From what we’ve been hearing, this Fourth of July did not go so smooth. Here’s a smattering of the comments left on an early post here on Wallyhood:
Walking home from the park last night, corner of 40th and Stone Way: Some idiot set up flash bombs IN THE STREET, in th path of the southbound traffic. He plugged a bunch of powder in when the Southbound traffic was stopped, then lit the fuses the second they turned green. About 15 people ran into the street to block the cars that would have gone over the flash bombs right about the time they went off.
When they exploded, it sounded like gunshots – incredibly loud. One of the drivers got out and started yelling “YOU EFFING TERRORIST, I SHOULD…” at which point our kid fled, with us hot on his heels. (Jacqui)
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My impression is that One Reel left us high and dry this year. In years past, there were people directing traffic, giving parking tickets galore. This year, I saw no police and 2 parking enforcement folks who were told they couldn’t leave their posts at 40th and Bagley and they were severely understaffed. There’s an understatement. Driveways were blocked, intersections blocked, fire hydrants blocked and not once did I see any sign that was parking enforcement or tickets on the cars blatantly in front of the hydrants. Usually, my intersection gets lots of folks with tickets. It’s not the crowds per se, it’s the public safety issue of fire in the neighborhood. Fire trucks would have been out of luck this year. Not to mention how many people just can’t resist shooting off their own fireworks. Many of which were too close to individuals or houses. […] The parking enforcement folks were clearly being asked to do traffic control, no matter at 10, they all vanished. So 2 years ago, what took 25 minutes (it was truly impressive) to get everyone out and on their way home took over 2 hours last night. I live near 40th and they were still stacked up in front of my house at 12:20am. (isme2)
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A tree caught fire behind our house last night on 48th and Stone. It was really going and it was only thanks to the quick actions of our neighbors with a whole bunch of hoses that it got extinguished. Otherwise it easily could have spread to about 4 houses.
I was on hold with 9-11 for eight minutes before I got a hold of someone. The fire department got their relatively quickly after that, but by then the fire was mostly out. (Joe)
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July 5. I hear Gasworks is really trashed. Broken glass, etc. (Judy)
That last one is surprisng, as we thought they were checking bags going into Gas Works. If they weren’t, it’s hard to understand the line that snaked down the Burke Gilman full of people waiting to get in.
Not our finest hour, Wallingford.
My son cut his foot on a broken beer bottle in our parking strip this morning. Our neighbors’ driveway was blocked by a car all evening yesterday.
In past years, I have received a parking ticket for blocking my own driveway with my own vehicle. So from my persepctive, I do think the enforcement was less than in previous years.
It still makes me sad people can’t manage to be courteous without the threat of parking tickets looming. It also makes me sad that our broke city didn’t make a bunch of money off of illegal parkers yesterday!
I think it’s unfair to say “Not our finest hour, Wallingford.” as it seems that the police, parking enforcement, and officials running the event were woefully unprepared for the magnitude of the event. Of course, managing 25,000 people (per K5 news) is difficult, but not enough was done to manage the predictable crowds. I had to get up at 5 this morning and thus missed most of the shenanigans this year but last year it seemed to be barely controlled chaos. It almost seems that the peace of our neighborhood was sacrificed for the rest of the city’s fun.
Is this event really a boon to Wallingford? If I had my way, I’d close Gas works for the day and redirect the event to Lake Union park. It’s downtown-ish setting seems to make more sense for an event like this and party-goers would enjoy better transit connections afterwards. Of course this is all easy for me to say as a resident without considering the business Family 4th brings to our neighborhood.
you need to send these comments to One Reel, Starbucks and the city of seattle.
I sent a copy of yesterdays to One Reel.
Get the wallingford chamber involved writing in advance to all 3.
Get the wallingford neighborhood committee involved by writing in advance.
I understand the 911 call communication system network crashed around 7pm on the 4th and everything had to be hand recorded and distributed after that. I would imagine that created a huge bottleneck in calls and really slowed down dispatch. It doesn’t explain everything, but it could account for some of the serious delays (e.g. the tree fire response time, 8 minutes on hold with 911, etc).
