‘Placing it in the heart of the city makes sense’ — State, county, and city leaders working to shape Broadway Crisis Care Center plan

The former Polyclinic facility

State Rep. Shaun Scott sees it as an opportunity for three levels of local government to come together to push for the right thing. Folks at the King County Department of Community and Human Services feel like they are running to catch up with the questions and concerns.

“I see it as my role as a representative of the 43rd Legislative District to be part of the solution, not part of the problem,” Scott tells CHS about his effort to organize a town hall Monday night on Capitol Hill to raise support for what the first-year state legislator says is a desperately needed resource that will be ready to serve the entire community.

“Placing it in the heart of the city makes sense,” Scott said.

CHS reported here on the plans for Monday night’s Crisis Care Center Townhall as Scott will be joined by Seattle City Councilmember Alexis Mercedes Rinck and county officials at Capitol Hill art bar Vermillion in a session hoped to drum up support — and counter business community-led opposition — to a major mental health Crisis Care Center being planned for Broadway and Union.

Monday’s planned event comes after the county met with significant pushback from the area business community over its $50 million proposal to acquire the former Polyclinic building at the corner of Broadway and Union to create an emergency and walk-in clinic part of a voter-approved, $1.25 billion network of five facilities across the county. Continue reading

Council’s Nelson wants some of Seattle’s potential public safety sales tax bump to go to drug counseling

Nelson held a news conference to announce the potential $8.75 million initiative

Seattle City Council president Sara Nelson wants to use a newly authorized sales tax bump to pay for drug counseling.

Nelson says her new “progressive public safety initiative” would direct 25% of a new tenth of a cent sales tax authorized by the state legislature for cities to pay for public safety services to “shore up ‘pathways to recovery’ through investment in critical addiction treatment services.”

If implemented, the public safety sales tax increase would generate over $35 million annually, Nelson’s office says, with a quarter of that going to support counseling and treatment services. Continue reading

Queer the Vote candidates forum this week on Capitol Hill

With August’s primary election quickly approaching, Capitol HIll nightclub Massive will present an opportunity Tuesday night for you to hear from some of the 27 people who want to run Seattle.

The Queer Power Alliance is bringing a Queer the Vote candidates forum to the E Pine club: Continue reading

Amid Seattle’s 4th of July fireworks, officials ‘prepare for the harm done by the authoritarianism of the federal government’

As thousands celebrated the 4th and fireworks over Lake Union, nobody dumped tea — or coffee — in Elliott Bay but dozens of political leaders signed on this Independence Day weekend to a declaration opposing the Trump administration’s tax and spending cut bill.

“Washington leaders are now calling for measures to meet this moment. State lawmakers must urgently act to prepare for the harm done by the authoritarianism of the federal government. Local government leaders must enact progressive revenue, like the Seattle Shield Initiative, which can reduce harm to essential programs in major metropolitan areas from budget cuts,” the letter reads.

“The undersigned elected officials represent all levels of government including state, local, and special district governments. We commit to working together in the immediate term to develop meaningful solutions to protect residents. The time is urgently prudent for local leaders across Washington state to live up to the progressive values which have long made us a target of the Trump regime and their corporate cronies.”

The letter, sent out from the office of Seattle City Councilmember Alexis Mercedes Rinck, follows the passage of the Trump-championed bill described by the Associated Press as a “sprawling collection of tax breaks, spending cuts and other Republican priorities, including new money for national defense and deportations.” Continue reading

This week in CHS history | Inside Passage is born, the last laundromat on Capitol Hill closes, Summer Taylor remembered


Here are the top stories from this week in CHS history:

2024

 

Broadway at Pike makes city’s top 10 Crime and Overdose Concentration list — twice


Continue reading

This 2025 Pulitzer winner honed her work in Volunteer Park and covering CHOP

Hulls inside the Volunteer Park Conservatory, where she used to often work at the bench under the staghorn fern

 

By Matt Dowell

This 2025 Pulitzer finalist wrote her novel in a Capitol Hill coworking space.

This 2025 Pulitzer Prize winner once made Volunteer Park her studio.

Tessa Hulls is always on the move. Recently back in Seattle but with plans to leave soon for the wilderness, she was “mostly just biking all over the city being deeply overwhelmed by summer” when CHS reached out to talk.

