West Seattle Halloween ’08, report #2
Yes, Halloween is for grownups too. Those are some of the hard-working Highland Park Action Committee leaders who set up a Halloween haunt for all ages at the HP Improvement Club building tonight — replete with fog machine:
Over in The Junction, a couple parties are under way, including the Ghostly Gala at Twilight:
That last photo reminds us, Twilight’s Mary Enslow still doesn’t have her stolen motorcycle back – stay on the lookout. Meantime, one more scene from Admiral businesses’ trick-or-treat extravaganza this afternoon – big stream of families drawn to Atomic Boys, its first year to share in the tradition:
Lots more Halloween pix to come, including yours (e-mail us!).
West Seattle Gas Price Watch (etc.): Into the 2.40s
Quick note while we stop briefly at WSB HQ during Halloween coverage (2/3 of the team) and WSHS football coverage (the other third’s there, reporting frequent updates at twitter.com/wsbbizdev, score here when it’s over, plus full wrapup): Gas at Arco and 76 on Delridge, 2.49/regular. We also have been to 4th Avenue Costco, where it was 2.43 (photo left). Anyone want to bet yet if we’ll go below $2? (P.S. Back on the Halloween theme – we’ve gotten a dozen trick-or-treaters here in Upper Fauntleroy within barely 10 minutes. Big change from years past.)
Update: Verdict in 59th/Admiral shooting case: “Not guilty”
BULLETIN: Verdict for the 18-year-old defendant: Not guilty, not of murder, not of manslaughter, not of anything. His mother cried, “Oh my God,” sitting in the front row. More shortly. 4:15 PM UPDATE: Took extra time to get to “shortly” — we talked with defense lawyer Robert Perez after he went down a floor to handle paperwork for his client’s immediate release. The trial is not completely over — on Monday, jurors will return in order to decide another matter: Perez filed a motion for the state to pay his client’s legal costs if he was cleared. We’ll be there for that part of the case too. Separate full report later recapping the case and today’s developments. (Again, full archive of trial coverage is at the bottom of last night’s story.)
ORIGINAL 2:37 PM POST: There’s word the jury has reached a verdict in the murder trial that only WSB has been covering, with an Alki 18-year-old claiming self-defense in the deadly shooting of 33-year-old Francisco Bailey-Ortiz inside a car at 59th/Admiral on 10/13/07. I am now standing by in the downtown courtroom of Superior Court Judge Richard Eadie, with reporter Rachel Gabrielle – who’s been covering the trial – on the way here, and I will post the verdict as soon as it’s read. (To catch up on the story, follow the links at the bottom of Rachel’s latest report.) – TR
2 Friday afternoon notes
SHARE YOUR HALLOWEEN PIX WITH YOUR WEST SEATTLE NEIGHBORS: The pumpkin pix have been great (find them all by scrolling through our Holidays coverage archive), and now, after tonight’s fun, whatever you’re up to, please send pix – we’re going to get around to as many events as we can, but we can only pedal so fast; send pix to editor@westseattleblog.com, and we’ll put together the best wrapup of West Seattle Halloween ’08, with your help! (Remember, the events are all listed here.)
FORUM FEATURES ADDED: If you haven’t been in the WSB Forums yet today, we’ve added a few features that have been in the works for a while, by members’ request; read about (and see) ’em here.
