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November 2002

October 2002

September 2002



 


LICTON SPRINGS COMMUNITY COUNCIL

Minutes of Board Meeting:
September 18, 2002
NSCC President's Board Room

Directors Present: Liz Kearns, Jerry Owens, Yvonne Pilling Zoretic, Bert Bradley, JJ Avinger-Jacques, and Ellen Beck.

Board Representatives Present: Wally Fosmore (North Seattle Community College Representative).

Visitors: Nytasha Sowers (Washington Department of Transportation), Rich Meredith (Seattle Department of Transportation), Therese Casper (Seattle Department of Transportation), Fen Hsiao (PRR), Jean Wirch, Lisa Daniels, and Ted Pickett.

President Liz Kearns called the meeting to order at 7:07 p.m., welcoming everyone. We then went around the table and everyone introduced themselves to those gathered.

Minutes: Minutes from the August 21, 2002 meeting were approved as presented.

Treasurer's Report: Treasurer Debra Willendorf was not present. Liz said that she would request that Debra e-mail us an updated Treasurer's Report. (Note: This was done on September 24, 2002. Thank you, Debra.)

NEW BUSINESS:

SR99 Study Presentation. Nytasha Sowers began the presentation of the results of the SR 99 Study. She covered the portion of the Study dealing with Aurora from the Battery Street Tunnel to North 145th Street. The purpose of the study is to improve safety and keep traffic moving. Aurora is highway of statewide importance as a north-south route, but it is also a local street. The portion of Aurora studied is the third most dangerous highway in the State of Washington. There are many accident hot spots in the study area.

Rich Meredith pointed out that the occurrence of accidents had increased because of medians being opened up in the past at merchants' requests.

Intersections that were particularly hazardous were intersections with three lanes of traffic. Accidents occur at these intersections because pedestrians get safely across two lanes and then can be hit by the vehicle traveling in the curbside lane, that does not see them.

It was pointed out that pedestrian crossings in our section of Aurora come at too great intervals. Rich said that one goal of the study was to have pedestrian crossing locations at equal intervals. Pedestrian lights are also a possibility, or having an island that pedestrians can wait upon to make it easier to cross all lanes of traffic. Bert pointed out that this could be dangerous and he waves cars along that stop for him, because of the danger of vehicles in the curbside lane not seeing him.

Another possibility from the Study is to implement southbound parking restrictions from North 110th to North 72nd.

Liz passed out copies of a letter from Mayor Nickels that was addressed to "Aurora Neighbor" that described improvements to Aurora Avenue.

Jean Wirch pointed out the AAA gives periodic driver refresher courses. She said that she and Ken Thompson had taken the AAA course and found it useful. She recommended it to us!

Crows. Liz said that dead crows had been reported at 100th and Stone and also at the south end of Licton Springs Park. These crows are being tested by the Health Department to determine whether the West Nile Virus was involved in their deaths.

Licton Springs Picnic--Flags. Liz reported that four of Edie Whitsett's five flag/banners on poles had been taken by unknown persons. This was lamented by all, but it was also pointed out that the time had perhaps come for the banners/flags to be replaced. Regardless, it is a shame that they were taken.

Greenwood Park/Sidewalks. Bert said that groundbreaking for the Greenwood Park would be this fall. Bert also brought to our attention an article from The Times describing Mayor Nickels plan to boost sidewalk production from five blocks a year to 35 blocks in 2003. Bert said that five projects in neighborhoods were allowed by the funding at this time and projects had been rated 1-5. Sidewalks for North 100th received a top rating.

Mineral Springs Park. The original architect, Charles Anderson, is back on the Mineral Springs Park project. Edie is delighted, as are we all.

College Way Median. Wally told us that on Friday, September 13th, the United Way Day of Caring, 85 Microsoft people, 20 Washington Mutual people, ten people from SeaTran, and ten to 20 volunteers from the College teamed up to weed the College Way median. With that many volunteers, the work was finished by 11:00 a.m. (AND it looks great!!) Wally said that they had a barbecue in the courtyard after the median weeding with live music. He said that the on campus area near the Child Care Center was worked on in the afternoon.

Wally told us that the College had hosted the District Convocation today.

Stewardship Meeting. Liz announced that she had received an e-mail from Dave Boyd, Northwest Sector Department of Neighborhoods Manager. A Stewardship meeting will be held Tuesday, October 8, 2002, at the Phinney Ridge Lutheran Church, 7500 Greenwood Avenue North. The meeting is from 6:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m.

Arts Organization. There is going to be a meeting on Thursday, September 26, 2002, of the Seattle Art Commission. Edie and JJ are planning to attend.

North Seattle Community College Open House.Wally announced that the College would be having an open house Tuesday, October 8, from 5:30 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. He passed out flyers for "North Fest 2002."

OLD BUSINESS:

Website--News Groups. Bert Bradley gave a report on how News Groups can be organized by working with Yahoo.com or others. He said that the Greenwood Community Council had both a news group and a discussion group. Bert said that if we had a News Group, people could be given a link to our website in order to access our Newsletter. We could develop a list of people who prefer to receive the Newsletter via e-mail and thus, we could reduce our mailing costs

Bert said that he would get information from Greenwood on how much time is needed to keep up the News Group and the cost of having such a group.

Liz said that she would research how many people were visiting our website. She said that it had been set up to include "hit points." She said that she was told at one time that most of the visitors were from downtown.

Wilson-Pacific Grass Playfields. The grass is growing!!! It looks great.

Clean-out Vaults. Wally Fosmore told us that the work to install two additional clean-out vaults near the Meridian roadbed (on College property) was going to begin soon. Wally reminded us that he had previously told us about this drainage project.

Halloween in the Park. JJ Avinger-Jacques reported that she had written a letter to the Costco manager regarding Halloween treats.

The meeting was adjourned at 8:55 p.m.

Respectfully submitted,
Ellen M. Beck
Secretary

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