Entries from November 2012
November 30th, 2012 by Sara
By Reporter Steven Smalley
For those Metro bus riders who got left in the dark when evening bus service ended, here is the latest from a new group formed to restore it.
Magnolia Transit Riders will meet Tuesdays at 6P.M. to work on ways to bring back nighttime service. The November 27 get-together is at Uptown Espresso in the Village (3223 W. McGraw Street).
On the agenda is a petition to request the return of evening coaches, together with an invitation for Metro officials to meet with the group.
Word from Magnolia Transit Riders is some night bus service may already be on its way in 2013
November 28th, 2012 by Sara
Instead of their annual gingerbread house decorating event, Magnolia Community Center is aligning with Village merchants and joining the fun for Winterfest. Follow the luminaries through the Magnolia play field to the Center for free smores and hot chocolate. Melissa Valenzuela from the Community Center says
You can get some of your holiday shopping done at our holiday pottery sale while the kids jump around in our bounce houses and tumbling area (only $3 per child). Buy a piece of pottery valued more than $3 and your child can jump for free!
Here are the details:
Magnolia Community Center Holiday Fest and Pottery Sale
Nov. 30 from 6-8 p.m.
2550 34th Ave. W
206-386-4235
November 27th, 2012 by Sara
Here is your chance to see inside some of the most beautiful homes in the neighborhood and check out their holiday decorations. There’s a holiday boutique and tea house at Our Lady of Fatima Social Center in addition to the tour.
MAGNOLIA HOLIDAY TOUR OF HOMES
Saturday December 1 10AM-4PM
Tickets: Presale $25 Day of Tour $30
Presale tickets can be purchased at the Magnolia Garden Center. Tour day tickets can be purchased at the Fatima Social Center or at any of the five homes. Proceeds from the tour will be donated to Catholic Community Services programs.
Click here for more information.
November 27th, 2012 by Sara
MV reader Melissa writes
I just caught a women prowling around in my neighbors back yard in the middle of the day (29th/Dravus). I called police and apparently she has been burglarizing apartments along 25th. If you see her, please call 911. She is white, wearing black track suit, has strawberry/blond hair and is carrying a purse.
Holly wrote
She came to our home…Literally opened the back door (which was unlocked) and entered! Black track suit with soccer logos- we are at 29th and Blaine…I called the police & am showing them this posting. Scary, people!
November 26th, 2012 by Sara
Are there parts of Magnolia that you wish were more ‘walkable’? The Seattle Pedestrian Advisory Board is accepting applications for new members to help make walking in Seattle safer and easier. The volunteer board “advises the mayor and city council, participates in planning and project development, evaluates policies and makes recommendations to all city departments including the Seattle Department of Transportation.”
Board members must be Seattle residents. They should be “frequent walkers of a variety of ages, levels of mobility, and walks of life, and from areas throughout the city.” Seth Schromen-Wawrin, chair of the Pedestrian Advisory Board says “Making sure our neighborhoods develop in walkable ways is crucial in supporting our businesses, mass transit, community services, and many other aspects of the city. Serving on the Pedestrian Advisory Board is a great way to work with other dedicated residents to help make Seattle the most walkable city.”
Interested walking enthusiasts should submit a resume and cover letter via email by 5 p.m., December 17th to Howard Wu at howard.wu@seattle.gov. The board meets the second Wednesday of each month from 6 to 8 p.m. at City Hall on Fifth Avenue between James and Cherry streets. Click here for more details.
November 25th, 2012 by Sara
Thanksgiving is over and Winter is almost upon us. Magnolia Village Winterfest will be here before we know it.
It all starts this Friday night at 6 with the tree lighting ceremony and caroling at the Magnolia Garden Center. The festivities continue as many of Magnolia’s friendliest businesses provide refreshments and entertainment on the sidewalks and streets of the Village. Be sure to keep an eye out for Santa! McGraw Street will be blocked off to street traffic for the event.
Click here for more information
November 21st, 2012 by Sara
Magnolia Montessori School is partnering with Seattle’s Union Gospel Mission to collect items for an emergency shelter for homeless men, women and children. Sharon Thomas, Public Relations Manager for the Mission says
We are asking parents to help their children to go through their closets and pantry to find gently used toys, books, warm clothes, non-perishable food and coats they could part with…a new pair of socks is greatly appreciated.
You can drop off your items at Magnolia Montessori -2849 Thorndyke Ave West, between Barrett St. and Armour St. (there’s a box in the backyard), November 26th- 30th from 9:30 – 4:00, Monday to Friday.
November 21st, 2012 by Sara
Metro buses will be operating on reduced schedules over the Thanksgiving holiday and during several holiday periods through January including a full week of reduced service at the end of December. On Thanksgiving Day, Metro will operate a Sunday schedule. On Friday, Nov. 23, Metro will operate reduced weekday service, which offers more service than on weekends, but less service than on normal weekdays.
Metro is estimated to save about $1 million each year using a limited schedule over holiday periods from November through January. These are planned reductions for holiday periods when Metro has historically seen a reduction in the number of weekday riders – estimated to be 15 percent or more systemwide.
Click here for specific route information.
November 17th, 2012 by Sara
Our Lady of Fatima’s Chamber Choir and Baroque Orchestra presents Handel’s Messiah on Sunday, November 18 at 3:00pm. With all the original recitatives, arias and choruses accompanied by the Our Lady of Fatima Baroque Orchestra of 18th century instruments, they will be performing the piece as it was originally premiered in Dublin in 1742.
