day : 11/03/2008 12 results

Just out of the WSB inbox, from Cindy McComish:

West Seattle YMCAâ€™s Dolphin Swim Team Wins BIG!

34 swimmers, ages 7-18, representing the West Seattle YMCA won the First Place trophy for mid-sized YMCAs in the Northwest Division Swim Championship last weekend, Friday March 7th through Sunday, March 9th. The West Seattle Dolphins traveled by chartered bus to compete in Gresham Oregon at the Mt. Hood Community College Aquatic Center. The swimmers are coached by Rod Rombauer, Jen Parker, and Sarah Heerhartz. This meet against swimmers from Idaho, Oregon, and Washington state precedes the National Meet being held in Ft. Lauderdale in April. The West Seattle YMCA Dolphins will be sending 5 qualified swimmers with high hopes for fast strong races.

Cheered on by families and friends, a partial list of our swimmersâ€™ medal counts (those achieving first, second, and third place times) include: 6 by Amanda Thach, 5 by Melissa Oishi, 5 by Tommy Thach, 4 by Sarah Ameny, 4 by Maddy Morgan, 3 by Gabby Hanna, 2 by the relay team of Amanda Thach, Melissa Oishi, Maddy Morgan and Mariah Crocket, 1 by Jordy Hanna, 1 by Karen Woodworth, 1 by Lindsey Hage, 1 by Sean Tento, 1 by TJ McComish, and 1 by the relay team of Lindsey Hage, Karen Woodworth, Angela Gagliarda, and Elsa Luthi.

As an integral part of the aquatic programs at West Seattle YMCA our team sponsors for this year are Zatz Bagels, Charlestown Street CafÃ©, Renaissance Desserts, Morgan Street Builders, Millennium Kids Creative Center, Merrill Gardens of West Seattle, and Staithe Marine Services.

The West Seattle YMCA Dolphins Swim Team seeks to provide a quality competitive swimming experience to the youth of the Seattle area and is USS sanctioned. We serve over 80 youth swimmers from 17 schools. We value swimmers of all skill levels and abilities and work toward developing each swimmer’s potential. While many of our advanced swimmers compete at regional and national events, the majority of our swimmers are at the intermediate and beginning levels. For more information on our programs please contact coachrod@swyswimteam.com.

Our standard disclosure: the West Seattle Family YMCA is a WSB sponsor. By the way, you can find out more about the Dolphins at their website here.

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West Seattle Crime Watch: Citizen crimesolver, and more

| Crime | Safety | West Seattle news | West Seattle police

Now the rest of the latest report highlights from the Southwest Precinct (which also included the vignette we posted earlier): We start with a suspected teenage drug dealer, spotted on local school grounds by a watchful school employee. He called police to say he saw what looked like 3 boys engaged in drug transactions right by West Seattle Elementary in High Point – atop the stairs connecting the campus with the nearby community center. With the detailed descriptions he provided, police stopped two suspects at 30th and Othello. While patting them down, an officer detected an odd crackling sound near one boy’s ankle; “that’s just cough drops,” the boy insisted — till the officer pulled out a cellophane cough-drop bag containing marijuana “packaged for sale.” The boy, 15, also had $120 in cash kept separately from a few dollars walking-around money (the police report notes it is typical dealer behavior both to separate cash that way and to keep the merchandise in an unusual spot like, your shoes/socks). He was arrested. Next: The case of the thirsty burglar(s), among other incidents:Read More

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From tonight’s FCA meeting: Schoolhouse-discussion date

March 11, 2008 10:20 pm

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| Neighborhoods | West Seattle history | West Seattle news

As announced at tonight’s Fauntleroy Community Association meeting, the next step in the future of the Fauntleroy Schoolhouse (photo left, from The Hall @ Fauntleroy‘s website) is a community gathering there March 26 to talk about the general progress of plans to purchase the site, and discuss its future. The Fauntleroy Community Services Association has to have everything together by July, and so far, we heard tonight, it’s all moving forward and they say they’ve done the necessary paperwork to show Seattle Public Schools they’re serious about acquiring the site. (We recapped some backstory last weekend – the district has now declared the schoolhouse as “surplus property” which means it’s ready to sell the site, as the school board votes this month to revise its policy on handling surplus sites.) Also part of the March 26 meeting — finding out from the public how much change would be acceptable for the site, and continuing to encourage citizen involvement in the process of determining its future. A community discussion held last year is recapped on this FCA webpage. It was also noted tonight that the Fauntleroy contingent has the purchase agreement from the old Colman School (where the Northwest African American Museum opened last weekend), for use as something of a template.

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From tonight’s JuNO meeting: Fauntleroy Place‘s new look

March 11, 2008 9:11 pm

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| Development | West Seattle news

(image removed at request of developer — see forthcoming post higher atop the page for new information, will be linked here when posted)

Update on the following – Eric Radovich from BlueStar explained the origin of the artwork that led to this post – he says it’s for massing, not colors or design – separate post to come atop the page.

