Lake City Visioning Project Open House

Date and Time:  Saturday, March 30th from 2:30 to 5:30pm
Location:  Lake City Library conference room

The University of Washington students who have been working on the Lake City Visioning Project will be holding and open house to showcase their work to date. The students have been working on design concepts for the Pierre Properties and a "tool kit" to assist our community with urban planning.

In addition, a Landscape Architecture class at the UW is currently in progress. Students from that class will be at the Open House sharing their work as well. They are working on 16 different concepts for specific projects throughout the Lake City area. The  projects are looking at:

Improvements to specific parks, including but not limited to the Lake City Mini Park, Homewood Park, and Little Brook Park.

Right of Way improvements to specific streets to improve safety and usability.

Connecting our parks, trails, nature areas, business district, and other public assets with a unified and well marked trail system. Included would be public art to help create a sense of identity and place, a signage program unique to our neighborhood, interpretive exhibits describing unique features of the Thornton Creek Watershed, etc. 

Everyone is welcome to attend. It is informal, so drop in when you can and stay for as long as you like. This is still an ongoing process and the students are looking for more community feedback and ideas.

You can follow the Visioning Project on their blog.

North Helpline Upcoming Events

The Lake City Lions are sponsoring an Italian dinner fundraiser for North Helpline on Friday, April 19th at the Lake City Community Center.

The dinner starts at 5:30 and goes until 8:30. Tickets are $10 for adults and $5 for children. You can order tickets for an Evening in Italy here.

North Helpline is a service center that provides human services to over 1000 clients each week in an effort to reduce the impact of hunger and poverty in Greater North Seattle. You can learn more about them here.

A calendar of other fundraising events for North Helpline is below:

Men 'selling magazines' raise suspicions of multiple neighbors

A pair of men have been visiting homes in our neighborhood the last few days, knocking on doors and engaging residents that answered with a magazine sales pitch.

We want to preface the following that these men may be completely innocent and actually selling magazine subscriptions.

However, a few things made a few DPC neighbors suspicious of the men.

First, the two men approached the homes in a suspicious manner. A third man was seen walking with them, appearing to stand watch nearby with a cell phone at the ready.

When met by neighbors, they said they were students selling magazine subscriptions with money going to a program to augment their educational fees via community outreach.

The materials provided were vague and unprofessional.

Also, a neighbor did a web search of their organization and were unable to come up with the name they gave for their organization.

One of the men was said to be someone that has been seen lingering at Virgil Flaim Park.

They are described as 2 African American men, ages 30 +, about 5'-6". One wore a blue down jacket and a baseball cap with a straight brim.

Again, and we stress, these men may be completely innocent and genuinely be selling magazines. However three community members found their actions and method suspicious.

Man discovered trapped overnight in wrecked car on edge of ravine

John Shearer came outside to an unusual sight in his yard just off Hiram Place NE, south of Virgil Flaim Park on Tuesday morning. There was a wrecked car in blackberrry bushes, on the edge of the ravine, pointing downward into Thornton Creek far below. When Shearer went to investigate, he discovered a man trapped in the car, laying under the dashboard. The man had been there all night.

Firefighters arrived after Shearer called 9-1-1. They had to cut the roof and steering wheel from the car to free the 67 year-old man.

Shearer said that cars often drive down the driveway, led astray by GPS devices that seem to be unable to make sense of streets around the ravine near Hiram Place NE. News crews using GPS devices even had a difficult time finding the location as some ended up on the southwest side of the ravine.

The man was transported to Harborview Medical Center in stable condition, according to Seattle Fire Department Spokesman Kyle Moore.

The Seattle P-I has a post with photos showing firefighters rescuing the man and showing the car after the rescue in their post here.

Update: Photo added (below) from other side of ravine, courtesy of a neighbor.

 

PHOTO: Spring is coming

The sun had a pretty nice run on Sunday morning. Clouds seem to be moving in this afternoon, but the warm, bright rays earlier in the day were a good sign that winter is ending— at least these crocuses (and my allergies) are pretty sure that the seasons are changing.

More info on Shelter at Lake City Baptist

DPC received more information from Lake City Baptist about volunteering and screening at the Lake City Baptist Church UGM Winter Shelter. The following is a response from Hannah Olufs from the church. You can reach her at houfs@gmail.com

Thanks for posting our hosting of overnight guests starting Wednesday. We do need volunteers to come in at 5:00AM-7:00AM to fix a simple breakfast, serve our guests, and clean-up. To clarify, we serve our guests the hot portion of our meal (oatmeal), and they can help themselves to coffee/juice. We set the table for our guests. Guests are not allowed in the kitchen. If they want something heated, we use the microwave and bring it back out to them. Our kitchen is not large, so we have that rule for everyone's safety.

