Tuesday August 5th, the City of Seattle will be celebrating the 30th Annual Night Out Against Crime. Last year, over 1,400 events were registered to participate- it’s a great way to build community on your block, get to know your neighbors, and have fun. Check it out here and register for a block party!
Special Meeting about Highland Park Elementary on August 12
While we are not meeting over the summer during our regular meeting time, we are calling a special meeting in response to requests heard at our last meeting- Please join us at the Highland Park Improvement Club on 12th and Holden on Tuesday, August 12th at 7pm to discuss Highland Park Elementary. We sent the following invitation to school and city officials:
Dear Principal Cronas, your colleagues at Seattle Public School, City Council Members Burgess and Bagshaw, and Mayor Murray,
We are the Co-Chairs of the Highland Park Action Committee, a community group that advocates for the Highland Park and Riverview Neighborhoods in Southwest Seattle. Our role is to affect positive change in our neighborhood, and we have historically been active in bringing together a voice for our neighborhood, which has faced many challenges.
We hosted parent Peter Weiss at our May community meeting, who came to speak with us as a member of the Highland Park Elementary’s PTA. In discussing his ideas with us to organize a 5K as a fundraiser for the school, the community learned about the state of affairs for our local school- Highland Park Elementary is ranked last in the Seattle Public School System.
Some of our members were brought to tears with this news, exhausted by what feels like yet another blind eye turned towards our community from our leaders. We write to you in response to a request that night from the community to get some answers as to why our school is doing so badly and what the plan is for improvement. We have since discussed this idea with the PTA and have formed a partnership in our efforts. We, along with incoming PTA president Sol Mendez, would like to invite you to a meeting to discuss the school, and answer some questions from our community.
Please let us know if you can join us at the Highland Park Improvement Club on 12th and Holden on Tuesday, August 12th at 7pm.
Sincerely,
Carolyn and Billy Stauffer (Co-Chairs, Highland Park Action Committee)
Sol Mendez (President, Highland Park Elementary PTA)
Invitation Sent To the following (confirmed attending are bold): Chris Cronas – Principal, Highland Park Elementary Marty McLaren – School Board member Israel Vela – Executive Director of Schools for West Seattle Michael Tolley – Assistant Supt for Teaching and Learning Shauna Heath – Executive Director of Curriculum and Instruction Cashel Toner – Director of Early Learning Zakiyyah McWilliams – Executive Director of Special Education Bernardo Ruiz – Director of School and Family Partnerships, Equity and Race Mayor Murray Tim Burgess, Seattle City Council’s Education and Governance Committee Chair Sally Bagshaw, Seattle City Council’s Education and Governance Committee Vice-Chair Tom Rasmussen, Seattle City Council Member Kerry Wade, Neighborhood District Coordinator for the South Team, Seattle Department of Neighborhoods
May 28th HPAC Meeting Agenda
Please join us for the last HPAC meeting before summer! We won’t be meeting again until September. Our agenda this month includes representatives from King County’s Wastewater Treatment Division to update us on the potential roadside rain garden project in Highland Park that we talked about in the fall. They spent the winter doing geotechnical testing and want to let neighbors know what they found out, and implications for a potential project. We will also be hearing from a representative from Highland Park Elementary’s PTA with an exiting collaboration opportunity. Potluck is at 6:30, meeting starts at 7 at the Highland Park Improvement Club on 12th and Holden.
HPAC April events in lieu of our meeting this Wednesday!
We are canceling our regularly scheduled HPAC meeting for April, which was to be this Wednesday- instead, we would like to encourage our members to join in the first HPAC Greening Committee event on Saturday (4/26) from 9am-12pm at the Delridge and Myrtle Stairway, which runs west from Sanislo Elementary to Delridge. They will be cleaning the stairway of garbage and removing invasive plant species within the right of way and at the south end of the Parks property. This is part of a City wide effort to clean stairways throughout Seattle in partnership with FeetFirst and Seattle Stairways. Come help make Delridge more walkable and help restore native plants in South Delridge. More info and registration can be found on this website: http://seattle.cedar.greencitypartnerships.org/event/5144/
After that event you can hustle over to the Highland Park Improvement Club, host to a Northwest Green Home Tour Event on Saturday (4/26) from 11am to 5pm. HPIC is now a Sustainability Stop on the NW Green Home Tour, an annual tour featuring sustainable homes. Visitors to the HPIC Sustainability Stop will get a chance to check out the newly completed courtyard, participate in a “Design Your Own Rain Garden” activity, talk to RainWise contractors, and hang out with neighbors! Plus, there will be a mini-self guided tour of nearby RainWise rain gardens. Shuttles to South Park will be available between 1pm and 3pm so you can check out how that neighborhood is becoming a green village. The site will be hosted by RainWise, Sustainable Seattle, Stewardship Partners, and the Highland Park neighbors. Check out a full list of NW Green Home Tour stops here (www.nwgreenhometour.com).
