Nickelsville sweep updates (as it happened)
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.
From the “in case you were wondering too” file
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.”
Update: “Nickelsville” campers on the move, sort of
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:
Delridge history, now online and in the library, years in the making!
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.
Seen at sea: Sub sighting; lettuce-lugging
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.
Design Review: Link moves ahead; Admiral Safeway sent back
That’s a view south down the sidewalk along the future 38th/Alaska building that Harbor Properties has named Link. Tonight, after its second Design Review Board session, Link won final DRB approval, but there’s more work ahead for the other project on the agenda:
One week after its unveiling at a community meeting (WSB coverage here), the Admiral Safeway rebuild proposal made its debut before Design Review Board members – who had enough concerns that they asked Safeway and its architects to come up with more options and return for a second round of Early Design Guidance. ADDED EARLY FRIDAY MORNING: Here’s the full report:Read More
“Nickelsville” updates: Deadline past, still there
… at last report, anyway, though the 72-hour grace period before eviction/clearing expired at 5 pm tonight. We’ll be checking in the early morning hours, since you never know what might happen when the TV crews pack up after the 11 pm news. And as we reported last night, at least one community liaison insisted the mayor told him that city crews would move in sometime Friday. A post in the Nickelsville Google Group says tonight that they want supporters to be there “as soon as possible … after the sun rises.” Blogging Georgetown went down this evening to check out the scene. We called the mayor’s office for comment and were told late this afternoon that the city doesn’t announce when sweeps happen, but in this case, whenever it happens, SDOT will clear the area because it’s their property, and Seattle Police will be there to assist just in case. The spokesperson also added that the mayor’s office is sensitive to the political nature of the protest, but (paraphrasing now) rules are rules.
WaMu, what it means to you
We’ve been out of the house since mid-morning, just catching up now on the WaMu failure/takeover/etc. news. That’s where we have two of our three accounts, none of them amounting to much, but having not been through this before, we wondered what this means, and found this on the Seattle Times site, for starters. (Wondered if the WaMu site itself would have anything, but so far it looks same as ever, replete with the WhooHoo nonsense that didn’t even make sense in theoretically good times.) Here’s the FDIC statement. Let us know if you’ve found any other good links; we’ll continue to look too. EARLY FRIDAY UPDATE: They added the new owners to the WaMu website – although the pre-existing cute-kid photo is just dying for a caption (“3, 2, 1, guess who owns you now!”):
Alaskan Way Viaduct: Three more updates
LATEST BRIEFING MATERIALS: Want to see what the “integrated elevated” and “lidded trench” drawings look like, as mentioned in our earlier as-it-happened coverage of the advance briefing prior to the Stakeholders’ Advisory Committee meeting that’s under way? They’re now posted online. (You can see all the materials from tonight’s meetings, linked from this page.)
RETROFIT REITERATION: As mentioned in our running updates on that earlier briefing, Viaduct project leaders say they’re “done” with evaluating a possible retrofit. They reiterated it again at the Stakeholders’ Advisory meeting tonight, though committee member Peter Phillips said he felt they shouldn’t close the books on it without doing the type of evaluation suggested toward the end of this letter; WSDOT’s David Dye reiterated tonight that they feel they’ve spent more than enough time, money, and effort evaluating and re-evaluating it, and nothing new has come to light to lead them to say “ah-ha,” it should be back in the mix, so they’re “done.”
VIADUCT MOVIE: Some months back, we told you about documentary maker David Wheeler‘s search for a viaduct commuter to include in his forthcoming film about the Viaduct situation. The documentary’s done now – here’s the official news release (we’ll be checking with him to find out if screenings are planned):Read More
Be on the lookout for film crews in West Seattle
We’ve received a couple notes in the past week or so from folks who saw/heard what appeared to be film crew types doing some scouting in the Seacrest/Armeni area, and talking about what sounded like action scenes. So we checked with Chris Swenson in the Mayor’s Office of Film and Music to see if there was anything that could be said publicly (knowing most of these are supposed to be kept quiet); here’s the reply we received:
… unfortunately Seattle film permits are not available to the public until the filming is complete or the project is aired. We do have a number of projects happening in West Seattle over the next couple weeks.
Swenson also promised to forward our inquiry to the productions’ publicists in hopes they might care to tell us something. We’ll let you know whatever we hear; please let us know if you know anything and aren’t sworn to secrecy!
