Club Chocolate City dealers convicted

Though the mills of God grind slowly, yet they grind exceeding small; Though with patience He stands waiting, with exactness grinds He all. Friedrich von Logau

From the January 14th P-I (thanks, Seadevi for noting the first report):

Seattle woman gets 5-year federal prison sentence

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

SEATTLE -- A federal judge in Seattle today sentenced a 42-year-old woman to five years in prison for distribution of crack cocaine, her second conviction for drug dealing.

Debbie Ann Wilson, of Seattle, served two years in prison after being convicted in 1997 of conspiring to sell two kilos of cocaine.

At Wilson's sentencing today, U.S. District Judge James L. Robert told her that drug dealers were a "scourge" on society and warned her that if she was caught selling drugs again, "they'll be carrying you out (of prison) in a box."

According to a plea agreement filed Aug. 2, 2007, Wilson sold crack cocaine to a confidential informant working for the Drug Enforcement Administration on three separate occasions last year at or near the former Chocolate City nightclub in Seattle. That nightclub was closed in February, 2007.

She was arrested on June 11, 2007, and indicted on July 11, 2007.
_______

Seattle man sentenced to 70 months in prison

Associated Press - January 7, 2008 6:45 PM ET

SEATTLE (AP) - A Seattle man has received a 70-month prison sentence in U.S. District Court for distribution of crack cocaine.

At 32-year-old Knute Golidy's sentencing today in Seattle, Judge James L. Robart told him that he needs to turn his life around in prison. The judge emphasized the violence that surrounds drug dealing.

According to records filed in the case on Feb. 28, 2007, Golidy sold crack cocaine to a confidential informant working for the Drug Enforcement administration. Golidy met his customers in Club Chocolate city, a now-defunct Seattle nightclub that was a notorious hangout for drug dealers.

The club closed in February 2007.

_______

And yes, the Police do try other things first!

2311 E. John St & 2320 East Madison Street: Land Use

This recent DPD decision gives the go-ahead for a three-story, three-unit townhouse structure at 2311 E John Street. You can read the DPD decision document and you have till 11/19/07 to lodge an appeal, should you wish. The project underwent Administrative Design Review (no public meeting).



The project abuts a larger proposed project (#3006349) at 2320 East Madison Street: a four-story, mixed use building with five apartment units over 1,245 sq. ft. of commercial. The project had a public Design Review hearing on 3/21/07, and will presumably have one more before it's approved.

Come to the Twilight Exit for "Happiest Hour"

From the Stranger's "Happiest Hour" feature we learn about the last call ritual at the Twilight:

Blood-curdling "last call" evacuation tactics: The bouncer's occasional revving and waving of a (bladeless) chainsaw.

Here's the review, and here are links to the Twilight's menu, and here are many Stranger mentions of the Twilight!

Despite the address given (2200 block E. Madison), one might presume that this Capitol Hill Times Police Log report may be about the Twilight.

2051 E Madison St Design Review info

The City Department of Planning and Development (DPD) is now posting more information about the Design Review of building projects on their website.

Here is the Design Review Early Design Guidance report, and the applicant's very informative slide show, from the first (9/19/07) Design Review hearing for Jim Mueller's East Madison Street project. (BTW here's the report for his 23rd/Union project).

Here's what I previously reported about the meeting, together with some pictures of the architectural model of the project.

There will be at least one more similar meeting, in the coming months, at which you can offer your guidance.

22nd & Madison development: Design Review

The Sept. 19th Design Review meeting for Jim Mueller's proposed development of the Twilight Exit / Oscar's II site at 22nd & Madison went very smoothly. Both the Design Review Board and the (small number of) neighbors present seemed very impressed with the project. I'll post the Board's report when it's available.

Jim described his plans to research and memorialize the music history of the neighborhood in the new building. The architects from Mithun then described several alternative plans for a six-story mixed use project on the site (most of the site is zoned 65', a bit of the south end is 40'). Everybody preferred their first scheme. Below (thanks to Jim and Mithun) are a copy of their illustration of it, and a couple of my pictures of their model .

(click on any image for larger copy)

My only real concern (echoed by René Soulard) was that the garden terrace was buried in the building and did not benefit from the stunning view of Mount Rainier that the site offers. Below are a couple of views from the adjacent "Views at Madison Park" apartments above the Safeway.

Local Madison Street Bars to patronize

Flyer below (click on it for legible version) is by request of the Bottleneck Lounge. Here are more details.

