At approximately 3:48 a.m. today, Thursday, July 1, police were called to McClure Middle School, located in the 1900 block of 1st Ave W, by a silent burglar alarm, according to the SPD Blotter. Officers set up a containment while a K-9 unit began tracking the area. Officers then spotted two juvenile males exit the school and contained them while school security arrived and search the building for any damage or missing property, of which they found none. The two suspects, both 15 years old, admitted to entering the school and were interviewed by police before being released to their parents.

Windermere’s Queen Anne office will be donating a day of service to McClure Middle School and the Queen Anne Community Center this Friday, June 18, as part of an annual program dedicated to “making a positive change” in the neighborhoods and communities Windermere serves through a workday devoted to “local service projects and volunteerism.”

All day on Friday agents and staff from the Windermere Queen Anne office will be working outside, landscaping and reconstructing the entrances to both McClure and the community center, including painting of all the doors and entryways and planting of 40+ native plants.

Many neighbors and local organizations have made contributions that make the project possible, including Leanne Goulding from Terra Design, Dan Soria from Soria Structural Steel, Candi Nicholson and Gretchen DeDecker from the Seattle School District, Cedar Grove Composting, Swansons Nursery, and Amber Soria and Rene Stern from the Windermere Queen Anne office.

The Queen Anne Community Council’s monthly meeting is happening at 7:30 p.m. tonight, Wednesday, June 2 at the McClure Middle School cafeteria. On the agenda for tonight’s meeting:

7:30 p.m. – Adoption of Agenda, Approval of Minutes, Treasurer’s Report
7:35 p.m. – Open Forum, Comments
7:45 p.m. – McClure Middle School update- John Loacker, Greg Bjarko
8:00 p.m. – Denny Triangle Report-Craig Hanway
8:30 p.m. – Committee Reports:

• Parks Don Harper
• LURC/Planning Craig Hanway
• Communication Michael Lapin
• NAC Kirk Robbins, Jim Smith, Ron Mason, Don Harper
• District Council Mike Warren
• Transportation
• Social Issues Kirk Robbins
• Police & Crime Allen Panich

9:15 p.m. – New Business
9:25 p.m. – Adjournment

And just so you can plan ahead, here are upcoming meeting notices for the QACC and its committees over the next month.

• QACC: July 7, 7:00 p.m., Queen Anne Community Center
• Parks Committee: June 8, QACC, 7:30 p.m.
• LURC/Planning: June 21, QACC, 7:00 p.m.
• Transportation: TBA
• NAC: June 16, Port Headquarters
• District Council: June 14, QA/Mag Neighborhood Service Center, 7 p.m.

Keep up to date on QA Community Council happenings on the QACC blog.

Alexis Artis is a lifelong resident of Queen Anne. This Saturday, May 1 Alexis will be hosting an aluminum can drive to raise money for save her dog, Jada, a 2-year-old Afghan Hound who was diagnosed with Chylothorax a few weeks ago. Chylothorax is a very rare disease where excess fluid fills the space around the lungs and can cause impaired breathing by limiting the expansion of the lungs in inhalation.

According to Alexis, Jada had to have emergency surgery to save her life, but the cost of the procedures and treatments has been so extensive, she can no longer afford to cover Jada’s medical bills, much less continued treatment. In the hopes of raising enough money to save her pup, Alexis has turned to the community for support.

A few weeks ago Alexis took the campaign to UW and collected cans from students, faculty and passerby on campus. She’ll be collecting in the McClure parking lot from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturday, and asks anyone interested in donating their recyclable cans to a good cause to stop by. All of the proceeds, she says, will go toward Jada’s medical costs and any excess will be donated to charity.

“All the funds that I have raised so far will be going to her medical bills and anything extra will go to the Seattle Humane Society. My goal over the next few months is to gather about 500,000 aluminum cans,” Alexis wrote.

To show your support and/or follow Jada’s recovery, check out the “Save Jada” Facebook group.