Please also check out HPIC’s website for information on their awesom Highland Park Uncorked wine event and to register on line, it is coming up on May 17th- and tickets always sell out before the event!
March HPAC Agenda
This month’s agenda includes:
Homestead Community Land Trust: We’ve been getting inquiries about properties for sale around the neighborhood with “Homestead” signs, so we’ve invited a guest speaker from Homestead Community Land Trust to come tell us what they do.
Neighborhood Park and Street Fund: overview the projects submitted for grants in our district
Highland Park Playground: A Seattle Parks representative will be present to update us on the schedule for the Opportunity Fund Grant awarded to the park to create better access from 10th Ave and Thistle Street.
HPIC Courtyard: come hear and see what’s going on…. and help us name the new space!
We’ll also have some folks speaking about the Tree ambassador program, and the Green Home Tour coming up in April.
DEPAVE Highland Park Improvement Club!
Mark your calendars now for March 22 so you don’t miss out on this really fun event kicking off the beginning of the dramatic change to the HPIC parking lot into a courtyard! You thought the raingardens and cisterns were changing things, wait until you see what’s coming. Depave Day (more info on their website) will be an event we will be talking about for years- let’s kick that parking lot’s asphalt! (oh no, I did say that.) Come learn how to remove asphalt- more details to come, pretty sure beer will be involved, but get it on your calendar. An all ages, family fun HPIC event sponsored by Sustainable Seattle and Stewardship Partners.
Mayor’s Neighborhood Summit
As discussed at our January HPAC meeting, Mayor Ed Murray plans to hold a Seattle Neighborhood Summit to improve how the city works with neighborhoods and community leaders. Some of the themes that will be used to drive the summit’s discussions include calls for commitment, action and ongoing conversation
Summit planners say this is the first step in what they hope to be an ongoing relationship aimed at rebuilding the trust between the City and neighborhoods. In addition to holding this traditional forum, they plan to use social media and technology so more can participate whether or not they are able to attend.
The Seattle Neighborhood Summit will be held on Saturday, April 5 from 9:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. in Seattle Center’s Pavilion Room. The Mayor’s Office has also launched a website to collect public input between now and the Summit, which can be found here.
Roxbury Street Safety Input Opportunity
HPAC has been involved in this project, and unfortunately this opportunity falls on the same night as our regular monthly meeting, but need to put it out there for those of you that can make it there to give input on the very important SW Roxbury Street Road Safety Corridor Project. You could even make it to both meetings! Please join the Seattle Department of Transportation (SDOT) next Wednesday, February 26th from 6 to 7:30 PM at Roxhill Elementary School (9430 30th Ave SW) to review data and share your thoughts on how they can improve safety on SW Roxbury Street.
If you can’t make it on the 26th, they’ll also be at the White Center Summit on March 1st to talk Roxbury and the White Center Chamber of Commerce meeting on March 11th. Comments are also welcome via email.
February HPAC Meeting Agenda
HPAC meeting next Wednesday Night, 2/26: HPIC’s Greening Committee will meet at 6:00, potluck starts at 6:30, and HPAC meeting will start at 7:00 at HPIC on 12th and Holden.
So far, the agenda includes:
- an official announcement of the formation of HPAC’s very own Greening Committee: HPAC member Craig Rankin has taken the lead on this and already has a very cool kick off event in the works. Come learn about what’s going on and how to get involved in making our neighborhood more beautiful.
- Aly Pennucci from DPD is joining us to discuss a Pedestrian Zone Mapping Project.
- We have some updates on the Seattle City Light Surplus Properties, several park projects going on in the neighborhood, and all kinds of announcements of cool stuff happening.
- We will be presenting HPIC’s landscape plan for community input and review- come check it out and see how you can help transform part of HPIC’s parking lot into a beautiful courtyard for the community- it’s happening fast! A little sneak peak here:
Volunteer Opportunity at Kenyon trail between 14th and 15th
On Feb. 23 and March 2 from 1 to 4 pm, some Highland Park Neighbors are having their final two work parties associated with a Small Sparks grant on Feb 23rd and March 2nd if anyone wants to join the fun at 14th and Kenyon. The “Kenyon Street Right-Of-Way Beautification Project” received a $1000 grant from the City of Seattle/Department of Neighborhoods, which will be used to purchase plants for the space which has been an on-going restoration project for just under two years. The sloped area which is used locally by students and bus riders willing to climb/descend the steep “social trail” is partially planted and mostly mulched. Come help finish up the project- it’s looking awesome.