And to give equal time to the "competition", did you know that the (soon to be redeveloped) Twilight Exit was voted "Best Dive Bar of 2006"?

And note that you can VOTE in the 2007 poll!

Club Chocolate City's closing brings hard-earned quiet to Miller Park

6/27/07 Capitol Hill Times article about our neighborhood is finally available online.

Don't miss Bradley Enghaus's photo gallery of the area.

Land Use Application:2331 E Madison St

Land Use Application to allow one live-work unit and one, two-unit townhouse structure. Residential parking for two vehicles provided one within the structure and one surface.

Details on DPD website

Miller Park article in Capitol Hill Times

Article about closing of Club Chocolate City, problems at 23rd/Union etc in the 6/27/07 Capitol Hill Times.

If you weren't old-fashioned enough to get a paper copy, here's the electronic version and a photo gallery. There's an interesting snippet at the end of the article:

Another issue that remains is the fate of the now vacant property in the spot formerly occupied by Chocolate City and Deano's market. Vulcan developer James Mueller has purchased the building across the street from the Chocolate City site, and has plans to develop a six-story mixed-use building housing both retail and residential.

Mueller said by phone he doesn't have any plans for the Chocolate City site, which he points out is still owned by Dean Falls. King County records indeed indicate that the property is owned by Falls' company, DEF Inc., and that the account is active and currently subject to or in foreclosure due to an outstanding property tax balance.

Reminder & Poster for development meeting

Here's a choice of flyers to post and share with friends and to remind you about next Tuesday's meeting with the developer who's going to be redeveloping properties at 23rd & Union and along Madison. The City Design Review Hearing for the 23rd/Union project is Wednesday June 27th.

Meet with developer of Madison and Union Street projects

On Tuesday, June 19, at 6 P.M., Jim Mueller, who proposes to develop the site of the former Coleman Building (at 23rd and E. Union) will meet with us to talk about that site and other locations in the area that he proposes to develop, including a site on E. Madison St (2051 E. Madison) where the "Twilight Exit" is presently located.

The meeting will be from 6 to ~ 9 PM at the Central Cinema (1411 21st Avenue), and light refreshments will be served.

These sites are key to the Central Area and East Madison Street redevelopments and this meeting is an opportunity to talk to the developer and members of the design team in a more informal setting with more opportunity for exchange of ideas and information than the DPD early design guidance meeting for the 23rd & Union project (which is scheduled for June 27.). Such "pre-meetings" worked well for the Safeway development, and I encourage you to participate.

As I noted earlier:

I might add that I have been extremely impressed with Jim Mueller, a developer who's involved both in the Madison corridor and the 23rd & Union area. He's met with many of us, turned up at a neighborhood cleanup, and is clearly sensitive to many of our issues as well as those of others in the area. He's selected an architecture firm that we've had positive experiences with, and I think we'll all enjoy working with him to guide our neighborhood in its inevitable redevelopment.


If some of the text here seems more cogent than normal, it may be because I'm blatantly plagiarizing the Squire Park group's announcement of the meeting, though I could not resist putting my oar in to undo some of their good work.

Strip Clubs along Madison?

On Monday the City Council approved new zoning laws [KING 5 report, Seattle Times article] regulating the location of new strip clubs in Seattle, the rationale for which is given in the appendix to the legislation. See Councilmember Steinbrueck's webpage for other documents.

The new rules prohibit strip clubs near each other, or within 800' of schools, parks, community centers, child care centers, parks or open spaces. The supplied map of Seattle (CARE: large complex file) shows (in yellow) the very few places they will be allowed. I note that one of the closest such sites to downtown with good transportation [other than the South Lake Union/Seattle Center area] is the blocks of Madison between 19th and 21st. Some of that area has been redeveloped [Planned Parenthood, McKinney Manor] but Dean Falls' unoccupied properties (the former Club Chocolate City and Deano's Market) would appear to be eligible for use as "Adult Cabarets". One more thing to watch out for, I guess.

Lobbying City Council to amend the ordinance to include churches in the list of buffer areas would keep strip clubs away from our area.

Note that I may be being overly alarmist here, if we believe this quote from the Seattle Times article:

Two businessmen testified Monday against the new rules, saying they drove around the city with the new zoning map in hand and could not find any suitable place to open an "old-school cabaret" with an emcee and performing women.

"My partner and I hopped in our car and I drove to every spot" where clubs are allowed under the new rules, said Lucas Wunsch. "There is nothing."

