Great day for a race

As happened last year, Mother Nature cooperated by suddenly producing a picture-perfect morning for the Shore Run/Walk event. Thousands of runners, walkers, and spectators thronged the neighborhood today for what was another highly successful fundraising effort in support of Fred Hutch.

Of course the most-fun event for many of us during the Shore Run each year is the Half-Mile Kids' Run. Watching it, that is.

The Kids' Run, sponsored this year by Zillow, brought out legions of parents, grandparents, and assorted hangers-on to witness the expectant faces as the runners readied...

...the initial burst of energy as the starting horn sounded...

...and the adrenaline rush of the runners when the finish line was in sight.

If there were any in the race or on the sidelines not having a good time, we didn't see them them.

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Remember: Shore Run is tomorrow

The neighborhood will be disrupted for a good cause on Sunday morning as the 34th Annual Shore Run/Walk takes place to benefit the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center. The 5K and 10K events each terminate in Madison Park, and the Half-Mile Kids' Run will also utilize some surface streets in the 'hood, so parking and traffic flow through the area will be impacted.  Lake Washington Boulevard and McGilvra Boulevard E. will be closed to traffic at 7:45 am along the route and will not be reopened until the last runner or walker crosses the finish line (in the area of E. Madison Street and 42nd Avenue E.). Everyone should be across by 11:30.  The Kids' race takes place at 10:15 am, beginning at the intersection of 43rd Ave. E. and E. Howe Street.

Volunteers are still needed.  If you'd like to participate, call Judy Curran at (206) 328-4828 (jurrran2@msn.com).

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New York Times does Seattle

It's not every day that a Madison Park establishment is mentioned in the national media, but the Madison Park Conservatory merited this honor today in the New York Times, whose reviewer, Frank Bruni, created a Seattle tasting menu based on his experiences during the several days he spent in our mostly-rainy-though-briefly-sunny city. His story, which will presumably appear in tomorrow's printed edition of the Times, cites MPC as "an excellent recent arrival to the shores of Lake Washington" and calls the brunch he was served there "fantastic."

Bruni's take our town's culinary standing is worth quoting at length: "To eat in and around Seattle, which I did recently and recommend heartily, isn’t merely to eat well. It is to experience something that even many larger, more gastronomically celebrated cities and regions can’t offer, not to this degree: a profound and exhilarating sense of place.  I’m hard-pressed to think of another corner or patch of the United States where the locavore sensibilities of the moment are on such florid (and often sweetly funny) display, or where they pay richer dividends, at least if you’re a lover of fish."

You can read the full story here.

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Tracking down a rumor

Multiple tipsters have contacted us this week asking what's the story on the sudden appearance of bank guards at the Madison Park branches of both BofA and KeyBank. Is there some threat we should know about?

We can confirm that the guards are present in both locations, but each bank is giving the same reason as to why:  this is just the normal rotation of guards among that bank's branch network. It's sort of a showing-the-flag effort, presumably resulting from the fact that costs are prohibitive for banks to have guards at all branches at all times. So they rotate the guards around the system. Or so the story goes.

Though it does seem rather coincidental that two different banks would decide to send guards to Madison Park at the same time,  it's worth noting that when we checked today there were no guards at either Chase's or Wells Fargo's bank branches. We're therefore assuming that there's not some neighborhood-wide bank issue which warrants an investigation on our part.  And besides, the likelihood is rather low that any bank would confirm to a blogger that it has some a vulnerability for which beefed-up security is necessary.

If something newsworthy does happen at one of our bank branches, we'll let you know.

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The Seattle Times: late to the party

MLK sale is suddenly big news

Commentary By Bryan Tagas

If there were an award for ringing the fire bell after the house has burned down, the Seattle Times would surely be deserving of a nomination today for its front-page story concerning the School District’s sale of Martin Luther King, Jr. Elementary School last year. The paper’s breathless coverage focuses on the questionable decision-making process by Seattle Schools and the conflict of interest which may have existed because of ties by District decision makers to the low-ball bidder, First African Methodist Episcopal Church (FAME).

Ostensibly, from the point of view of the Times, what makes this story suddenly worthy of this high-profile treatment is the fact that the State Auditor’s Office has announced it is looking into the situation.  But what really makes the case potentially juicy for the newspaper is the possible involvement in the School’s decision-making process of the now notorious Fred Stephens. That’s the man, as readers will recall, who famously failed to supervise ex-furniture repairman Silas Potter, the guy who eventually took down School Superintendent Maria Goodloe-Johnson last year.

