Capitol Hill Community Council

Capitol Hill Community Council
General Meeting Minutes: February 19, 2009

In Attendance: 14 community members including officers (Justin Carder, Charlette LeFevre & Hong Chhuor)

Call to Order/Introduction

Open Floor

Dennis Saxman

Neighborhood District Council Update – currently system is very top-down and ideas are very narrow, based on the city’s views w/ little outreach to the neighborhoods and public.

Jeff Munoch

1. March 6, 2009: Husky Stadium Parking Lot @ 2pm – Sound Transit Groundbreaking Event.
2. March 25, 2009: Tentatively @ Seattle Central: Community Forum on Transit Oriented Development; confirmation on time & place forthcoming.

Justin Carder

Seattle Dept. of Transportation: Walking tour of Cap Hill to survey parking; contact is Ruth Harper.

Charlette LeFevre

Capitol Hill Bill update.

Finance Report

CHCC General Account Balance: $1662.55
Open Space Committee Balance: $159.31

January Minutes Read

Sound Transit Interlude

Currently, progress is delayed due to slow progress in removing residual asbestos and other contaminants in the Sound Transit properties. Still in process of seeking noise variance permit.

Technology Committee Report

Justin Carder reports that we’ve had over 360 visitors so far on the CHCC website for Feb vs. 400 in Jan.
Number of Individuals Sign-Up to Receive Email Updates: 36
Number of Individuals Who Are Members of Facebook Group 105

Arts Committee Report

Capitol Hill Pride Festival

Charlette is in contact with Virginia Swanson @ Seattle Parks & Recreation and Mike Shay at Seattle Dept. of Transportation. Karsten from Julia’s presents their plan for a beer garden on Thomas regardless of Council involvement. Discussion around possible permitting for 6 hour block of time (4-10pm on Sat. 6/27) for two blocks on Broadway. Julia’s will join if CHCC is able to accomplish this. Charlette will move forward with submitting an application for a permit @ no cost to Council.

Open Space Committee Report

Jen Power announced 3/4 meeting with city councilmembers Conlin, Rasmussen & Clark at Shinka Tea @ 5:30 pm. Invited everybody to attend 3/11 Unpaving Paradis Open House at Cal Anderson Park Shelterhouse @ 6:30pm as well as the planning meeting for the Open House @ Shinka Tea on 2/24 @ 6:30pm.

Guest Speaker – Mark Howard: Seattle Emergency Management

The biggest concern for Capitol Hill has to do with housing. Older houses on the Hill are not attached securely to their foundations. Risk is that they will collapse in the event of a strong enough earthquake. Most vulnerable area of Cap Hill is along West side (I-5) – risk of landslides.

SNAP (Seattle Neighborhoods Actively Prepared) program seeks to address preparedness on the individual citizen level. Agency has set schedule to go out to present to communities, but can also arrange custom meetings at request of a neighborhood.

Presented the safety plan developed by the Queen Anne Neighborhood District Council (includes Interbay & Magnolia) – they are the first in the city to develop a safety plan as they are vulnerable to liquefaction, slides as well as a tsunami from Lake Union. Plan includes businesses and churches as well as communication hubs – low tech communication/resource gathering spaces when high-tech communications are down in event of a disaster.

Mark mentions that city services will be out for at least 3-5 days in the event of a catastrophic event, so burden is on community to care for its members in the interim.

Contact: (206) 684-7727 or vog.elttaes|drawoh.kram#vog.elttaes|drawoh.kram

Bylaws Review Session

Provided background for why committee exists: to address need for updated bylaws arising from the reforming of the Council in 2008. The purpose is to provide updated bylaws that are more relevant to the new Council in a way that is open, transparent and allows for community input.

Ryan S. & Debbie K. Presided (committee members, in lieu of Becki F., chair)

1. Used bylaws of other community councils as guide as well as nationwide resources.
2. Process involved considering bylaws article by article.
3. Guided Council through articles 1-8, highlighted changes and comparing them with existing bylaws. Each person was provided with a hard copy.
4. Questions were taken after each article was reviewed.
5. Bylaws “special session” scheduled for Tuesday 3/3. Location & time TBA.