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Kids’ Art in Pinehurst Pocket Park

This month’s art in the pocket park is by Akli. He’s a regular at Pinehurstfest, and he drew this adorable baby in 2016. He’s right, ya gotta love a baby! Check it out in the kiosk at the pocket park – NE 117th St & 19th Ave NE.

If you would like to submit your child’s artwork (or yours!) for the Pocket Park, please email nancy@pinehurstseattle.org. 

Free Youth Swim Lessons

Parks and Rec is offering free youth (6-16 years old) swimming lessons at all nine beaches this summer. The ones closest to Pinehurst are Magnuson, Green Lake and Matthews. Space is limited and signup starts June 1. See website for more information:

http://www.seattle.gov/parks/find/swimming-beaches

D5 Panel Discussion

Thursday, May 31, from 7 to 9 p.m., the D5 Community Network (Pinehurst is in District 5)  is hosting a panel discussion of issues pertaining to District 5 with citywide council members Lorena Gonzalez and Teresa Mosqueda and Deputy Mayor Michael Fong, at the Haller Lake Community Club, 12579 Densmore Ave. N. This is a great opportunity to exercise your civic muscles. Ask questions. Get answers.

The meeting will begin with a 15-minute social period, during which attendees can submit questions for the panel, peruse the literature tables, and enjoy some light refreshments and each other’s company.

A note from one of the organizers: “Given the heated controversy that has developed over the City’s recently adopted head tax, I think it is important for me to state that that issue is beyond our scope–although we definitely do have many questions on our list for the evening about homelessness, drawing from questions submitted by the community.  We are looking forward to a productive, substantive, respectful conversation.”

See the flyer below for how to submit questions.

 

Micro-Policing Plan Focus Groups

If you live west of 15th NE in Pinehurst, you’re in the Northgate Micro-Community Policing Plan area.

Consider going to the Northgate MCPP focus group on Friday, May 25, 4:30 – 5:30 pm at Northgate Library to express your perceptions of crime in the area, as well as the performance of the SPD.

Here’s more information about the plans and the focus groups:

Bystander Intervention Training

Thursday, June 7th, 2018

6 – 8 pm at Literacy Source, 3200 NE 125th St

Please register here as space is limited.

Have you ever wondered how to intervene if you saw someone being harassed because of their religious identity or for any other reason?

Learn how to engage in situations of public harassment and violence without escalating the danger.

This free training is led by the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), Washington State.

Haller Lake Music Series – In Our Backyard

Haller Lake, our near neighbor to the north, has an intimate, casual, classical music venue at Haller Lake United Methodist Church (13055 1st Ave. NE., Seattle).

For about 25 years the church has hosted the Haller Lake Music Series, which offers almost monthly freewill-donation concerts. The performers tend to be local musicians whom you can meet and chat with after the concert as you nibble on free cookies and juice. This April an ensemble made up of Seattle Symphony musicians played a concert there and it was lovely. It’s wonderful having a very local music venue with such skilled musicians, and yet it is sparsely attended. I urge you to try it. Here is its website for the schedule:

https://hallerlakemusic.com

Saturday, May 19, there will be an evening of chamber music including songs by Schubert, Schumann, and Brahms, Schubert’s Fantasie for Violin and Piano, and a selection of Schubert Ländler and Waltzes. The pianist, Tamara Friedman, will be playing on her magnificent 1820s-style Viennese grand fortepiano, which is being brought to the venue especially for this concert. She is joined by violinist Stephen Daniels and internationally acclaimed dramatic soprano Dolores Holt.

Check out this musical gem on the edge of our neighborhood!

North Precinct Advisory Council Minutes for May 2018

This month the guest speaker at NPAC was Sgt Richard Welch, head of the North Precinct’s Burglary/Theft Investigation Team. All the minutes are here, but I want to emphasize what Sgt Welch told us about how the unit works. I think it will explain why many who make burglary reports are so frustrated and think ‘the police don’t care’ when SPD doesn’t solve the crime.

The Burglary/Theft Investigations Team investigates property crimes and crime
committed by minors within each precinct. Being located within each precinct
allows for closer communication with patrol, and more direct follow-up with
property crime victims.

North Precinct has the highest volume in the city (it is the largest precinct, after all). 16,000 burglary/theft crime reports are reviewed each year; that is about 1,300 a month. Is it any wonder that 1300 crimes a month don’t get investigated and solved?

The sergeant reviews all the reports having to do with burglary; theft; organized
retail theft; property damage; pawn shops; dog bites; juvenile cases.

