One of our readers, a parent of a McClure middle school student, wrote to us concerning the incident of harassment and bullying that occurred last Wednesday between middle school students from McClure and St. Anne School. Kelly writes,

I am a parent of a McClure middle schooler who was NOT involved in the incident on Wednesday. I am sad and disappointed this has occurred. The McClure community has made great strides to improve our reputation in the neighborhood. I truly believe the vast majority of kids at McClure are good kids.  I would like to believe this is an isolated incident but have no way have knowing for certain. I do know that two of the kids doing the bullying involved were Queen Anne residents. This is not an issue of kids from outside the QA community harrassing the St. Anne kids. QA parents, merchants and schools need to support each other. Do not be afraid to step in if you see kids misbehaving. If you don’t feel safe doing this call the police or notify school administration. Often people do not report to the school so administration has  no way of knowing what is occuring outside of school hours. In the past, they have responsive when merchants and parents have reported inappropriate behaviors.

Thanks, Kelly. Post your thoughts in the comments below.

A couple of weeks ago one of our readers wrote in to ask why new brown street signs had been installed along parts 6th Ave W on the top of the hill. Always the curious type, I hopped in my car and drove to the intersection of 6th Ave W and Blaine St to investigate.

Baffled by the signs that were obviously brand new, I began following the road, chasing down every suspect street sign I could all over the top of the hill. I found that there was very little rhyme or reason. 6th Ave W was peppered with these new brown signs from Blaine St. to W McGraw, but were otherwise the traditional green. The brown signs popped up along McGraw, Smith, and a few other streets in Upper Queen Anne, but are rarely consistent.

Determined to find an explanation, I began to call the city, stumping several Department of Transportation employees who suggested the signs indicated trails, one of Queen Anne’s many hidden stairways, or bike paths. “All the street signs in the city are green,” one said.

Scanning the Seattle Parks and Recreation website, I came across a list of Seattle’s Olmsted Boulevards, a number of historic streets throughout the city, named after the Olmsted brothers, who laid the original groundwork for Seattle’s public parks back in 1903 (their father designed New York’s Central Park!). On that list was the “Queen Anne Parkway.”

I finally got a confirmation that these new brown signs did in fact represent the city’s oldest roadways at the SDOT blog. SDOT wrote,

“The brown street name signs highlight the historic Olmsted boulevards that exist throughout Seattle. Responding to a request from the Friends of Seattle’s Olmsted Parks and Seattle Parks and Recreation, brown signs are used when old signs are replaced on Olmsted boulevards. The cross street signs, and other street name signs throughout the city, are being replaced using the standard green style. SDOT is replacing aging street signs through the voter-approved Bridging the Gap levy. We have installed new, larger signs at 3,645 intersections since beginning levy work in 2007.”

So there you have it, the new brown street signs around town indicate Seattle’s historic boulevards. You can read more about the Olmsted parks and boulevards here. To read a great article about the changing street signs throughout the city, see Benjamin Lukoff‘s piece “Fall is in the air, and on Seattle’s street signs,” in Crosscut last week. And the replacing of old green signs with new brown ones, means more worn and torn signs will be available as decorative keepsakes.

(Thanks to Kristie for the tip!)

Do you want to build a park in your neighborhood? Improve a trail or start a community garden? Now you’ll have the chance to use $15 million for community-initiated projects as part of the the 2008 Parks and Green Spaces Levy Opportunity Fund. The funds can be used for anything from buying new park land, to developing a new trail, garden or park or improving upon already existing public spaces. Still in the first stages, the Parks and Green Spaces Oversight Committee is in the process of developing the project fund criteria, with the hopes of being able to take public nominations on potential projects in the spring and beginning building in January 2011.

The oversight committee has developed a draft of the Opportunity Fund Project Criteria (.pdf) and is asking for public comment. They will be holding a public meeting on the draft proposal at 7 p.m. on Monday, November 9 at the Parks Administration Building (located at 100 Dexter Avenue N). Public comment on the draft will be due by Monday, November 16. For a full schedule of the Opportunity Fund Oversight Committee meetings, click here.

The $15 million Opportunity Fund for community-nominated projects is part of the $146 million Parks and Green Spaces Levy park development and acquisition projects package Seattle voters approved last November. Now one year after the Levy passed, Seattle Parks and Recreation has already added 2.53 acres to the city parks system, completed eight new Levy projects, and currently has four projects under construction and 21 projects in the planning and design stages.

