Wedgwood Democratic caucus packs 'em in, Obama wins the fightin' 46-2271st (4 to 2)

Wow, I now know that you can pack an entire neighborhood into a small elementary school. Things were pretty chaotic between 1-1:30pm today as folks jammed into AEII/Thornton Creek Elementary to caucus for Clinton and Obama today.

Things took a little slower to get going, but it's because the turnout was WAY more than what was expected.

In the 46-2271 precinct 119 folks showed up and voted 79 for Obama, 35 for Clinton, and 7 undecided (down from 14 at the beginning of the caucus). Because we were given 6 delegates, it means that 4 went to Obama and 2 to Clinton.

When people stood up to speak for their candidates, I felt that the Clinton supporters had more consistent and on-point messages. However, at the end of the day, the main points I took away from each side were:

Pro-Clinton - Clinton is experienced and knows how to get things done.

Pro-Obama - Obama can rally the nation and beat the Republicans.

Against-Clinton - Clinton voted for the Iraq war and when pushed she will abandon her core convictions.

Against-Obama - Obama hasn't given us his specific plans, can't solve issues with generalities.

All-in-all though, it was a good natured group of Democrats and they all appear ready to line up behind whoever wins the party nomination.

Here are some photos from today's caucus, and 'good job' to everyone who showed up!
(If anyone has any Wedgwood Republican updates they want to send - let me know).

Wedgwood neighborhood history display - now available at the NE Branch Library

Make sure to check out the Wedgwood neighborhood history display at the NE Branch Libary - You can learn more about Wedgwood's history from our neighborhood historian Valarie Bunn.

If you enjoy seeing photos of Wedgwood in the old days, please visit the neighborhood history display at the North East Branch Library, 6801 35th Avenue NE, in the month of February. The display includes Wedgwood, Meadowbrook, Laurelhurst and others. I'll be there every Wednesday at 1 PM to hear your questions and comments.
--Valarie Bunn, Wedgwood neighborhood historian

Wedgwood Caucus Locations - Sat, Feb 9 2008

Interested in helping decide how many delegates from Washington your presidential candidate will take to their National Convention? Well, you're in luck, next Saturday you can express your discussion at one of our two neighborhood caucus locations.

Democratic 46-2271 Precinct Caucus
AEII/Decatur/Thornton Creek School
7711 43rd Ave NE
Feb 9, 1pm

Republican 46-2271 Precinct Caucus
Nathan Hale High School
10750 30th Ave NE
Feb 9, 1pm

Wedgwood neighbor's appeal to save the 1904 farmhouse.

This letter was sent over to us by Linda K. from Wedgwood. Here are her thoughts in response to an earlier post about the 1904 farmhouse that is scheduled to be destroyed and turned into townhomes. Thanks Linda for sending this over!

The 1904 farmhouse on 35th should not be sold, torn down and redeveloped. Slowly, gradually, all tidbits of unique personality and flavor in our neighborhood are being taken away from us. Somebody has maintained this property carefully, at least on the outside (I don't know what the inside looks like). A close look reveals detail in the shingles on this building that one would never see on a new structure built today. The way the building is up on a hill almost implies how it is looking down and watching us all. This is a beautiful piece of Wedgwood's history that should be saved.

Our Wedgwood group is featured in this week's edition of the North Seattle Herald-Outlook

Check out this article in this week's North Seattle Herald-Outlook, it's a great article about our efforts to bring in a better building to our neighborhood.



Here's the first part of the article, click to read more!

Group forms to amend condo-development plans for 35th N.E. and N.E. 86th

In an on-line community ranking of Seattle's hippest neighborhoods, Wedgwood was ranked 76th of 99. That's tragically un-hip, according to the Amazon.com poll, though some residents are far more concerned with other neighborhood issues.

Neighbors living in nearby single-family homes are more worried about an 85-unit condominium unit set to break ground next spring on the corner of 35th Avenue Northeast and Northeast 86th Street.

The four-story building would stand nearly 40 feet tall and feature nearly 6,000 square feet of retail space on the first floor.