Saturday Central Area Plan Meeting

I recently drew your attention to a meeting this Saturday to re-interest neighbors in the Central Area Neighborhood Plan (1:30 to 3:30 PM Saturday, Garfield Community Center, 23rd & Cherry).

My previous post started with a facsimile of a postcard sent out by the Neighborhood Plan Implementation Team. Several of the bullet points (OK, frowny-face points, ☹) on the postcard appeared critical of developers. The team wants to emphasize that they are aware of both well-intentioned and less well intentioned developers, and were not wanting to paint with a broad brush.

I might add that I have been extremely impressed with Jim Mueller, a developer who's involved both in the Madison corridor and the 23rd & Union area. He's met with many of us, turned up at a neighborhood cleanup, and is clearly sensitive to many of our issues as well as those of others in the area. He's selected an architecture firm that we've had positive experiences with, and I think we'll all enjoy working with him to guide our neighborhood in its inevitable redevelopment.

I invite you to come along on Saturday to talk about the Central Area Neighborhood Plan, and how we can use it to guide our neighborhood in the direction we'd like to see it go.

(As noted, in part, before). The Madison-Miller area took part in neighborhood planning as part of the Central Area plan process from 1996 to 1998: the resulting general plan is posted on the City website together with the scary and incomprehensible "Approval and Adoption Matrix" .

The Madison-Miller area, with the guidance of some very talented consultants, also produced its own Master Plan as part of the planning process, although it was never posted online by the City. I have now scanned and posted the Madison-Miller Master Plan: see the "Madison-Miller Neighborhood Plan" list of links, on the right of this page, just below the "Miller Links" list.

(Just found this great 1 page explanation of the Comprehensive Plan and Seattle's neighborhood planning efforts!)

For a flavor of the neighborhood planning process, check out the Spring 1996 "Miller Times" For some early results of the planning, see the Fall 1999 "Miller Times" and City's 2004 Fact Sheet on the plan.

Previous views of where the plans might be going are in the 2004 Priority Report and the 2005 Priority Update, which seem to be the City's last obvious neighborhood plan related activities. Councilmember Clark (a Neighborhood Plan Steward in a previous life) has expressed special interest in auditing and updating neighborhood plans. You can watch a video of the 5/19/07 Neighborhood Plan Workshop hosted by Councilmember Clark.

Central Area Plan Revitalization Workshop

(map of Central Area Urban Village planning areas)

Central Area Quality of Life Is Under Attack

Want to do something about it?

What concerns you the most about what is happening in our neighborhoods or the Central Area?

Come find out how the Central Area Neighborhood Plan can help us take control of our community’s destiny and the Overall Quality of Life in the Central Area

Saturday June 9, 2007
1:30pm - 3:30pm
Garfield Community Center
2323 East Cherry St

☺ Programming that Creates and Promotes Positive Activities and Environments for our Young People
☹ Negative Impact on our infrastructure, traffic and parking problems due to zoning changes and over development
☹ Flooding and/or other property damage due to the over development or lack of adequate reparations or modifications
☹ Madison St., Jackson Place, other corridors and neighborhoods are under siege by developers who disregard our concerns?
☹ Shrinking green spaces and urban trails to keep our neighborhoods healthy?
☹ Are Developers developing you out of your home?


Co-sponsored by:
Central Area Neighborhood Plan Stewardship and
Seattle Parks and Recreation

(The Madison-Miller area took part in neighborhood planning as part of the Central Area plan: the resulting general plan is posted on the City website together with the scary and incomprehensible "Approval and Adoption Matrix" .

The Madison-Miller area, with the guidance of some very talented consultants, also produced its own Master Plan as part of the planning process, although it was never posted online by the City.

I have now scanned and posted the Madison-Miller Master Plan: see the "Madison-Miller Neighborhood Plan" list of links, on the right of this page, just below the "Miller Links" list.)

Power pole down: E. Madison Street blocked

It's the block of East Madison Street just east of 23rd. Lots of Police cars but no drug dealers: it's a downed power pole, hit by a truck, that's causing all the action on Madison. The P-I initially said a car did it, and there's a crushed little car on the street, but it's hard to believe that such a little thing could bring down such a sturdy looking pole (and the P-I update mentioned a truck) . And we heard a Police officer telling someone that it was a truck.

Sadly, the Bottleneck has lost power for the evening, and Crush looks closed also.

East Madison Street Redevelopment

The closing of Deano's Grocery Store may herald a great wave of redevelopment on East Madison Street in our area.