The sergeant triages the reports. That is, he evaluates them to pick out the ones that have the kind of information/evidence/leads that his team can use to investigate and follow up on. Due to staffing (and they’d love to have more investigators) and the amount of leads in the reports, only about 10% of the cases are investigated. The victim is not notified if their crime is not going to be investigated, though you can call and ask. Admittedly, he says the unit could do a better job of informing those whose cases ARE assigned for investigation.

The sergeant assigns the chosen cases to an investigator. The investigator follows
leads, examines videos, etc., trying to solve the crime. With enough information,
the investigator can write up a crime notice and send it out to the street patrols to
keep a lookout.

Videos are very useful to investigations; if a report has a good video, usually
some effort can be put into the case. When people give videos to media before
giving them to the police, and they are broadcast, investigation is tainted, and a
critical window can be lost because it can take days for SPD to get the video.

Tips:
Record the serial number of your bike and take a photo of the bike. You
can register it at bikeindex.org, a national database.

Photograph valuable jewelry and get appraisals if possible. By law, pawn
shops must keep jewelry 30 days, then they melt it down. SPD sends
photos of stolen jewelry to pawn shops in the area.

Property moves quickly once stolen. Thieves trade stuff around – bikes go
to thieves dealing in bikes, etc. So reporting stolen goods quickly with as
much information as possible is important. And remember that the more
info you have, the more likely your report will be assigned to an
investigator for follow-up.

I hope this helps explain the investigative process and shows that SPD does care, it just can’t possibly investigate and solve all the thefts and robberies that occur. Of course we can help by lobbying city council and the mayor for a bigger SPD budget so it can hire more investigators. It’s helpful to write letters to them asking for funding of specific positions like the investigators.

Bicycle Theft Prevention

Lots of bikes are being stolen around Seattle these days as the weather gets better. We’ve been seeing numerous posts on our Pinehurst Seattle Facebook page about stolen and abandoned bikes. At this month’s North Precinct Advisory Council, the Community Police Team passed out a bicycle theft prevention bulletin. See below.

The sergeant mentioned that there is a national registry where you can add your bike’s serial number to a database. It’s at https://bikeindex.org/. If police pick up a stolen bike, chances of getting it back to the owner are greater if the owner reported it missing and provided the serial number. Giving SPD a photo of the bike helps, too.

In addition, SPD has a twitter feed listing photos of stolen bikes they picked up where you can look for your bike. It’s at https://twitter.com/getyourbikeback

Construction on Lake City Way at 125th St.

Traffic advisory: SDOT  is going to be nearly doubling the length of the southbound bus stop on Lake City Way, just south of NE 125th St.  Currently, the zone is 65-feet long and can only serve one bus at a time.  When there are two coaches that approach the zone, one bus must wait on the north side of the intersection, delaying bus patrons, while also causing traffic backups on both southbound Lake City Way and eastbound NE 125th St.

To address the problem, a contractor will lengthen the zone from 65 feet to 125 feet.  They will bulb out the sidewalk/curb this additional length, which will permit the two coaches to load and unload passengers without having to pull out of traffic to do so.

The project will also mean the addition of a second bus shelter, a lit cantilever shelter.  The existing “box” style shelter will also be replaced with a cantilever.  This style of shelter is designed to be more open, making the internal area of the shelter more visible and less prone to loitering.

Construction is likely to last three to four weeks.  Most of the construction will occur on weekdays, with traffic reduced to a single southbound lane at this location on weekdays from 9 AM until 4 PM during construction.  During the AM and PM traffic peaks, the contractor will be required to keep both southbound lanes open to traffic.

A big impact will occur the first weekend in May when the contractor will be replacing damaged road panels adjacent to the stop.  This will require a full closure of the southbound lanes of Lake City Way at this location, from Friday, May 4 at 7 PM until Monday, May 7 at 6 AM.  Traffic will be detoured eastbound on NE 125th St, and then again southbound onto 30th Ave NE, back onto Lake City Way NE.

Contact Christa Dumphys with any concerns or questions, at (206)386-5458.

SDOT realizes the loss of any on-street parking spaces in a commercial corridor is not popular with adjacent businesses.  Fortunately, it is only three spots, and it hope the businesses understand why they are moving ahead with this project.

 

Kids’ Art in Pinehurst Pocket Park

This month’s kids’ art in Pinehurst pocket park is by Zainab, age 10. Looks like it’s a drawing of the pocket park! Stop by the park, take a stroll, and check out Zainab’s art at the corner of NE 117th St & 19th Ave NE.