EDITOR’S NOTE: The date of this public event is actually Saturday, March 14. We apologize for any confusion.

Remember the old Hill Ward property in Lakewood? The creepy, graffiti-scrawled, crumbling ruins at Fort Steilacoom Park was demolished once and for all a year ago.

On Saturday, Lakewood will celebrate the transformation of the Hill Ward from one-time Western State Hospital prison farm dormitory, to long-time public nuisance, to a landscaped community setting overlooking Waughop Lake.

The city, county and the state contributed more than $693,000 to restore the property.

That’s the best community workshop name I’ve heard in years.

But wait, there’s more: Free Subway Sandwiches.

The Pierce County Asset Building Coalition will host Connect With Your Money from 9 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. Saturday – Feb. 28 _ at Evergreen State College – Tacoma, 1210 Sixth Ave., Tacoma.

It’s billed as offering “financial answers for families struggling in today’s economy.”

Barb Gorzinski, one of the organizers says she’s excited by the line-up of speakers and services.

You can sit in on a talk on:

* Creating a spending plan and a saving

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Sumner High School is presenting its third annual talent benefit show both Friday and Saturday evenings with proceeds going to help out long-time Sumner High driver education instructor Lew Linington.

Linington, who has worked for the district for 29 years, is a cancer survivor and is now a subtitute teacher with the district.

John Norlin, the Associated Student Body advisor and leadership instructor for Sumner High School, said the money raised will help Linington pay for bills associated with his cancer surgeries and treatment.

In the past two years the talent show has raised more than $20,000

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Intercommunity Mercy Housing broke ground on the Hilltop Tuesday for its first senior housing project in Tacoma.

New Tacoma Senior Housing, with 73 units for very low income seniors will rise on a half acre at 1709 South G St.

The new apartments will feature wide corridors, grab bars, wheel-in showers and 24-hour security, all the safety and accessibility features residents will need to age comfortably in place. Beyond that, residents will have on-site activities, including classes, clinics, tax help, even pet therapy.

They’ll get chances to volunteer and go on field trips. They’ll be welcome to

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You know you’ve got a city full of committed blight-fighters when they jam up the e-mail reporting system.

Hilltop Action Coalition’s Jeanie Peterson, Archenemy of Abandoned Autos, e-mailed word that the city needs a bit of a break on the way irked neighbors file blight reports.

Empowered by the city’s refreshing responsiveness, people have been e-mailing in complaints with extensive photo documentation. They want to be thorough. They want to give city inspectors a rich and detailed look at the problem from front yard to back yard to alley, not to mention curbs and planting strips.

But

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The W.W. Seymour Botanical Conservatory is offering extended evening hours until 8 p.m. tonight and Thursday to see its Dale Chihuly glass art display.

Tacoma native Chihuly loaned 250-some pieces to the conservatory for the three month exhibit to cap the glass house’s centennial celebration. The display, which ends Sunday, intermingles a variety of Chihuly forms with the exotic plant life.

It’s a particularly stunning sight at night, when the work is lit up. The conservatory has been offering the night display as part of the Third Thursday Art Walk.

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Puyallup officials have a dream.

As part of their plan to connect South Hill and downtown Puyallup, they’d like to start up rapid bus service up and down Meridian.

They’d want the bus line to have a name, much like the MAX light rail line in Portland.

It’s still preliminary, but city officials have a name they’ve been gravitating toward. They want to call the rapid bus line the “EZRA” — short for “Easy Rider Area,” and also honoring Puyallup’s first mayor, Ezra Meeker.

The line would stop every 15 minutes or so, making it a

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The former Martin Luther King Housing Development Association is under new management, and that management is about to get some of the input it has said it welcomes.

The Tacoma Avenue Coalition will host a community forum at 5:30 p.m. Feb. 18, that’s Wednesday, at the Tacoma Dominican Center, 935 S. Fawcett Avenue.

Jim Anderson, who organized the shelter’s transition to Catholic Community Services, will speak about the plans for running the program that has been sometimes troublesone and sometimes troubled.

As its new director, Anderson wants to make Tacoma’s largest emergency shelter a better neighbor, and

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