Licton Springs Neighborhood

LICTON SPRINGS COMMUNITY COUNCIL

Minutes of Board Meeting:
January 19, 2005
NSCC President's Board Room

Directors Present: Liz Kearns, Jerry Owens, Shannon Snider, and Ellen Beck.

Board Representatives Present: Ken Thompson (North Precinct Representative).

Visitors: Jean Wirch and Judy Groombridge.

President Liz Kearns called the meeting to order at 7:07 p.m. Introductions were made around the table. Liz noted that Wanda is excused because of having bronchitis.

Minutes: The November 17, 2004 minutes were approved as presented. Liz explained that the minutes are e-mailed to Board members for their review (and noting of additions or corrections) prior to our meetings. The prior meeting minutes can therefore be approved without discussion at our next meeting.

Treasurer’s Report: There was no Treasurer’s Report.

Currents Newsletter. Articles for the upcoming issue of our newsletter were outlined by Liz. Jerry Owens will write about the Northgate Stakeholders, and Staci Baldwin will write about our neighborhood fire station. There will be inserts about the happenings at North Seattle Community College, and from Friends of Licton Springs Park. We will also include a “thank you” article about Larry’s Market’s contributions to our fall picnic and Halloween in the Park. There will be an article on the List Serve written by Shannon Snider, as well as an update on North 100^th sidewalks, and an article about King County Councilmember for District 2 Bob Ferguson’s Fridays in the neighborhoods. Councilmember Ferguson will meet for coffee at Starbucks at Oak Tree Plaza Friday, February 11^th. He will also attend our Community Council meeting on February 16^th.

Since our newsletter will publicize Bob Ferguson’s coffee time on the Friday and attendance at our Wednesday evening Council meeting, he will reimburse us for the cost of the newsletter!

It was also suggested that a future article about HistoryLink.org should be considered. Readers could be directed to the www.historylink.org website and instructed to do an “Encyclopedia Quick Search” for “Licton Springs.” This brings up file #3447, which is our history of Licton Springs with photographs.

North 100^th Street. Jerry Owens volunteered to check with the Northwest Council and confirm if sidewalks on North 100^th is prioritized first or second and if there is any money earmarked for the project. We need to find out what we can do to help move this project forward.

There was a larger discussion concerning sidewalks in the City. Liz said that the Greenwood community had significantly increased their blocks with sidewalks by using a $50,000.00 payment from the new Safeway Store (paid as compensation for impacts on the community) to get matching funds from the City, plus the community leaders received fellow homeowners’ agreement to tax themselves, sometimes more than $100.00 for ten years, to extend the sidewalks!

Wilson-Pacific. Liz has been told by the School District that there is no intention to vacate Wilson-Pacific. At present there is one preschool for special needs children at the school, plus a number of School District support programs. Liz was told that it would be a nightmare to relocate all the programs at Wilson-Pacific.

List Serve. Shannon provided copies of a proposed first e-mail to Licton Springs community members for whom we have e-mail addresses. These addresses have been incorporated into a List Serve for disseminating community information. Discussion followed. Shannon will add a note in the e-mail that Adobe Acrobat is needed to open the newsletter. He will also include a link to Adobe’s website where anyone can download Adobe Acrobat for free. Shannon noted that Amy Markishtum’s names the Currents newsletter differently each time and this would be a problem because the link in the e-mail is www.lictonsprings.org/newsletter.pdf. Shannon said that he would contact Amy about naming the website version of Currents as “newsletter.”

Meeting with Dwight Pelz. Liz reported that she had met with Dwight Pelz at the request of Andrew Schmid. Discussion followed. It has been reported in the papers that Dwight Pelz, as well as Casey Corr (an aide to Mayor Greg Nichols) and Paige Miller (Port of Seattle Commission) will all be running against Councilman Richard Conlin in the upcoming election.

Department of Neighborhoods Letter. Liz passed out copies of a December 1, 2004 letter from Yvonne Sanchez, Director of the Department of Neighborhoods, to Neighborhood Stewards, enclosing the 2004 Neighborhood Plan Implementation (NPI) Priority Report. Discussion followed.

North Precinct. Liz reported that, as we have been told before, the Police Department needs more room, but at present there are no funds available to expand the North Precinct, or build a new precinct on the east side of I-5 in order to split the territory served by the North Precinct, which is substantial.

Sustainable Seattle. Liz passed out copies of an e-mail from a group called Sustainable Seattle. They are looking for volunteers to conduct a survey of their neighborhood to determine quality of life. The study would encompass two years and require a group of volunteers from each participating neighborhood. Liz was unable to open the attachment to get more information. It was determined that Board members could not take on this study. If anyone in the neighborhood is interested, the deadline to apply is Friday, March 11, 2005. To get more information, please e-mail Deborah Kuznitz at deborah@sustainableseattle.org.

Speed Bumps on Ashworth. Liz explained that Staci Baldwin, who was not present, was looking into the installation of speed bumps on Ashworth. With the building of five new condominiums close to Licton Springs Park, one of the construction workers had commented on how fast the traffic was traveling on Ashworth. With the completion of the condominiums, traffic would increase and the situation has the potential to get much worse. Discussion followed. There is a safety issue on Ashworth because of cars stopping and children running across the street into the Park.