We are very excited about this opportunity to help people in our community.Your readers could help us fill "to go" bags for the morning. We would like to send our guests with a lunch bag with energy bars, bottled water, trail mix, nuts, small packages of crackers with peanut butter, or anything healthy, with protein if possible, that is easily carried. Those food items are just a suggestion. If anyone cares to contribute, they can knock on the church door, and if anyone is there, we will open it. If it is between 7:00PM and 7:00AM, the back door of the church is open. If none of the above, anything left on the front porch of the church is safe.

In regards to screening, Hannah said that all guest must have a Washington State ID. In addition, all guests will be checked against the Registered Sex Offender database. If they are on the database then they are escorted off the property, given a bus ticket and directed to the downtown Seattle Union Gospel shelter. Whether they would accept intoxicated individuals is still an open question.

DPC has requested that the church and their operational partner - UGM - provide us with information about any individuals that are turned away so that we may be aware of their presence in our neighborhood if they decide to linger.

PHOTO: Crows fly overhead at sunset

The sky is filled with crows passing over Lake City on Monday, Feb. 25th.

We see them every night. Just as the sun starts going down, hundreds, perhaps thousands, of crows make a daily trip over our neighborhood.

But the mystery is where do the flocks of birds that pass overhead like clockwork fly to roost every night?

If you know where they fly to, tell us in the comments.

Update: A commenter below said there is a large roost of crows in Kenmore. UW Bothell will host a talk on Thursday, March 15, 2012 with John Marzluff about the roosting behavior and other interesting aspects of crows that live in the Seattle area.

More info about the talk can be found here: www.facebook.com/events/233173693442016/

Thanks for the info! 

Update: It has also been noted that the talk invite says 2012 on it. So don't add it to your calendar yet until we can confirm the date.

Residents discuss Lake City Greenway proposal at meeting

Janine Blaeloch gives a presentation during the meeting.

 Lake City residents gathered for a meeting on February 21st to discuss a proposal for a pedestrian- and bike-friendly "greenway" along 27th Avenue Northeast.

The route, which would run from NE 145th Street to NE 125th Street, has been proposed by the Lake City Greenways project with the help of community members searching for safer ways for pedestrians and bicyclists to negotiate our neighborhood and its lack of pedestrian infrastructure—sidewalks.

Most of the people that attended the meeting were residents that live on 27th Avenue NE and wanted to understand how the proposed greenway would affect them and to voice concerns about altering the quiet neighborhood street.

People were vocal at the meeting, both in support of the project and with concerns—mostly about speed humps, emergency response times and the expense of altering the road.

Residents worried that the addition of speed humps, elongated and gentle traffic slowing devices, would encourage drivers to drive over gravel parking easements in an attempt to avoid the humps.

Residents discussed adding stop signs and speed-detecting cameras along the street—the benefits and issues with both were discussed. People at the meeting said they wanted safer access to the Lake City Hub Urban Village for elderly and disabled people. And proposals for street murals in Lake City were met with support during the meeting.

"People want to understand better what it might mean for their street," said Janine Blaeloch, a neighborhood resident working with other community members to bring safe routes via greenways to our neighborhood. "Most people just want information," she said.

A presentation on the Lake City Greenways proposal is posted below. You can read a previous story we wrote about Lake City Greenways and how it can help transform some of our streets here.

Rotating Winter Shelter coming to Lake City Baptist

Lake City Baptist Church will begin hosting a winter homeless shelter starting next Wednesday, February 27th and running through March 15th. The shelter is for adults only and will be providing services between 7pm and 7am. The services include dinner, sleeping quarters for the night, and a breakfast. Union Gospel Mission will be providing sleeping cots and staff to assist.

Rowen Headington and Hannah Olufs from the church are the contacts. DPC asked what the community can do to volunteer hours and resources. Rowen indicated they may need help with cooking oatmeal and coffee around 5am. We will report back with more specifics on how to volunteer when we get more information.

Lake City Baptist Church on 125th and 25th

Eating / sleeping quarters on lower level of church

Messages of love at Kaffeeklatsch

Valentines Day is upon us. In the spirit of love, Kaffeeklatsch has put up blank canvases, in the forms of paper hearts on their wall. On the hearts, customers are asked to leave messages to their true love.