On board the Elliott Bay Water Taxi on its last day of ’08
Moments ago, that’s County Councilmember Dow Constantine and the Mariner Moose on board the Water Taxi with us and dozens of others – we’re publishing this from the lower deck (too rainy to be out on the upper deck, darn), on our way downtown for a media briefing on the WT’s recordsetting ’08 season, which ends after the last run tonight. West Seattle Chamber of Commerce executive director Patti Mullen is on board too and she will be part of the media briefing as well. More later! 11:59 AM UPDATE: Media briefing’s over. Here’s a group shot of everybody who spoke:
From left, Rob Johnson from the Transportation Choices Coalition; you know the next two; Patti Mullen from the WS Chamber; and Argosy Cruises CEO Kevin Clark, who paid tribute to the 10-year partnership his company has had with the Water Taxi program (first run, 5/23/98). The briefing, by the way, was on a bigger boat next to the Water Taxi’s mooring, Argosy’s Spirit of Seattle – the WT had to continue on its regular schedule. Councilmember Constantine, who spoke as chair of the King County Ferry District executive committee, said WT ridership has grown 70 percent in the past three years (almost 107K in 2005, almost 192K this year). It is scheduled to go year-round in 2010. Remember that hearing coming up Monday, as mentioned here; we’ll add a WT update later today/tonight with some video from today’s briefing – meantime, you can read the full, official news season-ender news release here – also added, a photo of The Moose at the Water Taxi wheel:Read More
4 notes for today/tonight: Water Taxi, Halloween, football
RIDE THE WATER TAXI WITH THE MARINER MOOSE: Reminder, that’s at 11 am today. After tonight, the Elliott Bay Water Taxi‘s docked till next year.
ADMIRAL DISTRICT TRICK OR TREATING: 3-6 pm. Here’s the map of participating businesses. Yes, the weather’s supposed to improve.
WESTWOOD VILLAGE TRICK OR TREATING: 5-7 pm. Full Halloween list is on the Holidays page; West Seattle Weekend Lineup‘s coming up shortly too.
FOLLOW THE WEST SEATTLE HIGH SCHOOL FOOTBALL GAME TONIGHT VIA OUR TWITTER UPDATES: In case you can’t get to the big game at Memorial Stadium — by popular demand, we are moving the updates OFF the regular westseattleblog twitter account. Co-publisher Patrick, who has been reporting on the games in recent weeks both during and after, will have running updates on his account, wsbbizdev – watch it on the Web at twitter.com/wsbbizdev, and you will also see it on our WSB Twitter page, which explains a little more about what Twitter is if you’re not using it. We’ll also temporarily add a sidebar box to this page below the turquoise one where our latest Twitter update can always be found.
Update: Bus loses wheel on Fauntleroy, nobody hurt
(WSB photos added 8:50/9:13 am; #1 by Patrick Sand, #2 by Christopher Boffoli)
Thanks to Manuel for the tip that the 54X bus had broken down (headed for downtown). We’re at the scene – it’s at Edmunds, blocking a lane so traffic is diverting around it. According to Manuel, a wheel fell off; we’re working to verify exactly what went wrong. 8:32 AM UPDATE: Metro supervisor at the scene confirms a wheel did come off, but the bus had a veteran driver who got it safely to the side of the road. Nobody hurt; everybody transferred to another bus relatively quickly; the bus will be towed shortly, but till then, it’s still slower going heading northbound on Fauntleroy. 9:20 AM UPDATE: Keri, who was on the bus when it happened, e-mailed this:
The bus seemed to shudder and skid a bit, as if it was trying to stop on wet pavement and couldn’t. It came to a halt and felt tilted. One woman suddenly said “tire!” (I thought she said “fire!” yikes.) She then said, “our tire just rolled by us!”
As we were getting off the bus, the driver said we actually lost two. We were all extremely grateful that this didn’t happen while we were on the viaduct.
West Seattle Halloween: Start the day with WS pumpkin pix
Happy Halloween! No pix of this yet, but last night, Walking on Logs at the end of The Bridge was surrounded by glowing jack-o-lanterns. Didn’t see it far enough in advance to pull over for pix. Eddie e-mailed that he saw cars there just after 8 pm. Let us know if you know who did it – and/or if you have pix! Now, the latest WSB’er pumpkins:
That’s from Meredith in Admiral. Next, a jack-o-lantern group from Benjamin at 13th/Webster:
And two from John Moore of Northwest Insurance Group (WSB sponsor):
John also sent an Obama-o-lantern — one of several we have, along with two other celebrity (nonpolitical, more or less) carvings; just click ahead:Read More
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