Goats to weed in south end park?!??!

According to an entry on Spew a heard of 280(!) goats will be running their choppers to clip the weeds at Blueberry Park [ map ] in south Tacoma. Complete with herding dogs! Yeah, I don't quite believe it either. Of course, I didn't even know there was a park in that part of town since all I used to see on my drive down Pacific to and from work at PLU was crappy strip malls and sad, defunct plazas surrounded by plent of urban sprawl.

Anyway, can anyone point to a press release or news bit about this? I believe it but it may just be too good a photo op to be true. I can see it now: "The Highlands of Tacoma".

Update (8:04am)
It's true! And it's happening July 29th beginning about 3pm. Link to Metro Parks Tacoma press release

Fri. July 21, 2006, 01:17pm PDT

BIA releases report on public spaces

The BIA release the Project for Public Spaces final report concerning downtown Tacoma. I mentioned some of the basic recommendations to come out and it looks like the BIA is already getting the ball rolling. The BIA blog mentions who in the Tacoma Chamber will begin tackling implimentation of some of these ideas and are seeking interested community members to get involved. It should be exciting to see what comes out of these various groups and how it impacts how we all experience downtown Tacoma.

Read the final report [PDF, 1.6MB]

As controversial as it may become, I'm a huge fan of bridging the gap that is Pacific Ave. to improve accessibility from one side to the other. To make Pacific a true main street kind of road it needs to be slowed and pedestrian friendly enough anyone should feel safe crossing anywhere, not just at designated crossings. Pulling both sides closer together will make downtown a much more inviting place to walk around and enjoy on a casual basis. Anyway, it'll be interesting to see where it goes.

It might also be interesting for the BIA to put out a general bulleted list of these recommendations and keep a running tally of which are in-discussion, have been address, or aren't going anywhere. We live in a PowerPoint world and sometimes need info presented to us as such.

Any of the recommendations strike a particular chord with you? Do any surprise you? Sound off!

Fri. July 21, 2006, 09:30pm PDT

Photos ~ Colorful sunset after a sweltering day

After a seriously hot day here Sarah and I wound down with some greek take out cooling off in the basement of friends Angela and Steve. We were prompted to go outside after a call from Angela's mom where we saw the following stunning sunset. Kinda' makes up for the high temperatures when you can see a beauty like this.