Graham Street Meeting last night

Hi all! Last night about 25 neighbors met with Emilio Garza from Councilmember Rob Johnson's office, Andrew Glass-Hastings from the Mayor's office and Shefali Ranganathan, Executive Director of Transportation Choices Coalition. Emilio and Andrew were able to speak from both the City of Seattle perspective and the Sound Transit board perspective, so we learned a lot about the planning and building process and options for speeding up the construction timeline (both Andrew and Emilio thought that nine years rather than fifteen is doable, assuming ST3 passes). We also heard about what we should do to ensure that the station is a boon to the community that lives here now (particularly related to the protection of existing businesses and that any new housing construction needs to be affordable housing...more like the Beacon Hill model than the displacement that's happened with Columbia City). The number one follow-up step (besides helping get out the vote for Prop 1/ST3) is to get involved with Puget Sound Sage and South Communities Organizing for Racial/Regional Equity (CORE) which has adopted the Graham Street Station as one of its priorities. Contacts: Ubax Gardheere at: 206.568.5000 x18 or ubax@pugetsoundsage.org and Giulia Pasciuto at (206) 568-5000 ext. 17 or giulia@pugetsoundsage.org. For more info about South CORE, check out this link: http://www.pugetsoundsage.org/section.php?id=76. Thanks so much to everyone who was able to attend! Karen Uffelman