West Seattle, Washington
29 Monday
We haven’t been back yet tonight, but by all accounts, some of those who were camping on city land till police swept the site this afternoon are now on adjacent state land – this is still all part of the potential city jail site at Highland Park Way/West Marginal – and have a few days grace period there. At the end of this afternoon’s sweep, the city said 13 campers had taken them up on their offer of a shelter bed, and insisted they had room for everyone who wanted one. And tonight, there’s a new call from local legislators for the mayor to negotiate with advocates for the homeless. This afternoon, we reported on the sweep as it happened, and finally tonight have finished going through our video and photos to create a diary of sorts, in case you are interested in seeing more of what it was like:Read More
Sure, there are a million places you can talk about it. If you want to talk about it here, the 2008 Elections section of the WSB Forums is seldom quiet. (We were following the #debate08 Twitter “channel”; basically the peanut gallery, onscreen, scrolling by, with Twitter users free at any time to join the stream. It’s still going here.) Looks like a lot of Seattleites quietly watched; the live 911 log is much quieter than usual for this point on a Friday night.
Followup to our Thursday report about the “Sammich Slingers” sign sighting in the former Seattle Teriyaki/Burger storefront in the 4400 block of Fauntleroy: Called the number on the sign again today, and this time somebody answered: Otis, who runs the Greenwood barbecue joint OK Corral. He confirms this is a second location, not just a move. He didn’t want to say too much more till a key milestone in his preparations is past – probably next week. The West Seattle restaurant’s not open yet, by the way, but hopefully won’t take too long. More next week! Meantime, a short distance away, say goodbye to a familiar sign:
We were at Yasuko’s this afternoon for the occasional half-chicken which is demanded by a really rough week. Noticed the cards on the counter said “Beni Hoshi Teriyaki, The Best in Seattle.” Just a new name, an employee explained, not new owners; is the sign changing? we asked – maybe Sunday, he replied. The cards, by the way, have the Yasuko, er, Beni Hoshi menu on the flip side – very efficient use of dead trees for a takeout menu.
When we ran a quick clip of last week’s “Ladies of Laughter” headliner a few hours before she performed at the Admiral Theater, we prefaced it with something like, it’s been a week with a lot of gloomy news, so maybe you could use a laugh. And here we are a week later, and things really didn’t get much cheerier. So we hopped over to the Admiral this afternoon to talk for a moment with Susan Rice, who’s the last “Ladies of Laughter” performer, tonight and tomorrow at 10 pm at the Admiral ($25 with $5 going to the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer fund). We asked her how can you … or do you … come up with humor at a time like this; she answered wryly, but also thoughtfully. Read more about her here (by the way, she’s a native of Longview); tickets are available here.
We told you two weeks ago that the city had scheduled a celebration for the Orchard Street Ravine, a greenspace in Gatewood that neighbors and other volunteers have been working for years to restore. One key piece of the project isn’t done, though, so the city has just announced an open-house meeting to talk about that, one week before the celebration:
The construction of the through-trail, part of the Orchard Street Ravine project at 38th Ave. SW has been delayed due to design and project budget issues. Seattle Parks and Recreation remains committed to completing a through-trail from the street end at 38th Ave. SW to the existing lower loop trail at Orchard Street Ravine. To keep the project within its budget, Parks is proposing a new design for completing the through-trail, and would like to discuss the trail option with you at an open house at the lower loop trail site from 11 a.m. to noon on Saturday, October 4. This trail follows work done in the Pedestrian Connection Trail Feasibility Study and will link the upper and lower neighborhoods.
Here’s a map to Orchard Street Ravine.
Supposedly starting…we are almost there, more to come. Update..organizers say anyone here at 1 pm will be arrested. Huge media presence. Including us. Waiting for police. Update..they are here. Mayor communications director Robert Mak here. Another mayoral spokesperson says police will clear the site. City says they have beds for anyone who needs one. Lull in the action now (1:18) Lots of SW Precinct folks. One arrest so far. At least four arrests now…peaceful. Two more arrests now. (1:42) At least 15 arrests so far.
