Leschi
The Leschi Community Council’s June 3 meeting will feature City Councilmember Kshama Sawant and Sen. Pramila Jayapal, of the 37th District. The two women will reflect on their first terms in political office, particularly the challenges, frustrations and the victories, big and small. A Q-and-A session will follow.
The discussion will be preceded by a brief announcement from Seattle Department of Transportation’s Luis Ramirez, who will talk about the planned sewer relining and replacement along Lake Washington Boulevard this summer.
The meeting will take place Wednesday, June 3, starting at 7 p.m., at the Central Area Senior Center (500 30th Ave. S.).
— Diane Snell, co-president
Madison Valley
The Madison Valley Community Council will host a candidate forum at The Bush School (3400 E. Harrison St.) on Monday, June 8, at 7 p.m. The forum, which will take place in the gymnasium, will feature the candidates running for the City Council District 3 position, as well as the two at-large seats on the City Council.
The at-large seats face a citywide vote, while district candidates face the electorate in their own district. These will be the names that will appear on the August primary ballot, where each race will narrow down to the two top winners in the primary.
Madrona
At the invitation of Madrona Grace Church (832 32nd Ave.), the May Madrona Community Council meeting took place in the newly refurbished Madrona Commons space within the church. The church welcomed council members, neighbors and representatives from the Seattle Department of Transportation (SDOT) and Metro Transit into a high-ceilinged, open room with a partial second-level tier surrounded by a balustrade, lots of dark wood detailing and architecturally appropriate sconces and chandeliers.
The SDOT team presented the much-anticipated and long-awaited final report on Sidewalks and Trees. This resulted from SDOT’s national and international study of approaches to maintaining tree cover while also ensuring safe, ADA-compliant sidewalks. Madrona’s 34th Avenue was one of three case studies that spurred the research and report. Two copies of that report are now available for reading and reference at the Madrona-Sally Goldmark Library (1134 33rd Ave.).
Draft agenda items for the June 2 meeting included a recap of Mayfair; planning for a Madrona summer concert series in the park; solicitation of ideas for the coming year and the summer board meeting; and available updates on the Move Seattle levy, the Metro/Bus Rapid Transit proposal and sidewalks/trees progress.
— Reprinted with permission from MCC’s Madrona News newsletter
Madison Park
The Madison Park Community Council (MPCC) does not endorse political candidates, particularly for the sake of community harmony, and it cannot anyway because of its current 501(c)3 nonprofit status (changed from a 501(c)4 just a few years ago.
MPCC does, however, try to offer potential candidates a forum to present their platforms to our community. Of particular importance to our neighborhood at this time is the upcoming vote for Seattle City Council, Position 3, as the city switches from at-large positions to primarily neighborhood representation.
This month, we will hold a joint forum with the Madison Valley Community Council at The Bush School (3400 E. Harrison St.) at 7 p.m. on Monday, June 8. We expect to have the one announced Socialist and four announced Democratic candidates in attendance; there is no Republican contender. Theoretically, the position is nonpartisan, but that is not how it is playing out.
A preview of this forum was on display on May 12, up the hill on Madison Street, at Mount Zion Baptist Church (1634 19th Ave.). There was a turnout of approximately 250 people. The five candidates explained their positions on various subjects, including the newest inner-city concern, namely that of potential rent control.
Like ours, the forum was to have been jointly sponsored; in this case, it was advertised as a project of the 43rd and 37th District Democrats, but at the last minute, the 37th pulled out because it saw an inherent conflict with allowing a Socialist candidate to speak.
One week later, on May 19, the 43rd District Democrats held it candidate endorsement meeting. The result for the council District 3 seat was “no endorsement.”
Please come to The Bush School on June 8 and ask what you will of the candidates and then vote in the primary elections.
A mid-May meeting with Brady Walkinshaw, our junior state representative for the 43rd District, at the Victrola coffee shop on 15th Avenue, elicited the encouraging news that we have been able to have some language added to the proposed Washington State Department of Transportation budget that would allow for the study of a potential direct, eastbound state Route 520 on-ramp, to replace the existing on-ramp in the Washington Park Arboretum when it is demolished.
The current plans call for accessing SR 520 eastbound by crossing Montlake Boulevard, yet the Montlake intersection is already a nightmare. We are crossing our fingers that this amendment to the budget survives all the review processes.
The large turnout at the MPCC board meeting at the Park Shore Retirement Community (1630 43rd Ave. E.) a month ago to hear the latest iteration of Metro Transit’s proposed bus route changes — especially regarding our beloved No. 11, and all the community concerns expressed at that meeting — has produced a consensus by the MPCC board. We expect to transmit our detailed findings to Metro in the immediate future.
In essence, Metro has proposed routing the No. 11 straight down Madison to the waterfront, then turning around and coming straight back again.
In summary, our consensus is that this change will be less advantageous to the Madison Park community than keeping the alignment as-is, on the Pike-Pine couplet.
The most recent MPCC board meeting took place on June 1 at the Madison Park Bathhouse (1900 43rd Ave. E.), after this issue went to press. A report on this meeting will need to wait until the Madison Park Times’ next issue.
— Maurice Cooper, president