NEW CRIME : ARMED ROBBERY ANYONE?

Belltown Market at the corner of 1st and Wall was robbed at gunpoint by a single male perpetrator just after midnight Sunday 3/3. That is upsetting to us the people at Belltown Market are boanfide nice and we hate to see that happen to them. It is also disturbing because, while there are a lot of robberies in the neighborhood lately, most of them are not armed robberies and this one was. No one was injured. The perpetrator escaped on foot with a couple hundred in cash.

OLD CRIME : DID BONNIE & CLYDE USE A STAPLER?

We still think this is pretty funny though less funny after someone with a real gun really did hold up Belltown Market :

A woman entered the Texaco on Denny Way and told the cashier to give her all the money in the register. When the cashier said no, she said she would go get a gun out of her car if he didn't. [Wow, armed robbery without the armed part, who knew?] The cashier tried to call police but the woman apparently was TOO BURLY FOR HIM [hello, wimp cashier alert] and took the phone away and THREATENED HIM WITH A STAPLER! [Don't laugh, you could put someone's eye out with that you know.]

Police who had been watching from across the street the whole time [which makes you wonder why the cashier did not just walk out the door and wave for help] we guess decided that stapler situation looked dangerous enough to investigate. At which point they discovered the woman's [gunless, now there is a surprise] car was stolen. Wow. Wonder what she used to steal the car? We are thinking around here maybe rubber bands?

FAN MAIL NEWS

We just got fan mail. Yay yay! Okay it was not really for us it was for our March profile subject, Belltown Dog aka Dolph. He got fan mail. From a platinum blonde Samoyed named Sasha. Woo woo! Never fear, Sasha, your email got through.

We on the other hand got zip. Oh the pain.

NOT OUR NEWS

Has anyone read March's Belltown Paper? If you have not, pick up a copy right now there is a fabulous front page story "The Mercer Girls: Part I" in the March issue by Lindsay O'Donnell and we are not even going to tell you what it is about just go read it right now it is that good and also make plans to pick up April's Part II too.

URBAN UPDATES: NEW COMMUNITY CENTER?

According to Joelle Ligon, Seattle Parks and Recreation will be building a community center in Belltown in the near future and in the nearer future will be holding a community meeting to discuss the center plans with interested community members. Details as they unfold. . . and they are not unfolding very fast, apparently, Seattle Parks and Recreations is STILL deciding just what they feel like talking to the public about [they have been deciding that for over a month now] but when they have news, we will have news.

PILFERRED NEWS : MONORAIL FOLLIES

Monorail plans are unhinged and we do not mind saying so. According to Belltown Community Council January 2002 Minutes, The Elevated Transportaion Company [ETC] has decided, in spite of everyone in the community being opposed, 2nd Avenue is just the best Avenue to rip up and install a mass transit monorail on. Forget the fact 5th Avenue already has a monorail so would be less effected. Forget the fact all businesses on 2nd Avenue will lose massive business during any [long term] construction. Forget the fact property values on 2nd Avenue will plummet because, well, when most people say "view" in real estate, they do not mean they are the view. Forget the fact people who live on 2nd Avenue maybe do not want a monorail zipping past the bedroom window. The ETC sure has. Why shouldn't you?

Questions and rude suggestions about monorail plans in Belltown should be directed to becky@balloug.com. You can also visit the [confusing and not informative] ETC homepage at http://www.elevated.org if you are feeling brave but take a compass. Personally, we think it's time to gather villagers and torches.

PILFERRED NEWS PART DEAUX : VIADUCT UPDATE OR, MORE BAD TRANSIT IDEAS

According to Belltown Paper Carol Hunter and Kristen Nielson from SeaTran presented three options for replacing the Alaska Way Viaduct to the Belltown Community Council recently. Those three options were "Arial like the existing viaduct, Boring like the Chunnel, and Cut and Cover like the Bus Tunnel." Also according to Belltown Paper, the most likely choice is "Cut and Cover" because that would replace the in-big-trouble-failing sea wall.

Is it just us, or is a "just kidding because we didn't want to buy a sea wall " tunnel a really bad idea?

YOU MIGHT ASK : WHAT'S WITH RUNNING MONORAIL AND VIADUCT NEWS MORE THAN ONCE HERE ?

This is a website. Not a paper. That gives us some leeway. We can put up new stuff whenever we want because we do not have to make a printing deadline or even deal with a printer at all. That means new stuff does go up on the spur of the moment, often mid month, and old stuff can get pulled whenever we want. Even though we do for tradition's sake label each month as a new issue, issues change regularly during the month because that is how websites work. BUT --

There are certain items we feel strongly about. One is how dump it is to try to ram a monorail down 2nd Avenue. So we keep running that and will keep running that or updates of that straight through November when they try to sneak that vote past. Another is, what a dumb idea it is to put a tunnel in instead of a new sea wall. Um, hello? A sea wall is a good idea. A tunnel full of people in cars instead of a sea wall is a bad idea. Enough of us grew up on the Pacific Rim to think this and have seen storms, when they decided to kick in, really kick in, and do not want to see Taurus sedans floating out to sea full of little kids. So. We will keep bringing those two issues up till you get on the phone and yell loud enough someone figures out maybe people do not want to drive through a phony sea wall or rip up Second Avenue to make a new monorail when there is already a perfectly good monorail on 5th Avenue that just should be extended. Our apologies to the contractors who would make scads of money putting in an entirely new monorail or building a tunnel instead of a sea wall but that is what we think about that here and we were never known for subtle in these offices.