From the Washington Park Arboretum…

Please join us for an afternoon of public festivities celebrating the opening of the new Loop Trail in Washington Park Arboretum.

Enjoy a ribbon-cutting, live music, free snacks, food trucks, and fun activities all along the 2-mile loop.

• 1 p.m. “Vine-cutting” ceremony at the Birch Parking Lot (Lake WA Blvd & E Interlaken Ave), adjacent the Loop Trail
• A performance by the Husky Marching Band Drumline.
• Educational activities for kids hosted by UW Botanic Gardens, plus the opportunity to learn about field trips, camps, and more!
• Stroller and bike decoration station
• Activity nodes at various locations around the Loop
• Live music from Gansango, with Etienne Cakpo (Benin), Marc Smason & One Love (New Orleans), and Evan McPherson (classical guitar)
• Food trucks: 314 Pie, Chicago West, Thai-U-Up
• Talk and book signing with outdoors writer and guidebook author Craig Romano
• Free snacks, artists-at-work, and more!

Check out the photo contest – the winning pic will become a postcard sold at the gift shop!

More info on the grand opening

MCC board members giving the University District Food Bank the proceeds from the MCC’s Turkey Trot.

Do you think Montlake is a great place to live? Want to join a group of people working together to keep our neighborhood great? If so, consider applying for a  position on the Montlake Community Club Board of Trustees. MCC board positions are open to anyone who lives or works in Montlake and wants to engage with the community in a leadership role. Board members have a variety of backgrounds and interests and tend to share a common passion for our neighborhood. Some applicants simply want to connect with more neighbors and get more deeply involved in Montlake.

Focus Areas: Board member focus areas include communications, Turkey Trot, annual Yard Sale, Emergency Preparedness & Neighbors Helping Neighbors, welcoming new neighbors, business district improvements, traffic issues, and bicycle and pedestrian safety. (We recently posted about recruiting a volunteer to run the yard sale; the yard sale chair could apply to be a board member or could be a non-board member volunteer).

Meetings: The board meets the second Tuesday of every month at 7 pm at the Boyer Children’s Clinic. Time commitment can vary greatly depending on the board member’s specific area of interest and whether special events/outreach efforts are underway.

Qualification: Applicants must live or work in the Montlake Community Club’s membership boundary, shown here.

How to Apply: Those interested are encouraged to send a short statement which details their experience with the neighborhood, why they are interested in joining the board and what skills they can apply to serving as a board member to MCC board member Darcy LaBelle at secretary@montlake.net by April 30. Feel free to email questions to Darcy questions as well.

The Montlake Community Club is seeking a new chairperson to lead the All Montlake Yard Sale taking place this September. The former chair person, Lori Sabado, is “retiring” after running the yard sale for 4 years. This is a great opportunity for someone who wants to be more involved with the community through this beloved neighborhood event.

Responsibilities include:

• Finalizing date of Yard Sale – avoiding Husky Football Game Days, and/or communicating with Greek Festival organizers
• Working with the editor of Montlake.net to publicize the sale and recruit neighbors to host sales
• Organizing online Yard Sale Sign up with MCC’s technical adviser
• Communicating with sites about the sale
• Organizing the printing of posters and poster hanging
• Assembling and distributing yard sale signs
• Working with the MCC technical advisor to finalize online yard sale map
• Organizing donation collection station at the Montlake Blvd Market
• On-call support the day of the sale
• Working with volunteers to assist with all of the above
• Giving updates to the MCC Board of Trustees

Lori will be available to assist and answer questions during the transition.

Estimated hours:

• April through May – 1 hour/month
• June through July – 2 hours/month
• August – 3 hours/month
• Two – three weeks prior to the sale – 4 hours/week
• Week of Sale – 8 hours

Interested or have questions? Please contact MCC board president Sharsti Sandall sharstisandall@gmail.com

Many thanks to Lori Sabado for all of her years of service on the MCC board and as yard sale chair!

