On the next episode of “Maury” …
… watch for Alki residents vs. city land-use planners. But seriously — we have attended two Alki Community Council meetings now, and they (the officers and the members/attendees) — are a genteel bunch, as well as lively, involved, engaged. All the things you would want a community group to be. ACC vice president Randie Stone ran tonight’s meeting and she was even passing around a basket of treats during a break in the action. But before visiting DPD planner Mark Troxel was finished with his guest appearance, the room was in a lather over teardowns and soulless redevelopment. Especially considering, as calm and polite as he tried to be, his answers about why there are no rules governing some preservation of neighborhood character in redevelopment, boiled down to nothing more than (we’re paraphrasing) “well, that would cost too much, and we really have to be concerned with housing affordability.” 
The spark for tonight’s briefly fiery discussion was the impending teardown-to-townhome project we have mentioned before at the site of the Shoremont Apartments (photo right) at 57th & Alki (on the corner east of Alki Auto Repair). “Those townhomes aren’t going to be affordable,” one attendee pointed out, laying waste to the “things might look nicer if it didn’t cost so darn much” defense. Another audience member chided the city, in the person of stalwart Mr. Troxel, for “lack of courage.” He was actually there to talk about amendments on the drawing board for a city planning document, but that discussion got derailed. After a cathartic burst of outrage about cookie-cutter townhouses, which the city rep said he isn’t thrilled about either (because they fail to maximize density potential, as well as because of their aesthetics), all ended fairly civilly, but we were a little worried there for a moment. Randie noted that the topic is enough for a meeting unto itself, and perhaps the group can invite Mr. Troxel, or another city planner, to return. Meanwhile — we’ll have several other ACC meeting items to report tomorrow, including what the city says can be done about those rental trucks that have long been bottlenecking Harbor Ave by ActivSpace. P.S. If you live in the Alki area and you’re not an ACC member yet, you can join online.
Thursday evening tidbits
-Almost fainted (but that would have caused a crash) while driving toward Fauntleroy on The Bridge this evening — the sign was still up.
-This (and many more events) will be in tomorrow morning’s WS Weekend Lineup, of course, but did want to call special attention to the fact that the fabulous folks of the North Delridge Neighborhood Council are inviting you to an Adopt-A-Street Cleanup this Saturday. Meet in the Delridge Community Center parking lot at 10 am to pick up city-provided supplies and get going. Every little bit helps.
-If you glossed past our item earlier this week about the West Seattle HS schedule-change controversy, the comments (scroll down) are worth another look — a lively debate has developed, especially once “5766324” joined the fray.
Call it a trade-off … they’ll keep helping, if you help too
Often, readers tell us WSB has helped them learn something they didn’t know about our community, what’s happening around WS, or the services available. We have to say, it’s been educational for us too. Only after 15 years in WS are we beginning to learn about the full scope of what’s out there. The West Seattle Community Safety Partnership is one of many groups that just weren’t on our radar, for whatever reason. But it should have been on ours, and allow us to be so bold as to say it should be on yours. Long ago, the WSCSP was known as the “anti-crime council” — but its scope goes beyond crime. 
As demonstrated at Tuesday night’s meeting, the group is there to gather and share information about how to pro-actively protect yourself and your family and improve your neighborhood. Its officers are volunteers, but the group is assisted by a regular allotment of time provided by the Seattle Neighborhood Group for one of its staffers, Lois Grammon-Simpson (SNGi photo of Lois at right), who lives in WS. The room all but gasped Tuesday night when Lois revealed that SNG might stop providing the group with her services, as has already happened for a similar group in Southeast Seattle. But it’s not too late to change the course …Read More
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