The Seattle Opera is going to start the new year with a new Director of Development, Lisa Bury, who will join the company on January 4, 2011. The announcement (.pdf) was made by Seattle Opera Executive Director Kelly Tweeddale today.

Bury is currently the Director of Development for the Florida Grand Opera in Miami and Fort Lauderdale.  Prior to this she worked as Senior Director of Development for the Arizona Opera, and in various positions with the Lyric Opera of Chicago, Florida Grand Opera, and the Long Beach Symphony.

“We are more than fortunate to have Lisa Bury join us as our new Development Director,” General Director Speight Jenkins said in the release. “Her extensive development experience at Lyric Opera of Chicago, Florida Grand Opera, Arizona Opera, and her rich opera knowledge and performance experience make her ideal for Seattle Opera.”

Bury, who is a trained violist and music educator, first fell in love with the Seattle Opera when she saw a performance of Wagner’s Ring in the early ‘90s.

“The company’s unwavering commitment to the art form is inspiring to me,” Bury said.  “Now more than ever, innovation and flexibility must join forces with focused communication for opera companies to remain relevant to the audiences and communities they serve.”

In her new role, Bury will supervise the development department, which is working toward an annual funding goal of $13 million, and create a funding strategy to support the company’s ambitious artistic goals for the future.

Seattle City Light crews are doing some work along Queen Anne Avenue N today.

As of 11:15 a.m. three City Light trucks were blocking the right-hand, southbound lane along the Counterbalance from Aloha to the bottom of the hill. If Queen Anne Avenue is part of your commute today, keep in mind that it may be a bit slower leaving the hill due to the lane closure.

Update 12 p.m.: City Light crews have finished work on Queen Anne Avenue. All four lanes are now clear for through traffic.

In her day job, Jody Cain encourages middle schoolers to explore art, and think outside the box when approaching their own creations. But on nights and weekends, Jody is an artist herself—one who frequently experiences the pleasure of seeing her work on local establishments, including Lower Queen Anne hair salon Nucleus.

“As far as my art work goes, I love to work in a variety of media!  Mixed media is the best description- utilizing as many discarded materials as possible.  I generally work on wood, anything from scrap lumber, plywood, and anything friends and family pass my way,” Jody says. “I use papers layered on the wood to create my background initially.  On top of this I create my illustration, layering paints, pencils, and charcoals.  Many times I include personal memorabilia such as poems, images, and journal pages, embedding texture and meaning into my work.  I currently have gotten my hands on a handwritten ledger for an antique store, written by a lovely 80-year-old relative of mine.  The handwriting from her era is impressive, beautiful in it’s own right…These are the things that add texture at first glance and then make you want to take a second closer look.”

Jody says she first started doing art when her grandmother, the matriarch of the family, got sick.

“It sent me for a tailspin.  She was a spunky retired teacher herself who stood by me during everything,” she said. “She was the kind of Grandma who always had a special something to send home with you when you stopped by, yet also wasn’t afraid to call you on the floor when she thought you needed it.

The upcoming loss, she says, sent her “looking for something to make sense.”

“She didn’t want anyone seeing her “not together”  so the best thing I could do was create…showing her all the little things that went into the big picture,” Jody said. “How all of her thoughts, intentions, support, kindness… how all her little pieces created this thing for me- a giant collage of moments.  This life, her force, her support that would be missed.”

Jody’s exhibit kicked off at Nucleus on Sunday. Swing by at 621 Queen Anne Ave N to take a look at some of her work. Also check out her website and Etsy shop.

The Queen Anne Chamber of Commerce‘s Roast Toasty Holiday Celebration is happening today, Friday, December 10 from 4 to 7 p.m. at Counterbalance Park, located at the corner of Queen Anne Ave. N. and Roy Street.

The free event, sponsored by Vulcan Inc., is a chance for community members to meet, mingle, and gather around the warmth of a holiday bonfire. There will be s’mores, cookies, hot chocolate, hot apple cider and coffee, generously donated by Starbucks and Metropolitan Market. There will also be musical entertainment by Paul Fedorowicz.

