day : 16/02/2009 10 results

Last Tuesday night/Wednesday morning, for the first time in a while, we covered one of those helicopter incidents – a law-enforcement chopper overhead a south West Seattle neighborhood for quite some time, leaving hundreds of people wondering “what’s going on?” Two hours after the first report, we finally got police information on what had happened – described at the time as a stolen-car case, with three arrests. Now we have the actual report from that incident, found in the latest stack of scanned reports we downloaded at the precinct tonight, so we wanted to share the details in case you’d been wondering:Read More

West Seattle snow aftermath: 1st wave of possible “baby boom”

February 16, 2009 7:27 pm

| 12 COMMENTS

| West Seattle people | West Seattle weather

(12/08 Alki photo by Cathy Woo)
Remember those long weeks of being barely able to get out of the house? Some speculated a baby boom might result … and in fact, ~~two~~ ~~three~~ ~~FOUR~~ *FIVE* people have announced their impending parenthood ~~today~~ this week in the WSB Forums. (Anyone else?)

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“1st face-to-face interview” with Dow Constantine, candidate

February 16, 2009 4:39 pm

| 8 COMMENTS

| West Seattle news | West Seattle politics

By Tracy Record
West Seattle Blog editor

Instead of a once-planned family vacation on a sunny beach, King County Council Chair Dow Constantine is spending this partly sunny Seattle day — the first official day of his campaign for King County Executive — doing interviews, answering phone calls, e-mails, and text messages. And he wouldn’t have it any other way.

“This is fun,” he insists, as we part ways after a conversation at West 5 (WSB iPhone photo at left), in a space the native West Seattleite also remembers from spending many a day there in boyhood, when it was West Seattle Speedway, slot cars and all.

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West Seattle YMCA pool update: Reopening tomorrow morning

February 16, 2009 3:31 pm

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| Triangle | West Seattle news

As promised, here’s a followup on last night’s announcement of an unplanned closure for the West Seattle Family YMCA (WSB sponsor) pool – it WILL be back in business tomorrow, according to this note from Josh Sutton at the Y:

We have had the WS YMCA pool & hot area closed all day today for broken glass from a light fixture.

Thanks to Kevin Sy (our YMCA Maintenance Director) and a pool vendor with mobile heavy-duty equipment, we are on track to open the pool for our regular hours on Tuesday (5:30am), with all normal schedule & programs.

Sorry for the inconvenience.

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Last call to join West Seattle Girls Softball for 2009

February 16, 2009 2:38 pm

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| Fun stuff to do | West Seattle news | WS & Sports

Tomorrow’s the deadline to sign up for West Seattle Girls Softball, and league president Steve Peer wanted to put out the call one more time. This year, for the first time, you can sign up online – this link will take you there. Steve adds, “We want to let people know that scholarships are available. It’s really simple – if a girl wants to play in our league – she’s going to play regardless of her parents situation. This is a time when we as a West Seattle community pull together – and WSGS is no exception! If a girl doesn’t have the means to pay the registration fees please contact Steve Peer @ speer17@msn.com and we’ll take care of it. The WSGS board is ready to reach out to those in need – especially in these tough times.”

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Traffic alert: Slow going, eastbound, on The Bridge

February 16, 2009 2:18 pm

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| West Seattle traffic alerts

A crash on the eastbound stretch of The Bridge has been slowing traffic heading out of West Seattle – thanks to everyone who has e-mailed us about this. (Refresh for the latest visual from the traffic cam above; more cams on the WSB Traffic page; looks like it’s finally clearing.)

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Ferries’ future: “Plan C” proposal; advisory committees’ fate

February 16, 2009 12:12 pm

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| Transportation | West Seattle news

As Washington State Ferries plots its future and ferry communities work to have a say, we have two updates: First, from the Kitsap Sun, a report on Saturday’s meeting of the “Citizens Write Plan C” group (a reference to Plans A and B in the WSF Draft Long-Range Plan); one of the main points they discussed, says the Sun, is shifting the two Evergreen State-class ferries that serve the Fauntleroy-Vashon-Southworth route, the Klahowya and Tillikum, to Port Townsend and building bigger boats for major runs rather than smaller new boats for PT. Meantime, two events are coming up this Wednesday: A ferry-communities rally in Olympia (details here); and a ferry update during the Fauntleroy Community Association‘s all-neighborhood meeting that night (details here). From FCA’s Gary Dawson, we also have an update on reaction to Governor Gregoire’s proposal to abolish the Ferry Advisory Committees, whose members are unpaid volunteers representing ferry communities, as part of her “government reform” plan. He was part of a discussion about it in a meeting of FAC chairs and ferry system head David Moseley late last week – read on for his comments:Read More

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Remember the time capsule? There’s still … time!

February 16, 2009 11:10 am

| 1 COMMENT

| Alki Statue of Liberty | How to help | West Seattle history

Remember last November 13th? The day people all over Seattle were invited to save a memento of the day and contribute it to a time capsule that the Southwest Seattle Historical Society is putting together? Turns out – there’s still time to get your contribution in, according to Andrea Mercado, who called us this weekend with the reminder. (Jogged our memory too, since we had failed to print out the 11/13/08 WSB entries we intended to contribute!) So if you set something aside and just forgot to send it in – a photo from that day, art you created, a program or agenda from an event you sponsored or attended, or anything else signifying “how life was lived in Seattle 11/13/08” – e-mail digital contributions (photos etc.) to loghousemuseum@yahoo.com , or, for postal mail, find the SWSHS address here. The time capsule will be going into the Alki Statue of Liberty Plaza when additional bricks are installed later this year, and they’d love to have more to put into it – just get it in by the end of this month. (Photo courtesy David Hutchinson)

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West Seattle Gas Price Watch: One goes up, one goes down

February 16, 2009 6:07 am

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| Gas prices | Transportation | West Seattle news

Gas is what’s going up, while oil keeps going down; this week, all but one station in our West Seattle-wide survey is charging more, though oil is selling for less than a week earlier. General sense seems to be, that’s happening because refineries are producing less since people are using less. Whatever’s up, here are the prices, lowest to highest:Read More

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Alert for iPhone/iPod Touch users: New WSB viewing option

February 16, 2009 2:32 am

| 30 COMMENTS

| West Seattle online

By request, we’re trying out an iPhone version of WSB that should enable you to skim the site faster. So, if you have an iPhone (or iPod Touch) that version will load as the default, but you can switch to “normal” view with a link at the bottom – to go back to the “iPhone version,” you will again see a link at the bottom of the “regular” page. Let us know what you think!