For the second consecutive weekend, West Seattle teens helped clean up their community’s streets – last weekend, during the North Delridge Adopt-A-Street (WSB photo included here), and today, during the Admiral Neighborhood Association Adopt-A-Street. ANA president Mark Wainwright shared the above photo of Madison Middle School students who joined the operation (shown clowning around afterward with some of the big yellow bags of trash collected in the cleanup), and this update:
The kids are Dallas Baker, Lindsay Vanderpool, Sita Ross, Anton Summers, Megan Antalan, and Alexa Antalan (not in that order in the photo). It was awesome to have them there – they were all satisfying part of their volunteer hours for school. The bags of trash are behind them in the photo – of note were a set of tire chains and “millions” of the lane marker/bumps (what are these things called?).
A very successful day all in all. A big thanks should go out to Metropolitan Market and Dave Weitzel of Admiral-based Weitzel Construction, our two wonderful Admiral Adopt-a-Street sponsors. Met Market provides the meeting point, tables, chairs and great food and coffee, and Dave coordinates the event for our group (he’s a long-time member) and takes care of moving the trash to Hiawatha CC afterwards in his truck!
A quick shout out to two FANNA founders, Matthew Slye and Ann Limbaugh, who helped out today and want everyone to remember to attend their first design meeting for California Place Park coming up soon [Tuesday at 7 pm].
Great stuff… and no rain! We’ll be doing it again in approx. three months.
Matthew and Ann are in this photo we took at California/Lander (map) during the cleanup, along with Catherine Barker:
Other local organizations do cleanups too, including the Junction Neighborhood Organization; if you have one coming up and you’ve got room for more help, be sure we know about it so we can include it on the calendar (editor@westseattleblog.com)!
FERRY HEARING: Following up on the well-attended hearing in Fauntleroy a week and a half ago – next step for Washington State Ferries‘ long-range plan is a work session in the House Transportation Committee in Olympia, reviewing the plan at the start of the 3:30 pm meeting (agenda here), and a similar session at 1:30 pm Wednesday before the Senate Transportation Committee (agenda). WSF submitted its revised version of the plan today (linked here along with appendices; we are reading to see if any significant changes related to the Fauntleroy-Vashon-Southworth route). Meantime, the Kitsap County-based group Citizens Write Plan C, which is opposing both “options” in the WSF plan (A and B, ergo “C”), is organizing a rally for February 18 in Olympia; read about it here.
ADDED 11:40 PM: Looks like the draft plan DOES include major changes of relevance to our area, including removing the proposal to expand the Fauntleroy dock. Writing a separate item to publish shortly.
Two notes in the wake of Thursday night’s vote approving a plan for closures and changes including the end of the Cooper Elementary “program,” the shutdown of the Genesee Hill building, and the Pathfinder K-8 move into the Cooper building:
MEETING VIDEO: Thursday night’s meeting in its entirety is archived on the Seattle Channel website. Note that the cameras don’t have full audience views, so most of the heckling, booing, and other tumult is off-camera, but it can be heard, as can the rest of the proceedings (in some cases, more clearly than it was heard during the meeting, since the audio feed for this recording comes through board members’ microphones, meaning the audience interruptions don’t sound as loud as they did for those of us who were in the room; our video clips are incorporated into our coverage from Thursday night).
WHAT HAPPENS NEXT: Many questions remain, particularly for the families whose schools are involved in the plan; the district has promised an “updated FAQ” on its “capacity management” (closures/changes) page “within a few days.” Superintendent Dr. Maria Goodloe-Johnson said at the Thursday night meeting that the families who would not be able to go to the same schools next fall will get “individual assignment letters” in the coming week. Those letters are supposed to stipulate whether Cooper students (outside those in the autism program, which will stay in the building) will be assigned to Gatewood, Highland Park, or Arbor Heights, per terms of West Seattle school-board rep Steve Sundquist’s board-approved amendment.
If the 60-year-old Genesee Hill campus closes this fall as approved by board members (the only remaining “if” would involve legal challenges, which have been mentioned by various citywide groups), that will be its second shutdown. The first one lasted from 1990 to 1994, according to this district-written article; 1994 is when it was reopened so Pathfinder, then known as Alternative School #4.