The 4th of July is the one day a year that I hate living in Wallingford. We live on 42nd, not far up from the “no parking” boundry. We always have cars parked illegally, parking in front of every fire hydrant, etc. In the past, I have seen parking enforcement at least ticketing. This year, I saw one parking enforcement vehicle at about 2 p.m. on Stone Way and none of the illegally parked cars were ticked (Completely blocking fire hydrants on the 4th of July? Police should be out in force, and forget ticketing, they should be towing!) The other thing that drives me crazy is the trash and broken bottles. Starbucks claims to do a cleanup, but they forget the neighborhood all around the park. Beer bottles and other trash everywhere! I have gone to Gas Works once for 4th of July and will likely never go again. Living in the neighborhood has made me sour on the whole event.
Re: checking bags – We had two backpacks, an Essential Bakery bag and my purse when we entered the park about 4:30 p.m. It was not crowded at all. We had all of our bags open and two officers checking our stuff. The check consisted of barely cracking the backpacks, looking in, and sending us on our way. I could have had a full aresenal – or at least several glass bottles – under my blankets and they never would have noticed.
Granted, we had our 9-year-old son with us, which may have lowered the profiling level. But in the past, I’ve had cops practically unpack my bag to make sure I wasn’t squirreling anything away.
We did see several traffic control officers heading home, but they were all on 45th.
We live in lower wallingford and I was extremely impressed and grateful with the starbucks cleanup crew. They were all over my street and the bg trail.
I think the traffic and parking was definitely worse this year than last, but ultimately we have to remember that Gas Works is really a jewel of a park, and if a few times a year we have to put up with sharing such a treasure with those barbarian hordes of outsiders, so be it 🙂
Tow trucks can tow illegally parked vehicles (fire hydrants, blocking driveways) without a ticket from the Police. So just call a tow truck.
The fireworks issue is another matter – we need to get a message to the Mayor that having police on hand in our neighborhood to arrest folks who set off fireworks in residential neighborhoods. This year it seems there were very big fireworks going off well into the night. This is a very dangerous situation as the burning tree story illustrates.
I lived in Leschi and hated the Blue Angels. Now I live in Wallingford and… well, it’s the price we pay living in such a great city. Once a year we can put up with it. Can’t we? And these events do bring us all together, if only to complain. As for the burning tree: Well done putting that out. CRAZY times.
So, more complaints about lack of police and cleanup and wait times for fire response. We might want to to pay for needed services with a reasonable increase in our taxes.
I live in Tangletown. This 4th was the noisiest we have ever heard in the 25 years we have lived here. Illegal fireworks all over the place. Just down the street at 2:00 or so in the morning a bunch of kids were setting off huge bombs and even fireworks that exploded into giant pink balls in the sky (just like at Gasworks). No one got very much sleep that night. I am so surprised that no police were apparent. What’s the use of having the laws if they are blatently ignored and the people responsible for them are not punished. I was really afraid that there would be fires. Thank goodness, there were none.
9-1-1 has been called for what just went BOOM on 2nd or Eastern, previous crimes reported. This “fireworks” thing is out of hand. The wink-wink-nudge-nudge about looking the other way for what is illegal gives immature people license, permission to BLOW THINGS UP. That more parts of Wallingford didn’t catch on fire and the fire trucks couldn’t have access due to illegal car parking harkens back to the bad old days when things caught on fire because the fire trucks couldn’t get here.
I have to second the appreciation of the Starbucks clean-up crew. This year the clean-up crew did a great job on our portion of Wallingford Ave – a huge improvement over prior years. The main concern I have is the illegal fireworks – we had a fire in a dumpster on our street because of drunken people setting off fireworks. Very concerning to have drunken people setting off fireworks at all, let alone in big crowds of people.
There’s someone setting off mig firecrackers right now (around 54th & Kensington. Jeez!!
Sorry “big”.
I repeat, send in copies of these complaints to OneReel, Starbucks and the City. All ar einvolved. None want fires, vandalism, parking nightmares. Also, consider that the media is a part of this.. I recall a year ( 2009?)the media scared people from coming and parking with info about tough parking regulations. I recall spending the afternoon at an almost empty park and on return to 45th an army of parking enforcers. The media can do a lot to shape or shift a crowds perception of what will be.
RE: Checking bags at Gas Works
I entered Gas Works near the Surf shop at around 7pm. The line was a mess. I easily got through without my bag being checked.
I am amazed how much One Reel gets away with and it’s all approved by the City. They are allowed (permitted) to set up stuff in Gas Works that no other permitee is allowed. Gas Works Park is a freakin’ toxic waste site and all those structures, tents, etc etc that they set up are not allowed for anyone else. They only pay a couple thousand to rent the whole park.