This Saturday, April 24, is the annual Comcast Cares Day at McClure Middle School. Volunteers from Comcast, City Year, McClure staff, students and parents, and community members will work together to transform McClure and the Queen Anne Community Center through a day of service.

From 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. volunteers will be working on landscaping projects, fixing up individual and community rooms, assembling shelving units and benches, and painting murals.

Community members interested in volunteering a few hours of time are encouraged to show up and lend a hand. For more information, download the event flier (.pdf), or contact City Year Corps Member Trisha Yalong at (206) 766-0056 or tyalong10@cityyear.org.

Queen Anne resident and 36th District Rep. Reuven Carlyle has been throwing support behind House Bill 2561, which if passed would raise $850 from a state bond and allocate it to clean energy construction improvements to schools and universities statewide and create 38,000 “well paying jobs.”

Yesterday he spoke on the House floor in support of the bill, citing a current pilot project at McClure Middle School that he helped secure a million dollars in funding for last year. The project called for an energy audit of the school that identified energy and cost-savings improvements that will begin to be made to the 1960s era building after the current academic term ends this summer. According to Reuven, these improvements are not only necessary to maintaining the infrastructure of Seattle Public Schools–they also provide an extreme value add for the state. Here are some choice excerpts from his speech.

“This is a city that is a net exporter of education tax dollars, in fact in state property taxes received 37 cents for every dollar that it sends to Olympia. And we have a school–600 kids–who walk around in jackets. And they’re cold.”

“Parents and community leaders and students and faculty and teachers and the principal, Sarah Pritchett got together and sat down…and they did an analysis of this very building, McClure Middle School, and that analysis found that for a million dollar investment we could get a return on investment from a financial perspective that was extraordinary.”

“This pilot project is successful. It’s a return on investment that makes sense.”

Read more on the McClure Middle School pilot project here.

Before joining their friends and family to watch the Superbowl on Sunday, Queen Anne parents, teachers and students volunteered their time running the Help for Haiti Rummage Sale, raising just shy of $20,000 for post-earthquake aide.

This is the second time Coe Elementary, John Hay and McClure Middle School have gotten together to run a major sale event for charity. The three schools first teamed up in 2005, just after the tsunami, and successfully raised $10,000. When the earthquake hit Haiti, the organizers decided to run the event again. This time they raised $19,200.

“The same group all came together and decided to do it again,” said organizers and former John Hay parent Mimi Gan. Their goal was to beat their previous record. “We’ve almost doubled it!” she said.

As for the sale itself, items varied from used toys and clothes, to housewares, baked goods (the in-house bake sale raised $755 alone) and even some last-minute surprise donations, including a car! According to Gan, the principal of Coe Elementary, Mr. Elliott, drove his car to the rummage sale and began taking bids, eventually selling it for $350.

“I don’t know how old it was,” Gan said. “He was very honest about it – there were some things wrong with it. But it sold!”

(This is Mr. Elliott’s fifth and last year at Coe. He will be moving to the new Old Hay, Queen Anne Elementary for the 2010-2011 school year).

Volunteers said the rummage sale stayed relatively busy from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., when the crowds were taken over by football frenzy.

“We had a steady flow of people most of the day. At the end, we did a Craig’s list blast to get rid of as much as we could. We advertised $5 for what you could take out,” said fellow parent and volunteer Stacy Lawson. As for the results, “We were ecstatic,” she said.

“It was great fun,” Gan said. “It was a great community builder and people were so generous.”

According to Gan the money will be dispersed evenly between three aid organizations, the American Red Cross, Partners in Health and Project Hope.

(Thanks to Eileen Nishi for the pictures!)

Have some used books looking for a good home? Why not donate them to students in the neighborhood? McClure Middle School, located at 1915 1st Ave W at the top of the hill, is hosting a used book drive through the end of this week. Books for donation can be dropped off in the marked bin at the front of McClure through this Friday, February 12.

