day : 23/03/2009 12 results

The sidewalk stencils in front of Easy Street Records‘ front door in The Junction mark the spot where the party started at nine; the music — four new editions of Pearl Jam’s “Ten” — goes on sale at midnight. Inside, quite the crowd for a Monday night:

According to Easy Street’s party preview, free pizza and soda were part of the fare — and sale prices when the four new editions of “Ten” become officially available at midnight. If you are new to West Seattle, this location is particularly significant because (a) Pearl Jam’s Eddie Vedder is a West Seattleite and (b) one of the band’s other famous releases is from a 2005 show at the store.

ADDED 5 AM: At midnight, the counter was mobbed:

Here’s video from a few minutes before midnight – that’s Easy Street owner Matt Vaughan saying “God bless West Seattle”:

Of course, someone asked if Vedder was there; Vaughan said no.

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Highland Park Action Committee: A “banner night”

March 23, 2009 11:28 pm

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| Crime | Highland Park | West Seattle news | West Seattle parks

The debut of that new banner (designed by Dina Johnson) was just one of the reasons why tonight could have been called a “banner night” for the Highland Park Action Committee, with highlights including:

**Southwest Precinct Community Police Team Officer Adonis Topacio said crime’s trended downward in the Highland Park area in the past 30 days; hearing complaints about late-night door-knockers, he advised calling 911.

**HPAC chair Dan Mullins said he’s been in touch with a Shoreline neighborhood group that, like HPAC, has been working to keep the possible future regional misdemeanor jail out of proximity to residential neighborhoods, and said they agree the jail belongs downtown. He also read a quote attributed to City Councilmember Bruce Harrell, saying the city should be building “castles for education,” not jails.

**Mullins also had an update on the Westcrest Park reservoir’s future park project; he says the Parks Department doesn’t plan anything definitive for the site until after the Seattle Public Utilities work to bury the reservoir is done next year – then public meetings will ensue. Rory Denovan suggested a neighborhood summit be held BEFORE then, so neighbors can create a plan for what they’d like to see.

**Highland Park Improvement Club – whose building houses HPAC meetings and much, much more — is celebrating its 90th anniversary this November, and planning fundraisers and work parties before then, starting with a wine-tasting event April 23rd.

HPAC meets the fourth Monday of each month; its info- and photo-laden website can be browsed at highlandpk.net.

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TEAM Delridge tonight: Food for thought – and action

March 23, 2009 10:02 pm

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| Delridge | How to help | West Seattle news

That was the turnout tonight at Southwest Community Center for TEAM Delridge – community members getting together to envision future neighborhood improvements, including healthier food – since it is, after all, part of the King County Food and Fitness Initiative:

Two more TEAM Delridge meetings are planned, April 20th and May 18th, locations to be announced.

2 more Delridge events to note this week — both potlucks, in fact. First comes the monthly FEEST Community Potluck at 5:30 pm Wednesday, Youngstown Arts Center, which, according to an e-mail alert, is “offering youth-prepared organic dishes, an opportunity to build community with youth members of the Food Education Empowerment and Sustainability Team, and a glance at King County Food and Fitness Initiative’s proposed Community Action Plan to improve and sustain resources in the Delridge and White Center neighborhoods.” Then Saturday, it’s the Community Potluck event organized by the volunteers working toward a Delridge Produce Cooperative, this Saturday from 11 am-2 pm, also at Youngstown (read more here).

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Post-print-P-I: See what some ex-staffers are doing now

March 23, 2009 8:16 pm

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| Not WS but we're mentioning it anyway

This is not West Seattle-specific, but most of these folks probably wrote about/photographed West Seattle at one time or another, so we’re sharing the word: One week after the last Seattle Post-Intelligencer newspaper went to press, if you are wondering what’s up with the staffers who did not stay on with the new online-only P-I, here’s a list of some of their new endeavors, compiled by former P-I food writer Rebekah Denn, who made news herself today as a James Beard Award nominee. The sites range from very personal (ex-copy editor diarizing about her unemployment) to continuations of the type of work the respective writers did for the paper (like this).

