Here is a look at what’s going on around Ballard this weekend. And if you’d like upcoming events every week in your email — from Ballard and surrounding neighborhoods — sign up right here. A Ballard tradition: Viking Days is this weekend.
From 4:30 to 8:30 p.m. Friday evening, Friends of 9th Ave NW Park will be holding a work party at the new park on 9th between NW 70th & NW 73rd. Tools, water, and something to eat will be provided.
On Saturday from 10 a.m. to noon, there will be a dedication ceremony for the new sculpture at the Salmon Bay Natural Area (NW 54th St @ 34th Ave NW, next to The Canal.)
Viking Days at the Nordic Heritage Museum (3014 NW 67th St.) 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. both Saturday and Sunday.
On Saturday, enjoy free music at the Locks by Dukes and Diva from 2 to 4 p.m.
On 2 p.m. on Sunday there will be a plaque dedication at the Leif Erikson statue at Shilshole Bay Marina. The ceremony is to officially introduce the plaques, with nearly 1700 names of Scandinavian immigrant names to the families. More information can be found here.
The Coal Creek Jazz Band will perform at the Locks from 2 to 3:30 Sunday afternoon.
It would be useful if events sponsored or associated with the Ballard Chamber of Commerce were identified as such.
Many of us refuse to support an organization intent on stopping the bike trail that would improve safety for bike commuters and recreational riders including our children.
Erik Stangvik from the Nordic Heritage Museum is on the Ballard Chamber of Commerce Board, so nobody should bother with their events which are usually pretty bad anyways… any other connections to the Chamber? Share them here.
Thankfully, none of the venues mentioned above are members of the Ballard Chamber!!
Tractor Tavern – not a BCoC member Sunset Tavern – not a BCoC member Picolino’s – not a BCoC member Conor Byrne – not a BCoC member Egan’s Ballard Jam House – not a BCoC member
I appreciate the increased awareness of BCoC and who is behind what.
It obviously upsetting to many here that the connections are getting exposed. If BCoC stands behind it’s lawsuit why do their supporters get so upset when commenters point it out?
Kelly, I think many posters find it amusing that the vuvuzalas are SO TOTALLY committed to boycotting anyone who is a member of the BCoC but don’t want to go to the trouble of looking on the BCoC website to see who is a member. They would rather have the information given to them.
High ideals can be tiring, an easy work around to the effort is always welcome
And it’s not the Chambers lawsuit. They aren’t paying any lawyers. Salmon Bay Sand and Gravel and Ballard Oil brought the suit. None of the money you spend at a Chamber member goes toward the lawsuit. The BCoC, NSIA and the Seattle Maritime Association have joined the suit but do not have any financial responsibilities to the attorneys hired by the litigants.
And the suit isn’t to stop the trail it is to require the city get an environmental impact statement done. The same thing any private business would have to do if it wanted to do something as minimal as make a curb cut in their parking lot.
gts206 your comment is so loaded with inaccuracies it must make the Chamber proud.
1. The Ballard Chamber of Commerce brought the suit and they are named in the suit as litigants on the exact same level as the others.
2. If they are getting their own litigation paid for by the other litigants, that seems even more problematic to me as it raises some serious potential conflicts of interest.
3. Chamber money IS spent on the lawsuit and that is evident on their own website. Assuming they pay to maintain their own website, they are paying to publish the pro-lawsuit argument online.
4. The environmental study the are demanding is not required, according to the planning commissioner and also the Superior Court judge – although instead of accepting the partial verdict to study 5 blocks further, the BCoC has already appealed the entire thing. Curb cuts don’t get litigated for years after losing three times (and counting).
5. It’s vuvuzela, not vuvuzala. Why do you even need to be so demeaning of others? Vuvuzelas are part of a long and proud cultural tradition in South Africa. Your attempt to turn vuvuzela into some sort of derogatory insult against bicyclists seems almost racist.
FIFA President Sepp Blatter [addressing criticism of the vuvuzela]: “We should not try to Europeanise an African World Cup … that is what African and South Africa football is all about — noise, excitement, dancing, shouting and enjoyment”.
Europeanise is a euphemism. GTS206 was bashing an African tradition and racism certainly plays a part in that.
All this arguing makes me wish there were no bike trails at all, like when I was a kid. Somehow we got by. Or no cars, like when my great-grandfather was a kid. Somehow they got by.
Please stop hijacking every thread. It’s seriously counterproductive.
I certainly did not mean to be racist. I was equating the loud constant barrage of a vuvuzela to the loud constant bararage of anti BCoC posts on every.single.news.item.
