SoZoo Email List Created

For those of you who prefer email to blogs, or who want to have a bit more interactivity with their neighbors, I've created an email list for the neighborhood. To preserve relative confidentiality, this is a closed list; only those from the neighborhood will be granted access.

To request access, send your email address, name and street address (for verification purposes) to sozooseattle@gmail.com. I'll send you an invitation to the list by return email, and you'll then be able to sign up to receive messages by email or by looking at the web site. (If you've never used an email list like this before, send me an email and I'll help you as best I can).

Note: this is a moderated list, which means only I have the ability to allow messages to be send to those who have joined the list. In my experience, having a moderator screen the messages cuts out potential spam as well as messages that just aren't appropriate for the list. I don't anticipate having to prevent many messages from being sent, but if there are any issues, I'm happy to bring them to the members for discussion. We'll see how this goes.

In the meantime, a few recommendations:

• Don't post information you're not comfortable sharing with the entire planet. This is an email list, and even though it's "closed," email messages can and will be forwarded. For example, don't tell everyone when you're going on vacation or other things that shouldn't be share!
  
• Be nice. These are your neighbors. The email list is not a place to work out arguments you may have with people in SoZoo (messages like this will be screened), but it is a place to do and say nice things to the people you live around.
• Contribute. You may think you don't have anything to add, but you do. Information big and small is useful and interesting to your neighbors, so please err on the side of more.

I hope to see you on the list!

Tonight is the Neighborhood Block Party

For those of you living near 48th Street in SoZoo, there's a block party tonight being held as part of the "Night Out Against Crime" sponsored by the Seattle Police. Great neighbors have been organizing this for several years, and a lot of people stop by to meet each other, eat good food and have a cold drink. While the Seattle PD promotes this as a way to increase neighborhood safety and cut down on crime, it's also just a great way to at least meet (and recognize) the people who live in your neighborhood. Who knows...you might become lifelong friends, or meet someone who you didn't know you wanted to know!

There may be other block parties in SoZoo (post a comment if you know of one), but feel free to stop by the one on 48th to say hello.

Welcome to SoZoo!

As a resident of SoZoo ("South of the Zoo"), I often find that I don't get to meet most of the people in my neighborhood beyond my own block. Recently, I've been noticing more drug activity on our streets (I'll post about this shortly), and it got me thinking...what if I started a blog to share very specific information about our immediate neighborhood?

If nothing else, we can share information about some of the crime-related activity that has come into our area, including drug-dealing, abandoned cars, etc., and get organized as a neighborhood to work with the police to stop it. I'm hopeful that people will also post things about free stuff that they're giving away (or need), tools they are willing to loan, problems they need help solving, or news about the neighborhood they want to share.

By definition, this will be a low-traffic blog. If you have anything you'd like to contribute, please send to sozooseattle@gmail.com, and I'll post it for you.

Thanks!