Morgan Community Association (MoCA)

Morgan Community Association Quarterly Meeting

July 21, 2010 – The Kenney

Deb Barker, Presiding

3 Executive Bd. Members, 3 neighborhood residents, representative from W Seattle Blog and House of Representatives candidate

Announcements – Deb Barker

• Night Out – Will be held on August 3. The City’s website has information on how to sign up. Facebook also has information.
• Crime Prevention – There has been discussion about potential budget impacts to SDOT and possible cuts to crime prevention specialist positions. A motion was approved to have MOCA send a letter to the City stating its support for maintaining the crime prevention specialist positions.
• Park Project Ratings – For the Parks Opportunity Fund and Green Space Special Levy, citizens submitted projects for acquisition and development. Two projects in Morgan Junction were forwarded (both acquisition), including a project at Orchard Street ravine, and another south of the urban village. The Orchard ravine project did not score very highly because it didn’t fill an existing gap, and wasn’t in the urban village. The other project had a medium score. Justifications on the scorings will be made next week by the Committee.

State Representative Candidate (34^th District) – Marcee Stone

• Ms. Stone has been a community activist for a number of years, and began her activism based on issue of cell towers in the Genessee neighborhood. Also very active in reforming public campaign financing. Questions from the audience include the following:
• Q: Higher education is being hit hard by the economy, and people are being marginalized. What is your perspective? A: Education is very important, and has been defunded for years. We need to build up funding, through reforming the tax system. Supports Initiative 1098.
• Q: How would you protect neighborhood character and maintain housing affordability? A: Gentrification is happening in places like White Center. The Growth Management Act needs to be tweaked to include incentives to allow for middle/lower income people to affort to live in Seattle. Development of Green jobs is one example.

2010 Morgan Junction Festival Report – Steve Sindiong

• Steve provided an overview of the positive and negative outcomes of the festival. The positives included a good number of sponsors, good feedback on music and variety, kids activities (chalk art and fire truck especially well liked), and good help from volunteers. Things to be improved upon include the need to print more bite of Morgan books and possibly distribute in the vendor area, additional types of kids activities, and more advanced notification to residents on Beveridge Place.  In addition, the T-shirts did not sell very well.
• It was reported that the Unitarian Church members loved helping out at the festival and would like to volunteer again next year.

SDOT Projects Update – Cindi Barker / Deb Barker

• Spokane Street Viaduct – The public provided comments about the status of traffic, which has been slow during commute periods due to the closure of one lane in the eastbound direction. The lower bridge has also been congested, especially as the bridge seems to be opened often.
• Alaskan Way Viaduct – The WSDOT website has a very good interactive tool that allows users to see the improvements by phase, and view them from different directions.

Murray Combined Sewerage Overflow Citizens Advisory Group Briefing – Cindi Barker

• The CAG and King County is trying to answer a number of technical questions. There are currently 10 alternatives (at meeting it was mentioned there were 12 alternatives, but is being corrected for minutes) on the table (as opposed to three alternatives earlier this year). The goal is to have recommendations by September. Chas Redmond is the MOCA representative on the CAG. 

Development Projects Update – Deb Barker

• A citizen inquired to MOCA about the status of Chuck & Sally’s bar (which is currently closed). No information has been found about the status, but reports have been made about litter, vagrancy and possible drug dealing at the site. Deb Barker will follow up.
• Property at NW corner of California & Graham Street – The property has been sold, and divided in half. Soleil developers are proposing to build live/work units on the north parcel. The south parcel is currently for sale. The developer will be invited to the next MOCA meeting to present their proposal.
• Cindi Barker provided an update on the Multi-Family Code Update.  There is a proposal to merge the L-3 and L-4 zoning, to still be referred to as L-3, but that will allow for heights of 40 feet. The Morgan neighborhood Plan specifies that 30 feet should be the limit. The MF Code update initially ignored the language in the Morgan Plan, but is now being redrafted to state that the merging of the zoning code should exempt the Morgan Junction neighborhood.  The language being added to the code will restrict the addition of L-3 zones in several urban villages, including Morgan Junction, in accordance with their neighborhood plans.

Myrtle Street Reservoir Update – Cindi Barker

• The park is currently under construction, and progressing rapidly.

Public Comments

• The West Seattle Unitarian Church is doing some construction / structural work. A community event to thank the public for its support is being scheduled for Saturday, September 18. The first services will be held one week prior to that.

Next MOCA Meeting to be October 20, 2010, 7pm