Alaskan Way Viaduct briefing: Updates as they happen
We’re on the 24th floor of the Wells Fargo Building, aka headquarters of the Alaskan Way Viaduct project, awaiting the briefing on some of the first data from the evaluation of the 8 “scenarios” currently under consideration, as decisionmakers prepare to narrow down the options and take elements of various ones to combine into three “finalists.” We’ll post headlines from the briefing here “live” as they emerge, with a wrapup later. POST-BRIEFING NOTE: Click ahead to see the hour and a half of liveblogging we did while this was still under way:Read More
California/Dawson crash: Detective looking for witnesses
Just got off the phone with the Seattle Police traffic-collision detective who is investigating the crash that killed 92-year-old Rosemary MacCorkindale in the California/Dawson crosswalk earlier this week (investigation photo above). We’d originally called to check on the 30th/Trenton June motorcycle crash (after publishing this story about its survivor) and the 35th/Juneau crash that injured a 15-year-old girl (short answer on both those – the investigations aren’t complete yet), and he asked if we could put out this request: He is still looking for witnesses in the California/Dawson crash. Not people who “heard” something about it secondhand, but anyone who actually saw it happen, or perhaps something just before it happened. If you were a witness, please call/e-mail him, or if you know someone who saw something, please ask them to contact him: Detective Michael Korner, 206/684-8927, michael.korner@seattle.gov – he also gave us some insight into how the process of investigating major crashes works, and why just because a citation’s not issued at the scene doesn’t mean something won’t happen later – we’ll post about that separately later, en route to the Viaduct briefing now.
Welcoming a new WSB sponsor: e-green landscaping and materials
This morning, we welcome West Seattle’s e-green landscaping and materials to the West Seattle Blog sponsor team! Here’s what they want you to know about their locally owned business: 
“e-green landscaping and materials has been serving West Seattle since its beginning in 1999, with quality landscape contracting services and maintenance. They specialize in natural stone and concrete paver patios and walkways, along with garden renovations and design and build projects. They also have an ISA Certified Arborist and do full tree pruning, windsail pruning and shaping, tree health and hazard evaluations, and some tree removals. In 2003 e-green opened a new landscape and stone supply yard at 9010 Delridge Way SW, on the former site of Lenny’s Fuel. Here they sell bulk Cedar Grove compost and Veggie Garden Mix, Steerco Mulch, bark mulch, clean and minus 5/8″ gravel, drain/river rock, and builders’ sand in bulk or by the bag. They also stock both light and dark Basalt Rockery stone to match most West Seattle rockeries, granite boulder, quartzite boulders, a number of varieties of flagstone for walkways and patios, decorative pebbles and gravels, beach pebbles and more! They are West Seattle’s biggest bulk materials dealer and the only full stone yard in West Seattle. This winter they will add firewood and 5 lb. press logs to their wide selection of items. e-green offers full delivery service, with two residential sized trucks that can easily get into your driveway or back alley gates, including a small boom truck that can lift pallets of stone up onto your rockery, or pallet bags of compost, soil or other materials! e-green landscaping and materials is open from 9 a.m. – 6 p.m. Tuesday through Friday, and from 9 a.m. – 4 p.m. Saturday. You can find them on the web through their easily browsed website at www.egreenlandscaping.com or contact them at (206) 763-7625. They are easy to find at 9010 Delridge Way SW, Seattle 98106, just south of the stoplight at Henderson and Delridge. They are approx. 3 blocks north of Roxbury, and 1/4 mile east of Westwood Village Mall.” Thanks to e-green landscaping and materials for joining the WSB sponsor team; the current lineup is on this page along with information on how to join them.
Another new West Seattle eatery on the way
Despite its longrunning “grand opening” sign, the teriyaki/burger place next to Tervo’s on Fauntleroy (4400 block, kitty corner from Starbucks’ drive-thru) has been closed for a while – but something new is moving in. Tim Roberts sent a tip yesterday that he’d heard about a barbecue joint coming in; we went by, nothing in the window, couldn’t find anything online – but now Tim sends this followup – a sandwich board in the window:
OK Corral
Sam’mich Slingers
B-B-Q
Pulled Pork
Fried Catfish
Hot Link
We’re going by to check it out. 12:09 PM UPDATE: Added photo of the sandwich board. Nobody there so we couldn’t ask about plans for opening; tried the number, no answer. Will keep checking!
Crash survivor: “In the blink of an eye, everything can change”
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
“Nickelsville” update: Friday morning eviction expected
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
Two “Blessing of the Animals” events ahead in West Seattle
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.
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