As discussed at the most recent North Delridge Neighborhood Council meeting, NDNC plans monthly beautification projects – starting this Saturday, March 2, and continuing every first Saturday of the month. NDNC’s beautification chair Lisa Taylor Whitley hopes you can help:
Our first beautification project will be cleaning the Greg Davis Park area on March 2, 2013 from 10 am to 12 pm. We will meet at the Greg Davis Park on the corner of 26th Ave SW & SW Brandon St (Map It) at the 4 large rocks in the middle of the park. Bags and pickers will be provided. Just show up in comfortable clothes! If there are any questions, comments, or suggestions about future projects you would like to see, please contact Lisa Taylor Whitley at lisataylorwhitley@gmail.com or 206-910-1425.
The day after “Argo” won the Oscar for Best Picture, one of the six “house guests” whose story it tells was in West Seattle, visiting Chief Sealth International High School, at the invitation of teacher Patrice De La Ossa, Ph.D., who shares photos and a report:
“Argo,” anyone? Mark Lijek, one of the real house guests from “Argo,” visited the IB World History Seniors at Chief Sealth International High School today for Q&A after viewing the film last week. Dr. De La Ossa reached out to Mark Lijek, who resides in Washington, and got lucky!
But today, so did her students. Mark met with the seniors and told his personal story, then answered questions from the curious seniors about his ordeal, his continued career in Foreign Services, and how he felt about the film, which just won Best Picture.
Mark Lijek and his wife Cora Amburn-Lijek live in the Skagit County city of Anacortes. Our partners at The Seattle Timestold their story last fall, a few weeks after they were flown to the “Argo” premiere in Hollywood. In 1979, when they were embassy employees in Tehran at the time of the hostage crisis, the two were in their mid-20s and had been married four years.
Roxhill Elementary PE teacher Chellie LaFayette and her students are getting national attention for unique teaching/learning techniques, and a round of one-handed basketball today was part of it.
It takes practice, as Adam Mendoza learned:
A recent New York Times story pointed to Roxhill as a school where PE class had integrated other forms of learning – like computers, with an iPad helping demonstrate the throwing technique today:
That’s the view from our 4:15 pm drive on the newly narrowed ‘Timber Bridge’ section of southbound Highway 99 south of the West Seattle Bridge. It became stop-and-go right before the WS Bridge exit and even came to a halt for a moment or two. Past the bridge, the outside lane is the through lane. (added) Right after publishing this, we got a text from Michelle that it’s backed up to Lander. Adding the “live” camera at Lander:
Refresh this page for the newest view – it does not auto-refresh. (You can find that view any time with others on the WSB Traffic page.)
(WSB file photo: Stack of donated car seats from past WS Baby drive) WestSide Baby isn’t just about diapers – in case you didn’t already know. They provide car seats through partnerships with 80 social-service providers. But right now they have a wait list for convertible and combination-style car seats, according to operations manager Maria Groen – so they are “thrilled that Rico’s Auto Buff approached us to hold a ReRide Car Seat Drive to help us meet this need.” Here’s how it works:
Take your used (or new) car seats to Rico’s Auto Buff during business hours. The goal is to collect 50 reusable car seats for WestSide Baby. Car seats will be collected at Rico’s Autobuff during normal business hours through the end of March and are always accepted at WestSide Baby and their regular drop-off sites.
According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, car crashes are the number one killer of children 1 to 12 years old in the United States. The best way to protect them in the car is to put them in the right seat, at the right time, and use it the right way.
WestSide Baby collects car seats 6 years and newer for re-use by local children in need. We refurbish used car seats and gratefully accept new car seats too. In 2012, we provided 670 car seats but had more than 400 requests that we could not fill. Any car seats that cannot be passed along to kids for safety reasons will be recycled, and a $5 donation to cover recycling costs is appreciated for car seats over 6 years old.
Rico’s is at 4623 36th SW, just north of SW Alaska, in The Triangle.
AND NOW THERE ARE TWO: That 61-year-old duplex at 7018 California SW in south Morgan Junction, across from the row of businesses anchored by Caffe Ladro, will be replaced by a five-unit “rowhouse” of 3-story townhomes. It’s next to 4250 SW Myrtle, where a similar, if not identical, development is on the way (as reported here last July). (added – aerial photo by Long Bach Nguyen showing both sites, the cleared one on Myrtle and the to-be-demolished duplex facing California)
Both are being developed by Renton-based Isola Homes, which also is building a five-unit “rowhouse” in The Junction (mentioned in that same July story). The 7018 California proposal is up for the city’s streamlined Administrative Design Review process, meaning it will be reviewed, but there’s no public meeting planned. From the city website, here’s a scanned version of the design packet submitted last week. County records show this site was sold to the developers less than a month ago for $400,000.