We now know a lot more about some of the players than we did at the time the School Board decided the MLK School issue.  Presumably this knowledge informs the Times’ new sensationalist approach to the MLK story--a story that many people, in and out of the media, were pretty well aware of before the State Auditor got involved.

One may legitimately ask, “What did the Times know and when did it know it?”  Surely the paper was aware that the School District was about to sell MLK for “a song” (to quote today’s headline) well before that sale actually took place.  If the paper had covered the story then as it covered it today, it would have provided the public service of shining a light on a very flawed process.  The Times also knew, or should have known, that there were legitimate procedural questions about the sale that had been raised by the opponents.  Included on that list was the fact that the School District did little due diligence with regard to FAME’s proposal to purchase the property.  We reported this bombshell as part of our own coverage of the MLK sale (Ron English, the School District’s in-house lawyer, telling us that no analysis was undertaken).

Before the School Board voted, what did the Times actually do with the information at its disposal?  It buried it on the inside pages, running a perfunctory story about the upcoming sale.  Why would the paper do that rather than beat the sensationalist drum it so recently discovered?  Well, it’s only speculation on my part, but when the MLK situation should have been big news the Times was editorially supporting passage of the $48 million Seattle School levy.  To do a story on the District giving away School assets “for a song” would have potentially undermined the paper’s effort to see the levy passed. Surely the Times would not have wanted blame for causing a levy failure.

But maybe that’s unfair.  Perhaps this was simply a case of slipshod journalism—the failure to follow a story to its logical conclusion.   Whatever the reason, mainstream media failed to do its job, with the Seattle Times squarely in the forefront.

What makes the MLK sale a big story is not just the possibility that School official Fred Stephens may have wanted to sell the property to a Church at which his father was once the pastor—or even that he may have used undue influence to see that that sale ultimately occurred.  If any of these allegations is true, this conflict-of-interest angle is certainly worthy of reportage.

What’s an even bigger story, however, is the one that’s based these facts:

• Our cash-strapped School District sold a valuable asset for a pittance 
• The process for vetting the various School-purchase proposals was critically flawed 
• The taxpayers of the State (through Legislative appropriation) ended up paying for a church to acquire public property that could much later be resold by that church without any repayment to the taxpayers

Today the Seattle Times’ kicker (that line of copy just above the headline) screams: “Seattle school district passed up millions to favor low bidder in sale of Madison Valley school.”

NOW you tell us!

[The former MLK Elementary School site acquired by FAME is located at 3201 E. Republican St.  Photos show the current condition of the buildings on the property.] 

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Crime watch

It’s that time of year again

One morning last week we awoke to discover something strange about the bags of used clothes we’d deposited on our street corner the previous night for pick up by the Northwest Center truck. Though we had put out three bags for the charity, only two remained. One of them, perhaps the one containing the Cole-Haan shoes, had been stolen during the night.

Later in the week a neighbor reported that two suspicious characters had recently been observed standing in the yard of her neighbor’s house. When accosted, the men had taken off, one of them jumping a fence to make his getaway.

Then there was that photo sent by another neighbor recently, showing a car up the street that had been broken into the previous night.

As we’re noted many times before, good weather seems to prompt an increase in criminal activity in the neighborhood. We’re now at that time of year where we remind everyone that leaving windows open, ladders leaning against the house, and doors unlocked while you work in the yard is simply inviting trouble.

The best way to keep crime down is to be vigilant. Later this week we’ll recycle an anti-crime posting we did last year, one that contains some timely words to the wise.  In the meantime, here’s some scuttlebutt that we’ve picked up that may have some salutary value.

First of all, it appears that the Seattle Police have stepped up their routine patrolling in the neighborhood in the wake of the armed robbery incident last month.  We learned of this from another neighbor, have seen evidence of it with our own eyes, and have followed up with the police to confirm the story.

Officer Raymond Taylor, one of two officers who regularly cover our police beat (known as Charlie 3), reports, “My personal patrol focus has shifted more towards proactively enforcing public drinking and marijuana use by juveniles after the reported robbery behind the Tennis Club on April 29th. Street level drug use attracts small-time drug dealers who commit crimes such as armed robbery.”