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Harbor Island crane fire: Demolition unintentionally hastened

March 23, 2009 6:44 pm

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| West Seattle fires | West Seattle news

(WSB photos by Christopher Boffoli)
If you saw smoke – or at least, all the fire engines — on Harbor Island in the past hour, it was a fire on a crane at Terminal 18, 150 feet up. Seattle Fire Department spokesperson Dana Vander Houwen says the crane was being demolished — and welding sparks ignited an accidental fire in a Fiberglas cab beneath where the demolition crew was working. Nobody was in the crane; nobody hurt; once firefighters used a basket and 500 feet of hose to get up to the fire, they made short work of it.

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Door-to-door alert: Magazine-sales warning from state AG

March 23, 2009 5:29 pm

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| Door-to-door alert

Door-to-door alerts are usually shared here by WSB’ers (here are our archives) but this time there’s one from the state Attorney General’s Office: If these folks come to your door, beware.

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ORCA “smart card” for transit: Finally close to arrival

March 23, 2009 5:00 pm

| 13 COMMENTS

| Transportation | West Seattle news

News release this afternoon from the King County Council:

Paying your fare to ride the bus, ferry or light rail throughout the Puget Sound region will soon be as simple as swiping a single card, following approval today by the Metropolitan King County Council of a plan for rollout later this spring of the long-awaited ORCA regional fare coordination system.

“This system makes various forms of transit more accessible to all riders,” said Councilmember Jane Hague, sponsor of the ordinance and chair of the Council’s Physical Environment Committee that oversees transportation. “The new ORCA card will help riders have a more seamless and enjoyable transportation experience.”

The One Regional Card for All (ORCA) will be a non-touch smart card used for payment on seven transportation systems: Sound Transit, King County Metro Transit, Community Transit of Snohomish County, Pierce Transit, Everett Transit, Kitsap Transit and Washington State Ferries.

The system is easy and fast. ORCA uses an electronic smart card that automatically calculates any fare due. Passengers will simply “tap” their ORCA Card on target card readers and enjoy their ride. The card will register a valid pass or deduct the appropriate fare from a customer account. Customers can load transportation value or products on their card online or in person at select retail outlets.

The Council today authorized an updated interlocal agreement with the other six transit agencies that clarifies the roles of all the partners for the rollout of ORCA later this spring. Approvals must still come from the Everett City Council and the state of Washington. The regional fare coordination system has been under development since 2003.

Work on the ORCA system is now in final system design, software and Web site development, and testing to implement system updates and changes based on lessons learned in a customer Beta test. Concurrently, work is underway to complete installation of all equipment, develop employee training programs and plan for the rollout of the new ORCA card to customers.

ORCA has its own website, here.

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Monday afternoon notes: Trash countdown, and more

March 23, 2009 3:01 pm

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| Delridge | Highland Park | Utilities | West Seattle news

TRASH COUNTDOWN: At WSB HQ, we finally got the official notice taped to the containers, after today’s pickup … although we’d already received the notice in the mail saying our pickup day, currently Monday, is changing to Tuesday. One week from today is when the changes – including higher rates and weekly yard/food waste pickup — start kicking in. One big reminder we took away from a Seattle Public Utilities presentation at last week’s Alki Community Council meeting – which is likely to be mentioned again at tonight’s Highland Park Action Committee meeting — is that, while you used to be able to opt out of yard-waste service, you can’t any more – it’s mandatory (even if you don’t have yard waste to recycle, the city is encouraging you to recycle food waste), but you can get a small container (full options listed here).

TEAM DELRIDGE EVENT TONIGHT, LOCATION CORRECTION: We listed the wrong location in an earlier note – it’s at 6:30 pm at Southwest Community Center (map).

CAMP LONG EVENT THIS WEEKEND: Coming up next weekend, a great way to enjoy and support one of West Seattle’s greenest treasures: a coffeehouse and dessert-auction fundraiser at Camp Long, 7 pm this Saturday night, with music by Jim Page and Grant Dermody. Reservations recommended, call 206-684-7434 or 206-938-3870. $10 per adult; kids over 5 are $5, and a naturalist program will be available for them to enjoy during the event.