One of the headlines from tonight’s Junction Neighborhood Organization (JuNO) meeting — Brian and Katie Tucker, JuNO members living adjacent to the Fauntleroy Place (aka “the Whole Foods project”) site, received and shared this new rendering from developers BlueStar, who don’t even have it on their own website, which still shows this one (FP changed architects a few months ago):

The Tuckers were told the latest plan is for these to be apartments, not condos, and that they will have fancy interior touches and rent for higher than the current WS average. More first thing in the am from the JuNO meeting, where a city rep talked more about the upcoming Junction parking review, and also from the Fauntleroy Community Association meeting, where the other half of the team is getting the latest on the Fauntleroy Schoolhouse, among other things.

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West Seattle Crime Watch vignette: Clean & not-sober

March 11, 2008 6:17 pm

| 5 COMMENTS

| Crime | West Seattle news

Just back from reviewing reports at the Southwest Precinct – the big roundup writeup must wait till we’re back from the major community meetings happening in the next few hours (as previewed here last night), but thought we’d mention this one quickly — Of all the shoplifting incidents that police handled in the past few days, this one stood out: Saturday night, 7 pm, a man was seen heading out of QFC @ Westwood Village with a cart full of “unpaid-for” merchandise, consisting of the following, according to a witness: Several large containers of Tide laundry soap, several six-packs of Heineken beer, and “numerous single cans of 211 beer.” He is described only as white and driving a 1990s Honda or Toyota, and got away before he was caught.

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Parks and police reps visit Westcrest for a safety check

March 11, 2008 4:21 pm

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| Highland Park | Safety | West Seattle news | West Seattle parks

As you can tell from the photo, a lovely afternoon to visit Westcrest Park in southeastern West Seattle (home to the only WS off-leash area; here’s a map) — the occasion, a chance for Parks Department and Police Department to review citizen concerns about public-safety issues. Officer Brian Ballew from the Southwest Precinct Community Police Team was there, as were three Parks employees — Carol Baker, Steve Langley, and Cheryl Fraser. They say that Westcrest safety concerns are definitely high on their radar, thanks to ciizen concerns, particularly “inappropriate behavior” at the “comfort station” as well as the poisoning concern involved in the “Mo” case, though there have been no similar reports since that one. They also urge community members to continue to keep close watch, even to organize citizen walkthroughs if they’re so inclined (if you’re interested in talking more with them about that, their e-mail addresses are linked to their names above). Also a key group to get involved with if you are a Westcrest user, since these folks already are closely involved with taking care of the park, is the Westcrest Off-Leash Area group; find its Yahoo! e-mail group here, and park steward Steve McElhenney is reachable through the group, which we wrote about last year.

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A matter of size: Satterlee House lawn-development dispute

March 11, 2008 2:32 pm

| 8 COMMENTS

| West Seattle news

We reported briefly yesterday (morning update here; afternoon update here) about the start of proceedings before the city Hearing Examiner over what the owner of the “Satterlee House”/”Painted Lady” at 4866 Beach Drive will be allowed to build on the huge front lawn shown above. Testimony continues Thursday morning on the 40th floor of the Municipal Tower downtown; before too much time passed, we wanted to post a more complete wrapup of what we saw and heard while covering the proceedings yesterday:Read More

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Goats: Not just for clearing brush

March 11, 2008 12:52 pm

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| Environment | West Seattle Farmers' Market | West Seattle online

Every weekend, when we publish the “fresh sheet” for the West Seattle Farmers’ Market, we note in passing that its more unconventional offerings include goat meat. Anybody buying it, you wonder? Unequivocally, yes – here’s here’s an anecdote from the relatively new blog for Earth Ministry, posted by its West Seattle-based executive director.

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Out of the inbox: Trash trucks too early?

March 11, 2008 11:10 am

| 25 COMMENTS

| Neighborhoods

Just out of the inbox, from JBC (who has since further elaborated in the comments section that this is happening DAILY):

I wonder if anyone else is bothered by these trucks in the alleys between the businesses on California and the residences on 44th or 42nd. I live in a condo and our whole alley is lined with condo buildings, and we get these trucks banging and clanging through our alley before 7 AM, our usual rising time. I’ve been working with David George of the Noise Abatement Office of the City of Seattle and I do have to credit him with making huge improvements for us. When we first moved into our condo 4.5 years ago, the trucks were coming at 4:30 AM!! Now they hold off, much of the time, till after 7 but still sometimes come at 6:30. I know they wouldn’t dare show up before 8 AM at our old residence at 51st and Edmunds so why is this residential area any different? Most of the businesses don’t open before 10 so they can’t really justify on the basis of trying to get out of the way before the area gets congested.

Any other readers bothered by this and interested in banding together to . . . not sure what, but bring pressure to bear in some way?

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Three road-work alerts: 2 on Alki, 1 on Beach Drive

March 11, 2008 10:14 am

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| Transportation | West Seattle news

In addition to the two Alki Ave projects we’ve been telling you about, we just happened onto rod work that’s got flaggers in action on Beach Drive too, just south of Lowman Beach. Along Alki, the heavy equipment for this week’s paving work was just getting into gear in the 1700 block, and just a few blocks past the end of the paving zone at Bonair, the 53rd SW Pump Project crews have flaggers too – with equipment like this taking up one full lane:

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Alki paving scheduled to start today

March 11, 2008 7:05 am

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| Transportation | West Seattle news

Unless the weather changes the city’s plan, the Alki Ave paving work announced last week (full details here) from the 1700 block to Bonair is scheduled to start this morning.