South End City Council Candidates Forum

My neighbor Lisa-Marie, my Sierra Club pal Brady, and I hung out in the sadly booze-free Georgetown Ballroom last night for the South End Candidates Forum.



Hopefully The Paper Noose, in the row in front of me, will provide you with a thoughtful recap of the night's proceedings. I only have time to post snarky comments right now.

Tried hardest for South End cred: David Della, who reminded us that he's from Beacon Hill at least twice after I started counting.

Shamelessly name-checked: Jean Godden and Sally Clark, who both mentioned they'd attended Walt Crowley's memorial service.

Most shamelessly name-checked: Venus Velasquez, who said she'd just been on the phone with Peter Steinbrueck and that he wanted to say hi to everyone.

Most egregiously misjudged her audience: Jean Godden, who proudly claimed that Georgetown was "poised to be the next Pearl District" or "Fremont, the Center of the Universe."

Most out of her league: Judy Fenton, who seemed to be a really nice lady, but not quite ready for prime time. [Update: OK, she did seem like she was a really nice lady, but in fact she's the nutty right-winger who's running on the platform that Seattle needs "public art which families are comfortable with" (her own words, in the Municipal League questionnaire). Thanks, anonymous commenter, for pointing this out.]

Best-looking candidate: Venus Velasquez, by a mile. Rowr!

Best-looking audience members: the group of young firefighters (supporting Burgess?) who passed out Red Hots and Sweetarts after the meeting. Ssss!

Most likely to get e-mail from me about adding Jefferson Park to the list of protected viewpoints in Seattle Municipal Code 25.05.675: all of them, because they all said they supported it, or were likely to support it if they knew more about it.

Jefferson Park in the News

Thanks, Kat Marriner, for this incredible photo of the view from Jefferson Park.



Kat and a bunch of other neighbors in the Jefferson Park Alliance have been working tirelessly for years and years and years to turn Jefferson Park -- the site of two reservoirs that are currently being lidded -- into the type of beautiful public greenspace that the Olmstead brothers envisioned for it 100 years ago.

After helping fight the Parks Department's plans for erecting a dozen 100-foot light poles at the top of the site and then fighting the Department of Planning and Development over the construction of a huge T-Mobile cell phone tower in the corner of the park over the last year and a half, I'm thrilled that the park development is finally starting to get the kind of recognition it deserves. From a story in today's P-I:

Jefferson Park on Beacon Hill is becoming the stuff of neighborhood dreams, thanks to years of citizen activism and city of Seattle inventiveness.

I don't want to speak too soon -- because, if I've learned one thing from living down here in the South End, it's that once you start to think you're out of the woods, you're likely going to have to fight off yet another big mean bear -- but, OMG, HALLELUJAH.

Hey, city council candidates, if any of you are reading this, be prepared to tell me what you think about Jefferson Park and that view shown above tonight at the South End Candidates Forum. Do you think that panorama -- which affords views of the Olympics, Puget Sound, the Space Needle, the Smith Tower, the downtown skyline, Mt. Baker, and the Cascades -- deserves the same sort of protection as the views from 80 other parks and playgrounds in the city listed in Seattle Municipal Code 25.05.675? (Stumped? I'll give you a hint: YES.)

Bye-bye, Boeing Surplus Store

Gather ye air tools while ye may. The Boeing Surplus Store is closing on December 21.

That's where we got this classy-looking container, the new home of our little raspberry patch.

Pirates of the Caribeacon at Beacon Pub Tonight

Parking Strip Planting on Beacon Hill

My future sister-in-law (hurray) planted this parking strip outside her house at one of the intersections on 15th. Thank you! I love this.

Hawthorn Tree Outside City Hall

A coworker of mine is a smoker, and I've started hanging out with her when she goes outside to smoke because I like her and I like outside. Yesterday I talked her into walking across the street to City Hall to light up, and she asked me what this tree was. I told her I didn't know but that I would take a picture so I could find out.



But then we noticed that the fine City of Seattle folks tagged it for us. English Hawthorn.



Then we went back to work.

Fall Morning in the U-District

This morning I went to the Farmers Market in the U-District, my first Seattle neighborhood.





I miss all the hippie yards.



I'm a peaceful and cowardly person, but I think if I saw a person spray-painting a tree, I'd want to kick their ass.









Doesn't "Sweetbread" mean brains? I'd never heard of this little local vineyard before. I gambled on the cheapest white and red.



Then I went to Esquin Wine Merchants and lollygagged in the Loire whites section before finally settling on Cheverny. What I really wanted was a Sancerre, but apparently Cheverny is another steel-fermented Sauvignon Blanc wine from the Loire Valley, and it was $10 cheaper than the Sancerres. Hopefully it will have that minerally taste that I love so much in Sancerre -- we'll see.

Then I suddenly decided that I also wanted a Niagara ice wine for dessert, so I grabbed one from Jackson-Triggs, a vineyard that I blogged but didn't name back in July.