Nickelsville Updates
Beatrice
Hello friends and supporters!
This week was full of activity for Nickelsville.
Operation Sack Lunch started this Monday and will be providing nutritious lunch time meals five days a week. Richard and Sally, the Nickelsville goats arrived Tuesday, three month old twin girls. They are very sweet and playful and are having a great time in their new house and yard.
A new Simple Sturdy Sleeping Structure has been completed and we received a donation for our fourth building. We are very excited as the structures keep going up!
Nickelsville water supply is still in flux due to our previous donor being on vacation. Thanks to Angelcrest and her West Seattle Blog friends, we are now working out various forms of water transport.
The Seattle City Council held their Thursday meeting at Nickelsville. Nick Licata, Sally Bagshaw, Sally Clark and Tom Rasmussen of the City Council attended. We gave a tour of the camp, greatly enjoyed by all, and then held our meeting back by our Simple Sleeping Structures. The Seattle Chanel, who televise City Council meetings, recorded it and the tour. (A video verite edition is also available on the West Seattle Blog.)
Today we have sent a follow up letter of thanks to the Council People who visited us. Here is how we reminded them of what we are asking for: “Our two basic requests to you are recognition of our community's right to exist and help with utilities.”
Granting Nickelsville the right to occupy the property where we are living would be a great benefit to us in obtaining utilities and would afford us the safety of being able to ask the police to assist us in trespassing those who refuse to leave when barred.
In the normal course of things, the next step would be for the Comprehensive Plan to allow Nickelsville to be in industrial zones. Somewhere along the way, the environmental conditions would be checked. A contract between the City and Nickelsville would be drawn up as with other landlords and tenants.
This would allow private parties to support us with certainty. IT would also allow normal utility hook ups.
We hope you will advocate for us as this protocol unfolds. We are also amenable to any emergency action that you might request in the interim to help us obtain these much needed utilities.
This week needs include silver sharpies for marking in the kitchen as well as medium and large disposable gloves for food hygiene. Lawn clippings for our garden compost are always welcome. We are also trying to find recycling containers to help with eliminating the volume of refuse going into our dumpster.
Thank you for your interest and support.