Are you looking for preschool options or other activities for your child? Then check out Boyer Children’s Clinic, located in both Montlake and Magnuson Park! We’ve been serving the community for over 75 years, and whether you’re interested in our Tiny Stars Playgroup (10-20 months), Rising Stars Preschool (20-42 months), or our Summer Camps for 3 – 5 year olds, you’ll love our low child-to-staff ratio, unique programming, and the opportunity for your child to learn side-by-side with children of all abilities. All classes are staffed by a Master’s-level certified teacher and a teacher’s aide, and support creativity, curiosity and holistic development, all while having FUN!

To learn more, please visit our website or contact Denise Swanson, Education Program Director, at denise.swanson@boyercc.org.

One of WSDOT’s proposals for night time noise mitigation? Give residents earplugs. You heard right. WSDOT’s approach to mitigating night time noise during Montlake 520 construction is to offer the absolute minimum. Their ideas include:

 Provide earplugs and white noise machines to residents near the project area.

 Install temporary sound dampening drapes for residents.

 Provide hotel rooms for residents during high impact or extremely noisy operations.

We need to tell the city that this is NOT OK. Speak up now on WSDOT’s proposed Noise Variance for SR520 Montlake Phase Construction.

WSDOT’s previous noise variance was dismissed on a technicality. Now WSDOT has refiled the noise variance request. We need to be heard as a community (again) and tell the city this is not okay.

What You Can Do: ATTEND THE MEETING THIS THURSDAY

Public Meeting – Seattle Department of Construction and Inspections
February 15, 2018
4:30 p.m. – 7 p.m.
University of Washington – Kane Hall
4069 Spokane Lane
Seattle, WA 98105

Parking
Paid parking is available at the Central Plaza Garage. Parking permits are available at any campus gatehouse for $10.Paid street and lot parking is available on local streets near UW campus.

What You Can Do: SEND COMMENTS BY FEBRUARY 20

Comment on the Noise Variance request by February 20th to:

• Email:prc@seattle.gov (please include project #3030792 in the subject line)
• Mail: SDCI, PRC, P.O. Box 34019, Seattle, WA, 98124-4019 (please reference project # 3030792)

More background from the Montlake Community Club…

On Jan. 17, 2018, WSDOT resubmitted the SR 520 Montlake Phase noise variance application to the Seattle Department of Construction and Inspections (SDCI). WSDOT resubmitted the application to provide more accurate public notice based on the location of known nighttime construction and staging areas. The technical analysis in the application has not changed. SDCI has now published the resubmitted application on its website, and has launched a new comment period for the application, Jan. 25 – Feb. 20. The Montlake Phase nighttime noise variance application is available on SDCI’s Land Use Information Bulletin (Project #3030792).

Public meeting on February 20th –

We are finding the location and the time to be an impediment for a lot of people.  The Montlake Community Club has suggested finding a time and location that will draw people to attend, not drive them away.  We fear that poor attendance will give the impression that no one cares.  Quite the opposite is true. Please show up if you care about this issue.

WSDOT has and is persistently insistent on providing the absolute minimum noise mitigation possible for an extended period of time. That WSDOT is suggesting in their application that offering residents earplugs is a valid mitigation measure shows a complete lack of care of the impacts that those near the work zone, in an urban environment, will endure.

If one of the City’s mandates is to preserve its neighborhoods, the noise variance, in its current form, should be rejected.

We cannot be more vocal about this: the acceptance of the variance request prior to the RFI being issued is premature.  If need is actually established and a mitigation plan by the selected Design/Build Contractor has submitted with an opportunity to accept Public comment, only then should a permit be issued.  The concept of a multi-year blanket permit is unacceptable.

Due to a procedural technicality, WSDOT has to resubmit its Noise Variance application for night time noise during the Montlake Phase of 520 Construction. The public comments period is only open until February 20th. We need to tell WSDOT that the variance is NOT acceptable at a public meeting on Feb 15. and by submitting comments online. See all the details from WSDOT below, as well as a statement from the Montlake Community Club.

