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Mayor Nickels to Œfight grimeı in Lake City

Mayor Greg Nickels will visit Lake City on Wednesday, March 27 to kick off a Clean Seattle event. He will start the day with a 9:30 a.m. speech at the Lake City Community Center, located at 12531 28th Ave. NE. He is expected to speak about efforts to ³fight grime² around town and restore Seattle as one of the nationıs cleanest and most beautiful cities.

Nickels will then head to the Lake City Playground at 27th Avenue NE and NE 123rd Street where he will help city employees and citizen volunteers pick up litter.

Seattle Public Utilities spokesperson Ron Harris-White says that the clean up is designed to inspire others to follow the Mayorsı good example. More events will take place until 3 p.m. Everyone is invited to participate. For details, call the Mayorıs office at 684-4000.

Burglaries up in early 2002

Recently-released crime statistics for North Seattle show that residential burglaries rose 98 percent in January, compared with the same month the previous year.

While this statistic seems alarming, Duane Fish, a spokesman for the Seattle Police Department, said that big jumps in crime can often represent the work of a single individual. In the case of the rash of North Seattle burglaries, the police believe they may have caught the main culprits.

Fish said officers arrested a 27-year-old man in late February whom they suspect may have committed 55 burglaries or more in North Seattle.

A week later, officers nabbed another man whom they believe was responsible for several burglaries both in North Seattle as well as on Queen Anne Hill.

Lake City Farmers Market meeting, April 17

The Neighborhood Farmers Market Alliance will hold an informational meeting on Wednesday, April 17, to discuss plans for the Lake City Farmers Market. The meeting will begin at 7 p.m. and will be held at the Mennonite Church on NE 125th, just east of Lake City Way NE. The weekly farmers market is scheduled to open June 20, and run every Thursday through Oct. 17. The market will be located at NE 127th Street and 30th Avenue NE, behind the Lake City Fire Station. For more information, contact Molly Burke at 365-5895 or the Neighborhood Farmers Market Alliance at 632-5234.

Girl Scouts add 2 North Seattleites to board

The Girl Scouts Totem Council recently appointed two North Seattle residents to its board of directors: Posy Gering and Sharon Frey Jones.

Gering, a Wallingford resident, is president of Brainwave, a strategic communications firm that specializes in the technology sector. She is a former editor for PC Magazine and PC/Computing Magazine, and has been a performing artist and arts educator as well as a co-founder of the Childrenıs Museum in Fairfield, Conn.

Jones is currently manager of corporate and foundation gifts at the Bellevue Art Museum. A lifetime member of Girl Scouts, she was honored with the First Class Scout (now Gold Award) in 1980.

Lake City design guidelines to be discussed

The public is invited to learn about proposed design guidelines for Lake Cityıs business core at an open house on Sunday, April 14 at the Lake City Community Center.

The design guidelines will cover most new commercial and multifamily buildings in downtown Lake City, which has been designated to become a Hub Urban Village, according to a neighborhood plan that was created by local citizens and adopted by the City in the late 1990s.

A Citizensı Design Committee has been formed to oversee development of the proposed design guidelines for the Lake City Hub Urban Village. The volunteer group is made up of a dozen residents from Lake City, Meadowbrook and Cedar Park.

Committee co-chair Cheryl Klinker said the guidelines form a set of recommendations regarding siting, materials, signs, pedestrian amenities, lighting, landscaping, open space and style of new buildings. The design guidelines ³are recommendations in the City permitting process, not regulations,² she said.

The committeeıs work is supported by a $5,000 grant from the Cityıs Department of Neighborhoods. The group has hired consultant Dennis Tate to provide planning and design expertise.

The open house, from 10 a.m.-2 p.m., will coincide with the Lake City Chamber of Commerceıs pancake breakfast, which will be held at the center that same day, from 8:30 a.m.-1 p.m.

Green Lake gets new librarian

Lynn Daniel, a Queen Anne resident, was recently named branch manager of the Green Lake Library. She succeeds the libraryıs longtime head librarian, Toni Myers, who retired last September.

Daniel, a 28-year employee of the Seattle Public Library, was most recently a coordinator in the history, travel and maps department at Seattleıs Central Library. She said she is enjoying her latest assignment. ³You have a much greater sense of community. Thereıs a lot of satisfaction in knowing your customers,² Daniel said of working at the Green Lake Library. The branch library is located at 7364 E. Green Lake Drive N.

North Helpline is running out of room

The North Helpline Food Bank, located in the Lake City Little City Hall building at 12707 30th Ave. NE., is serving more clients than it originally expected when it opened last October. The Food Bank, which currently occupies a cramped 300-square-foot space, is hoping to find larger digs, preferably near a bus line.

North Helpline also recently added health care to its list of services for the needy, thanks to a donation of nurses two days a week (Tuesday and Saturday) from Northwest Hospital.

In addition to needing a new space, North Helpline is also seeking volunteers. Those interested in contributing time, money or food should call the food bank at 365-8043.

Police address concerns about sex offenders

According to the Seattle Police Departmentıs latest count, 310 sex offenders currently reside in North Seattle.

While that count seems high, North Seattle ranks third, behind South Seattle and West Seattle, in the number of sex offenders living in the area.

For the last several weeks, the Seattle Police Department has been holding meetings on sex offenders recently released from jail who are now residing in North Seattle. Seattle Police detective Bob Shilling said the police department tries to hold a meeting to discuss the topic in every neighborhood throughout the city once a year.

The neighborhoods that border Aurora Avenue currently have the highest concentration of sex offenders, according to the police. Thereıs a reason for that, says Shilling. He added that motels such as those located along Aurora can be attractive to those recently released from prison, especially if rooms are inexpensive to rent. He added that sex offenders are often unable to find apartments to rent. He said sex offenders are usually upfront about informing motel owners of their criminal record.

For details, contact the Seattle Police Departmentıs Sex Offender unit at 684-5332.