In May, Hulls’s graphic memoir Feeding Ghosts won the 2025 Pulitzer Prize for Memoir or Autobiography. She found out in the middle of a shift at the legislative lounge in the Alaska State Capitol building, where she’s worked seasonally.

The work, published in Spring 2024, traces her maternal family’s arc from Shanghai during the Chinese Communist revolution through her mother’s immigration to the United States to Hulls’s own upbringing in Northern California. The story is told within the context of unprocessed trauma and mental illness, particularly that of her grandmother who suffered a mental breakdown after publishing her own successful memoir.

The memoir has been lauded for its information-packed but approachable artistic style. According to one review: “Despite the extreme weight of the story, the density of the historical context and the way every bit of space is utilized to communicate pictorially or verbally, that information is surprisingly digestible — and even nourishing.”

Hulls honed that skill, in part, within our city limits, going to the Seattle Public Library every week for a year to check out and study graphic novels. She made Capitol Hill home in 2012 after a cross-country bike trip. Though she’s traveled to and lived in places far and wide since then — including a stint as a bartender in Antarctica — she continues to hold ties to the neighborhood. Continue reading

Seattle defends queer nude beach against legal bid to close Denny Blaine Park — ‘Nudity alone at Denny Blaine is also not a nuisance’

Seattle City Attorney Ann Davison is a champion of nudity in Denny Blaine Park.

In the city’s response to a June legal thrust from the Denny Blaine for All neighbor group to immediately close the park to the public, Davis has told the King County Superior Court that the popular hangout on the shores of Lake Washington east of Capitol Hill should remain open and free.

“Allowing Denny Blaine Park to continue as a nude queer space has social utility,” Davison writes.

“Nudity is subject to City regulation, and the City has determined that not regulating public nudity at Denny Blaine is in the public interest. Based on this decision, nudity alone at Denny Blaine is also not a nuisance.” Continue reading

Police search for suspect after shooting in fight at packed Capitol Hill bar sends one to hospital — UPDATE

A fight at an E Pike bar ended in a melee leaving one man shot and hospitalized and another on the run early Thursday.

Seattle Police report they are looking for the suspect in the just after midnight shooting that left a 29-year-old with gunshot wounds to his abdomen.

According to SPD and East Precinct radio updates, police were called to reported gunfire at E Pike’s Cha Cha Lounge and found a huge crowd filing out of the E Pike basement bar. Minutes later, a victim with two gunshot wounds to the abdomen was reported several blocks away near Boren and Pike on First Hill.

UPDATE: Cha Cha owner Jeff Ofelt says his management is still working out details of what happened in the shooting but says the gunfire did not happen inside the bar.

UPDATE x2: According to police, a witness reported the suspect was removed from the bar, and retrieved a gun from a nearby vehicle where the assault continued along E Pike.

Continue reading

SPD: Officer helps pull person in crisis back onto Broadway apartment building rooftop

A police officer who happened to stop at a Broadway traffic light as a woman struggled to keep her suicidal partner from leaping from a nearby building was able to race to the roof of the five-story apartment complex and help the woman lift the subject back to safety.

The Seattle Police Department reports the incident happened near Broadway and Jefferson just before 8:30 PM Wednesday: Continue reading

Where to watch Seattle’s 4th of July fireworks from Capitol Hill, USA! 249th birthday yay we’re still a country (so far!) edition

By The CHS Independence Day Robot

CHS has a long-running tradition of our annual “where to watch fireworks” post, and in 2025, as we mark the 249th birthday of the United States of America and mark the final stages of capitalism, the tradition is now fully automated! Here are this year’s ideas compiled by our AI reporter on where you can walk to watch the fireworks and celebrate with your closest neighborhood patriots without leaving Capitol Hill. America!

The 2025 Lake Union fireworks show, part of the Seafair 4th of July celebration, is planned to begin around 10:15 PM Friday. The show typically lasts 15 to 20 minutes. This year, the show is sponsored by Amazon. Thanks, tech giant neighbors, and way to get that sponsorship in before things go kaput. Who knows if the country makes it to 250.

The prime Capitol Hill-connected viewing zone stretches along our northwest edge above Eastlake along steep streets like Boston and Lynn or some blocks of Harvard Ave E. Lakeview Boulevard E, just north of the Belmont-Eastlake I-5 overpass, is a great, crowded, and fun place to watch. Do not try to park anywhere in the area. You will fail. Continue reading