Hopefully they saved room in their candy sacks for the big day. This year, the official Hilloween carnival and Broadway trick or treating returns for the first time in two years. Thanks to neighborhood matching funds championed at City Hall and new organizing muscle from PrideFest, the Hilloween family fun will take place with a carnival at the AIDS Memorial Plaza just north of Cal Anderson from 1 to 4 PM with merchant trick-or-treating from 11 AM to 1 PM in Pike/Pine and 4 PM to 6 PM on Broadway. Learn more at hilloween.me.

There’s more. 15th Ave E businesses will join the fray this year starting at 4 PM, equipping candy seekers with free jack-o’-lantern buckets and route maps at participating shops. Check out 15thaveeast.com/halloween for details.

As for the Capitol Hill Trick or Treat Hot Zone, this year we’re handing it over to Dr. Frankenstein and his monster for details:

Awaken from your slumber! The lightning sparks at dusk this Saturday!

My neural circuits calculate an unprecedented surge of sugar wattage descending across Capitol Hill, and you must join the shambling horde. Do not hide in your laboratories! Navigate your tiny creatures to the legendary epicenter at 16th Avenue East and East Aloha, where the front porches near Volunteer Park will overflow with glorious, full-voltage tribute.

But take note of my augmented blueprints: a mighty new limb has been stitched into the network! March upon 15th Avenue East at 16:00 hours to secure free pumpkin receptacles and candy coordinates from the local shops before stomping toward the main carnival hub on Broadway and Pike/Pine.

Gather your umbrellas. Synchronize your footfalls.

STAYING HOME… BAD! JOINING THE HILLOWEEN HORDE… GOOD! ARISE AND HAUNT!

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Late this summer, Annapurna’s owners filed permit paperwork to begin buildout on a brand new Broadway space for the restaurant — work they don’t expect to start until next November.

“We heard that the City of Seattle is really behind for improvement approval,” Sujan Sharma tells CHS about the paperwork.

While Sharma and Roshita Shrestha continue to serve their much-loved thalis, curries, and breads in its underground space below the old Crest Building at 1833 Broadway, Annapurna is being prepared for a climb north.

A few years back, Sharma and  Shrestha purchased a Broadway commercial condo on the street level of the Brix building near a few doors down from Vivace. The corner was the long ago home of Dilettante Mocha Café. The couple have leased the space to Star Sushi in recent years.

Plans are now in motion for it become Annapurna’s new home.

Working with Nos Narin, the design director at Catch Design Studio behind many Capitol Hill food and drink overhauls, the space is being planned for a full upgrade including an overhaul of the kitchen, plus a redesign of the interior — once the city finally signs off on the plans over the coming months.

The new start for Annapurna will come after more than 20 years on Broadway. Shrestha and Sharma started Annapurna in May 2003 as a small venture to introduce the cuisine to Broadway and the Capitol Hill neighborhood. Shrestha said that she wanted to bring flavors that she had grown up with to Seattle. Challenges around the pandemic and the years of construction for the Capitol Hill Light Rail Station and its next door west-side entrance nearly did the restaurant in. But Annapurna persevered — and expanded. In 2015, it reached the surface on Broadway, adding its upstairs Yeti Bar above the lower level Broadway restaurant.

Any redevelopment at 1833 Broadway will need a new, landmarks-friendly design

As for the 1905-built-building the restaurant currently calls home, it has long been lined up for redevelopment as a six-story, 50-unit mixed-use building under plans first approved a decade ago. That project was put on ice due to landmarks protections. Any new development plan will need to incorporate preservation of the building’s historic proportions, look, and feel.

The extra time has given Annapurna time to prepare and, along the way, learn a few lessons about Seattle process including the most important — start early.

Annapurna Cafe is still located at 1833 Broadway. Learn more at annapurnacafe.com.

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According to a Seattle Police Department incident report, officers were dispatched last Wednesday to a Capitol Hill apartment. The victim reported waking up around 4:00 AM to discover an unfamiliar man and woman stealing $10,000 in cash along with a tablet computer.

The victim told police the tablet held access to digital wallets containing 3.0 Bitcoins, valued at roughly $246,621, and 42.0 PI Network tokens worth about $3.30.

When the victim confronted the intruders, the male suspect punched him, and the woman brandished a knife. The victim pursued the pair outside toward Capitol Hill Station where he was punched again, shoved into a bush, and suffered a broken nose before the suspects escaped eastbound on E John in a black Dodge sedan.

Whether the thieves drove away with a quarter-million dollars or just a locked tablet is not clear. While the paper cash was gone immediately, moving cryptocurrency off a stolen device is not easy. Without passcodes, private recovery keys, or account logins, the suspects cannot access the funds—and if the victim still has those keys, he can simply transfer the digital money to a safe account before anyone unlocks the device.

The SPD report did not provide further details about the status of the victim’s cryptocurrency.

The victim told police that he believed his estranged wife had invited the pair into the apartment. While the victim maintained she was not complicit in the robbery, he believed her drinking and open boasting about his wealth prompted her social media acquaintances to target the booty.

According to the report, police may have encountered the suspects during a related contact earlier that day.

There were no immediate arrests.

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Hollingsworth’s latest social media update lays out her priorities this budget amendment season

When it comes to the rosters of budget amendments earmarked for spending in their own districts, the Seattle City Council is facing a more challenging political environment this year. District 3 representative and Council President Joy Hollingsworth is facing the same difficult financial landscape as she pushes her proposed 2027-2028 budget updates forward including a plan to boost the economy in the Central District and another that could help fund the revival of neighborhood councils in Seattle.

The Seattle City Council is digging into budget deliberations Tuesday, opening the first of three days of debate over member-sponsored amendments to Mayor Katie Wilson’s 2027–2028 budget proposal and plan to wipe out a $175 million city deficit.