A group of developers from Murray Franklin began its plans in December 2006 and brought the designs to the Wedgwood Community Council in January. When community member Greg Raece - who lives just a few feet away from the property - saw the plans, he almost immediately spoke up.

"It just doesn't fit in with the scheme here," said Raece, who has lived in Wedgwood since the late 1990s. "There hasn't been much development in Wedgwood over the years, and a building like this will really set the tone for all development that's to come."

Since Raece and a number of other concerned residents saw the plans in January, they have formed the Wedgwood Action Group, a group that hopes to amend the current plans, if not halt them entirely.

"It is such a big complex, and with the downward slope of the land, it could [negatively] affect the natural landscape of the area," said Raece, who also noted that the building's proximity to existing single-family housing is a major point of concern. "It's going to be 8 feet away from our houses."

More

City Councilmember Candidate Tim Burgess' Message for our Wedgwood Group

Tim Burgess is currently running for Seattle City Council and once he learned about our project in the PI has not only been connecting us with other neighborhood groups in town, but came out to meet us at our Thursday meeting. Just to let everyone who reads this blog know, he is the only councilmember/person running for council who has offered us any meaningful advice and suggestions. Below is a letter he sent to me that I asked if I could reprint on our site.

Kemp Hiatt, Tim Burgess, and Dr. George Counts, three of the founding members of Queen Anne Neighbors for Responsible Growth

I hope your neighbors keep going strong in Wedgwood. There is GREAT opportunity for them to influence the scope and design of the condo project. We found that our influence on Queen Anne was far more than we expected, both with the property owner and the city. The land use code was clearly in favor of the developer and we had very few legal tools. However, the influence of nearly 2,000 neighbors cannot be ignored; there is power in numbers. Here is the website for Queen Anne Neighbors for Responsible Growth: (www.qanrg.org).

Our project started as a full block retail development with a massive grocery store (QFC’s largest in the state!) and retail shops on a second floor open air parking lot. We called it the “strip mall in the sky.” It was terrible. Through our work with the developer—always respectful, but very aggressive—we got the second floor parking lot removed, more apartments added, exterior designs changed for more neighborhood-sensitive materials and less blocky faces. We worked hard for a commitment to only rent to locally-owned retailers (yes, that would have included Starbucks), but the developer would not commit to that, although they certainly heard the neighbors loud and clear. This summer we were down to just a couple of major issues, including traffic flow and delivery truck issues. These were huge concerns and not headed toward resolution when QFC pulled out of the project. The property owner is now starting over and seeking a new developer. Metropolitan Market wants to stay in the space so they are involved in discussions as are other local developers who have better track records with the community.

By the way, our neighborhood has completed what we call “Picture Perfect Queen Anne,” a project that set design guidelines for public spaces on upper Queen Anne from the street to property lines. You can learn about that effort here: http://www.ppqa.com. This was a great project that brought our neighborhood together, but it doesn’t touch on private property design or use.

So, we are now fully underway in developing our design overlay for the land use code for upper QA which will tackle the private property questions. QANRG and the community council are doing this project together. We’re about 1/3 of the way along, perhaps a little more. It takes about a year to prepare a full plan. The city will push back when you ask for an overlay, but keep pressing. Move quickly, too. It’s never too soon to start the process.

Another good result from all this grassroots organizing is that we launched the QA Farmer’s Market this summer. It’s a HUGE success.

So, your organizing around your condo project can lead to all kinds of community benefits, strengthen your neighborhood, build a sense of stronger community, and be really positive for the long-term. My campaign for City Council is a direct result of QANRG, so you never know what will happen.

I wish you the best and let me know if I can help . . especially when I get myself elected!

-Tim

Meeting writeup from 'The Wedgwood Blog'

If you haven't already checked out Erik's blog 'The Wedgwood Blog' you should. He covers all kinds of news in Wedgwood and takes far better photos than the 'Wedgwood Action Group'.

Check out his coverage of last night's meeting.

Thanks for the meeting!

Wow! It was great to see so many people at the meeting last night. I think there were about 100 folks who showed up! Scroll down to the next post and you will see new fliers and letters we wrote, what we need now is to get these messages out.

