West Seattle, Washington
29 Friday
In the past week, we’ve been talking here on WSB about a recent wave of graffiti/tagging vandalism in the Alki/Beach Drive areas, including railings and bulkhead concrete in this area just south of Alki Point (deliberately shot wide so as not to showcase the tags), reported by Betsy the other day:
We’ve also received word of a particularly ugly tag, one of those crowns, thrown up on the restroom building at Whale Tail Park. There is on occasion some headway made against these crimes, such as the tale of two tweens caught in the act (noted briefly here). But invariably, these vandalism reports come in with the question, what to do about it, and who to call? Comment #5 from LGS below last Friday’s post has the detailed information, excerpted here:Read More
Less than a week after the Elliott Bay Water Taxi sailed into the sunset for 2007, its final ridership totals for the year are just out, thanks to King County Councilmember Dow Constantine‘s office: 161,331, up from last year’s 122,650. Previous high before that was 2001, when ridership totaled 132,058 — but keep in mind the WT ran for 7 months that year; this year, it ran for 6 months. Meanwhile, another reminder – tomorrow’s the public hearing on the operating plan and budget for the King County Ferry District; final details of the plan have taken a while to work out but the Constantine team says they’ll get them to us tomorrow morning. If you can make it to the King County Courthouse to testify in support of the Water Taxi and waterborne transit in general, 2 pm tomorrow is the hearing; if there’s no way you can make it in person, send your comments — about the Water Taxi and other potential King County foot ferries, not about related services such as the land shuttle — by using this web form.
First: Word comes from Divina that the shop @ California/Genesee will feature student artists, K-12, from around West Seattle, during tomorrow night’s monthly West Seattle Art Walk in The Junction (more participants are listed on the Art Walk blog). A separate e-mail, from Amy, alerts us to the fact that this year’s Poetry on Buses poets include two Gatewood Elementary students — 6-year-old Sharon Zumwalt (read her poem here) and 6-year-old Giovanni Paredes (read his poem here); this year’s winning poets are being celebrated at a launch party tonight.
Just heard from Eva on Alki that a tv report mentioned orcas spotted following a fishing boat along Alki about an hour ago — it’s not on the Orca Network sightings page yet but there’s no question that this is the time of year the orcas follow chum runs into this part of Puget Sound (lots of sightings listed across the water around Vashon and Blake Islands). Let us know if you see any — pix and video appreciated too! 3:20 PM UPDATE: As pointed out in the comments, a tv helicopter has procured orca video (watch it here). And if you want to try listening for underwater orca sound – this is a cool site to check.
Notes are posted at Leisure Books in The Junction in memory of its co-owner Curtis Clement, who died last week at age 65, and now there is an online obituary as well, which notes that Mr. Clement’s Funeral Mass is November 19th at Holy Rosary.
Six months ago, various reports of a motorcade along The Bridge and Alki yielded Seattle Police explanation that it was a training exercise. We’ve just received a couple notes about a similar sighting this morning; we just called the Southwest Precinct to ask whether it’s a dignitary (none in town that we know of) or training, but all the folks there could tell us was that they don’t know of anything special going on.
OK, so last night’s election results suggest nobody’s in much of a mood to give government more money. However, as we have reported here previously, this is the time of year when local governments are deciding what to do with the money they already have (or are slated to get) – and Seattle Public Library supporters have an urgent call for library users to help make sure the library’s needs are “on the books” if you will:Read More
It’s that transition time of year for Tony’s at 35th/Barton — the produce stand is closed and the changeover to trees is looming, marked this year by a distinctive color scheme (since we took the pic yesterday, crews have finished wrapping the entire frame in holiday stripes).
One wrecked motorcycle, two hurt people, four-plus hours of commute-tastrophe on The Bridge. If you got caught up in it yesterday afternoon/evening, you might be interested in the semi-witness account posted here.
Since the election results suggest the council will have a couple new members soon, they might be interested in what’s on the mind of one West Seattle resident whose “open letter to the council” was forwarded to us among others:Read More
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