Queen Anne resident and 36th Legislative District Rep. Reuven Carlyle has invited to residents of Queen Anne and Magnolia to join him at two casual community meetings this Sunday, November 8, where constituents will have the opportunity to share any questions, concerns, criticisms, ideas or thoughts they have on state and local issues. The first meeting will be from 8 to 9:30 a.m. at the Serendipity Cafe in Magnolia, located at 3222 W. McGraw St. followed by a 10 to 11:30 a.m. meeting at Top Pot Doughnuts in Queen Anne, located at 325 W. Galer St. Rep. Carlyle plans to touch on issues including the economy, education, health care, transportation and technology.

The 36th Legislative District represents the neighborhoods of Belltown, Ballard, Queen Anne, Magnolia, Interbay, Crown Hill, Phinney Ridge, Blue Ridge and Fremont in the Washington State House of Representatives. Rep. Carlyle is holding these meetings as part of a yearlong string of public coffee hours in the neighborhoods he represents in anticipation of the next legislative session, which will begin on Monday, January 11, 2010.

Earlier today a reader, who wishes to remain anonymous, wrote in about an alleged “very serious incident of harassment and bullying” that occurred on Queen Anne Ave N. between middle school students from McClure and St. Anne School last Wednesday, October 28. Obviously concerned over the nature of the event, they wrote in to both communicate the situation to the community and ask for support from neighbors and business owners on Upper Queen Anne. Although they had only “anecdotal details,” the tipster wrote that they would like to see more community involvement in issues of violence in the neighborhood, especially among youth. They wrote,

My hope is that QA merchants can band together to report violence immediately to the police to keep the peace along the retail stretch as well as in our neighborhood in general.

At this time the specific details of the incident are not yet clear. I contacted the principals of both schools, but was met with little information. “The incident is over – I have no comment,” wrote Principal Pat Durand from the St. Anne School in an email earlier today, referring me to the Seattle Police Department “Safety Outreach Program,” though there is no readily available information on this program online.

Our anonymous tipster wrote,

Maybe the parents involved might comment as well. I just feel like this is a community issue that we all are responsible for.

If anyone has any information on the event, or community resources for families and residents involved in future incidents of this kind, please email us at tips@queenanneview.com.

The Seattle Animal Shelter and Humane Society have paired up to celebrate National Animal Shelter Appreciation Week this week, distributing free cat and dog food to pet owning families in need. Through Saturday, November 7 the shelter will be giving away up to two bags of pet food per household, donated by Whole Foods as part of their community giving program, on a first-come first-served basis. The shelter is closed Mondays, so if you’re in need of some food for your pets, swing by soon as there’s not telling how long supplies will last. Read up on National Animal Shelter Appreciation Week and the importance of supporting your local shelter here.

The McClure PTSA has decided to allocate its entire tutoring budget for the 2009-2010 school year – a $5,000 sum – to math tutoring for students through Queen Anne nonprofit Successful Schools in Action (SSIA).

“The caliber and reliability of the tutors, as well as the level of supervision and accountability provided by SSIA, were cited as the primary reasons leading to the decision to grant the funding solely to SSIA rather than utilizing a variety of different resources,” SSIA said in a press release earlier today.

The organization, which focuses on improving education, resources and one-on-one attention to students at six Queen Anne and Magnolia schools, received a $5,000 grant from the Bank of America to support the organization’s Math Assistance for Public Schools (MAPS) program over the summer.

According to SSIA, McClure math teachers have found the SSIA program extremely valuable in assisting their students’ academic growth.The $5,000 funding, SSIA says, will allow the organization to provide 30 hours of tutoring by trained instructors to McClure students each week.

If you haven’t submitted your ballot for the mail-only election yet, you have to get it post-marked or dropped off at a ballot box by 8 p.m. tomorrow, Tuesday, November 3 to vote.

On election day tomorrow, the six Department of Neighborhoods offices throughout the city that serve as ballot box drop-offs will be holding open houses for the public. The closest open house to Queen Anne is the Neighborhood Service Center in Ballard (located at 5604 22nd Ave NW), where from 4 to 8 p.m. you can drop off your ballot and enjoy refreshments, giveaways, and information on the Department of Neighborhoods and what you can do to get involved with civic activities and services in your neighborhood.

