West Seattle holidays: Door-to-door caroling tonight
If you are in the vicinity of 45th/Andover/Dakota, you might have seen/heard carolers tonight. No, you weren’t hearing things, and here’s the proof! We got advance word from Anna (thank you!) of the plan, and caught up with them as they started their journey. She counted about 40 RSVPs, including “lots of kids,” even these two “elves”:
First caroling event we’ve heard about this year. Another one is coming up tomorrow night – a youth group from Shorewood Foursquare Church plans to head north to carol at Westwood Village around 7:30 pm.
West Seattle Crime Watch: Stolen car; Wyatt’s followup; package theft
Three notes in West Seattle Crime Watch:
STOLEN CAR IN FAUNTLEE HILLS: From Jeni:
I’d appreciate folks keeping an eye out for my dark blue 2007 Saturn Vue SUV that was stolen last night. The license plate is ARD2720. There are Obama and Gonzaga stickers on the back window. It was stolen from my home near 38th Ave SW & SW Henderson between 7:45 pm (12/15) and 4:00 am this morning (12/16). A report was filed with Seattle Police.
WYATT’S BREAK-IN FOLLOWUP: As promised, we checked back with Wyatt’s Jewelers (WSB sponsor) in Westwood Village, after a second break-in in nine days. Sacha sent a photo showing what they had to clean up:
No new info about the case yet – co-proprietor Kirk Keppler talked with a detective extensively this morning. And he talked with Channel 7 TV, who stopped by for an interview this afternoon.
PACKAGE THEFT: Bonnie believes a thief hit her house on Monday morning:
Possible package theft at North Admiral. As I drove away from my home to take my child to school, I noticed a UPS truck in front of my house. I was anticipating a package, so I thought it was for me. When I returned (maybe 7 minutes later) nothing was on my porch. Checked online to see if anything had been delivered, and sure enough at 9:15 my package was left. I’ve reported to SPD.
P.S. The West Seattle Crime Prevention Council is taking December off – tonight would have been the monthly meeting, as the third Tuesday – but expecting to be back next month, on January 20th.
Happening now: Craft sale, basket raffle, dining benefit at Angelina’s for young local athletes
Haven’t decided what to do for dinner yet? Kathleen sends word of an option with a side benefit – literally:
Fundraiser happening tonight at Angelina’s Restaurant to benefit Washington State’s ONLY Sport Acrobatic Team! Proceeds will help our athletes represent Seattle and WA in competitions. Basket raffle and craft sale happening now!
Raffle basket items include Microsoft Office for Home & Business, a Kindle Paperwhite, wine, gourmet food, baking supplies and much, much more. Crafts, handmade by the athletes are also for sale. Angelina’s is donating 10% of tonight’s receipts. Come in for some great food and to help some great young female athletes! The Acro teams are part of West Seattle’s own West Side Gymnastics Academy. Open until 2 am!
You can even stop by to check out the raffle and craft sale without dining/drinking, if need be. Angelina’s is at 2311 California SW.
What do you think about growth? How can Seattle encourage affordable housing? These and other questions …
The city’s been running online surveys in abundance lately. This one, though, speaks to topics that we cover often here on WSB, and after going through its questions and open-comment spaces, we thought you might be interested, given its questions about everything from housing costs to your opinions of growth. It’s being presented as part of the mayor’s Housing Affordability and Livability Agenda. It’s not the usual basic online-survey format; be forewarned, you’ll find some spots requiring scrolling, and some questions where you can check as many circles as you want, others where you have to settle on one. Start the survey here (and note the open-comment thread at the bottom of the start page, if you just want to say something without taking the survey at all).
Today’s Highway 99 tunnel-project update: Pit-digging to resume
(WSDOT photo from last week – assembly of what’s meant to lift tunnel-machine head from pit)
After Monday’s City Council session looking at the latest tunnel-related troubles (WSB coverage here), council president Tim Burgess declared it’s too late to turn back now. So, with no new settlement reported, onward it will go. WSDOT‘s tunnel update for today, just published here, says their contractor Seattle Tunnel Partners has the go-ahead to continue digging the pit from which they hope to pull up the tunnel machine’s damaged cutter head:
Excavation was stopped at WSDOT’s direction on Dec. 12. While no significant ground settlement had been observed since Dec. 5, we suspended excavation to give our team time to gather more survey data and review STP’s contingency plan for turning off the dewatering wells, should that become necessary. We have now reviewed STP’s plan and gathered additional data from the weekend that shows the recently measured settlement has stabilized.
The digging stopped about three-quarters of the way down to where they hope to reach the machine. The red lifting device is under construction (photo above) feet from the Viaduct, roughly parallel with King Street.