I express my deepest apologies to anyone I may have offended.
I can only assume each of you who called me racist did not laugh at a single vuvuzela joke on late night TV the past few weeks.
Is it too much to expect for the comments to remain at least peripherally on topic? Do you really think hijacking every story with the bike trail agenda is doing the cause any good at all?
This posting was just a listing of events going on in OUR community, ordinarily a good thing. But instead, it turns into a shouting match. C’mon people. Grow up. Fight your fight, but in appropriate ways. This is just plain stupid.
I will go to the Nordic Heritage museum, and make a donation. I’ll have lunch, buy some crafts, and have a great time.
Hijacking threads won’t help your cause one bit, bicyclists. You are so extreme, it makes me support the other side, even though I was on your side to begin with.
Aaron, only the weak and gullible are so easily persuaded. Grow a pair and stand by your convictions. Support the trail because it is the right thing to do.
I’m tired of every single thread being hijacked and redirected toward the trail issue and am starting to wonder why I even read this anymore. It’s disheartening and dispiriting.
The regulars that populate the forum side of this blog are mysteriously absent on the story side on the trail issue (with the exception of two posters I recognize), which makes me strongly suspect that the voices here are not the majority they claim to be, but a small group of posters who just keep posting under different names.
For what it’s worth, I’m a Chamber member and local business owner, and while I don’t have an opinion about the trail issue, I am a strong supporter of the Chamber. Why? For all that they do in this community, for the networking and business connections I’ve made (at after-hour events and the monthly lunches and the golf tournament) and for the great job they’ve done to highlight Ballard and to drive business to my store. Like what?
How about putting on Seafood Fest? Tens of thousands of people attend every year, which means it is ALWAYS one of my busiest weekends of the year, as it is for many of the businesses here in the downtown core. How do I know this? Because we all talk. And this year was the best I’ve had (and others have had) in the last three years. In this economy especially, those sales are crucial. There is also the Art Walk they coordinate each month and the sidewalk sale that will be held at the end of the month. All of these things bring business into my store and help me increase my sales.
Then I read all of the negativity on this blog towards the Chamber about the trail lawsuit and start wondering whether I’ve missed something, momentarily concerned that there really is a big uproar in the community that I might not be aware of. So I started talking to other businesses and friends.
And you know what? As long as I’m not on My Ballard, I almost never hear about the bike trail issue or all of this controversy or these threatened boycotts.
And for those of you who hear claims that bicyclists will bring so much more business into local stores if they would just finish the trail, think again. The trail helps ensure that these same bicyclists completely skirt the downtown core, and they’ll never spend more time or money here as a result of the trail than they do now. That argument rings hollow.
In the end, given how much I benefit and my business benefits from the many good things the Chamber does – things so many of you never see as non-members – I see no value in listening to the rantings and ravings of a tiny percentage of this community that simply doesn’t represent the “voice” of Ballard that they claim to be.
I too believe that the negativity directed towards the BCC and industrial businesses on this blog are coming from a few CBC members that post using many different alias’. The names come and go but the message is the same.
This may be my last post as I can’t continue to ignore the nonsense coming from the few that continually hijack threads. I have been on the fence regarding the trail. Their posts contain more BS than an Ellensburg feed lot.
The problem with forums and blogs is the ability for posters to be anonymous. You can say what you want without consequence. This must be one of the few blogs that allow posting comments without registering, enabling them to switch identities at will giving the illusion of greater support to their cause. In effect their objections to the trail issue are rendered meaningless.
I’ll continue to support Ballard business in the best way possible, spending money.
1. What part about “Joined” don’t you understand? They didn’t bring the suit they joined. Level? This isn’t a video game.
2. Have you seen any documents that prove they are paying any funds to advance this lawsuit? I didn’t think so.
3. See #2, again, they joined the lawsuit. How much money are they spending? Trying to connect the money the spend to maintain a website and the lawsuit is akin to a FOX news segment. You said it best “Assuming”
4. You asked and answered. They appealed because they know the impact statement will not get them the result they want.
5. Please, why do leftists feel the need to use race to debate someones point? If someone called the accordion annoying are they racist against my Nordic heritage? His comparison was spot on.
I will continue to support Ballard businesses as well, just not BCC member businesses. The vast majority of Ballard businesses are NOT members of the BCC, that is where I will spend my money.
Also, can any anti-multi purpose trail folks give us a specific example of an industrial operation that has shut down due to a trail on adjacent public land?
gts206 stating “It’s not even the Chamber’s lawsuit,” tells me all I need to know about the Chamber trolls and their credibility.