This is just a reminder that the Help for Haiti Rummage Sale, a joint venture between neighborhood schools Coe Elementary, John Hay and McClure Middle School, is this Sunday, February 7 from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. in the Coe gym (located at located at 2424 7th Ave W).

Donations of gently used goods to be sold at the rummage sale can be made from 3:30 to 5 p.m. on Friday, February 5 at Coe and Hay, and on Saturday, February 6 from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. at Coe. All proceeds will benefit the American Red Cross.

There will also be a bake sale at the rummage sale, headed by the folks at John Hay. Baked goods can be dropped off at Coe Elementary on Saturday from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. and Sunday from 9 a.m. to 11 p.m. Parents and kids interested in volunteering their time at the bake sale should contact Kim Clements at 206-963-9589 or kclements@jasdesignbuild.com, or simply show up between 10 .m. and 3 p.m. on Sunday. More information here.

To get involved, contact the following representatives:

John Hay: Susan Sweeney at susweeney@seattleschools.org and Lynn Baker at lybaker@seattleschools.org:

Coe: Becky Lederman at lederman4@msn.com, Lisa Cole at davidandlisacole@mac.com, and Stacy Lawson at slawson7@gmail.com.

McClure: Margarita Vanegas at mvvanegas@seattleschools.org.

General  Information: Lindsay Foody at honeyfoody@yahoo.com, and Mimi Gan at mimigan@msn.com or (206) 390-2312.

Kids from Coe recently ran a bake sale for Haiti, raising $1,645 in one afternoon!

McClure Middle School, located at the top of Queen Anne hill, was originally built in the 1960s, and like many other schools in the Seattle School District, it is currently on a long wait list for a remodel. In the meantime, however, McClure has a long list of structural demands needed to improve both the conditions for the staff and students, and energy costs incurred by the district, that cannot wait. According to 36th District Rep. and Queen Anne resident Reuven Carlyle, the building is often so cold, many of its 600 students wear their coats from class to class.

This is one of many reasons why last year Carlyle worked to help secure $1 million in state funds for McClure Middle School to undergo energy efficiency upgrades, a pilot project that he says has laid the groundwork for new legislation that, if passed, will fund energy and cost-saving improvements for schools and universities statewide, creating 38,000 jobs in the process.

“The money was a pilot project to show the value proposition of this core idea that has been embraced nationally as a way to create high wage jobs while improving the energy efficiency and reducing utility costs for public agencies like schools nationwide,” Carlyle wrote to us in an email last week.

So far, part of McClure’s $1 million award has been used to fund an energy audit of the building, identifying energy cost-saving improvements that will also be covered under the funding. According to Carlyle, construction has already been approved and is set to begin sometime in late spring or early summer. And although this pilot project is not connected directly to House Bill 2561, which passed through Washington’s House of Representatives just last week, Carlyle says it serves to positively reinforce support for a public policy initiative that has the potential to save money, promote sustainability and benefit communities throughout the state.

“This pilot didn’t create this larger legislation but it showed the idea on the ground in a public school. It played a modest but important role because it showed how a community-based model can work on the ground for real schools,” he wrote. “The value proposition of conducting an audit and then making decisions about how best to improve both the school and reduce costs work together. The model worked and McClure helped to show it.”

Bill 2561 would raise $850 from a state bond and allocate it to clean energy construction projects to improve schools and universities across the state, in so doing, creating 38,000 “well paying jobs,” according to Carlyle. The funds would support energy audits and structural upgrades including the installation of energy efficient windows, weathering, roofing and insulation improvements, and solar energy projects, to name a few–-projects that are “all related to energy efficiency–the most economically efficient way to reduce costs,” Carlyle said.

If the bill is passed by the Senate and signed by Governor Gregoire, it will be put to voters on the November ballot.

“I’m really proud of the small but important role that the McClure project has played in the larger development of this bold energy efficiency and jobs program. This bill has a long way to go before being enacted into law but this is the first critical step,” Carlyle wrote.

(Reuven Carlyle is a sponsor of QueenAnneView).