As part of the Second Saturdays series, the Queen Anne Movie Guild is hosting a free screening of Who’s Counting? Marilyn Waring on Sex, Lies and Global Economics, on Saturday, December 11 at 7 p.m.

From the QAMG website:

Marilyn Waring is the foremost spokesperson for global feminist economics, and her ideas offer new avenues of approach for political action. With persistence and wit she has succeeded in drawing attention to the fact that GDP has no negative side to its accounts–such as damage to the environment–and completely ignores the unpaid work of women.”Why is the market economy all that counts?” Ms. Waring asks.

In 1975, when she was just 22 years old, she was elected to the New Zealand parliament. She was re-elected three times and eventually brought down the government on the issue of making New Zealand a nuclear free zone.

When she was chairperson of the Public Expenditures Committee, she perfected what she calls the “art of the dumb question.” Ever since she has challenged the myths of economics, its elitist stance, and our tacit compliance with political agendas that masquerade as objective economic policy.

This film has inspired many people, notably the Who’s Counting Project, to work on human-scale economic alternatives, local currency exchanges, and more humane ways of measuring the quality of life.

Read author and entrepreneur Tara Hunt’s blog on the influence of Marilyn Waring here.

As always, the event will be held at the Queen Anne United Methodist Church, located at 1606 5th Ave W, next to the Queen Anne library. Movie-goers should use the Fellowship Hall entrance located on W. Garfield Street. As always, admission is free, and coffee and doughnuts will be provided by Top Pot Doughnuts‘ Queen Anne location.

The Queen Anne/Magnolia Neighborhood Service Center, at 160 Roy St, Suite 100, will be permanently closed as of January 1, 2011, due to citywide budget cuts for the 2011-2012 year.

Photos courtesy of the Department of Neighborhoods.

The QA/Magnolia office is one of six neighborhood service centers that are shutting down for good at the end of this year. The others include the Capitol Hill NSC, Downtown NSC, Fremont NSC, Greater Duwamish NSC, and Greenwood NSC. The service centers that will remain open include the Central NSC, University NSC, Ballard NSC, Lake City NSC, Southeast NSC, Delridge NSC, and West Seattle NSC.

Located in each of the city’s 13 districts, these service centers have served as “Little City Halls”, where community members can go to find information about Seattle services and programs, visit their Neighborhood District Coordinator, or connect with other neighborhood-based groups.

The Neighborhood District Coordinator for Queen Anne and Magnolia, Christa Dumpys, will be continuing her work despite the loss of office space. According to a Queen Anne NDC staffer, she is currently in the process of looking for a new office “somewhere in Queen Anne,” so that she may continue to work closely within the community, she said.

The rest of the service center’s staff, however, will not be keeping their positions, and both the Uptown Alliance and Queen Anne Chamber of Commerce, which currently share office space with the QA/Magnolia service center in Lower Queen Anne, will also have to relocate.

We’re waiting for a call back from Christa about how the loss of the service center will affect the Queen Anne community, and will update this story as we hear more.

As part The Next Fifty–Seattle 2012, Seattle Center’s celebration of the 50th anniversary of the 1962 World’s Fair that brought us the Space Needle, the Center will be building a 200-foot observation wheel on the grounds.

The wheel, which will be located in Center Square, is set to open on April 21, 2011, “in recognition of the 1962 Seattle World’s Fair opening date,” according to the Center. It will operate through the conclusion of The Next Fifty anniversary celebration in October 2012.

The elegant and technologically advanced giant wheel harkens back to the World’s Fair and nods to a future vision for Seattle’s central gathering place. The wheel’s fully enclosed and climate controlled capsules will hold up to eight passengers and provide 360 degree panoramic views of Seattle Center and the surrounding areas.

Just to give some perspective, the 200-foot wheel will be a little less than half the size of the London Eye, the world’s largest and most well-known observation wheel, which is 135 meters (just shy of 443 feet) high.