One Reel reaps tremendous profits from sales of beer and food and trinkets and pretends the show won’t happen next year so they beg for money… Then they shortchange what they need to spend on security and other measures to keep the park and our neighborhood safe.
Now that Ivar’s display is gone I think that doing the fireworks downtown off Myrtle Edwards is a much better idea – the park is set up to control 100,000 people, there are more arterials, parking etc. I think it is ludicrous that we (the people of Seattle) allow them to continue at Gas Works Park.
As for traffic enforcement – One Reel doesn’t pay any of it! That is absorbed in the city budget because it is a “free” civic event – so the scaled down enforcement you saw is a city on a budget.
I say let’s start a movement to have it moved to Myrtle Edwards!
BenJammin,
Please cite your source saying that OneReel “reaps tremendous profits.”
OneReel is a nonprofit org that puts on Family Fourth and Bumbershoot. So, I found their tax info online: http://nccsweb.urban.org/PubApps/showVals.php?ein=237246862 In 2010, OneReel earned $484,052 on food and beverage sales – and that includes Family 4th and Bumbershoot. The majority of their revenue comes from “Admissions” which is from Bumbershoot not the Fourth of July event.
Stacey – my information comes from a public records request I did some years ago – those records were quite detailed and were for the “Family 4th” only. If I recall correctly, the gross sales at the 4th were over $300k of which the city got 10%. I did print up quite a few of the records, but most I just reviewed.
One Reel also has quite a few people on the payroll making substantial 6 figure incomes – a departure from your typical “non-profit”. Obviously I’m not a fan of what One Reel turned into (having morphed from a nice little arts-based company into a greedy corporate “non-profit”.)
The fact that they are endangering people with exposure to toxics with every 4th event and the fact that the whole production would work better at Myrtle Edwards, I say move it and let Wallingford be the nice little neighborhood it is.
@22 – that’s gross sales – what’s interesting is yearly net and endowment growth.
BenJammin,
I noticed the six-figure salaries as well. It also struck me as odd. However, to more accurately judge those figures, we should compare them with salaries from similar organizations – organizations that put on giant, city-wide events.
Since I don’t have as much detailed records as you, I cannot comment. Although, how much were their total expenses? Do beer sales exceed those? Also, were these records from when WaMu was the sole sponsor? Expenses may have changed sense then.
I am not as familiar with OneReel, and I have no knowledge of what they used to be. I just work in the nonprofit sector, and I am interested in management of npos.
Kerri,
OneReel ended 2010 in the red.
If Gas Works Park were officially still a “toxic waste site” it wouldn’t be even open as a public park much less a venue for a single-day event. It’s a great event for people all around Lake Union though yes, observation bias leads us to naturally believe that the problems were worst in our neighborhood. Your suggestion of Myrtle Edwards as a viable alternative is baffling for its narrow space, even worse traffic situation, and moving it to a space that benefits no neighborhood residents other than Belltown. The current show is about more than just Wallingford.
The festivities this year were mismanaged by the city (One Reel doesn’t control parking enforcement, as you acknowledged), just as much if not more than any single promoter or sponsor. The vast majority of the complaints on the threads seem related to poor police presence around Wallingford, likely occurring whether or not there was anything going on at Gas Works. Please take your weird vendetta against One Reel elsewhere.
This is an excerpt of an e-mail that got sent to local Block Watch people prior to the 4th. She was right about SPD response (none), East Wallingford was on its own. In the past parking that blocks driveways (illegal, even if it is your own) prevents fire trucks from fighting the fire in the house behind you, hence the Municipal Code stipulation. Same for vehicles blocking fire hydrants.
>>From: Johnston, Terrie
To: Block Watch Coordinators
Sent: Friday, June 29, 2012 5:11 PM
Subject: July 4th and Fireworks, and other summer safety info.
Dear Block Captains and Contacts: SPD and SFD want to remind you that fireworks are illegal in the City of Seattle. The possession, manufacture, storage, sale, handling and use of fireworks are prohibited. Fireworks offenses are gross misdemeanors punishable by up to one year in jail and/or a $5,000 fine. Fireworks pose a fire hazard to property and present a safety risk to those who use them. Every year the Seattle Fire Department responds to fireworks-related fires and injuries. The holiday related fires and injuries are preventable.