And specifically, you could really help if you could reach out to these local officials.
Diane Sugimura, Director of Planning and Development: 684-8899 diane.sugimura@seattle.gov

Sally Clark, Seattle City Councilmember
Phone: (206) 684-8802
sally.clark@seattle.gov

Jean Godden, Seattle City Councilmember
Phone: (206) 684-8807
jean.godden@seattle.gov

Peter Steinbrueck, Seattle City Councilmember
Phone: (206) 684-8804
peter.steinbrueck@seattle.gov

Condo fliers and letters - print 'em out, pass 'em around, mail them to the Department of Planning and Development!

The blog has been a great way to get the word out about our efforts, but good old fashioned fliers and letters work too. So, to help with that effort we've got a flier that you can print out and hand out along with a letter we wrote that you can sign and send to Diane Sugimura at the Department of Planning and Development. It really is important to keep the messages going to the DPD.

Click here to download the flier and letter pdf file

Click here to download the flier Word doc file

Seattle Weekly Blog says, "Wedgwoodn't you lighten up?"

I guess we're not making our point clear enough, we're not against redeveloping this building. Let me repeat, 'we're not against redeveloping this building'.

Put in multi-family housing and put in some good retailers. However, as it stands this is not a well-designed building and we are going to fight to make sure that the city applies the existing design guidelines it has on the books to reduce the bulk of this project.

Anyway, the blog post does bring up a good point about the lack of affordable housing in our neighborhood. And there really isn't any plan (whether private or governmental to address that).

Unfortunately though, this project isn't going to help with any affordable inventory - condo units will be priced at $475 a sq. ft. and will range from 580-1240 sq feet so that amounts to $275,500 - $589,000 at a minimum.

Here's the Seattle Weekly Blog post.

Oh yeah, and we got mentioned by Seattlest.

I'm not sure whether James from Seattlest actually has lived in Wedgwood, 'republican bumper stickers', a piece of the 'Eastside dropped in Seattle' - are you kidding me?!?

I have some doubts where you even lived here, quick, answer me this question James, what's a Wedgwood martini? As far as being described as 'single-family' households, yeah, we're that and commercial and multifamily.

Anyway, for those of you visting us from Seattlest let me get to the point. We aren't against development, we just want it to be smaller so it better fits into a neighborhood with single-family homes (it'a all about scale). If this building is going to go in at this size, we want our neighborhood to be zoned so that 4 story buildings aren't 12 feet away from 1 story buildings.

You can check out the Seattlest article for yourself.

We're featured in Tuesday's PI!

Check it out, there's a great article about the proposed condo in today's Seattle PI!

4-story condos planned for Wedgwood

Sally Clark, we need to talk again.

Hi Wedgwood Action Group readers, if you'd really like to do a solid for our group, please give Sally Clark a call at (206) 684-8802 letting her know that we need to get her thoughts on Martha's letter and what she views as the future of Wedgwood planning.

Please feel free to let her know that we promise to use a more flattering photo from her own web site when we meet. :)

Our land use issue featured in the Seattle PI's Environmental Blog!

Check it out, the PI's environmental policy specialist blogger wrote a really nice article about our efforts today. My favorite quote from the article;

But, I am also an advocate for neighborhood preservation - and for common sense. Development should be somewhat consistent within a neighborhood. Neighbors should be protected from outlandish land uses. That is why we have zoning and land use regulations. If zoning is not working, it should be changed. That is how the system is supposed to work.

Wedgwood businesses posting our flyers!

Just wanted to send a shout-out to local businesses Cafe Van Gogh and John Paul Monir Salon for posting our flyers! Thanks for your support, and if you support our cause we encourage you to patronize these shops!

Where's Wedgwood, and check out our article on Urbnlivn.com!

Just wanted to say thanks to Matt from Urbnlivn.com for letting us publish an article about this property on his site. If you haven't checked his blog out, you're missing some of the liveliest condo talk in the city.

Also, Matt said he needed to look at the map to find where Wedgwood is. So for those of you who don't know where we are, here's a link.

News! Print out our flyer and hand it out!

We just put together this awesome flyer that you can print out, download and email, or just email the URL to others! It's a great way to get the word out!

Download the flyer here!