FROM WSDOT:

On Jan. 17, 2018, WSDOT resubmitted the Montlake Phase noise variance application to the Seattle Department of Construction and Inspections (SDCI). WSDOT resubmitted the application to provide more accurate public notice based on the location of known nighttime construction and staging areas. The technical analysis in the application has not changed. SDCI has now published the resubmitted application on its website, and has launched a new comment period for the application, Jan. 25 – Feb. 20.

How to comment on WSDOT’s nighttime noise variance application

 The Montlake Phase nighttime noise variance application is available on SDCI’s Land Use Information Bulletin (Project #3030792). Comments can be submitted via the following ways between Jan. 25 and Feb. 20:

• Mail:SDCI, PRC, P.O. Box 34019, Seattle, WA, 98124-4019 (please reference project # 3030792)
• Email:prc@seattle.gov (please include project #3030792 in the subject line)
• In person:

SDCI public meeting on Feb. 15, 4:30 p.m. – 7 p.m.
University of Washington – Kane Hall
4069 Spokane Lane
Seattle, WA 98105

Parking

o    Paid parking is available at the Central Plaza Garage. Parking permits are available at any campus gatehouse for $10.
o    Paid street and lot parking is available on local streets near UW campus.

FROM THE MCC TRANSPORTATION CHAIR:

The importance of attending the SR 520 meeting concerning the revised WSDOT noise variance cannot be over stated.  WSDOT’s revised application for the noise variance marginalizes health impacts to people living in this densely populated area of Montlake, Laurelhurst, Madison Park, Portage Bay, Roanoke and North Capitol Hill.  We have asked that threats to public health from night time construction of the SR520 bridge replacements deserve more review before the variance is granted.

The WSDOT noise variance presents an interesting moral question. Is it morally justifiable to subject the population living adjacent to SR 520 construction project to the discomfort, psychologic stress, cognitive impairment as well as the effects of hypertension including myocardial infraction, stroke, and death in order to advance a project more readily?  And for a period of ten years.

In opposition to WSDOT’s first night time noise variance, more than 250 emails from impacted neighbors, and a letter undersigned by the Seattle delegation to the Washington State Legislature did not prevent the City of Seattle under the Murray administration from granting a night time noise variance for the SR520 Montlake phase.

Our requests to the Seattle Department of Construction & Inspections (SDCI) were ignored. We asked SDCI to grant a noise variance for no more than 6 months at a time, and no more than 12 hours a day with no night time work, including heavy equipment use and trucks hauling material to and from construction sites.  SDCI is now poised to approve the night time noise variance for up to five years.  

No analysis was provided for WSDOT’s claim that it is imperative to have construction work during night time hours.  We asked that WSDOT’s noise variance be held to Seattle Municipal Code, Chapter 25.08 – NOISE CONTROL – “Exterior sound level limits not to exceed 45 decibels (dB) between the hours of 10 p.m. and 7 a.m. during weekdays, and between the hours of 10 p.m. and 9 a.m. on weekends and legal holidays.”

We request any noise variance include a table of acceptable decibel limits no higher than 55dB for demolition, construction and noise from construction vehicles.  The negative effects of noise, especially at night, have an even greater impact upon children and seniors.  The approved WSDOT/SR520 noise variance allows noise levels as high as 80dB — because of the way decibel scales work, this is over 15X times higher than the 40dB nighttime limit per WHO standards.  

Solid scientific study demonstrates the noise residents adjacent to SR 520 will be subject to elevation of blood pressure and heart rate as a result of the release of “fight and flight” catecholamine hormones and endogenous steroids. Data cited by the World Health Organization document that these stress induced reactions are associated with an excess of stroke, myocardial infarction, and cardiac death.

The winning contractor will have submitted a ‘minimum bid’ to the RFP in the design build process. According to the revised WSDOT application, the contractor will provide a “Noise Management and Mitigation Plan” to WSDOT for their approval.  The minimum bid will surely result in a minimum level of effort for noise mitigation.