight Committee Monday evening, January 28th, to make a case for a skate spot at Virgil Flaim Park in our neighborhood.

A funding application was reviewed and scored and this presentation may be one of the last opportunities to make a case for funding for the neighborhood skate spot as it seems the funding may not be approved.

Here is how you can help:

Come to the Levy Oversight Committee meeting tonight, Monday, January 29th.

Visibly show your support for Lake City and a proposed skate spot.

Bring a skateboard, wear a LCW sticker from Elliott Bay, help make our community visible to the decision makers and let them know that a skate spot would bring much-needed life to a park that is often a hangout for chronic public inebriates.

The meeting details from organizers are below:

6:00 - 6:45: Open House: display table for committee members
7:00 - 9:00: Sometime in here, we have a slot for a 3 minute presentation.

Where: Northgate Community Center, 10510 5th Ave NE

Stand with us at our display table during the open house to demonstrate neighborhood support and/or stick around for the presentation and stand with us (with your LCW sticker) during the presentation.

To learn more about efforts to build a skate spot at Virgil Flaim park go here:  www.skatelakecity.org

2013 Farmers Market extending hours

Our friends over at Families for Lake City have an update about the 2013 Lake City Farmers Market.

The community website reports that the Lake City Farmers Market, one of the favorite annual traditions in our neighborhood, will return to 2013 with longer hours.

The market is planning to be open every Thursday from 2:30 to 7:30, from June 20th to September 26th.

The market previously opened at 3:30. The addition of the extra hour also comes with a slightly shorter overall season.

You can learn more about our neighborhood farmers market on their website here.

You can get regular updates from Families for Lake City by liking them on their Facebook page here.

LCW, as seen from the International Space Station

The Seattle metro area as seen from space. (Click for larger)

You have likely seen this image in recent weeks. It was sent from the International Space Station by Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield in a tweet from hundreds of miles above as the space station passed over Seattle. The image made the rounds on social media and local blogs when first published. The astronaut has become quite the Ansel Adams in the sky with his stunning photography of land and city scapes.

Well, if you look closely at the image of Seattle you can distinctly see our neighborhood, defined by Lake City Way, on the outer limits of Seattle. Click the image above for a larger view that clearly shows Lake City Way and our business core at the top right edge of the image.

Lake City Way is highlighted in red in the cropped version of the image at right. Lake Washington can be seen to the right of the red line showing LCW. Green Lake can be seen near the bottom left end of the red line.

As we all know, Seattle is a great place to live. But who knew our amazing city and even our corner on the outer limits looked so good from space.

PHOTO: Unique character seen on LCW

It is the unique, and even sometimes the odd, that makes a place interesting and defined.

Lake City has a few quirky and unique elements that help to define the neighborhood (although we could use many more).

The old bank facade, aka the "Arc de Lake City," at the Mini Park at 125th and LCW is one that comes to mind.  Also the giraffe near the intersection of 30th Avenue NE and LCW is an element that breaks up a drive along the arterial roadway.

The steel sculpture in front of the Verizon Wireless retail store and the boulders with fins in the median of LCW are works of art that help to give our neighborhood some character.

The almost iconic neon sign on Lake City Powersports and Dick's Drive-In's neon give a bit of color to our neighborhood during these dark and dreary days.

Well it seems we have another quirky thing to add to the visual elements that make LCW a bit different that the endless stretches of commercial-lined highways we all travel everyday.

This guy (below) has been making appearances on the road near the intersection of LCW and NE 123rd Street.

Kaffeeklatsch celebrates second anniversary, helps change neighborhood

Some of the staff at Kaffeeklatsch celebrate the bakery/coffee shop's second anniversary with a party

On January 15th, Kaffeeklatsch celebrated their second anniversary as a fixture in our community. In the two years since the little neighborhood business has been serving steaming lattes and baking their tasty bread, they have helped to significantly change our community.

A message written during an anniversary party for Kaffeeklatsch.

Now we realize that is a pretty big statement to make about one small business in a neighborhood with an active business core. But Kaffeeklatsch has really become the "third place" that so many neighborhood businesses strive to become.

The community planning principle of the "third place" says that people have their home —their "first place"— their place of work —the "second place"— and the "third place" —a social gathering place separate from those other two environments.

Kaffeeklatsch has become for many in our community a third place, a hub where neighbors gather, interact, exchange ideas and talk about their community.

Discussions and ideas about the future and the direction of Lake City are exchanged much more easily with the help of the neighborhood gathering spot. For example, before the business opened, people with spare time would have to reserve a room at a public community space and schedule a meeting to plan and discuss our community. These meeting had a much more formal feel and had to be often planned far in advance.

Now customers are regularly heard discussing the neighborhood. Meetings, debates, ideas and discussion are now more spontaneous and inclusive. Groups can gather and talk there without having to find and reserve a more formal space (although it is polite to let them know if a big group is coming.)

Lake City Greenways is unveiled at Kaffeeklatsch.

In fact many of our neighborhood's most significant ideas and plans in the past two years have been born and sculpted at the coffee shop and bakery.

There are many things happening in Lake City, much behind the scenes, that will likely lead to a much more livable, walkable, safe neighborhood in the future. There are many active people in our community we will have to thank for their hard work in years to come. But for now, we thank the small business that gives them a place to gather and create their ideas of a better community.