Humor writer and Wedgwood resident David Volk released “The Cheap Bastard’s Guide to Seattle,” the latest travel book in a national series targeted at not only tourists, but locals looking to have fun without breaking the bank.

“I think it’s for everyone in Seattle,” Volk said while relaxing at Ravenna’s Espresso Express.  “Times are tough, and it doesn’t look like things are changing anytime soon. It’s really all about doing the things you’d already do  for less, and working within the system while having a good time doing it.”

After the series received commercial success in New York, Chicago and Boston, Globe Pequot Press decided to tackle the Northwest.

“We needed an insider’s perspective for the book,” Editorial Director Amy Lyons said by phone from Guilford, Connecticut.  “This one is very much for the person that lives in Seattle.”

“I’m the perfect person to do this book because I know how to pinch pennies till they scream,” declared Volk, who makes his living as a freelance journalist. “I wrote about what I’ve been doing for years — surviving on cheap haircuts and happy hours.”

A resident of Seattle for the last 20 years, Volk highlighted some of his favorite places for inexpensive and free fun in Queen Anne:

• McCormick & Schmick’s Harborside on Lake Union at 1200 Westlake Ave. N.:  Although McCormick & Schmick’s is a chain, its four local restaurants have long had one of the best happy hours around…prices start at $1.95 and go up to $4.95 at all locations and each menu is anchored by the generous $2.95 half pound cheese-burger with French fries (pg.89).
• Experience Music Project and Science Fiction Museum at 325 5^th Ave. N.:  Just the bridge from the original Star Trek series and a collection of other-worldly weapons alone should be enough to delight any sci-fi geek.  Free the first Thursday of the month from 5 to 8 p.m. (pg.235).
• Queen Anne Books at 1811 Queen Anne Ave. N.:  This relatively small Queen Anne neighborhood bookstore hosts far fewer readings than its other independent bookselling brethren, but the events are a joy to attend (pg.158). And This independent bookseller at the top of Queen Anne has a free story hour the third Sunday of the month at 2 p.m.  Your kids can sit on a blanket, listen to a story, and finish off with a cookie (pg.136).
• Yoga Life at 8 Boston St.:  Yoga Life’s Queen Anne studio offers a free community class from 2:15 to 3:30 p.m. on Saturday.

Tyler Steele is an intern for our sister site, PhinneyWood. He is a journalism student at the University of Washington.

The newest school in the neighborhood, Queen Anne Elementary, is hosting two meet and greets in the next few weeks for non-enrolled kindergarteners and their families. The new option school, which opened this fall with a tech-focused curriculum, hopes to help parents decide if QAE might be the right place for their student.

Do you know someone who has a child who will be entering Kindergarten next year or is considering transitioning their older child? To assist people in decision process, Queen Anne Elementary will be hosting two meet and greet events.  This is a great opportunity to talk with Principal David Elliott and meet the wonderful teachers to hear more about the philosophy and vision for the school.

The two meet and greets will be held on Tuesday, December 14 and Wednesday, January 5, from 8 to 9:30 p.m. Sponsored by QAE PTSA, the events will held in a home of one of the parents on Queen Anne.

If you or someone you know is a non-enrolled parent who would like to attend, please RSVP here (QAE would like to keep attendance at 40 people per night).

Please contact QAE Communications Co-Chair Anna Bertrand at annalbertrand@yahoo.com with any questions.

Brought to light by the death of Sammy, a German short-hair pointer who was electrified after stepping onto a metal plate last month, the issue of “stray voltage” in city streets has come to the forefront. Though Seattle City Light says the accident was an “isolated incident”, many more stories have emerged, and the city has taken flak from worried community members, who believe the lack of adequate inspections is to blame.

In response, City Light released a statement late last night announcing a briefing at 10:30 a.m. today regarding the organization’s new streetlight response plan. Here is a copy of the release:

City Light Update on Streetlight Response Plan

Superintendent to provide details on streetlight review effort

SEATTLE – Last month a dog stepped on an energized metal plate covering a small streetlight vault on Queen Anne Avenue.  Late Monday, City Light received a call from a customer in the High Point area who was concerned that there might be a faulty streetlight in her neighborhood.