And last week it was Darrell McManus, the chair of Seafood Fest, who was exposed for posting under multiple accounts. It’s the Chamber types who seem like the trolls here, not ordinary people like me amused by the lies and selfishness of our local business owners and their lawyers.
Impartial: I am not a Chamber troll I am a real live person who lives here in Ballard and has for 20 years. I work downtown for a company that is not even a member of the Ballard Chamber.
This is the only name I post under (except for a brief period a year or so ago when I was just GTS)
Check Facts Checks Facts: thanks for the support. From now on I’ll refer to crazy bike trail posters as bagpipers, slightly more annoying than accordianists, a nod to my own heritage and apparently less raciest than vuvuzales.
But for the record I’m a she not a he.
Perhaps not as smokin’ hot as Fact Check/Roger/Impartial/Doug11’s girlfriend but I hold my own.
Impartial- we aren’t ever going to see eye to eye on this issue but I have a proposal:
I won’t ever post that it isn’t the Chambers lawsuit if you and the other bike trail advocates promise not to highjack every item posted and make it about the bike trail/Chamber.
Items specific to the lawsuit are fair game, but random news items about what’s going on in Ballard don’t need to be monopolized by people on either side of the issue snarking at each other.
Pho – they didn’t bring the lawsuit. The Chamber along with NSIA and Seattle Maritime Association signed on to it. The original plantiffs are Ballard Oil and Salmon Bay Sand and Gravel who are members of all three of the those groups. The Chamber did not initiate the suit.
I was neuatral on the bike trail and I am now totally opposed to it. The behavior of a few jerks posting with multiple handles made up my mind for me. I certainly don’t want to stand with theses losers, so I will now stand against them and I will let my elected representatives at every level know my feelings.
![](https://www.myballard.com/wp-content/uploads/2024-My-Ballard-Tile-Ad-Troop-100.png")
It would be useful if events sponsored or associated with the Ballard Chamber of Commerce were identified as such.
Many of us refuse to support an organization intent on stopping the bike trail that would improve safety for bike commuters and recreational riders including our children.
Erik Stangvik from the Nordic Heritage Museum is on the Ballard Chamber of Commerce Board, so nobody should bother with their events which are usually pretty bad anyways… any other connections to the Chamber? Share them here.
Trail supporters should not support Viking Days.
Nordic Museum president is a Chamber board member.
Thankfully, none of the venues mentioned above are members of the Ballard Chamber!!
Tractor Tavern – not a BCoC member
Sunset Tavern – not a BCoC member
Picolino’s – not a BCoC member
Conor Byrne – not a BCoC member
Egan’s Ballard Jam House – not a BCoC member
BCoC rocks
I’m going on a hunger strike against the BCC. Who will join me in my noble cause? Either you are with the trail, or you are with the BCC.
I appreciate the increased awareness of BCoC and who is behind what.
It obviously upsetting to many here that the connections are getting exposed. If BCoC stands behind it’s lawsuit why do their supporters get so upset when commenters point it out?
The Chamber kills baby seals.
Kelly, I think most of the annoyance is because this subject gets pushed into every flippin’ story.
Kelly, I think many posters find it amusing that the vuvuzalas are SO TOTALLY committed to boycotting anyone who is a member of the BCoC but don’t want to go to the trouble of looking on the BCoC website to see who is a member. They would rather have the information given to them.
High ideals can be tiring, an easy work around to the effort is always welcome
And it’s not the Chambers lawsuit. They aren’t paying any lawyers. Salmon Bay Sand and Gravel and Ballard Oil brought the suit. None of the money you spend at a Chamber member goes toward the lawsuit. The BCoC, NSIA and the Seattle Maritime Association have joined the suit but do not have any financial responsibilities to the attorneys hired by the litigants.
And the suit isn’t to stop the trail it is to require the city get an environmental impact statement done. The same thing any private business would have to do if it wanted to do something as minimal as make a curb cut in their parking lot.
gts206 your comment is so loaded with inaccuracies it must make the Chamber proud.
1. The Ballard Chamber of Commerce brought the suit and they are named in the suit as litigants on the exact same level as the others.
2. If they are getting their own litigation paid for by the other litigants, that seems even more problematic to me as it raises some serious potential conflicts of interest.
3. Chamber money IS spent on the lawsuit and that is evident on their own website. Assuming they pay to maintain their own website, they are paying to publish the pro-lawsuit argument online.
