An already complicated race for the Seattle City Council District 4 seat got a little more confusing on Thursday when incumbent Councilmember Rob Johnson announced his resignation, effective April 6. Johnson had already announced that he would not be running for reelection this fall, but his decision to step down early came as a surprise, as he had given no previous indication that he would not satisfy the remainder of his term.

This news should placate the folks who clamored for Johnson to step down immediately after he announced his plan to take a job as a transportation advisor with …

A number of readers have written to us to inform us that the Elysian Brewery in Tangletown is changing hands. So I biked on up there to check it out. Sure enough, a sign on the door reads:

After being a Co-signer on the lease for 16 years, one of Elysian’s co-founders, David Buhler, will be taking over the lease fully. David is excited to open his own pub and continue to be part of the Tangletown community.

Tangletown Public House

Opening Soon!

Seattle Eater reports that Elysian also closed a downtown location although three other locations, Capitol Hill, Pioneer …

The late-night pizza and pasta joint Milano (405 NE 45th St.) abruptly closed and Fitchi House Eastern Cuisine is moving in. They painted the façade a canary yellow that really pops and brings life the the block. The Fitchi House website is still under construction but it appears that we’re getting a new Turkish café serving meat pies, flat breads, desserts, tea, and coffee. That being said, the sign simply reads “Eastern Cuisine.” Without limiting themselves to “Turkish” or “Mediterranean” there’s a lot of room to serve just about anything!

Fitchi House joins two other Turkish options in the neighborhood. …

The city “swept” the Troll’s Knoll homeless encampment this past Monday. The encampment has been a source of both frustration and sympathy for the neighborhood, but had been what passes for home for a few dozen people up until this point.

The city is required to give advance notice of sweeps, to hold any property removed in storage for at least 70 days, and to provide shelter for anyone displaced by a sweep. According to KIRO, when the city Navigation Team arrived on Monday, most of the 20 or so tents at the encampment were empty, the residents having moved …

In my recent Wallingford Wildlife Report, I led off by musing about how some of the wildlife we see here in Wallingford are likely descended from a long, centuries-plus old line of Wallingford-area beasties. So I was surprised to read otherwise when in this recent article from the UW News, When coyote parents get used to humans, their offspring become bolder, too.

It turns out the rather than being a “reintroduction”, coyotes in the area are a modern, 21st century phenomenon:

Until the 20th century … coyotes lived mostly in the Great Plains. But when wolves were hunted almost to …

When I see a raccoon lumber across my yard, or see our now locally famous Wally Coyote trot across Interlaken, my first instinct is to think about these animals as wild newcomers. But then I recall the pictures of Seattle area from the archives, late 1800’s or early 1900’s, when there was still wooded areas where our urbanity now sprawls out, and I remember that these furry neighbors are, most likely, descended from a continuous line of critters from hereabouts that stretch back centuries, at least.

There continue to be regular coyote sightings in western Wallingford (I caught my first …