West Seattle, Washington
25 Thursday
That’s the photo we published in this report the night of June 15, when a motorcycle and minivan collided at 30th/Trenton (map) and closed streets for a few hours. The photo we didn’t publish, with the motorcycle on the ground, is later in the story. That night, there was no word if the motorcyclist was likely to survive. But she did. Days and weeks later, friends dropped into the comment thread on that same lone post from time to time with updates – finally, a few weeks ago, out of curiosity, we e-mailed one of the commenters to ask if the crash survivor would care to tell her story. And that’s how we met West Seattle photographer and motorcycle rider Karen Derby, who is battling back from leg and face injuries, and hoping to ride again. Here’s her story – including photos, some she took herself, before and after – but before you click ahead, a warning that two included in the story (and one you won’t see unless you click a link) are somewhat graphic – Karen wanted to tell her whole story, and the visuals are part of it:Read More
We went tonight to the West Seattle homeless camp calling itself “Nickelsville” (previous WSB coverage here, here, and here) to see what would be discussed at a strategy meeting of sorts, to which they had invited their “community supporters.” Among those at the camp, Bill Kirlin-Hackett, director of the Interfaith Task Force on Homelessness — who said the mayor told him twice today that the squatters would be booted off the Highland Park Way/West Marginal Way site sometime Friday morning; they were put on 72-hour notice at 5 pm Monday, so technically it could happen any time after that. “Nickelsville” organizers and campers, meantime, say they’ll resist, and plan to start building “permanent” shanty-type structures tomorrow afternoon. ADDED 9:59 PM: More from tonight’s meeting, including another photo, a video clip, and who organizers say is going to lobby the mayor on their behalf:Read More
The official WSB ex-shelter-cat mascots (left) probably won’t want to be scooped up and carted out of their happy albeit messy home for this – but we’re sure there are hundreds of West Seattle pets, and their people, who’ll have a great time, so here’s an early alert about the two announcements we’ve received so far, both in honor of the upcoming (10/4) feast day of St. Francis of Assisi (patron saint of animals): Providence Mount St. Vincent invites everyone to its “Blessing of the Animals” at 10:45 am October 4th in the front lobby, with Father Lyle Konen performing the blessing; the next day, Sunday 10/5, St. John the Baptist Episcopal Church also invites everyone to its “Blessing of the Animals” in the neighboring West Seattle High School parking lot at noon, with blessings for any pet you care to bring, plus a chance to adopt a new one from the Seattle Humane Society’s MaxMobile mobile adoption/education center — this one will be conducted by Rev. Peter DeVeau, with brothers and associates of the Order of St. Francis, Olympia Diocese chapter, plus refreshments and a sale of handmade items.
If you’re in Upper Fauntleroy, heads-up, you may get a doorknock from “Evans Glass.” At WSB HQ, it was a particularly energetic doorknock, er, door-pounding, moments ago. We don’t open the door to anyone, even in the interest of journalistic research; “sorry, we don’t deal with solicitors” was answered with “Oh, we’re not trying to sell you anything, we’re from Evans Glass” and we repeated “no thanks” (answered with a polite “OK”); coincidentally, we had just received a note from WSB’er Venkat, also in Upper Fauntleroy, saying they’d been at his door offering “free energy inspections” that online research suggests is a prelude to window sales.
Before the autumn weather sweeps away all traces of Garden ’08 … Nancy Evans, who’s on the selection committee for the West Seattle Garden Tour, sends word they’re looking ahead to next year already:
Do you have or know of an amazing garden in West Seattle? The West Seattle Garden Tour Selection Committee is currently viewing gardens for the 2009 tour. We would love to hear about any gardens that you may find interesting and a possibility for the upcoming tour. Please e-mail nancyellenevans@comcast.net with contact information.
You can check the WSGT site for some pix of the featured gardens from this year’s tour.
“ALKI IDOL”: Starting tomorrow night, a two-month talent contest kicks off at Bamboo on Alki. Auditions are tomorrow night and October 2, 9:30 midnight. Here’s the official website.
DECALS ONLINE: The question comes up from time to time, “where can we get those Alki decals with the seagull?” – various stores are mentioned, but now there’s also a place to get them online, announced in the WSB Forums today: alkidecals.com.
Just got word from the state that tomorrow, before the next meeting of the Alaskan Way Viaduct Central Waterfront Stakeholders’ Advisory Committee tomorrow afternoon, the media will be briefed on major new info that’s about to be presented to that committee — the first evaluation results of the 8 “scenarios” currently under consideration. The media alert notes that:
This set of evaluation results will include shading and views, transit access to the waterfront, and environmental issues. Because of the number of evaluation measures, data is being released as it is available. Using the complete set of evaluation results later this fall, teams from WSDOT, the City of Seattle, and King County will take the best elements from the tested scenarios to create two or three new scenarios for further evaluation.
As we did when the 8 “scenarios” were unveiled, we’ll report major developments “live” from the briefing, which is set for 12:30 pm tomorrow at Viaduct project HQ downtown.
