2 West Seattle cases coming up on the Hearing Examiner’s docket

Checking what’s in the works for the city Hearing Examiner, who hears cases in the Municipal Tower downtown (same floor as the Landmarks Board, which also has 2 West Seattle items ahead this month), we find:

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DELRIDGE VACUUM AND TV OPERATOR’S APPEAL: Stoyan Tanev is challenging the city’s notice of license revocation for his business at 5214 Delridge (Google Street View, above) and has an appeal hearing scheduled for 9 am August 11th. According to city Municipal Court records, Tanev was scheduled to go to trial in April on charges of “receiving stolen property” but the case was dismissed because of an agreement in another case against him, reported here on April 21 after assistant city attorney Beth Gappert briefed the West Seattle Crime Prevention Council, involving charges of not having the proper license and not retaining used goods for the required 30 days before selling them.

CHALLENGING DECISION ON CLOSED SCHOOL PROPERTIES: The following day, at 9 am August 12th, the Hearing Examiner is scheduled to take up an appeal case filed by the Seattle Committee to Save Schools, Joanna Cullen and Bonnie Wilson, who are challenging a decision reported here in June. In it, the city Department of Planning and Development declared that 8 closed school properties around the city, including E.C. Hughes, Genesee Hill and Fairmount Park here in West Seattle, could be repurposed to certain other uses without convening a School Use Advisory Committee.

Hearing Examiner proceedings are open to the public; the hearing room is on the 40th floor of the Muni Tower at 700 5th Avenue downtown.

Semele August 1, 2009 (10:25 pm)

As for the DELRIDGE VACUUM AND TV place, I can’t believe the guy is fighting it. Both myself and my neighbors have found items stolen from us there and we live right down the street. One item was stolen from in front of our door and our neighbors item was stolen from his car. Whenever anything goes missing that’s the first place we check.

bridge to somewhere August 2, 2009 (6:57 am)

that vacuum place just sucks. Whenever I drive by it, I see tons of junk pouring out of it practically onto the sidewalk. What blight. . .

WSB August 2, 2009 (7:57 am)

We’ll see what happens at the August 11th hearing. Meantime, a representative for the property owner – not the same as the business owner – contacted us after our April report saying they wanted to talk with us about some new plans for the space. We told them we would be quite interested in sharing that news, and we arranged a time to meet for an interview; they then canceled, saying one of the people who was going to talk about the project had a sudden emergency, but promised they would reschedule. Still waiting. There was talk part of the premises might change into a coffee place; online records show an open permit application to convert a section “from retail to restaurant”:
http://web1.seattle.gov/DPD/permitstatus/Project.aspx?id=6212739

Tonya August 4, 2009 (1:50 pm)

My sister and brother in law are opening up a coffee place there. He broke his hand and that was the emergency. Get better soon David!

It’s going to be great when it’s done and a big improvement to the neighborhood.

Mike D. August 9, 2009 (2:49 pm)

Tonya – Your sister and brother-in-law have a lot of damage control to do due to the ridiculous situation that has gone on for years with Stoyan Tanev occupying the space your relatives are purportedly opening a business. Speculation and rumors abound in the neighborhood about what is going to transpire on the site if and when Tanev is actually gone. There are a lot of people watching this situation as we have all grown very sick of the b.s.

-Why have your relatives been unwilling to provide an interview to the good folks at the West Seattle Blog?

Tonya August 12, 2009 (11:58 am)

My sister and brother in law as far as I know have never once been asked for a comment. As a matter of fact I believe they tried with no luck to reach someone here ( I could be wrong) but ended up speaking with the West Seattle Hearald.

In any event I know they want to get the word out and they plan on a series of coupons and stories, bilines etc as they progress.

They know there was a lot of bad blood and damage done to the neighborhood as a result of this thug who currently occupies it as they have lived there for a while themselves..

I would hope that the community would be glad to have a clean reputable place that will hire local to replace the eyesore that is currently there.

They have already started building and they pretty much had to gut it. The other half where the vaccum guy is, I am not sure how much longer it will take to get him out but it has to be done by the law.

WSB August 12, 2009 (1:03 pm)

Tonya – I was contacted some weeks back by someone who started the phone call complaining about a reader comment on a previous story, saying they were related to the owner, but that they hadn’t actually read the comment themselves, they had just heard about it. While I tried to find out from the young man exactly what comment he was referring to, if he hadn’t seen it himself, he handed the phone over to a woman.
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When she explained she was representing the owner’s family, and that they had plans for the space, as the conversation evolved, I said I would love to interview them and get their side of the story and report on their future plans.
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Via a subsequent e-mail exchange, she set up what was going to be a group conversation/interview and I was all ready to meet them at a certain place and time, and then it was canceled at the last minute because (as I wrote above) someone who wanted to participate reportedly had an emergency. I said, sorry to hear it, please let me know when you can reschedule because I’d really like to tell this story and I think people would be really interested in hearing it. She promised she would.
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I heard nothing for a week or two, renewed my inquiry “checking back, are they ready to reschedule yet?” heard nothing back. At some point after repeated inquiries in that sort of circumstance, you have to assume you are being deliberately not answered and that the prospective interviewees changed their mind about telling their story, or are too busy to talk, whatever.
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We work on the site, and answer our phone, 24/7 – in fact, I believe that first phone call came somewhat late in the evening, which is fine, because we have made a public pledge to answer 24/7. If you speak to them any time soon, please renew our request – I no longer have the contact information for the representative who contacted us, I only remember crossreferencing her online and that she came up as a real-estate agent. If the owners want to get the word out, West Seattle’s largest news audience is right here on WSB (23,000+ homes/businesses reading at least once weekly), and we’re standing at the ready to report a story that will help ’em do so, as we have done with many new businesses. Thanks for responding here.
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TR

Tonya August 12, 2009 (2:57 pm)

I will relay that. It’s odd because the reason for the delay was my brother in law injured himself while working on the building and then there was a death in the family that took them back to Dublin for a little under/over a month.

My sister is not a real estate agent so I have no idea who you spoke to but I will pass the word on as they are anxious to get the word out of their intentions and they’re very excited about meeting the community they will be serving.

uncertin August 31, 2009 (8:48 pm)

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmm. complaints have been made over the last few weeks about the house next door being used for business. King Rat now only works on weekends when the city are off. NS inspected the property on 8/26/08 with Paula B. and observed no violation at this point for this property. Please refer to SR#s 23300, 23298. That was 2008 when things were bad and the original property was being used? The police were also informed. Hopefully somebody will get in touch with the owner of the next door property that King Rat now occupies??? fingers crossed