“We received a call from a customer who believed that a streetlight in her neighborhood may not be working properly,” says Superintendent of City Light Jorge Carrasco. “Crews investigated the streetlight on Tuesday, found that there were exposed wires in the lamphead and immediately repaired it. There was no damage or injury associated with this malfunctioning streetlight.”

Superintendent Carrasco will brief the media on the plans City Light has to inspect and to make repairs, if necessary, to any of the 20,000 metal streetlight poles and 10,000 metal “hand holes” (small streetlight vault covers) in the utility’s service territory.

Specific questions will be addressed at Thursday’s media briefing.

The briefing will be held today, Thursday, December 9 at 10:30 a.m. at the Seattle Municipal Tower, 700 Fifth Avenue, Room 4050.

Emerald Bay Equity hopes to break ground in the first quarter 2011 on a long-stalled development project on Queen Anne Ave N, according to a report by the Seattle Daily Journal of Commerce yesterday.

Artist rendering of Seven Hills project.

The Seven Hills project, located at 1919 Queen Anne Ave just across the street from Metropolitan Market, was originally slated to be a mixed office/retail building, but as we previously reported, the developers changed plans to mixed-use retail/residential back in August. The four story building will include 57 apartments, some 8,200 square feet of retail space, and two levels or underground parking for 68 cars.

This project is the third of EBE’s four-phase development plan for 2.1 acres of property, called “The Collection,” along Upper Queen Anne’s main drag. The first two phases–the Sweetbrier and Eden Hills mixed-use residential/retail buildings–have already been completed.

Until very recently the Sweetbrier was struggling to fill its retail space, but in the last 16 months a number of new tenants have moved in, including Key Bank, Twirl Cafe, and most recently, Menchie’s frozen yogurt.

The plans to move forward with the Seven Hills project comes only eight months after EBE put The Collection of properties from 1911-1919 Queen Anne Ave N up for sale, a package that included both the Sweetbrier and Eden Hills developments, and the half-block where Metropolitan Market is located, EBE’s phase four project.

Artist rendering of Met Market project.

The group still plans to redevelop the final plot into a four-story, 125-unit apartment complex with 40,000 square feet of ground-floor space for the longtime neighborhood grocery and other retailers, and 200 underground parking stalls. According to EBE principal Joe Geivett, the company plans to start this phase in 2012.

When The Collection developments are completed, they will amount to more than $140 million in property value, in 250,000 square feet of mixed-use retail and residential space at the top of the hill, according to a Jones Lang LaSalle report published in April.

Currently EBE is working with an “unnamed partner” to finance the Seven Hills project, according to the DJC. The City of Seattle has tentatively scheduled a design review meeting on the new version of the project for January 19. Read up on past design review recommendations on the project here. Review the project’s permit status here.

The citizen oversight committee for the Seattle Parks and Green Spaces Levy finalized their project recommendations for Opportunity Funding earlier this week. The $7 million Opportunity Fund will be divvied out to community initiated projects throughout the city, and one of the proposals to make the list was the Lower Kinnear Park Enhancement Plan.

We’ve been covering the developments of the Lower Kinnear Park Enhancement Plan, the brainchild of community group FOLKpark (Friends of Lower Kinnear Park), for some time. The final plan proposal was the result of a number of community meetings and town halls the crowd-sourced residents for their thoughts on how the park should be developed.

In August FOLKpark was awarded a $100,000 Department of Neighborhoods Matching Fund to hire consultants to produce construction plans for the enhancement of the park. The Opportunity Fund oversight committee advises allocating $750,000 to get construction going on the project. The funds would go toward improving trails and signage in Lower Kinnear Park, restoring the native vegetation, and making connections to other trails in the Seattle Parks system. Read more about the Uptown loop trail that would connect to the park here.