4. The environmental study the are demanding is not required, according to the planning commissioner and also the Superior Court judge – although instead of accepting the partial verdict to study 5 blocks further, the BCoC has already appealed the entire thing. Curb cuts don’t get litigated for years after losing three times (and counting).
5. It’s vuvuzela, not vuvuzala. Why do you even need to be so demeaning of others? Vuvuzelas are part of a long and proud cultural tradition in South Africa. Your attempt to turn vuvuzela into some sort of derogatory insult against bicyclists seems almost racist.
Racist? HAHAHAHA!
You turd! You almost had a decent argument going until you pulled the race card and turn into a douche bag. Thanks for the laugh.
FIFA President Sepp Blatter [addressing criticism of the vuvuzela]: “We should not try to Europeanise an African World Cup … that is what African and South Africa football is all about — noise, excitement, dancing, shouting and enjoyment”.
Europeanise is a euphemism. GTS206 was bashing an African tradition and racism certainly plays a part in that.
All this arguing makes me wish there were no bike trails at all, like when I was a kid. Somehow we got by. Or no cars, like when my great-grandfather was a kid. Somehow they got by.
Please stop hijacking every thread. It’s seriously counterproductive.
STM, I think somehow they got by without blogs, too. So please leave. Do us all a favor. Your comment adds nothing.
Kudos to the bikers fighting for their trail.
You’re actually screaming “racist”???
Man, you are such a tool!!! LOL!!!
As the Idiocy Turns.
I certainly did not mean to be racist. I was equating the loud constant barrage of a vuvuzela to the loud constant bararage of anti BCoC posts on every.single.news.item.
I express my deepest apologies to anyone I may have offended.
I can only assume each of you who called me racist did not laugh at a single vuvuzela joke on late night TV the past few weeks.
The BCoC supports jobs. The bike trail supports bikes. I for one and happy to have jobs in Ballard, I could care less about bikes.
Can’t we just repair the rail road track part and leave the business alone?
gts206-
Don’t sweat it. The bike extremists don’t have a sense of humor. They are unable to laugh about vuvuzelas or anything else.
Judy,
And yours did?
Is it too much to expect for the comments to remain at least peripherally on topic? Do you really think hijacking every story with the bike trail agenda is doing the cause any good at all?
This posting was just a listing of events going on in OUR community, ordinarily a good thing. But instead, it turns into a shouting match. C’mon people. Grow up. Fight your fight, but in appropriate ways. This is just plain stupid.
Let the flaming begin.
gts206,
It must be nice, being white.
I will go to the Nordic Heritage museum, and make a donation. I’ll have lunch, buy some crafts, and have a great time.
Hijacking threads won’t help your cause one bit, bicyclists. You are so extreme, it makes me support the other side, even though I was on your side to begin with.
Aaron, only the weak and gullible are so easily persuaded. Grow a pair and stand by your convictions. Support the trail because it is the right thing to do.
gts206 where is your apology for false information?
of course it is their lawsuit!! they are listed as the first plaintiff!!
debate is one thing. obvious lies are another.
kelly,
it must be tough, being so stupid.
+1 to Aaron
You guys are more annoying than the Ron Paul internet fanboys of 2008.
I’m tired of every single thread being hijacked and redirected toward the trail issue and am starting to wonder why I even read this anymore. It’s disheartening and dispiriting.
The regulars that populate the forum side of this blog are mysteriously absent on the story side on the trail issue (with the exception of two posters I recognize), which makes me strongly suspect that the voices here are not the majority they claim to be, but a small group of posters who just keep posting under different names.
For what it’s worth, I’m a Chamber member and local business owner, and while I don’t have an opinion about the trail issue, I am a strong supporter of the Chamber. Why? For all that they do in this community, for the networking and business connections I’ve made (at after-hour events and the monthly lunches and the golf tournament) and for the great job they’ve done to highlight Ballard and to drive business to my store. Like what?
How about putting on Seafood Fest? Tens of thousands of people attend every year, which means it is ALWAYS one of my busiest weekends of the year, as it is for many of the businesses here in the downtown core. How do I know this? Because we all talk. And this year was the best I’ve had (and others have had) in the last three years. In this economy especially, those sales are crucial. There is also the Art Walk they coordinate each month and the sidewalk sale that will be held at the end of the month. All of these things bring business into my store and help me increase my sales.
Then I read all of the negativity on this blog towards the Chamber about the trail lawsuit and start wondering whether I’ve missed something, momentarily concerned that there really is a big uproar in the community that I might not be aware of. So I started talking to other businesses and friends.
And you know what? As long as I’m not on My Ballard, I almost never hear about the bike trail issue or all of this controversy or these threatened boycotts.