Photo taken at 1:50PM
2:03…police almost up to camp entrance. Still peaceful though some onlookers are boisterous in a good natured way. 2:07…orange vested city workers now confabbing on other end of site
Photo taken 2:10 PM:
Photo taken 2:26 PM as police reached the entrance of the camp (west side; they’d entered from the east and swept east to west):
2:40 Update: The police sweep is over. Police say they arrested 22 people. Those people have been taken to the Southwest Precinct for processing.They are expected to be questioned and released. 3:20 PM UPDATE: Going to open another post shortly for some of the video we brought back – no longer at the site. Just before we left, spokespeople for Seattle Police and the mayor’s office had a short news conference – basically, some of the campers have moved onto adjacent state land, and though it wasn’t put in so many words, that’s now the state’s problem, the city has cleared city land. Mayoral spokesperson Karin Zaugg-Black also noted that at least 13 people took the city up on its offer of someplace to stay, and police spokesperson Officer Mark Jamieson said social-services workers were at the SW Precinct to try to help those who were arrested.
Sunday’s the day – Northwest Hope and Healing (WSB sponsor) moves its 5K run/walk to Alki this year (photo’s from Lincoln Park last year), to raise $ to help local women fighting breast cancer (register here!). And on Alki tomorrow, you can “walk/roll” to help the fight against ataxia. 2 more weekend highlights: InfoCamp Seattle, right here on the west side, and one of WSB’s first sponsors, Click! Design That Fits, invites you to its birthday party. More than three dozen events ahead:Read More
New reason to mention the solar-power system Red Cup Espresso in The Junction has been working on: It’s one of the stops on the just-announced Seattle Solar Tour a week from tomorrow. The self-guided tour of homes and businesses with solar-power systems has three starting spots — but Red Cup is listed as a map location too. Here’s the “Seattle South” map including Red Cup; here’s the Seattle North map; and here’s the third tour section map (also on the north side). General information about the tour (co-sponsored by Seattle City Light), 10 am-4 pm Saturday 10/4, can be found here.
After noticing SDOT work at the California/Charlestown signals two days running, we checked to see what it was about — left turn? or? — and just got the answer: They’re installing “audible pedestrian-signal pushbuttons.”
After hearing two reports that city reps were expected at the West Marginal/Highland Park Way homeless encampment around 6 this morning, we headed down. No city reps yet, but the campers are moving off the site of their own volition – sort of – they are moving to the adjacent parking lot, which is believed to be state land, and perhaps not subject to the city eviction warning. 6:43 AM: About a dozen tents moved to the parking lot (cameraphone photo above). An organizer’s going around telling people, be ready to be arrested, though on the other hand, they now believe the city won’t show up this morning because too many media crews are around. 10:12 AM: Our crew is back at WSB HQ after a four-hour stakeout; we’ll check back again later, but nothing more had happened by the time we left a few minutes ago. 11:47 AM: Still there, as far as we know. A couple photos we got before leaving at midmorning; second one, the Honey Bucket folks came by to pick up two of the four portabuckets at the site – said they had a “work order” to do it and wouldn’t say anything more:
From project manager Randy Nelson:
The South Seattle Community College Library has just completed work on a federal Library Services and Technology Act grant originating from the Washington State Institute of Museum and Library Services and awarded by the Office of the Secretary of State, Washington State Library Division.
A major product of this project is this website: www.delridgehistory.org, managed by the South Seattle Community College Library. The Library has also become the depository for material connected with the project.
The project is the culmination of years of co-operation involving South Seattle Community College, Seattle Public Schools, the Youngstown Cultural Arts Center, the Southwest Seattle Historical Society, and the Delridge Neighborhoods Development Association. South Seattle Community College emeritus faculty Judy Bentley organized the project.
This project is part of an ongoing effort by South Seattle Community College to be involved with its neighborhood.
Thanks to Chris Hannemann for that shot of a U.S. Navy sub and a U.S. Coast Guard boat, taken from Alki. “You don’t see that every day!” Chris noted. Meantime, thanks to the state Ecology Department for sending a couple photos taken in Dumas Bay (map) but of Fauntleroy relevance:
Those photos show a trial run on Wednesday for Blue Marble Energy, which DOE hired as a contractor for removing sea lettuce when it’s necessary — in other words, when it’s causing “high odor problems” at Fauntleroy Cove and/or Dumas Bay. It didn’t happen this summer but Blue Marble needed a trial run, so the operation was set up for Wednesday at Dumas Bay. As first announced earlier this summer, Blue Marble will harvest sea lettuce for use as a replacement for petroleum products; read about it here.
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