By Staff
Flying artists will grace Washington waterfront
By TED STRONG
Staff Writer
It didn’t fly through with the greatest of ease, but Monday a trapeze school got the OK from the Washington City Council.
The council agreed to allow Doug Solomon and his daughter, Adrian, to locate a trapeze school near Washington’s waterfront.
The permission is good for only one season — from mid-March to mid-November — and the city is hoping to eventually find another site for the program. The school, which consists primarily of a fence, some wires and stakes, will be erected at the old Evans Seafood site.
A proposed site behind the McQuay Building was rejected because it ran over a stormwater line and would have required additional approvals.
Solomon explained that he wants to help the city by drawing people to the business district.
Councilman Gil Davis warned that the temporary permission doesn’t guarantee additional approvals.
Councilman Archie Jennings added that there isn’t any guarantee the school will be allowed to remain on the site into the future, either.
Dot Moate spoke to say she thinks the chain-link fence that will run around the school is inappropriate for the historic district, in which the Evans Seafood site is located.
Opinions on the school have run pretty even, said Washington Mayor Judy Meier Jennette.
Jennings said the trapeze school is “outside-the-box” thinking that historic guidelines don’t account for.
The initiative passed 3-2, with councilmen Doug Mercer and Richard Brooks voting against it.
After the vote, Tom Miller, a vice president with Downtown Washington on the Waterfront, said he had heard more favorable comments than criticism about the project.
In other action Monday night, the council asked the town’s staff to prepare resolutions saying the city is considering annexing three areas that are currently outside the city limits. If the council adopts the resolutions at a future meeting, residents of the areas would then have one year to object before they were annexed.
One area includes John Small Avenue from Brick Kiln Road to Castle Lane that aren’t already part of the city. Another is Honey Pod Farm, which sits along Brick Kiln Road and the banks of Runyon Creek.
The third is a group of unannexed areas along West Fifth Street from White Street to Brittany Place.
Mercer said the areas represent the three groups of parcels most in need of annexation. He also said there are other areas that also meet the requirements for annexation. He suggested the city should start annexing parcels regularly.
Roberson told the council he expects there to be an uproar over the annexation.
The council also heard:
That A.G. Swanner’s dinner-cruise boat, the Spirit of Washington, is being renamed the Belle of Washington to avoid confusion with another boat.