Presidents' Message
One of the highlights of the month was our Holiday concert on December 2. Four awesomely talented Garfield students played for an hour in the Senior Center Solarium and what an hour it was! Adrian Steele played a very long solo piece from memory: no music sheets to guide him. And Riley Calcagno switched quickly from classical mode to use his violin as a fiddle and perform a plaintive Appalachian song. After that, the talented Riley picked up a banjo for a fast paced number that left Dueling Banjos in the dust! Thanks to Adrian, Riley, Alexandria Chuang and Sophie Morada for an evening we will long remember.
A group of concerned folks met on December 5 to review the Park’s RFP (Request for Proposal) to privatize the moorages. We compiled our concerns and a letter was sent from LCC and Leschi Market to the current manager of the Parks’ moorage. See the update on page 4.
Our December Board meeting was cancelled by an unscheduled power outage that kept the area in the dark for many hours; we went out at noon and came back on shortly after midnight. We completed council business by email after the power was restored and voted unanimously to endorse a of support letter that the Central Area Neighborhood District Council was sending to the Housing office for the Capitol Hill Housing project on Union where the Key Bank was formerly located. This project would provide some much needed low income housing to an area that is rapidly being gentrified and forcing out lower income folks. CHH has worked with the neighborhood to incorporate some of the history of this site where the first black-owned bank once stood: Liberty Bank.
In January, we like to print updates of our parks and it is usually good news: what has been accomplished by volunteers and the occasional grant, but this year except for the Leschi Natural Area, there are more concerns than victories. Usually our nemesis is a bureaucrat, but this time it is anonymous members of the public wreaking havoc on our parks. See the update in the following pages.
One of your presidents, Diane Snell, met with our Art Critic, Susan Platt and Carolyn Walden who was once known as the “Fountain Lady” to strategize for the preservation of the neglected fountain in the plaza at 23rd & Union (site of the old big post office and now the new tiny post office.) See the story on page 4. We suppose our next concern will be the site of the post office as that large corner property is sold to a new developer. We hear that Vulcan is interested in the Promenade property; change seems to be constant.
And speaking of change, we have reluctantly given up our attempts to alert residents to the traffic issues on our website as SDOT plans and then cancels intersection closings. It is better to go to their website or just Google 23rd Ave. construction to see the latest news before you leave the driveway.
Be the change you want to see in the world. ~Gandhi
~Diane Morris & ~Diane Snell