November 16th, 2012 by Sara
Friends of Magnolia Manor Park announces a Grand Opening Celebration for the Magnolia Manor Park Off-Leash Area on Sunday, November 18, 2012 at 1 pm. Festivities will take place in Magnolia Manor Park, 3500 28th Avenue West. Don’t miss the ribbon cutting ceremony at 1:30 pm.
All are invited to a work party on Saturday, November 17th at 10 am (rain or shine!) at the park, to help with plantings, installing poop bag stations, and other projects.
November 15th, 2012 by Sara
Saturday, November 17th during the Blaine Rummage Sale (from 9:00am-3:00pm), help Catharine Blaine students raise much needed funds to help the victims of Hurricane Sandy. All proceeds will be donated to the American Red Cross. Please contact Carolyn Dunn with any questions-carolyn.dunn@hotmail.com.
November 15th, 2012 by Sara
Magnolia Voice Reader Susan was kind enough to send over her notes from Tuesday night’s special PTA meeting at Catharine Blaine regarding capacity. Thanks, Susan!
I attended the Blaine capacity meeting. I believe there is strong support for keeping Blaine a k-8 from the community. People talked about how that is what sets us apart from Lawton, Coe etc.
(They)…talked about capacity & how the school district comes up with their numbers talked a lot about how Seattle follows birth rates & assumes a lot of people migrate to the suburbs. With the change in the economy & the housing bubble, he envisions more kids staying in the Seattle schools. The school districts numbers don’t reflect that. However, the district expects to be 5000 kids over enrolled by 2015. At Blaine, we were supposed to have 595 kids and instead have 621 for this year. The school district projects that we’ll grow more for one more year, then have fewer students again in 2 years. Sounds like that’s the big mystery whether or not that will happen.
Meanwhile, since we don’t max out our classes (have 23 instead of 28 kids) in K-3, the school district believes Blaine is under enrolled However, we have to keep on adding one more class & teacher each year for the now 4th grade. It sounds like we’ll be getting portables this July 2013 to accommodate the growth.
There was some discussion about McClure middle school and how if all the kids in our cluster (including Blaine) went there, it would be over capacity. Historically many Magnolia kids went to private school for middle school and this is changing. It sounded to me like we need to rally together and make a lot of noise so that the school district is aware that we truly value K-8 education.
Blaine is about 18 months behind the other schools in our cluster for asking for funds from the school district. We’ll probably need to expand and we need further discussion whether that need can be met with portables or if we need an addition. We missed the deadline for applying for BEX monies. We can still apply for BTA monies (building technology & academics) but it sounds as if they’re not used for additions usually.
The next step is forming groups to work on capacity planning and forming our vision for Blaine. People were instructed to contact PTA legislative chair Kara Beckman to sign up for groups.
Click here for the Catharine Blaine website.
November 15th, 2012 by Sara
It was a full class of hardworking students when the Magnolia Historical Society gave it’s 3rd annual Fall Writing Memoirs Workshop at the Magnolia Library last Saturday with published writers Monica Wooton, President, and Dale Forbus Hogle, Board Member, giving sources, helpful hints and professional guidance. Wooten says:
Classmates wrote, revised and re-wrote memories of their first bicycle in the 1920′s, conversation at the dinner tables of the 1940′s and moves across the country to Kent and Magnolia, Washington. The class was a four-hour session on how to write down your memories or preserve family history. Everyone participated by writing and critiquing the work. There were stories written that spanned a 1930′s southern country community celebration, high school life and the colorful cliques of the 1980′s-the New Wavers, Preppies and The Stoners, and the 1990′s years at O’Dea high school where you “entered as a boy and left as a man.”
The Magnolia Historical Society is looking for new Board members and members. Click here for more information about the Society, or their upcoming Spring workshop.
November 14th, 2012 by Sara
By Reporter Steven Smalley
Fresh bread, pastry, and cookies return to the Village at the location of the former Upper Crust Bakery on West McGraw Street just in time for the Holiday Open House. Named for their son, Finn’s Bakery and Cafe is set to open by November 30.
As the deadline approaches, owners Meghan and Anthony Hargreaves are busy painting and scrubbing to get it ready. Luckily for them, as it was previously a bakery, they only need to breathe some new life into it: “We’re cutting down this big counter a bit and moving it back. We’ll have some additional seating up front,” reveals Meghan, speaking with Magnolia Voice. “We’ll be doing breads, pastries, desserts, and basic lunch items – soup, salads, sandwiches.”
You could say the Magnolia couple has pastry in their blood: “Back in Minnesota we have a family-owned bakery. It’s kind of a mix of Scandinavian, Eastern European and Italian…My family has had a bakery for about a hundred years,” explains Hargreaves. As for recipes, “We … hired a very experienced pastry chef. She loves Viennese laminated doughs, Danishes, and croissants.” When asked about the rest of the menu, Hargreaves says you can expect just about everything. “She also does fabulous cakes and breads…I think the important thing is to just listen to customers and see what they want.” There are some family favorites too, such as Potica (puh-TEET-suh) an eastern European roll-up with butter, brown sugar, cinnamon, and nuts. “Almost like a mini-cinnamon roll. You’ll have to try it,” Hargreaves urges.
Look for a full-service espresso bar featuring Stumptown Coffee, a local roaster. The application for the liquor license posted on the front door is for wine and beer service during meals. “We’ll also be doing some cooking classes,” Hargreaves says. “Our pastry chef loves to teach. Come and learn how to make croissants.”
Initial hours for Finn’s are Monday-Friday 6A.M.-6P.M. and weekends 7A.M. to 3 o’clock, or thereabouts. Future hours will be based on customer demand.