The committee’s recommendations will be forwarded to Parks and Recreation Acting Superintendent Christopher Williams, who will make his own recommendation and forward them along to the Mayor and City Council. The Seattle City Council is expected to approve project funding recommendations in March 2011. If the recommendations are approved, construction will begin in 2012.

Read up on the Opportunity Fund, and the full list of oversight committee recommendations here (.pdf).

Have you seen this Italian greyhound Andre?

His owners dropped off this sign at El Diablo on Queen Anne Avenue N this morning, according to the baristas. If you have seen Andre, please call 206-271-3604.

After Sammy, a German short-hair pointer, walked onto a electrified metal cover on Queen Anne Ave on Thanksgiving Day and died, many more stories of animals sustaining injuries from “stray voltage” on city streets have come out.

The accident was the result of a pinched wire and bad electrical work (including a lack of grounding), according to City Light, in an area of the electrical system that powers four streetlights in the 1500 block of Queen Anne Avenue N. In the two weeks since Sammy’s death, the city has been working to find out why this dangerous zone went unnoticed for so long.

“Our crews investigated the cause. We discovered that the original installation in 2006 did not include proper grounding of the four lights. Our crews have made the necessary repairs to all these lights and tested for any potential electrical charges. There is no electrical charge to any of the lights or groundcover plates. All the streetlights are functioning,” City Light Superintendent Jorge Carrasco said in a release last week.

While City Light officials said the accident was an “isolated incident,” the faulty work that caused it may have passed unnoticed due to a lack of inspection records, according to a report by the Seattle PI released Monday. From the PI:

A city invoice showed that an inspector had billed for the electrical project twice in 2005, when the system was installed, said Richard Sheridan, a spokesman for the Department of Transportation. But no record exists documenting what the inspector did or found during the visits.

“At the time (the project was installed), we did not require written field reports from electrical inspectors,” Sheridan said Monday.

After Sammy’s death, the city discovered the pinched wire and missing grounding. Sheridan says the department is still investigating how the lack of grounding was overlooked by the inspector back in 2005, a difficult task given that it’s been several years and the project inspector has since retired.

Since July the department’s inspectors, all “highly qualified” certified electricians, according to Sheridan, have been required to document inspections of private-public improvement projects in a field report. But in a few weeks City Light will take over the inspection process, a decision the department says was made in an effort to streamline the system. Read the full story at the Seattle PI.

Local coffee chain Uptown Espresso, with seven locations citywide, including one in Lower Queen Anne, is opening up a new location in Wallingford, according to our sister site My Wallingford.

Uptown CEO and president Dow Lucurell says he plans to open the new location in early spring 2011 at 2300 N. 45th St. Wallingford, much like Queen Anne, is a prime location, he says, because it is a vibrant neighborhood where people live and work—the perfect place for a neighborhood coffee shop. Read the full story at My Wallingford.

At 12:52 a.m. three Seattle Fire Department units were sent to a building fire at 2572 Gilman Drive W. We have no details at this time, and will update when we know more.

Last summer we reported that a suspicious man was approaching women in the area and asking for directions to Magnolia and following up with lewd comments about those women. After the case was made public, many more women reported encounters with the man to police. It was determined that he was in a stolen car and police arrested the man. Today we got this update from Terrie Johnston at Seattle Police:

Through excellent work by patrol, relentless follow-up by Community Police Team Officer Erik Warner, and the statements by many of the victims, a case was built against Shigley-Muncey.  On Dec. 2^nd, he was sentenced to nine months in jail, so with the credit for the time he has served, he will be released in March, 2011.  The great news is that because he was convicted on stalking charges, he had to submit his DNA to the National Registry and he will undergo a full mental health evaluation.

The Senior Asst. City Prosecutor, Kevin Kilpatrick wanted to send along a big thank you to all involved.  Most stalking cases tried in Municipal Court are Domestic Violence related.  The fact that these (21 in all) were strangers to Mr. Shigley-Muncey made this case extremely unusual.

My thanks to all of you who came forward and gave statements, vehicle descriptions and testimony.  All of your involvement helped to get a conviction!