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Seattle Neighborhood Summit

Saturday, April 5th, 9 am to 1 pm, Seattle Center Exhibition Hall

Update: The Neighborhood Summit has been moved from the Seattle Center Pavilion Room to the Seattle Center Exhibition Hall to accommodate more participants. Please update your plans.

As part of his first 100 days in office, Mayor Ed Murray is holding a Neighborhood Summit at the Seattle Center Exhibition Hall on Saturday, April 5th, 9 am to 1 pm. Neighborhood community leaders and members are invited to come and discuss how the City of Seattle can improve the way it works with neighborhoods.

“I want to build strong relationships with the leaders of these neighborhoods and community members and keep an open dialogue as well as build an administration where no one has to ask for a space at the table,” says Murray.

The City is offering other ways to get involved with the summit if you are not able to attend. Fill out the online survey and let the mayor know what’s important to your neighborhood. During the event, social media and technology is planned to reach audiences outside of the summit forum.

SDOT asks for public input on parking pay stations

The Seattle Department of Transportation plans to replace all its parking pay stations between the summer of 2014 and the end of 2016 with new technology.

A one-month on-street trial will take place from February 14 to March 14, along Fourth Avenue between Stewart and Bell streets. There will be seven different models being tested, from four different vendors. During this time, SDOT invites the public to provide feedback regarding the aesthetics, ease of use and overall impression of each of the pay station models by completing a survey available online at http://www.seattle.gov/transportation/parking/newpaystations.htm.

New technology will provide a higher level of customer service and communications reliability, and will be better able to handle more complex parking rate programming requirements. It will also better integrate with other current and future parking management technologies and systems, from pay by phone to Seattle Police Parking Enforcement.

Seattle has approximately 2,200 parking pay stations that control paid parking for about 12,000 on-street parking spaces in Seattle. The oldest pay stations were first installed in 2004 and are coming to the end of their useful lives.

Sidewalk closure required for Pergola repair

Closure expected to last two days

The sidewalk under the Pergola in Pioneer Square will be closed on Thursday, Feb. 6, and Friday, Feb. 7, while workers repair broken glass and assess other damage to the structure.

Contractor Herzog Glass will be on site to replace the 28 glass panels that were broken or damaged after Super Bowl revelers climbed on the Pergola. During the sidewalk closure Seattle Parks and Recreation staff will make a closer inspection of the top of the structure to better understand any damage.

The cost of repairs is estimated to be between $15,000 and $25,000, which has all been donated by the community. Community members Amanda Gallagher Quinn and Shana Pennington-Baird started a crowd-funding campaign that raised more than $16,000 in less than 24 hours. The Western Washington Honda Dealers Association donated $10,000. The Seattle Parks Foundation is handling all the donations. Any money left after Pergola repairs are paid for will be used for Pioneer Square parks and green spaces.

The Pergola was commissioned for construction in 1909 to be the covering to an underground comfort station, said to be the most ornate west of the Mississippi River. When local media told the public about the $25,000 price tag, there was some community resistance. Then-Park Board Executive Ferdinand Schmitz was so certain of future popularity of the Pergola and underground restroom that he promised to repay the City in full if people objected to it. He never had to make good on his promise. The comfort station closed in the 1940s.

On Jan. 15, 2001, the Pergola was hit by a truck, and shattered. The thousands of shards of cast iron were painstakingly pieced together by the century-old, family owned Seidelhuber Iron & Bronze Works in South Park. The refurbished Pergola is now supported by an internal skeleton of 20 tons of structural steel.

The Pergola and the Tlingit Totem Pole in Pioneer Square Park, as well as the adjacent Pioneer Building are all National Historic Landmarks.