Our 9-1-1 center becomes overloaded with non-emergency fireworks calls on the 4th of July. For this day only, DO NOT call 9-1-1 unless you have a life-threatening emergency and need immediate help from police, fire or medics. If you know me or my work, you know that it is my constant endeavor to encourage the public to use 9-1-1 to report suspicious circumstances, in addition to reporting crime. HOWEVER, my message applies to all days of the year except July 4th. This is the busiest day of the year for our Call Center. Reports of fireworks; barking dogs; drunken parties; gunshots fired; boating mishaps; burns, noise complaints, etc. are commonplace during this holiday. Delays in dispatch are a reality. If possible use the 625-5011 line to report any fireworks violations.<<
Terrie Johnston
Seattle Police Crime Prevention
206-684-7711
tsk tsk tsk …
ONE DAY each year Wallingford becomes party central… part of the price of living in this gorgeous setting. The fireworks are a spectacular accent to the Lake Union and City view. Over the 22 years that my husband and I have lived here we have delighted to the fact that many of our neighbors have 4th partys of their own, (*with guests in cars*) enjoying the fact that it culminates with the spectacular show seen from their decks, roofs or a short walk to another sighting venue. This spectical is available to all of our Lake Union neighbors ( Eastlake, Queen Anne…). I for one love to see all the water traffic in every sort of floating vehicle. The Center for Wooden Boats Festival is the same weekend and by next year MOHAI will be open! Lake Union is perhaps the Jewel in our city’s crown…What a place to celebrate and be celebrated!
NOW, as for the two major complaints.
PARKING: rather than gripe, let’s consider possible solutions. I have thought that a shuttle to a Park and Ride or other significant venue might be an option. Bags could even be checked as folks board and then be given a token to enter Gasworks directly. Any other thoughts? We are creative people who are presumably capable of seeking solutions rather than the simple art of complaining!
ILLEGAL FIREWORKS: Wallingford is NOT exclusive in this frightening problem! The tribal BOOM CITY sales have been growing dramatically. I read that the traffic getting to the Muckleshoot site was more than an hour (consider their innocent neighbors trying to get to an from their homes over a WEEK or so!). From my home I could see such ‘professional’ skyrockets all around Lake Union, Portage Bay, and the U-District well into the night… and the big bangs continue today. The PROBLEM is county, if not state wide.
To conclude, Let’s put our thinking caps and start NOW to prepare for a better experience next year. Perhaps start with the Wallingford Community Council. Form a strategic committee! To BenJammn, don’t move our ‘party’ to Myrtle Edwards, you know that Realtors consider the fireworks proximity a selling point!
Any comment that begins with “tsk tsk tsk …” saves me the trouble of reading on! Ha ha.
Thanks for a really positive post that contributes to the conversation, bb! As I said before, I’m similarly of the mind that for all the grumbling, the annoyances… its one day out of the year we shoulder the burden of sharing our communal “back yard” with the rest of the city. That’s a burden I’m happy to bear, because it contributes to a neighborhood and city that I want to live in. Similarly, I don’t have children, so reap no benefit from the Kiddie Parade (in fact, its a huge pain in the butt, more so than the 4th!) but I grumble, then smile, because I /like/ living in a neighborhood with so many families and children. I don’t get bent out of shape because OMG I was inconvenienced for an afternoon – I remind myself of the good it brings beyond my own immediate personal and selfish satisfactions.
Well said, bb.
@bb:
Regarding parking & shuttles…this is a cost that One Reel will not pay for – so unless someone comes up with about $250k to study and implement such a plan – it ain’t gunna happen…
To clarify: Many of us were citing examples of REALLY BAD behavior and exploding BOMBS on the 4th and well into the morning of the 5th by people who live here in homes that they or their parents own . . . and are only asking for normal police response when someone needs to be arrested or normal fire response when there is a fire to be put out and normal parking control so the two previous can happen, police and fire, with vehicular access and without blocked hydrants.
Some appear to want to cancel or move the fire works but not me or my neighbors in east Wallingford.
We want to be able to call 9-1-1 if necessary and, unlike on the 4th when (finally) called as a last resort, have a patrol car show up. We also made sure that none of the bottle rockets caught anything on fire like trees or roofs, especially for people who were out of town.
Have a patrol car show up when you call 911?
>*snort*<
I've had occasion to call 911 5 times in the last 12 years, each time really, REALLY needing a cop to show up. Never once did one appear.