North Delridge Neighborhood Council: Playground-plan progress

| Delridge | West Seattle news | West Seattle parks

First update from tonight’s North Delridge Neighborhood Council meeting (another to come): NDNC co-vice-chair Betsy Hoffmeister announced that they’ve secured commitments for all the volunteer help needed on Friday, July 17th, the day the new Delridge Community Center playground will be built – but other types of help are still needed: For one, they need more food to keep all those volunteers fed, and/or money to buy food. For two, they need tents – “awning-style tents,” Betsy explained, mostly to be used to shelter a child-care area that’ll be set up on the tennis courts, since they’re expecting some of the participants that day to bring their kids. “Everybody in the community needs to bring their tents, or else we’re going to be roasty-toasty,” she said cheerily tonight. And one last loose end: There will be a fundraising raffle, with tickets sold at the upcoming West Seattle Summer Fest, to raise a few hundred dollars needed to cover some remaining expenses. (The playground itself is costing very little thanks to donations including the umbrella organization KaBoom!, which builds playgrounds nationwide, and the Bank of America Foundation.) Betsy also shared an update on what’s happened to the old equipment (May photo at right) taken from the playground site (as reported last weekend, the site’s been cleared) – aside from the merry-go-round, which is in storage until it’s decided whether a grant might be pursued to get safety upgrades so it could be reinstalled, the other equipment was taken to the town of Cathlamet on the Columbia River (map), where Betsy says it was greeted with great enthusiasm. “I feel like we have a sister city there,” she said. If you can help with the food, tent and/or money needs for the July 17th playground installation, e-mail helpdelridgeplay@gmail.com – and in addition to that day, also mark July 23rd on your calendar, when the new playground will be officially celebrated.

Nancy F. July 2, 2009 (6:37 am)

Good news, Betsy, et. al. Glad the volunteer has been met.

Michael July 2, 2009 (1:17 pm)

Looking forward to the rest of the updates (surely this couldn’t have been the most important item to come out of a community meeting!).

WSB July 2, 2009 (2:27 pm)

Actually it was, and that’s why I reported it first. The playground project is a HUMONGOUS story for the neighborhood. The next update (which is awaiting a photo) includes the arrival of long-awaited speed bumps – TR

Michael July 2, 2009 (6:08 pm)

“Long-awaited”? I live a block away from those speed bumps and was never consulted. LOL.
.
Nice that they’ve solved the crime problems though, I guess.

Mike D. July 3, 2009 (6:18 am)

Michael –

It is easy to toss out problems or ideas from a keyboard, it is much more challenging to actually dig in and solve them.

As per the SDOT traffic calming program, a committed neighborhood resident went door-to-door gathering signatures of approval from the residents that live in the affected area of 25th and 26th. The goal was too chill out the idiots that fly through these two sections of street where the City has invested a lot of money in new or newly renovated and beautiful parks.

The process and time that it takes to get approval and funding for traffic calming such as this, or the new sidewalks in the vicinity, is incredibly arduous.

The same goes for the new playground being installed at the Delridge Community Center on July 17th. A tremendous amount time has been invested by your neighbors to get this thing out of the ground. These things do not happen overnight and they are the result of your neighbors actually doing something instead just talking.

Join us at the next meeting of the NDNC meeting so you can be a part of solving issues that you may have concern about. fyi – The issue of crime prevention is, and always has been, a high priority for the NDNC. We meet at the Delridge Library on the 1st Wednesday of each month at 6:30. We look forward to meeting you and hearing what ideas, time and energy you can contribute.

Sorry, comment time is over.