Mostly cloudy, with a high near 68 and a chance of showers. Forecast here.
Making headlines around the Northwest:
- Aurora motel might become low-income housing
- Off the wire: Man shaves woman's head; wildfire and more
- Boeing stops 787 final production step for 20 days
- Tacoma takes up moratorium on digital billboards
Aurora motel might become low-income housing
The site where the Fremont Inn, which has been labeled a “chronic nuisance” by the city of Seattle, could be converted into low- income housing for people who have been homeless, reports the Seattlepi.com.
Catholic Community Services has held discussions with neighbors of the old hotel, and they have been intense. A Wednesday night meeting is planned at the Fremont Abbey to get more feedback from residents.
If the Catholic Community Services plan goes forward, the dilapidated motel, built in 1956, would be replaced by a four-story building with more than 70 units.
“Catholic housing services operates really great buildings, and the tenants can be really great neighbors,” CCS Division Director Dan Wise told the Seattlepi.com. “But it’s hard to demonstrate that before you’re in the space.”
The Fremont Chamber of Commerce has voted to write a support letter, and the Wallingford Neighborhood Council has also generally supported the idea, Wise said
Off the AP wire: Man shaves woman head; wildfire and more
- Grant County officials say a wildfire that started with a campfire devoured about 200 acres of sagebrush and grass before firefighters contained it. Crews from two fire districts were dispatched about 5:15 p.m. yesterday to the fire in rangeland about three miles southeast of Soap Lake. No homes or valuable property were damaged.
- A judge has denied a defense attempt to remove the death penalty as a sentencing option if a Washington prison inmate is convicted in the January death of a corrections officer. Officer Jayme Biendl was killed in the chapel of the Monroe Correctional Facility.
- King County prosecutors have charged a 22-year-old Kent, Wash., man with first-degree murder in the death of his ex-girlfriend. In court papers filed Monday, prosecutors contend Ezekiel Watkins killed 19-year-old Kathy Chou of Renton on April 18, 2010, then hid her body and evaded detection.
- Police in Lynnwood, Wash., say a woman's former boyfriend broke into her apartment, held her down and shaved her head so she wouldn't be attractive to other men. Officers say they arrived last Friday to find the door kicked in, a man holding hair clippers and a 30-year-old woman crying and holding clumps of hair.
Boeing stops 787 final production step for 20 days
The Boeing Co. has stopped what it calls final-body join for the 787 for about 20 days, spokesman Scott Lefeber told the Everett Herald.
He said the company will continue all other phases of production.
The decision allows the company to "continue to make small schedule adjustments as needed to ensure the entire production system flows as designed and to minimize adverse impacts to final assembly," Lefeber said.
Tacoma takes up moratorium on digital billboards
The city of Tacoma had put a moratorium on new digital billboards in May and will take up the issue again at a public hearing tonight, according to the Tacoma News Tribune.
The moratorium was put in place in response to overwhelming public response against an agreement the council approved last year with Clear Channel Outdoor that would allow the company to put up new digital signs in exchange for removing existing conventional ones.
During the public hearing, which is scheduled to start at approximately 5:30 p.m. Tuesday, only comments on the moratorium will be allowed, the Tribune reports. But people can address the larger digital billboard issue during the citizen forum later in the meeting, said city spokesman Rob McNair-Huff. The citizens forum is held during council meetings on the second Tuesday of the month.
