Feb 22, 2009

Trees on John Street to go

Alas, the big old trees outside the new townhouses under construction at 1920 East John Street are flagged to be removed.

They're very old, clearly rotten and don't seem to have ever been pruned properly. Big chunks fell off them in the last windstorm (and in previous storms, as I recall). Hence they are tagged to be removed (and replaced).


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Looks like the City tried to make the builders keep them: access to the townhouse garages is via a steep driveway, off the alley to the west of the townhouses. The logical driveway cut is on John, but was blocked by one of the (now to be removed) trees. If the tree issue had been resolved earlier, access would have been easier and the condo owners to the north would have been spared a driveway right next to a couple of their units. So it goes: it seemed obvious that the old trees were on their last legs, but maybe DPD didn't see the obvious.

Feb 17, 2009

Oscar Night at the Bottleneck

Now that the Twilight Exit has moved to 25th/Cherry, the Bottleneck is our only neighborhood bar, so we'd better nurture it....

Feb 15, 2009

No News is Bad News: be heard!

(Facebook event link)

On February 26, 2009, King County community members will gather in the Bertha Landes room at Seattle City Hall to discuss the state of the news industry and the future of journalism. The event, titled "No News is Bad News: Seattle As a No-Newspaper Town?" was conceived and planned by a group of local bloggers, journalists, and news readers.

The event is free and open to everyone. Registration is currently open online with two hundred seats available:

http://nonewsisbadnews.eventbrite.com/


No News is Bad News will feature a panel of speakers, but the focus of the event is on listening to feedback from the community. Attendees should arrive expecting to be part of a discussion where they can share their concerns and comments. Following the event, a summary of the proceedings will be published online and shared with the community.

With newspapers beginning to fail as a result of both the internet and the current recession, bringing the state of news to the forefront of the community conversation is more important than ever.

The panel features such prominent thinkers as Jay Rosen, professor of journalism at New York University, Kathy Gill from About.com and the University of Washington, sports columnist Art Thiel from the Seattle Post-Intelligencer and Cory Haik, director of content for seattletimes.com.

For more information about the event, visit http://www.nonewsisbadnews.org, or contact Dylan Wilbanks at wnalyd@gmail.com.