There are two excellent opportunities next week to talk to the mayor about our Youth and Family Initiative.

Mayor Mike McGinn will be making his monthly appearance on KUOW’s Ask the Mayor this coming Monday, February 8 from 10:00 a.m. to 11:00 a.m. If you don’t have a radio, you can stream their broadcast live.

The mayor will also be answering questions on The Stranger’s Questionland Thursday, February 11 from 1:00 p.m. to 2:00 p.m. You can submit your questions on their website at any time between now and then.

Posted by: Aaron Pickus

Dear fellow Seattleites,

Mayor Mike McGinn invites you to participate in the Youth and Families Initiative, a major initiative announced during his inaugural address.

The children and families of our city are facing many difficult challenges. As a community, we need to talk about what we want for our kids and how best to create a healthy, positive and equitable environment for all families in our city.

Let’s start a discussion together and come up with a plan that works.

Please join us in attending one of five workshops, where trained facilitators will lead participants through the beginnings of this group discussion. If you are interested in volunteering with the Initiative, please contact Sol Villarreal in the Mayor’s Office at sol.villarreal@seattle.gov or 206-233-2656.

The five venues and dates are:

February 22 – Rainier Community Center 7:00-8:30 p.m.

March 1 – Northgate Elementary School 7:00-8:30 p.m.

March 8 – Van Asselt Elementary School 7:00-8:30 p.m.

March 15 – Denny Middle School 7:00-8:30 p.m.

March 22 – Garfield Community Center 7:00-8:30 p.m.

Activities for kids older than three years of age and light refreshments will be provided at each meeting. If English is not your primary language and you would like translation or interpretation, please notify the Department of Neighborhoods at 684-0464 so we can work to provide the best resources available.

It is only together that we can solve the deep, complex problem of how to create an equitable community for our great city’s youth and families. There is no one solution, no one program or person who can point our neighborhoods in the right direction.

We ask that you join us at the beginning of this discussion so that we may all work together toward the common goal of a stronger community.

Sincerely,

Office of Mayor Mike McGinn

Posted by: Aaron Pickus

During his inaugural address last month, Mayor McGinn announced a Youth and Family Initiative to engage as many Seattleites as possible in the process of identifying and helping to address the problems faced by our city’s families and youth; more information on the dates and times is available here.

We hope you can attend one of these engagement meetings to contribute your input and ideas to the broader conversation.

You can also make an enormous contribution to the success of the Initiative by giving some of your time, in the weeks leading up to the meetings and at the meetings themselves, to help us ensure that we are able to bring a multitude of different voices to the table and to effectively manage those voices once we are all together in the same room.

Please contact me directly at sol.villarreal@seattle.gov or 206-233-2656 if you are interested in volunteering with the Youth and Family Initiative, and include any information you think I should know about you, your background, and your specific interests regarding youth and families.

Thanks in advance for your participation, and I look forward to hearing from you!

Posted by: Sol Villarreal

Last year the Department of Information Technology set aside $250,000 in Technology Matching Fund grants for 19 projects that, in their own words, “support the community’s efforts to close the digital divide and encourage a technology-healthy city.”

This year the amount has increased to $300,000; the grants are open to nonprofits, community groups, and community-based organizations in the city of Seattle, and you can find the full eligibility requirements here. The application deadline is Monday, March 8th at 5:00 p.m., and there are two public information sessions coming up next week, both from 10:30 a.m. -12:30 p.m.: February 3 at the Delridge Community Center in West Seattle, and the other is February 6 at the Miller Community Center on Capitol Hill.

This is a really fantastic opportunity–if you have an idea for a project that you think would drive increased civic participation through better community access to technology, check out this year’s web site, take a look at the application materials, and start talking to your group now about putting an application together! If you have a great idea but you’re intimidated by the grant application process, application assistance is available, and there will also be grant review clinics on February 22 and February 23.

The program is similar to the Department of Neighborhood’s Neighborhood Matching Fund in that it assigns volunteer hours, professional services, and donated staff time and materials set dollar amounts and then “matches” them dollar for dollar, as well as matching any funds that are raised for the project on a 1:1 basis; award amounts range anywhere from $5,000 to $20,000.

For further small-grant opportunities within the city, see also the Office of Arts & Cultural Affairs and Seattle Public Utilities.

Posted by: Sol Villarreal

Today the Coalition for a Sustainable 520, joined by the Sierra Club, Cascade Bicycle Club, House Speaker Frank Chopp, Senator Ed Murray, Representative Jamie Pedersen, Councilmembers Mike O’Brien and Nick Licata, Mayor Mike McGinn and others, announced a consensus position on 520. The entire event was filmed by the Seattle Channel and can be viewed after the jump.

Read more »

Posted by: Aaron Pickus

Mayor Mike McGinn provided the City Council today with the details of seawall construction costs.

Those details can be found here.

Posted by: Aaron Pickus

Mayor Mike McGinn commissioned a poll, paid for from his personal account, to ask Seattle residents if they would support a May ballot measure authorizing property taxes of up to $241 million over thirty years to fund the replacement and seismic improvements to the downtown seawall.

That poll can be viewed here.

Posted by: Aaron Pickus

As part of Mayor McGinn’s briefing today before the City Council on his proposal to accelerate the replacement of the deteriorating seawall, the mayor included an outline of the seawall replacement program.

That outline can be viewed here.

Posted by: Aaron Pickus

Mayor Mike McGinn today briefed the City Council on his proposal to accelerate the replacement of the deteriorating seawall. Below is the Seattle Channel video of the entire briefing.

Posted by: Aaron Pickus

Mayor Mike McGinn today briefed the City Council on his proposal to accelerate the replacement of the deteriorating seawall. As part of that briefing, the mayor responded to the specific questions raised in a letter from the City Council last week.

The mayor’s response can be viewed here.

Posted by: Aaron Pickus