IT’S A REALLY BIG TREE: Over the weekend we reported on the new plan for the SW Manning/Admiral Way site that’s best known for its sequoia tree. City Councilmember Tom Rasmussen, whose Parks Committee will look at the plan tomorrow morning, visited over the weekend – for a sense of the tree’s size, check out this photo of the tree, with Councilmember Rasmussen standing next to it:

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Two traffic alerts just beyond West Seattle: I-5, 1st Ave South

March 23, 2009 12:26 pm

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| West Seattle traffic alerts

The I-5 and 1st Avenue South projects both have updates – we’ve mentioned them before but these are the very latest status checks forwarded by SDOT:Read More

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From the WSB Forums: What that helicopter was up to

March 23, 2009 10:40 am

| 3 COMMENTS

| Crime | Helicopter | Highland Park | White Center

Got a few notes very early Sunday about the area’s law-enforcement helicopter, Guardian One, spending some time over the Delridge Triangle area. WSB Forum members launched a discussion and we have added a little more information this morning – the call started with King County Sheriff’s Deputies who say it involved a report of a “fight in progress” – here’s the entire WSBF thread, in case you haven’t already read it there.

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Alki Homestead future: Historical Society goes public with concern

March 23, 2009 7:54 am

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| Alki Homestead | West Seattle fires | West Seattle news

(WSB photo from January, shortly after the fire)
Two months after the fire that closed the historic Alki Homestead restaurant, repairs have yet to begin, according to city online records which show no permits have been applied for, though records do show a complaint was filed with the city last week about the building’s condition/status. This morning, the Southwest Seattle Historical Society, which operates the nearby Log House Museum, has issued a news release expressing concern about the Homestead’s future:

Because of community uncertainty over the fate of the Fir Lodge/Alki Homestead Restaurant after an early-morning fire damaged the building on Jan. 16, 2009, the Executive Board of the Southwest Seattle Historical Society states the following:

The Southwest Seattle Historical Society advocates protection and preservation of significant historic structures on the Duwamish Peninsula. We nominated the Alki Homestead Restaurant building for city landmark status and the Seattle Landmarks Preservation Board designated it a Seattle landmark on Oct. 18, 1995. Then and today, the building needs preservation.

The Alki Homestead, known 100 years ago as Fir Lodge, is a Seattle icon. It was the anchor of a beachfront estate created by the Bernard family. The carriage house that became the historical society’s Log House Museum is the only remaining structure of five outbuildings on that estate. Both the Homestead and The Log House Museum are–and should remain–vital and intertwined sites in our Seattle history for generations to come.

We support the building’s preservation. We urge:
-that the building be protected immediately in its damaged state: that the roof be covered, broken windows boarded up, and the entire structure protected from the elements and from intrusion;
-that the yard and landscape be maintained, perhaps with help from neighborhood volunteers; and
-that all landmarked features be preserved in the restoration of the building.

We are confident that there are many ways in which the building can be used to insure that it has an economically viable future. We urge community support of a vision that restores the landmarked building and sustains the site as a valuable element of the Alki community, the Duwamish Peninsula , and the city of Seattle.

After the fire, Homestead owner Tom Lin had said he still hoped to proceed with a sale of the restaurant operation – not the building itself – which was in the works before the fire; he also said it might take more than six months before the Homestead could reopen. We have a message out to him for comment on the Historical Society’s statement, and the status of plans for repairs/sale, and will let you know what we hear back.

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Tonight: Highland Park Action Committee, TEAM Delridge, more

March 23, 2009 6:21 am

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| Delridge | Highland Park | West Seattle news

Two highlights from the WSB West Seattle-wide Events calendar – and a bonus:

HIGHLAND PARK ACTION COMMITTEE: Busy agenda tonight for the neighborhood group that focuses on southeast West Seattle – including more information on the trash/recycling changes that kick in just a week from now, and the latest on the question of whether a city/regional misdemeanor jail will be built in West Seattle – plus, how many community-group meetings offer a raffle (last time, the prize was a gift card for Highland Park’s own JoJo’s Espresso!)? More details here. HPAC invites you to join the meeting at 7 pm in the Highland Park Improvement Club building, 11th and Holden.

TEAM DELRIDGE: It’s the next step in the ongoing King County Food and Fitness campaign to bring neighbors together as the Delridge neighborhood continues to grow and change – but it’s not just about food and fitness. More details here. Be at ~~Youngstown Arts Center~~ Southwest Community Center, 6:30 tonight.

P.S. Also happening tonight – technically tomorrow morning – Easy Street plans a midnight event when the new editions of Pearl Jam’s “Ten” goes on sale.

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