Marching east down the street, here's what I know:

1) 1700 E. Madison Street: the Trader Joe's building. Permits for the apartments at the rear of the Trader Joe's building are still pending?

2) 1818 E. Madison Street: the "Fratelli's" site. Val Thomas is a very well respected Seattle architect and builder, who built the 19th Ave lofts a few years ago. His plans for the redevelopment of the "Fratelli's" site were approved years ago (but not implemented) but he recently noted:

....the status of our project at 19th and Madison. We are now fully permitted and hoping to proceed. I will let you know as things fall into place.

His presentations at Miller neighborhood meetings, and the Design Review meetings, are exhaustively documented on the old Miller website. I think it will be a fine addition to our neighborhood. Here's the DPD page. Project will have 134 apartments, 170ish parking spaces and retail on 19th.

Go see the cows before they go away.

3) 2040 E. Madison Street: Dean Falls' property. Bar and store closed, site pretty much empty. Rumors abound about Dean demolishing and building, selling etc. Just checked the County website: still belongs to DEF Inc. No bulldozers yet. Here's what I know about plans for the property, here are pictures of the models and plans. and here's another Miller page about it.

4) 2051 East Madison Street (the new "Twilight Exit") had "For Sale" signs on the building for some while, and now does not. Property had been sold (check the King County website) but no signs of planning for redevelopment yet.

5) 2216 E. Madison Street (the Madison Temple site ) also had "For Sale" signs for a long time, but now does not, but has not been sold (according to the King County site). The site has been fenced: somebody may have an "option" on it, although the realtor's website is still active. The Miller website has details of all the Design Review Hearings etc (in 2001) that led to the Master Use Permit for the project.

Note that the rezoning of the property from 85' to 65' means that the exisiting plan for an 85' building (and no other) is "grandfathered in".

Fratelli's Cow Mural: enjoy it while you can!

For about 20 years we've all been enjoying the cow mural that's painted on the old Fratelli's ice cream factory at 19th & Madison. The site will probably be developed soon (details), so I suggest you all go and admire the cows while you may.

In 1992 the owner of Fratelli's, Mr. Peter Morse, shared with me some details of the mural, which was painted by his brother, and I'd like to share them with you now, so that you can better enjoy the mural.
Here's a Seattle Times art critic's column from 1987 about the mural and its creation and here are some notes from the artist about his work, and here's a link to a Seattle Times article about the Fratelli's ice cream company.

The Quicktime VR files I made of the whole wall doesn't seem to work well anymore.

Here's a link to a folder containing all the photos I took of the cows (in April 2007)

Below is my amateur attempt to preserve the mural: a Quicktime VR panorama of most of it. It no longer works in Quicktime on the Mac but does work with the (old) RealPlayer on my Mac. (seemed more high-tech in 2007!)

Here's the Quicktime VR file: cows.qt

I recall cycling to work to the Hutch on First Hill, back in 1987, and watching the mural evolve a little every day. It's been a wonderful addition to our neighborhood, and I'll be very sad to see it go. Let's hope the developer manages to incorporate the image into the new building.

Update: July 2017

Occasional interest in the Cows continues. The Fratelli's building was demolished and replaced (in ~ 2011) with an apartment building (the Lawrence Lofts). Architect Val Thomas honored the cows both on the construction crane (and apartment website) but also in a little mural on the Madison side of the building.

Streetview version of the new cows: https://goo.gl/maps/4jgPbZgFdzk

Orignal cows on Streetview: https://goo.gl/maps/BeTj48vjCi12

Better Streetview version: https://goo.gl/maps/xESLym3u2y92

New cows are pleasant but no substitute for the originals.

Construction pictures:

Deano's Rumor Mill & Public Records

Rarely a week goes by without someone reporting that Dean Falls' property on Madison is about to be knocked down and redeveloped. Two reports today:

Yesterday I noticed a fridge sitting on the sidewalk outside of the old Twilight Exit. Are they cleaning out the place in anticipation of demolition?

I was out for a walk & I stopped into Deano's Grocery yesterday and the place was almost totally empty of merchandise. I asked the clerk if they were closing down and he said they were closing next week and that the building would be demolished. Is this true?

I checked with a property developer whom I know to have been negotiating with Mr. Falls for over a year and he had no comment.

Mr. Falls received his Master Use Permit to redevelop the property on March 31st, 2005, but has not done so. Here and here are details of the development plans, and here is a photo album of the design.

So, if Mr. Falls is not going to develop it himself, we will know that something is happening when we can see, in King County records, that the property has been sold.