UPDATE ON THE BLAKE: When the owners of the 101-apartment development planned for 5020 California SW, just south of The Junction, announced its new identity as The Blake in December, they said work would begin in January. Since February is almost over with no sign of groundbreaking, we checked in with the company managing the project. They say the permits will be “pulled” this week, so the start is near. The site has had a land-use permit for more than a year but the construction permit is not yet finalized, according to online records.
The West Seattle Helpline just received a $10,000 RealNetworks Foundation grant to go toward helping families facing emergencies in West Seattle with housing and utilities. The RealNetworks Foundation has supported us for several years now. This funding will help many of our neighbors in West Seattle who are facing difficult times.
That’s Tara on the left in the photo, with (center)RealNetworks Foundation Grant Team member Bruce Reisenauer and AmeriCorps VISTA outreach/resources director Jeremy Beliveau. You have options for helping Helpline too – find out how, here.
Today we welcome the “Kingdom of Hamelot” to WSB as one of our newest sponsors. Its creators explain:
Did you know that an entire kingdom is coming to life right here in West Seattle? We’re Connie Watts and Jen Olson, publishers of a new eBook series for kids called the Kingdom of Hamelot, stories based in a mythical, Elizabethan-era kingdom (kind of a mixture of Harry Potter and Downton Abbey). The world is rooted in historical facts about the time period and includes tales of magic, intrigue and deception, as well as friendship, acceptance and love. Our eBooks are enhanced, meaning the words on the (digital) page are accompanied by music and narration, challenging vocabulary words, and rich illustrations—and even entertaining supplemental videos.
We have just released Series I: Menagerie of Murder and have four more series planned for this year. Series II: With Mettle and Grit is due out in March. Our eBooks and audiobooks are available on Amazon, iTunes, Audible, and Barnes and Noble.
Connie’s mom, Sharon, is the author of these amazing stories. We are going head-to-head with the big boys of the publishing world by doing all of the planning, production and publicity ourselves, right here on Alki. We are really interested in partnering with local businesses, teachers, and organizations in creative ways. (We are currently offering our Series I eBook to teachers for free.)
Have an idea about partnering or an event? Please let us know! We’ve already held some events in the area and look forward to holding many more. Visit our website at kingdomofhamelot.com or like us on Facebook at facebook.com/KingdomofHamelot. And if you have suggestions, ideas, comments or an unpublished bestseller (we are publishing other eBooks by different authors), please send us e-mail at jen@kingdomofhamelot.com. We’d love to hear from you!
Dozens of young local musicians are back from a big weekend. Ethan Thomas from West Seattle High School‘s music department reports on achievements by students from 3 local schools:
The West Seattle High School, Chief Sealth International High School, and Denny Middle School Jazz Ensembles traveled together over the weekend to the Lionel Hampton Jazz Festival at the University of Idaho. The bands had an opportunity to perform and receive feedback from adjudicators, attend workshops and evening concerts by such internationally acclaimed musicians as Maceo Parker, Jeff Hamilton, Regina Carter, Take 6 and the Lionel Hampton Big Band. Three students from our group (Annabel Foucault from WSHS on bass, Cameron Nakatani from CSIHS and Ben Orlin from Denny IMS on trumpet) received honorable mention recognition for their performance. All three groups (WSHS under the direction of Ethan Thomas; CSIHS and Denny under the direction of Marcus Pimpleton) performed very well.
(Map showing West Seattle camera locations, from SPD presentation slide deck) By Tracy Record
West Seattle Blog editor
One month after Seattle Police-managed, Homeland Security-funded surveillance cameras were installed, unannounced, along Alki, SPD reps came to West Seattle to talk with beach residents about the system’s intent and extent.
The Alki Community Council board requested the briefing; for those arriving at Alki UCC Thursday night, a TV crew in the lobby was the first sign the board was taking up something of citywide interest. The briefing came one day after the City Council’s Public Safety, Civil Rights, and Technology Committee took a closer look at the program (WSB coverage here), offering citizens a chance to comment publicly for the first time since the cameras’ purpose was revealed in this January 29th WSB report.
You can listen to the entire meeting thanks to attendee Phil Mocek, who recorded and made the audio publicly available:
In addition to answering numerous questions, Det. Monty Moss, in charge of the program, suggested for the first time that there was at some point the intent to talk to the public first:
That came in response to an attendee’s mention of WSB being first to mention the Alki-and-beyond cameras – surprising even some City Council members (as Councilmember Nick Licata wrote here) – so, Det. Moss was asked, why weren’t public meetings planned before the installations?
(“Live” cam looking at the eastbound West Seattle Bridge; more cams here)
It’s breezy, but no longer expected to be extremely windy, so the weather advisory has been lifted. Also of note as Monday morning gets going, another reminder that the traffic changes on the “Timber Bridge” section of 99 south of the West Seattle Bridge are now in place. See the map here. That’s likely to have more of an effect during the pm commute, but we’ll see soon enough.
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