Our sister site, My Ballard, recently sat down with 36th District Representative Mary Lou Dickerson to talk about what she’s working on for the upcoming legislative session, which convenes on January 11, 2010. One bill she’s looking to sponsor would legalize marijuana, an act she believes will ultimately turn into a “net benefit” for the state and its residents. Below are her words:

“We have spent a fortune investigating and incarcerating people for using marijuana. We have not only spent huge sums in this failed effort, we have required individuals and families to spend huge sums on lawyers and other expenses in order to avoid drug-abuse violations on their records. Those who couldn’t afford an effective legal defense have often seen their jobs and lives seriously harmed by the record of the legal violation.

And what have we accomplished with these societal, personal, and family costs? I don’t see the positive benefits. The expensive emphasis on prosecution and fines or other punishment has not deterred marijuana smoking, nor has it had any noticeable impact on accessibility to marijuana. The fact that other countries which have legalized marijuana have not seen consumption rates rise sharply is further evidence that our present policy is a monumentally expensive failure.”

Get the full story, along with the rest of Rep. Dickerson’s statement at My Ballard.

Several Interbay businesses were robbed on Thursday, including the office of cartoonist Stu Heinecke, whose work has appeared in several national publications including the Wall Street Journal. Heinecke lost a large portion of his life’s work due to the robbery, when a thief stole several Apple computers from his office, much of which was not backed on other hard drives. The suspect, who also hit the office next door, was caught on a surveillance tape. You can watch the video at KING 5. Get the full story at our sister site, Magnolia Voice.

Last week the city held what Real Change called a “sneaky public hearing” on the Mercer West Project, without giving a fair opportunity for the public to weigh in on the proposal, according to many. In response, the Seattle Displacement Coalition, a group made up of low-income organizations and residents, homeless, civil rights organizations, social service organizations and community-based neighborhood groups, including the Queen Anne Community Council and Magnolia Community Club, sent a letter to City Council urging them to allow the public a chance to speak on the project before “fast-tracking” it through.

“We urge the Council to postpone this hearing until the public receives proper notice, can review materials, and make informed comments,” wrote Coalition member John V. Fox, on behalf of over 20 community organizations and 150 community leaders.

There are a few more chances to weigh in on the project for those who can. According to Tom Van Bronkhorst from the Office of Councilmember Jean Godden, there will public opportunity to speak prior to two budget hearings this week, tomorrow and Tuesday. The first meeting will take place on Monday, November 2 at 10:30 a.m. (following a Council briefing) and the second on Tuesday, November 3 at 9:30 a.m. Both meetings will be held in the Council Chambers. For more information, check the City Council website.

According to Bronkhorst, the public will have a chance to speak on all budget related issues at the beginning of both meetings. “Typically the chair limits public comment to 10 minutes total. However, there hasn’t been that many people testifying at these meetings so everyone has been heard,” he wrote in an email to Queen Anne Community Council Neighbors’ Advisory Committee representative Kirk Robbins.

“I don’t think these mini-hearings are enough, but it’s what we have now,” Robbins said, urging those who can and have an opinion on the project to attend.

Hundreds of families and costumed kids walked up and down Queen Anne Ave N yesterday for the neighborhood’s annual trick-or-treat festival put on by the Upper Queen Anne Merchants Association.

Some youngsters were even lucky enough to have transportation included as part of their costume!

Everyone was in the holiday spirit, even the neighborhood pets.

The Queen Anne Farmers Market also made a one-day comeback for the occasion, with music, vendors, food, a pie contest and costume contest just for adults, enticing many parents to dress up right along with their kids.

Over at the market, ten bakers entered their pumpkin pies into a contest/fundraiser to support the neighborhood market (and only independent farmers market in the city).

The contest was judged by Seattle magazine food writer and Queen Anne resident Lorna Yee, and there were no rules apart from the pie having to be pumpkin.

The winning pie ended up coming to Queen Anne on a plane, and was made with a fruit medley of pumpkin, banana, orange and lemon zest. Yum! Check back on the Queen Anne Farmers Market website for the recipe, which should be posted something this week.

Have great costumes or Halloween pictures you’d like to share? Email us at tips@queenanneview.com!