Open the King County Parcel Viewer and "search by address": enter "2040" and "Madison" and you'll get a map like this.
Select the "Identify" tool (right margin) and click on any property to identify it and then click on "property report" to see ownership. The red highlighted "Recorders Office: Excise Tax Affidavits Report" link produces actual copies of Real Estate Excise Tax Affadavits, signed by buyer and seller, if the property has been sold recently!

Note the parcel number and go to the King County Assessor's eReal Property System and enter the number to find out more about the property. The "Recorder's Office" link from the eReal record (upper window, scroll down a bit) also takes you to the Real Estate Excise Tax Affadavits.

The King County Property Tax web search lets you look up the name and address of the taxpayer for the property, and will show if they are behind in their taxes and (it appears) might even let you pay peoples' property taxes for them!

From these resources it's clear that Dean Falls' properties are still owned by his company, DEF Inc, so the demolition rumor may be premature (though County records may take a while to be updated).

But if you keep checking on the County records, you'll be the first to know if the property is sold!

I'd be intersested to learn of (and will pass on) any better, easier ways to get this information.

Video of Sally Clark's Committee Meeting at Miller

Streaming Video of Councilmember Sally Clark's Economic Development and Neighborhood Committee meeting held on 3/15/2007 in the Miller neighborhood is now available on the the SeattleChannel website:

http://www.seattlechannel.org/videos/video.asp?ID=2180705

You'll need RealPlayer (or most web browsers) to play it. You can stop, start, rewind and FAST FORWARD!

The first 6 minutes are a very animated introduction from Sally.

From 6 minutes to about 23 minutes, members of the public gave testimony about the Mayor's proposed nightlife ordinance (see the bottom of Sally's webpage), including some very poignant testimony from the Barclay Court community (Seattle Times article). Andrew's testimony (also quoted in the Seattle Times article) is at ~ 15 minutes.

The last 25 minutes of the meeting (2:03:00 to the end) feature a presentation from the Miller Park/MaDCAP community, featuring Andrew Taylor, Jon Vandemoortel and Heidi Ob'bayi talking about present and future issues in the Miller area, Chuck Weinstock from Capitol Hill Housing (talking about affordable housing) and Ellen O'Neill-Stephens, a King County Prosecutor, whose neighborhood taskforce is helping to address the public safety issues along Madison (and now 23rd & Union).

Public Safety issues move to 23rd & Union

After the closure of Club Chocolate City, we were all concerned that the problems might resurface elsewhere in the area. A first snoop around seemed to suggest that they'd just vanished, though there was a report of some of the Madison Street regulars being seen at 2nd & Pike (they'd previously commuted there by #11 bus). However, there are increasing numbers of reports of a disturbing increase in drug activity and violence around the 23rd & Union area.

3/28/07: This evening there was a drive-by shooting across the street from Thompson's Point of View. Two of the bullet entered the Casey Foundation building across the street. This organization supports the needs of foster children.

3/30/07 (very early AM) : Drive-by shooting and car chase: CHS blog, KING TV, Seattle P-I reports.

Neighbors' reports:

incident_type = drug deal drug consumption public alcohol consumption rowdy behavior excessive noise gunfire
description = Here's some feedback about increased activity in other neighborhoods. We live near Thompson's on Union. Last night, about 6 shots were fired. They sounded like they came from 24th ave just north of Pike. (Shots were also fired the previous day in the liquor store parking lot across the street from Thompson's.) There's been a huge increase in drug activity etc around Thompsons since CCC closed. (received via the MPNA web report page).

I have some friends over near 23rd and Pike, who are taking the brunt of the purge of the nasties (nice for us on this side of Madison). I told them that part of our effectiveness was having such a good neighborhood liaison. Are you the liaison for them, or can you refer them to another who can help them keep their family safe? They have small kids.

So, what's to be done? I'll contact the neighbors there, and tell them what we did, and offer what help we can offer. And I await your suggestions...

Yes, yes, yes, I know that we're only treating the symptoms here, and that the BIG issues are racism, poverty, jobs, empowerment, etc, etc. However, we are doing what we can, by supporting Lt. Hayes' GOTS program (which brings support, treatment and housing opportunities to those on the streets) and by lobbying for more effective affordable/mid-level housing programs from the City of Seattle. At the risk of reducing issues to catchphrases:

• Charity (and safety) begin at home
• Think Globally, act Locally.

And don't forget, one bullet can change your whole life.