And for those of you who hear claims that bicyclists will bring so much more business into local stores if they would just finish the trail, think again. The trail helps ensure that these same bicyclists completely skirt the downtown core, and they’ll never spend more time or money here as a result of the trail than they do now. That argument rings hollow.
In the end, given how much I benefit and my business benefits from the many good things the Chamber does – things so many of you never see as non-members – I see no value in listening to the rantings and ravings of a tiny percentage of this community that simply doesn’t represent the “voice” of Ballard that they claim to be.
BBO, thanks for your post.
I too believe that the negativity directed towards the BCC and industrial businesses on this blog are coming from a few CBC members that post using many different alias’. The names come and go but the message is the same.
This may be my last post as I can’t continue to ignore the nonsense coming from the few that continually hijack threads. I have been on the fence regarding the trail. Their posts contain more BS than an Ellensburg feed lot.
The problem with forums and blogs is the ability for posters to be anonymous. You can say what you want without consequence. This must be one of the few blogs that allow posting comments without registering, enabling them to switch identities at will giving the illusion of greater support to their cause. In effect their objections to the trail issue are rendered meaningless.
I’ll continue to support Ballard business in the best way possible, spending money.
1. What part about “Joined” don’t you understand? They didn’t bring the suit they joined. Level? This isn’t a video game.
2. Have you seen any documents that prove they are paying any funds to advance this lawsuit? I didn’t think so.
3. See #2, again, they joined the lawsuit. How much money are they spending? Trying to connect the money the spend to maintain a website and the lawsuit is akin to a FOX news segment. You said it best “Assuming”
4. You asked and answered. They appealed because they know the impact statement will not get them the result they want.
5. Please, why do leftists feel the need to use race to debate someones point? If someone called the accordion annoying are they racist against my Nordic heritage? His comparison was spot on.
I will continue to support Ballard businesses as well, just not BCC member businesses. The vast majority of Ballard businesses are NOT members of the BCC, that is where I will spend my money.
Also, can any anti-multi purpose trail folks give us a specific example of an industrial operation that has shut down due to a trail on adjacent public land?
gts206 stating “It’s not even the Chamber’s lawsuit,” tells me all I need to know about the Chamber trolls and their credibility.
And last week it was Darrell McManus, the chair of Seafood Fest, who was exposed for posting under multiple accounts. It’s the Chamber types who seem like the trolls here, not ordinary people like me amused by the lies and selfishness of our local business owners and their lawyers.
Impartial: I am not a Chamber troll I am a real live person who lives here in Ballard and has for 20 years. I work downtown for a company that is not even a member of the Ballard Chamber.
This is the only name I post under (except for a brief period a year or so ago when I was just GTS)
Check Facts Checks Facts: thanks for the support. From now on I’ll refer to crazy bike trail posters as bagpipers, slightly more annoying than accordianists, a nod to my own heritage and apparently less raciest than vuvuzales.
But for the record I’m a she not a he.
Perhaps not as smokin’ hot as Fact Check/Roger/Impartial/Doug11’s girlfriend but I hold my own.
Pace
gts206, it is the Chamber’s lawsuit. You would have more credibility if you did not continue to insist otherwise.
Impartial- we aren’t ever going to see eye to eye on this issue but I have a proposal:
I won’t ever post that it isn’t the Chambers lawsuit if you and the other bike trail advocates promise not to highjack every item posted and make it about the bike trail/Chamber.
Items specific to the lawsuit are fair game, but random news items about what’s going on in Ballard don’t need to be monopolized by people on either side of the issue snarking at each other.
So gts206 is offering to stop posting obvious lies about the lawsuit if the rest of us stop discussing it?
I think I’m beginning to understand why so many people don’t like the Chamber!
The Chamber is a plaintiff in the lawsuit.
gts206 how can you say it’s not their lawsuit? That’s a lie!
Pho – they didn’t bring the lawsuit. The Chamber along with NSIA and Seattle Maritime Association signed on to it. The original plantiffs are Ballard Oil and Salmon Bay Sand and Gravel who are members of all three of the those groups. The Chamber did not initiate the suit.
I’m not posting lies.
And I am not advocating ending the discussion, just confining it to posts that are germane to the bike trail, not hijacking every single post.
Silly anarchists. Bikes are for kids!
I was neuatral on the bike trail and I am now totally opposed to it. The behavior of a few jerks posting with multiple handles made up my mind for me. I certainly don’t want to stand with theses losers, so I will now stand against them and I will let my elected representatives at every level know my feelings.
GTS206, your welcome.