Election 2015: Now 4 in the running for West Seattle/South Park’s City Council District 1; announcing our February forum
2015 will make history in West Seattle for at least one reason: Our area’s first-ever District 1 City Councilmember will be elected. Today, there’s a change in the list of who’s in the running: According to the city’s election-information website, one of the five declared candidates, David Ishii, has moved his candidacy to one of the city’s two at-large seats, so that leaves four District 1 candidates so far (with other changes likely of course since the deadline for declaring is months away) – in alphabetical order:
*George Capestany
*Amanda Kay Helmick
*Tom Rasmussen
*Chas Redmond
And this gives us the chance to mention that all four candidates are confirmed for an early City Council District 1 Candidates’ Forum that we at WSB are presenting on February 5th – get it on your calendar now! It will start with mingling and refreshments at 6:30 pm, forum 7-8:30 pm, at Highland Park Improvement Club – we thank HPIC, one of West Seattle’s great historic community venues, for agreeing to provide the space for the forum!
Though West Seattleites will vote on three City Council seats in August and September 2015 – District 1 plus two at-large – we are focusing this forum ONLY on D-1, the one seat that will be accountable directly to this area. Stay tuned to WSB for more details as it gets closer. (P.S. If anyone else files to run in District 1 before then, s/he will of course be invited to participate too – contact us at editor@westseattleblog.com if we don’t contact you first!)
West Seattle Tuesday: Hanukkah night 1; WSCO concert #2; school superintendent meets Native American community…
Thanks to Don Brubeck for the photo of Mount Baker, seen from here on Monday. Cloudier today but still festive. We start our calendar/Holiday Guide highlights with December’s first holiday:
FIRST NIGHT OF HANUKKAH: The eight-night Festival of Lights begins at sundown. See the Hanukkah section atop the WSB West Seattle Holiday Guide for events that local Jewish faith communities have planned for later this week.
Also today/tonight:
PUBLIC HEARING ON FIRE STATION 32 REPLACEMENT: During the 2 pm meeting of the city council’s Planning, Land Use, and Sustainability Committee, a public hearing and briefing will focus on the plan to replace Fire Station 32 at its current location in The Junction. The city wants a waiver from Triangle development standards regarding street-level uses that the fire station won’t comply with. You can see various documents linked from the agenda for the meeting, to be held in council chambers at City Hall downtown. (4th/Cherry/James)
NATIVE AMERICAN COMMUNITY CONVERSATION: Seattle Public Schools superintendent Dr. Larry Nyland will be back in West Seattle tonight for a conversation with Native American community members, 6 pm at the Duwamish Tribe Longhouse – details in our calendar listing. (4705 W. Marginal Way SW)
WSCO’S SECOND WINTER CONCERT: West Seattle Community Orchestras‘ second of two seasonal concerts – WSCO Debut and Intermediate Orchestras, 6:30 pm, Chief Sealth International High School auditorium:
Presented by the Intermediate Orchestra, conducted by Rob Duisberg, and the Debut Orchestra, conducted by Rachel Nesvig, enjoy highlights from the very popular “Frozen” and “Phantom of the Opera.” Get toasty with some fireworks from Handel, and finish off with songs of the season!
(2600 SW Thistle)
LOTS MORE GOING ON … just browse the calendar!
West Seattle holiday giving: More food-drive success stories
Still lots of time to expand your holiday giving to local food banks and other nonprofits – or maybe you already have, like the West Seattle neighbors who contributed to these successes:
(Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices NW photo: Agents Michael Mallagh and Debbie Kerns)
ALMOST A TON FROM BHHSNW: The recent Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Northwest Real Estate food drive at West Seattle Thriftway (both WSB sponsors) brought in 1,860 pounds of food – almost a ton! – according to Don Bereiter, who sends out a big “thank you,” along with word that donors gave $682 for the West Seattle Food Bank as well as all that food. “It always amazes me how lucky we are to live in such a generous neighborhood.”
LETTUCE PRAY: The offseason for gardening is NOT an offseason for this food-collection program, explains Jane Taylor:
The food bank collection program Lettuce Pray collects fresh produce from home gardeners at West Seattle churches weekly during the growing season but also picks up non perishables once a month. (This past Sunday) we went to Alki UCC for the holiday food drive and were wonderfully overwhelmed with over 400 pounds of food and a great deal of TP, diapers, and other personal effects. Our thanks to Alki UCC for this hugely generous response! You can see that it took all of our engineering skills to figure out how to fit it all in Kristen’s Subaru!
For holiday-giving opportunities, check out the WSB West Seattle Holiday Guide.
West Seattle Crime Watch: Morgan Junction robbery investigation
2:17 AM: Thanks to the texters who reported major police activity in Morgan Junction very early today. So far we haven’t been able to get full details, but we know police are/were investigating an armed robbery in the 6500 block of California SW, where one SPD car remained by the time we got there, and that it might be linked to a robbery elsewhere in the city. That’s according to radio communications, which described the robber as a black man in his early 20s, 6 feet tall, very thin, red face mask, red shirt, black pants, black handgun, with two female accomplices, and a possible silver getaway car. We’ll add any additional details we are able to get from police later this morning.
9:13 AM: Police confirm the Subway store itself was held up. No further confirmation, though, on whether it was involved to any other robberies, and no arrest(s) reported so far.
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