Gas-siphoning spree
A WSB reader wrote with this alert for everybody else out there — gas-siphoners were at work sometime overnight in the 46th/Brandon vicinity. Even with prices dropping, guess it’s still a temptation … if you don’t have a garage, a lock-equipped gas cap might not be a bad investment.
Two for tomorrow
We’ve mentioned both of these before but now they’re almost here, both happening tomorrow night, and in a time frame that easily facilitates a visit to both:
– “NEIGHBORS IN BUSINESS” OPEN HOUSE: It’s your one-stop-shopping chance to find out more about dozens of businesses in the West Seattle and White Center area. Reps from more than 40 local businesses will gather at the Brockey Conference Center of South Seattle Community College (which really is in WS; here’s a handy campus map) from 5-8 pm tomorrow. Door prizes and food, too!
– CHIEF SEALTH IB ACCREDITATION CELEBRATION: If you drop by “Neighbors in Business” early enough, you can make it over to this event at Camp Long from 7-9 pm tomorrow. It’s a community celebration of Chief Sealth High School’s accreditation for the prestigious International Baccalaureate program, with music by the Sealth mariachi band, and dessert.
WS Gas Price Watch: Getting closer to $3
At least two WS gas stations are down below $3.20 this morning: Admiral/Cali Chevron (left) at $3.17/regular, and Delridge Arco, which had a worker out changing the signs (all four of them; tough job to have to switch numbers on up to twelve displays every time there’s a price change!) to $3.19/regular as of about half an hour ago.
U-turners beware
There is a problem with people making illegal U-turns on Harbor Island near the “low bridge,” according to the P-I traffic troubleshooting column. (We had trouble placing the location so here’s a better map.) If this is something you do regularly, you’ll want to know that the city says, in the P-I column, it’ll be changing the curbing again soon to try to stop the U-turners.
No sunset, but …
… an hour or so after that evening cloudburst, this oddly creased cloud formation turned up in the eastern sky (view from Westwood). Can’t find any clue as to its meteorological backstory.
Another big condo conversion, plus apartments 4 sale
If you haven’t checked out the comments on our post below – note that readers have revealed a brand-new, huge condo conversion in the works at the Graham Street Apartments just north of Morgan Junction, on the southeast corner of Cali/Graham. As first posted by Sue, here’s the property sale record (almost $9 million) finalized just a few days ago; here’s the condo conversion application noted on the city site.
Meantime, for those joining us in keeping track, here are a few of the other “multifamily” buildings currently listed for sale in WS, with links to the listings:
–West Aires, 6001 Cali, $2.2 million
–Riviera West, 7100 Cali, listed as “pending,” with “condo declarations in place,” $1.9 million (next to SeventyOne)
–Apartment/commercial building on Cali, south edge of The Junction, (with some units described as “condo quality”), $1.3 million
–5000 Fauntleroy, “pending,” $1.2 million
Teardown-to-townhomes: Who gets the boot
We usually find out about impending teardowns-to-townhomes by watching the city permit process. Today, though, we’ve got one that came to our attention from the people who are getting the boot before the backhoe shows up: the current renters of a doomed brick duplex along Fauntleroy, a couple who moved here from back east last year, and like so many of us, fell madly in love with WS. They aren’t ready to buy; one of them is in grad school. But now they’re on notice they’ve got to be out by the end of this month. There’s one instructive thing about their story; first, here’s a photo they kindly sent of their soon-to-be-ex-duplex …
The tenants note in their e-mail to us: “We rent through a property management company and didn’t know, till now, who the owner was — it’s Soleil Development.” (Which has other WS projects, including this one.) We checked property records for their address; Soleil technically didn’t take ownership till last winter, after these tenants moved in; but before their arrival last August, it was purchased last June by Dan Duffus, Soleil’s owner. So perhaps it would be worthwhile for would-be renters to use this site to check who owns their prospective new home; if it’s a development company, or someone you can easily see in search engines is linked to one, know you might not live there for long.
Lucky (sun)break
What a surprise to wake up to sunshine. Honestly, when we filed the post below, late last night, this page insisted we’d wake up to clouds and showers. Now it says “mostly sunny” all day. Glad they were wrong!
WS Gas Price Watch: Still the champ
For a whopping two days now, Admiral/Cali Chevron (left) has held the title of lowest posted regular gas price in WS – $3.21/gallon. According to AAA’s price tracker, that’s not only below the current Seattle average, it’s even a bit below the average price one year ago today.
Off to the races
As the Times points out this morning, election season is about to begin. You’ve probably already noticed 
that one candidate has gotten a jump on things by blanketing West Seattle with yard signs (photo at right) even before officially filing to run. Steve Sundquist is the first declared candidate for the WS (District 6) school board seat that Irene Stewart is giving up. We don’t know much about him yet (here’s his site if you want to peruse for yourself), but we’ll miss Stewart, who we thought was doing a decent job in a difficult (to say the least) situation. As for when we’ll start voting – the primary is now earlier than ever – August 21.
From fluff ‘n’ fold, to Fluffy’s food?
The city permit files say a pet-food store is in the works for Westwood Village. We can’t find a center blueprint to match WV “suite numbers” to specific stores, so we can’t tell if that’s what’s going into the laundromat space (below) that just emptied out north of QFC, but crews are certainly working fast and furious to convert it into something. Also, the permit files mention progress on the WV in-the-works Taco Del Mar.
So close and yet so far
One of the things we adore about West Seattle is that downtown is so close … yet it can be “out of sight, out of mind” until and unless you choose to stop for a view like this:
and the 
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