West Seattle, Washington
18 Wednesday
Seattle Public Schools management hasn’t issued a formal announcement of this yet — but since they did promise after last week’s five-and-a-half-hour School Board meeting that the final attendance-area maps would be online this week sometime, we checked again tonight, and they ARE now published online. From this page, you can either click the big pink medallion to get a form where entering your address will bring up your official attendance-area schools (Sat. note – if you have trouble with that, go here instead), or you can follow this link to an index page where you can look at the maps for individual schools. Next step for the board/district – “implementation,” which includes working out transition details, including “sibling grandfathering” and possible rule changes, such as West Seattle school-board member Steve Sundquist‘s suggestion that families at three WS elementary schools might be given the option to either track to Denny/Sealth or Madison/WSHS. Here’s a new timeline for how that will all roll out.
The action on Alki Playfield at midday today might have looked like just another flag football game – but this was no average game – it was the 10th annual Idiot Bowl, replete with celebrity hosts, including State Sen. (and County Council hopeful) Joe McDermott and Seattle Times (WSB partner) sports columnist Jerry Brewer. “The Commish,” Paul Leonardo, took a moment to explain (with a young helper) what the game’s all about:
Still checking on the final results. Added 10:24 pm – From Paul, the results:
The Farmville Freaks beat Squadron C by the final score of 49-23 to win the Commissioner’s Trophy. MVP went to Zach Eastey and Rookie of the Year to brother Luis Eastey. A good time was had by all with no injuries and fun all around.
WSB side note: This story marks the debut of HD video here, courtesy of the recently procured replacement for our first-ever video camera, which gave up the ghost after 2 years of intensive use. We’ll still probably use our non-HD camera more often, but are interested in your feedback on this one … thanks!
Wondering how much longer you’ll see all that on the east end of the main stretch of Alki Beach? When last we got an estimated end-of-project date from King County Wastewater Treatment for the Alki pump station project, they expected it would wrap up this month. With the month almost over, we checked back. The project is now in what you might call the home stretch – it’s in the “commissioning” stage, which means a lot of testing to make sure it works, but that could take a few more weeks before you start seeing the equipment pull out, according to county spokesperson Martha Tuttle. She also said they hope to set up a public open house at the site for people “to be able to go down the stairs and take a look,” but no date’s set yet. The work was expected to take about 20 months when it started in early 2008; so far it’s lasted almost 22.
At left, that’s Bob Warden of Kent, with the parks security employee who asked him to leave Southwest Community Center during his much-publicized challenge to the city’s parks-facility gun restrictions two weeks ago (here’s our coverage from that day). He said at the time he planned to file legal action as a result; now, he has, according to e-mail we just received from him, which included the complaint he says was filed in federal court this morning and served at Mayor Nickels‘ house. The mayor and the city are named as defendants, in Warden’s claim that the city rule violates the U.S. and Washington state constitutions. Read the entire 11-page document here. (City offices are closed so we might not get an official response today.)
Two things to mention: First, we just checked out a tip about a notable police response in The Junction near the Chase bank branch. An ambulance was called too; turns out, police tell us at the scene, to have been a fight between two people described as transients. Second, just got this note from Courtney at Wallflower Custom Framing (WSB sponsor) across from Jefferson Square:
I thought it might be worth mentioning that I just watched a coyote run down the middle of 42nd Street. It briefly ducked into the parking garage under Jefferson Square and then came out (with a bunch of crows giving chase) and ran north on 42nd toward Alaska Street. I lost sight of it after that, and it all happened faster than I could react to snap a photo. I only mention this for any potential safety issues both for the public and the animal, and also to see if anyone else can confirm the sighting or if I am just sitting here in the frame shop hallucinating…
No special place for media to shoot the Macy’s Holiday Parade downtown, so we just picked a spot – and got lucky: The Chief Sealth High School–Denny International Middle School combined marching bands, directed by Marcus Pimpleton, stopped right in front of us for an entire Christmas medley (and a few dance moves). According to e-mail forwarded to us last night by Denny principal Jeff Clark, the two bands only had three combined rehearsals – but as you can see in the video (and as evidenced by the crowd reaction), they rocked the parade – take three minutes and have a look/listen. Another West Seattleite was in the parade – the last parade for Greg Nickels as Seattle Mayor; we’ll add that clip when it’s done. (Update: Here’s the link.) Downtown tonight, it’s the Macy’s star lighting and fireworks – if you can’t be there, our friends at KING5 say they’ll be showing it live, as well as a special edition of Evening Magazine at 7 co-hosted by West Seattleite Jim Dever (pictured here covering this morning’s parade).
Thanks to David Rosen from SlickPix Photography for sharing a shot of the line at Westwood Village Target before it opened at 5; we just drove past WWV Staples and noted about 15 people waiting for its doors to open at six. (Nothing like Southcenter, where we’d gone just to gawk at the enormity of the lines; for Best Buy, for example, the line stretched for blocks across neighboring storefronts before the store opened at 5; [added 1:04 pm] our video caught linecutting again this year, this time unnoticed.) If you haven’t already, please see our West Seattle BF update from last night, with some local deals for today – once you’ve gotten the early-morning malling out of your system, it should be a great day to wander around The Junction, the Admiral District, and other West Seattle spots dotted with shops.
WEST SEATTLEITES IN MACY’S HOLIDAY PARADE DOWNTOWN: Reminder, if you’re going downtown to see it (here’s the official parade-route map; it’s NOT on TV this year), look for the Denny International Middle School and Chief Sealth High School bands marching together (they’re scheduled to be the 22nd entry in the parade). And it’ll be West Seattleite Greg Nickels‘ last parade as mayor.
METRO: “Reduced service” – explained here.
MOST GOVERNMENT OFFICES: Closed.
TRASH/RECYCLING/YARD WASTE: If you have Friday pickup, it’ll be on Saturday, as crews catch up from the holiday.
LIBRARIES: Open.
STREET PARKING: Where there are city pay stations/meters, this is NOT a holiday, so be sure to pay up.
MAIL DELIVERY: Yes.
BANKS: Open.
CHRISTMAS TREES: We’re working on our official list. So far, we’ve seen them at West Seattle Nursery, Tony’s (35th/Barton), TrueValue in The Junction, and both RiteAid stores. (The Holy Rosary lot opens tomorrow.)
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