The Highland Park Action Committee website now has a photo report up about members’ visit to the “Nickelsville” homeless camp yesterday, one day after representatives spoke at HPAC’s monthly meeting (WSB coverage here). 5 pm tomorrow is the deadline the city has given for the camp to clear out; the land it’s on is one of two locations identified by the city as a potential jail site, and has city/state/private ownership.
UPDATE FROM ORIGINAL POST: When we first posted this a few hours ago, it was a forwarded request for volunteers to go help Hurricane Ike survivors. We have since been contacted by the source of the e-mail saying they are overwhelmed with volunteers and don’t need any more for what that solicitation specifically mentioned – but they DO have a different need:Read More
From Kim Petram, e-mailing about the Fauntleroy Fall Festival, coming up Sunday, October 19th, 2-6 pm, at Fauntleroy Church/Schoolhouse/YMCA:
This will be the 6th year of our free community festival. It has grown tremendously and this year we are expecting more than 1,200 people to attend.
There will be many of the favorite activities returning including the climbing wall, pony rides, pumpkin painting and lots of community performances and music. The wood project for the year will be a fun airplane to build and the main craft project will entail designing and painting the Metro bus stop kiosk panels for Fauntleroy.
More details to come – posters and signs will be up soon in the community.
Currently we are looking for volunteer support to fill a few slots still remaining. If you can volunteer 2 hours on the day of the event we would love to have you! Please contact terry@fauntleroyucc.org to sign up.
Tomorrow night, the Southwest Design Review Board (explained here) takes a look at two more major West Seattle projects — the proposed Admiral Safeway rebuild (here’s our coverage of the community meeting last week in which Safeway unveiled what it’s hoping to do) and “Link” (shown above), Harbor Properties‘ mixed-use building at 38th/Alaska (former site of a Huling garage and West Seattle Montessori School). If you’re not familiar with the Design Review process, this is a rare chance for public input in some of the major developments proposed around the city — and we’ve seen many cases in just the past year-plus where public input made a difference. Both projects will be reviewed in the Southwest Precinct meeting room, with Safeway (officially known as 2622 California) on the agenda at 6:30 pm (first review), “Link” (officially known as 4550 38th) at 8 pm (second review). Sometimes the official presentation is available on the city’s website before the meeting, and in fact, the one for “Link” is available online now – you can get it here (note it’s a BIG file, 33 MB).
Out of the WSB inbox from Lisa:
I just wanted to report witnessing a very brazen mail thief in West Seattle; we are on 42nd Ave. SW between Dawson & Hudson (just south of the Alaska Junction). On Monday, Sept. 22nd around 11 am we looked out the window to see a young man walking up to our neighbor’s door. Our dogs barked and he appeared to hesitate and walk back towards the gate, then after a few moments returned to the door. We then saw him leave the yard and cross the street. He walked a few doors down, then sat down and proceeded to open the outgoing mail he had taken from our neighbor’s mail slot. Apparently he didn’t find anything good because he dropped the mail on the ground and eventually made his way down the street. We called police and filed a report, including a description: white male, early 20’s, around 5’8” medium build, dressed like a normal young kid (black Easy Street Records t-shirt, white baseball cap, black backpack, jeans). Unfortunately, there were much more tragic things occurring yesterday, and the police were not able to respond until an hour or so later.
Our street does not have mailboxes, all of the houses use mail slots, so it was especially bold of this thief to walk all the way up to the house in full daylight to steal the outgoing mail, not to mention examining his loot just across the street. Either bold or dumb, we’re not sure which. We just wanted to send out a heads up in case our neighbors are in the habit of using their mail slots for outgoing mail. Going forward we will most likely be dropping ours at the Post Office.
Here’s the official US Postal Service advice on preventing mail theft. (That link can be found anytime in the Crime Watch page‘s resources section.)
QUAKE DRILL: A statewide earthquake drill is planned for 10:15 this morning, and EVERYBODY is urged to participate. Find out more about it here.
A CALL YOU MIGHT GET IF YOU’RE A SEATTLE PUBLIC SCHOOLS PARENT: In connection with the quake drill, SPS is sending out “test emergency calls” from its new SchoolMessenger system; a “random sample of 5% of … families” will get these calls; another 5% will get a “general announcement” version of test calls from the system.
SPEAKING OF SEATTLE PUBLIC SCHOOLS: Today is the first “two-hour early dismissal day” of the school year.
AND ONE MORE SCHOOL NOTE: Today’s the first monthly informal coffee hour that West Seattle’s school-board rep Steve Sundquist — 9 to 10 am, Coffee to a Tea with Sugar in The Junction; drop by to talk education issues.
GETTING OUT THE LONG-TERM-CARE-RESIDENT VOTE: That’s the topic of a major conference at Providence Mount St. Vincent today, 9:30 am-2:30 pm, with everyone in the local long-term-care community welcome to participate.
“NICKELSVILLE” UPDATE: Not much was reported on the second day of the homeless camp’s existence at Highland Park Way/West Marginal; tonight at 7 pm, organizers hope to rally “community supporters” as they count down the final hours till the city’s eviction notice kicks in at 5 pm Thursday.
| 22 COMMENTS