Between Tuesday and Thursday, councilmembers will review dozens of Council Budget Actions and Statements of Legislative Intent across City Hall before budget committee chair Dan Strauss unveils his balancing package next week.

Tuesday’s opening budget committee session addressed 16 departments including the City Attorney’s office, civil rights, the Office of Housing, the Department of Neighborhoods, planning, finance, and infrastructure utility departments.

With the focus on eliminating the deficit without cutting vital services, councilmembers are describing a limited playing field with little room for maneuvering or negotiation and are buttressing their district and neighborhood needs as part of wider citywide programs.

Hollingsworth’s roster of amendments focused on neighborhood reinvestment, tenant protection, and civic participation is a good example.

Leading the package is Hollingsworth’s proposal, co-sponsored by Rob Saka and Dionne Foster, which earmarks $2.5 million annually alongside two full-time equivalent positions to launch a Central District and Southeast Seattle Reinvestment Program. The Hollingsworth-led initiative would establish a grant process to deliver operational funding to community organizations as part of investments across the city’s southern core.

Additionally, Hollingsworth partnered with Debora Juarez and Bob Kettle on a budget action proposing $100,000 annually to support a revival of Seattle neighborhood councils. The spending comes a decade after the city removed much of its support for a former neighborhood council system over concerns the groups did not fully represent their communities.

Hollingsworth is also leading a measure adding $500,000 in support to the Seattle Department of Construction and Inspections to lift the city’s baseline tenant services budget to $3 million in 2027 for eviction defense, legal representation, and renter education.

Other headline amendments from the first session targeted court backlogs, affordable housing, and urban land use. Councilmembers proposed a coordinated push for the City Attorney’s Office to address a backlog of roughly 5,000 misdemeanor cases — a third of which involve domestic violence, sexual assault, stalking, or elder abuse — by proposing $1 million in flexible 2027 relief funds, $1.28 million to hire four assistant city prosecutors, and $277,000 annually to contract out toxicology testing under state law.

On the housing front, Foster introduced a $10 million appropriation for rental and homeownership units in 2027 alongside companion legislation requiring unspent JumpStart Payroll Expense Tax balances to automatically roll over year-to-year, a move hoped to counter the mayor’s proposal to cut $65 million from the 2026 Office of Housing budget.

Other key proposals include a $3 million plan by Alexis Mercedes Rinck to fund a public market in Highland Park, an ordinance to divert at least 70% of new “Do Not Solicit” penalties toward anti-displacement legal and home repair assistance for homeowners, an assessment on building affordable housing at SPU’s newly acquired 18-acre Yesler Creek site, and a formal scoping study to examine lidding I-5 near the new Pinehurst light rail station.

Deliberations continue Wednesday with presentations turning to Seattle Parks, the Seattle Department of Transportation and the Seattle Fire Department where a debate over a proposed cut to firefighter overtime is likely to be a center of the session.

Thursday’s session will include the Seattle Police Department as councilmembers take on questions around spending on police hiring in the mayor’s plan that calls for capping the department at 1,250 officers as part of measures to cut the forecast deficit.

CHS reported here on Wilson’s full budget proposal which would wipe out an inherited $175 million deficit without tax increases or withdrawals from city reserves. The proposal would cut roughly $50 million annually in General Fund spending by eliminating 128 positions and adjusting a department’s projected funding to what it has spent in recent years, pairing these cuts with $50 million in shuffled funding — primarily leveraging JumpStart payroll tax revenues to cover core services and homelessness programs — and enabling the city, Wilson says, to project balanced budgets through 2030 without drawing on reserves.

The plan requires compromises along the edges on things like firefighter overtime and hiring new cops — unless the council’s amendment process digs up ways to cover the costs.

 

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(Image: @foraysenur)

A new community mural honoring late University of Washington graduate and activist Ayşenur Ezgi Eygi is slated for installation on the grounds of Cherry Street Village in the Central District.

Permits with the city have been approved for a structure along the northern edge of the property at 720 25th Ave, near E Cherry.

Designed in partnership with Architects Without Borders – Seattle, the installation consists of three stacked panels of marine-grade plywood measuring roughly 12 feet wide by 8 feet tall.

The mural honors Eygi, a 26-year-old Seattle activist and UW psychology and Middle Eastern languages graduate who was killed in September 2024 by Israeli forces while demonstrating against settlement expansion in the West Bank. Prior to her death, Eygi had taken part in pro-Palestinian campus protests and negotiations at UW.

Designed by artist James Hesketh, the artwork depicts Eygi wearing a keffiyeh set against an olive tree, poppies, and tulips. More than 100 community members, friends, and family contributed to painting the panels paint-by-numbers style during a gathering at Cherry Street Village that marked what would have been her 28th birthday.

A segment representing Eygi was added to The Olympia-Rafah Solidarity Mural this fall (Image: @jameshesketh_)

The Eygi mural project is being funded through donations and volunteer work and will add to the Central District’s collection of community murals including The People’s Wall at 19th and Spruce that received official city landmarks protections this summer.

Cherry Street Village is a social justice collective, community hub, and intentional living space co-directed by activist Samia El-Moslimany. Operating out of a property home to The Islamic School of Seattle into the 2010s, the village formed to host grassroots organizing, cultural events, mutual aid, and activist workshops. Today, it serves as a neighborhood gathering site for civil rights and solidarity efforts.

The new mural structure will stand one to two feet above the ground, supported by side posts and horizontal framing anchored into cast-in-place concrete piers. A small, cantilevered rooflet will sit atop the frame to shield the painted surface from Pacific Northwest weather.

Organizers have planned to unveil the permanent installation for neighborhood residents and passersby this fall.

Follow @foraysenur for updates.

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