If you read WSB via RSS – or are interested in doing so – we apologize for having our various feed links scattered senselessly around the site – till now: We just added a page to the tab-navigation bar under the sunset header, labeled simply RSS – it’s got direct links to our main feeds and instructions on where to find the links to the many other ways you can use RSS to read WSB (you can get a feed on the fly for any individual comment thread or forum thread, for example). Not sure what RSS is? Here’s a pretty good explanation.
Just a reminder in case you set your ballot aside when it arrived and haven’t gotten back to it yet: Next Tuesday is the special election for King County Elections Director, which is now an elected position because of a county Charter Amendment approved in November. Five people are running, including Sherril Huff, who’s in the job now; their names are listed here and linked to more information. This is an all-mail election, and you can’t send the ballot via USPS without a stamp; to skip the stamp cost, you can take your ballot to the drop box at the Delridge Neighborhood Services Center (5405 Delridge; here’s a map; here’s a list of other dropoff locations countywide). For people with disabilities who might have difficulty using the mail-in ballot, here’s information on “accessible voting centers” where the vote can be cast in person. If you’ve mailed your ballot, you can check here if it arrived. (To read the latest news reports on this race, go here.)
Earlier this month, you had the chance to suggest what you’d like to see at the first-ever Movies on the Wall Winter Series in The Junction, an indoor spinoff of the popular outdoor summertime series. Now, Lora Lewis of Hotwire Coffee (WSB sponsor) sends word of the “winners”: First, at 7 pm March 4, it’s “The Mummy” – here’s the trailer:
(Lora says they’re planning a bathroom-tissue mummy-wrapping contest to go with that one!) At 7 pm March 11, it’s the original “Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory,” where the wacky candymaker was portrayed by Gene Wilder:
Then, mark your calendar for 7 pm March 18, for “Napoleon Dynamite“:
All movies are free at the new activity center of West Seattle Christian Church in The Junction (which opens the center’s doors to the public for an open house tomorrow, 2-4 pm, by the way) – Lora promises, “All the fun of the outdoor summer series including concessions, cupcakes, charity raffles other great community activities. Bring your blankets and chairs and join us for the Movies on the Wall Winter Series.” (Doors will open at 5:30 pm with the movies at 7) WSB is proud to be among the sponsors; we hope to see you there!
You too can enjoy temporary use of spiffy orange vests, yellow bags, handy picker-upper gizmos, and more if you spend a few hours today doing what the folks in that clip did on the day we video’d them one year ago – join in the Admiral Neighborhood Association‘s quarterly Adopt-a-Street cleanup. Meeting place is the same, Metropolitan Market, 9 am, free coffee and “light breakfast” treats. That’s just one of a TON of West Seattle happenings today and tonight – here’s the direct link to the Saturday section of our latest West Seattle Weekend Lineup.10:06 AM UPDATE: Admiral Neighborhood Association president Mark Wainwright sent a note that 14 volunteers have turned out so far and “tasty lunch bags” remain up for the taking along with more supplies – so there’s still time to get over to Met Market and fan out to help with the rest of the cleanup (till about noon).
ADMIRAL BURGLARY: Much has been written – even more in the comments than in official stories – about 18-year-old Skyelar Hailey, charged with burglary after his Admiral arrest November 10. The King County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office has notified neighbors that after Hailey’s latest court appearance, he has chosen to proceed to trial (prior court documents had suggested a plea bargain was a possibility) and the date is set for April 21. Hailey, whose publicly viewable record includes 10 cases in which he is listed as “defendant,” spent 10 days in jail following the November arrest.
DELRIDGE SHOOTING BEFORE CENTRAL DISTRICT MURDER:CentralDistrictNews.com reminds us (see the story here) that Friday marked one year since the rampage in which Rey Davis-Bell was arrested for allegedly shooting into his girlfriend’s Delridge apartment (WSB coverage here) and then killing a Central District restaurateur. CDN says Davis-Bell is not scheduled for trial until October.
If you read WSB via RSS – or are interested in doing so – we apologize for having our various feed links scattered senselessly around the site – till now: We just added a page to the tab-navigation bar under the sunset header, labeled simply RSS – it’s got direct links to our main feeds and instructions on where to find the links to the many other ways you can use RSS to read WSB (you can get a feed on the fly for any individual comment thread or forum thread, for example). Not sure what RSS is? 
Just a reminder in case you set your ballot aside when it arrived and haven’t gotten back to it yet: Next Tuesday is the special election for King County Elections Director, which is now an elected position because of a county Charter Amendment 
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