With regard to crime prevention, Officer Taylor says “I give to the residents of Madison Park the same tips I would give someone living on Broadway: get to know your neighbors and REPORT SUSPICIOUS ACTIVITY!!! When the police capture criminals, it is often because of alert citizens who see suspicious activity and call 911.

The hot crime in Madison Park seems to be nighttime car prowls as of late. Car break-ins are generally not random. Your basic car prowler will only target cars that obviously have loot to take. It is super easy to avoid getting your car broken into. DON’T LEAVE VALUABLES IN YOUR CAR!!! Sounds simple, I know, but I am always amazed at how many GPS screens I see visible on the dashboards of parked cars.” 


Officer Taylor also encourages everyone to check out the safety and crime-prevention tips available on the Seattle Police website.

Criminals are known to case the neighborhood, looking for vulnerabilities.  An MPB reader emailed us late last month about a suspicious evening visit to her house by someone claiming to be from ADT, the electronic security vendor.  She did not let the person into her house; and when she called ADT to ask about the solicitation, she was told it was unlikely that anyone representing ADT would be calling that late in the day.

Finally, just to make the point about vigilance being key, here’s a useful story from a resident of Montlake, who posted it to that neighborhood’s listserv:

“The police asked us to pass on information about a burglary at our home so that neighbors step up their awareness. On Saturday morning, 5/14 at about 12:15 am, our house sitters walked in on a burglary in progress in our home. 

The burglar(s) had entered our garage by a side door and used our ladder and emergency flashlight to checkout the house. They did this even though there were two cars parked in our driveway. 

All but one of our windows has stops on them so they only open a few inches. The one window without is hung in such a way that the stops cannot be installed. They used a screwdriver to open the window and entered the house-taking two TV's and a laptop before they were surprised by our friends.

In addition it appears they searched through our grill to see if we had a key hiding in there.

No one was hurt and they ran away as soon as they heard the house sitters come into the house.

This same type of burglary happened to our neighbors down the block about four weeks ago. They arrived home late at night and surprised the thieves as they were still in the house.

 We have neighbors in back of us and on either side of our home who can see into our back yard, but of course they were all asleep. Unfortunately, our dog was with the house sitters and not at home either. We have a “beware of dog” sign as well as an alarm company sign in the yard (but no alarm) and obviously they were not scared off by them.



The detective says [housebreakers] have been pretty brazen but run as soon as they are discovered. He suggested 1) locking garage doors and cars even if the cars are in your driveway, 2) make sure all windows have stops on them so they cannot be opened 3) not leaving electronics (i.e. laptops and IPhones) out where they can be seen.”

Live and learn.

[Morning-after car break-in photo by Graham Fernald, showing the scene at McGIlvra and Galer in late May.]

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Pit Bull "Honey" not dangerous after all !

This is a shocking story of which we were unaware until it was pointed out to us today by an alert reader.  It seems that back in February, the Pit Bull that attacked and injured three women on a Madison Park sidewalk last summer was declared not dangerous. The dog is therefore allowed to live with its owner inside City limits without restriction. When we last reported on the situation in October, the dog, named Honey, had been declared dangerous by the Director of the Seattle Animal Shelter.  As a result of that decision, her owner was required to either euthanize Honey or remove her from Seattle and place her in a secure facility.

Didn't happen.

The successful appeal by the owner of the Director's decision was reported by the Seattle PI this morning.  The website's story, actually, is not about Honey, but about another Pit Bull case involving a dog in Magnolia that  bit off the lip of its victim.  That dog, like Honey, was ordered banished from the City or killed, but the owner has appealed that ruling and apparently may win a reprieve.  The fact that Honey's owner was able to appeal and win is cited as a precedent for the Magnolia Pit Bull case.

According to the PI report, at issue is the City's dangerous-animal ordinance, which narrowly defines the term "dangerous."  Honey caused injuries to two of her three victims that were sufficient to send them to the Emergency Room.  Yet the examiner hearing Honey's appeal found that the injuries were not sufficiently serious to warrant a "dangerous animal" designation for Honey.   Hence she is free to be.

Last we heard, Honey was living in West Seattle.

[Upper photo:  Honey when captured by Animal Control officers in August.  Lower photo: injuries of one of the victim at three weeks after the attack.  More background on this story is available here.]

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