West Seattle, Washington
12 Thursday
Story and photos by Mary Sheely
Reporting for West Seattle Blog
Applications for the 2010 Neighborhood Projects Funds (NPF) should be turned in to the Delridge Neighborhoods District Council by March 3, and plans for Delridge Day and the next phase for the Delridge Produce Cooperative are both under way. All were discussed at tonight’s meeting of the North Delridge Neighborhood Council in the boardroom at Youngstown Cultural Arts Center.
Ron Angeles, Delridge District Coordinator for the Department of Neighborhoods, filled the group in on the first two items. Most pressing is the deadline for applications for the NPF, which Angeles and Dave Ellinger, co-secretary of the North Delridge council and a member of the District Council, urge applicants to complete by March 3.
The NPF awards money for neighborhood-proposed improvements such as sidewalk repair, traffic calming, or playground updates. The District Council will review all proposals and then select three for evaluation by the Seattle Department of Transportation and Seattle Parks and Recreation. Learn more at the NPF website.
Any resident can fill out an application, and Jessie Summa-Kusiak, owner of Skylark Café and Club (WSB sponsor), had hers turned in by the meeting’s end.
Just heard the news about the death of Captain Phil Harris from “Deadliest Catch.” Went to the WSB archives and hauled out that photo of his West Seattle Thriftway coffee-selling appearance in September 2008. Big crowd lined up that day to meet him, as you can see in our coverage (which included video).
The “heavy rescue” call is for 1st Ave S/S Cloverdale, which is on the easternmost edge of West Seattle, east of White Center, around the entrance to 509 (here’s a map). On our way to check. 9:15 PM UPDATE: The fire response “closed” on the 911 log fairly quickly, and most of the fire responders were turning around and leaving as we arrived. We can see a car in the ditch on the western side – alongside the westbound lanes – of the hill, and that lane’s blocked off, but traffic is getting through, and there’s no place to pull off to find out more about what happened – but with the fire/medic units canceling, it appears so far no serious injuries.
King County Elections has published first-night results – and both Seattle Public Schools levies are winning in a big way. They only require a simple majority, but each so far has at least 71% yes votes. See the results here. Of note for those who live in (currently) unincorporated King County areas, such as White Center, the King County Library System levy is passing narrowly, with 50.5% yes. (Results from elsewhere in King County are here; the next round of numbers will be released around 4:30 tomorrow.) 9:56 PM UPDATE: Seattle Public Schools’ communications team has sent out a “thank you” news release on the district’s behalf – read on:Read More
While coyotes aren’t necessarily rare in Seattle, the occasional coyote report we receive always manages to serve as a reminder to SOMEONE that they should be mindful of pets’ safety, not leaving food out, etc. From Jen:
We woke up last night around 2:30 am to the sound of some kind of animal making a howling/yelling noise (something I hadn’t ever heard before). It sounded like it was coming from the field behind the school at Fauntleroy and Findlay. I looked out the window and saw what looked like a coyote – although it was large for a coyote – for a brief moment as it ran across my neighbor’s lawn at 37th & Findlay [map]. Anyone else see it?
Starting tomorrow, for four days, the South Park Bridge (seen above during a Duwamish River tour last week) will be closed to vehicle traffic, and will not be opening for marine traffic, 7 am-7 pm daily. Here’s the official advisory; this is the round of closures postponed from a week and a half ago. The county says engineers will be doing testing to gather data that’ll be used when they finally have the money to build a replacement bridge.
First heard about this from Andrea Mercado of the Southwest Seattle Historical Society – aka the Log House Museum folks – at last week’s Southwest District Council meeting. She says the project could use some help. She’s putting together a book of West Seattle photo history, for Arcadia Publishing, along the lines of what you see at left (thanks to Arcadia for providing the image). Andrea says they have “fantastic images” – but they’re not sure who everybody in the photos happens to be – or, for example, what the photo was all about. “Who are these people, why are they all holding a red umbrella, that sort of thing,” she explained. Once the book is finished and published, profits will benefit the Historical Society, which is a small nonprofit with the big job of curating and honoring West Seattle (and vicinity) history. Besides the search for assistance in identifying who’s in the photos, she says they also still need editors, typists, people who can clean up photo scans, etc. Just contact her through the Log House Museum – the contact info’s all here. (Side note: The museum is hosting a special talk Thursday night, 7 pm – Lorraine McConaghy will discuss and sign her new book (available for purchase too), “Warship under Sail, The USS Decatur in the Pacific West,” taking another look at a pivotal event from Seattle’s earliest years in the mid-1850s.)
3:11 PM: There’s a medic response at California/Lander – by Admiral Safeway, Hiawatha, Lafayette Elementary – and reports say it’s a vehicle vs. pedestrian collision. One witness (@sylviarolle) says via Twitter that the person who was hit does NOT appear to be a young child, but appears to have been in the crosswalk by Admiral Junction mailing center (southwest corner). 3:23 PM UPDATE: The intersection is reopening – investigators are now gathered on the Safeway side. A private ambulance has just left. Police tell us the injury is NOT serious – the victim was female but we don’t know the age.
That’s the proposed California SW side of the new Admiral Safeway store – the final part of the project that the Southwest Design Review Board needs to sign off on. They’re scheduled to meet this Thursday, 6:30 pm at Youngstown Cultural Arts Center, to look at the project for the 5th time, but you can preview the newest plan right now – we just discovered it’s available at the city’s Design Review website (click here – 12MB PDF) – the California side is shown on page 6 of that new “packet.” Note the additions include an ATM. The Safeway project’s also a regular topic of discussion for the Admiral Neighborhood Association, which happens to meet tonight, 7 pm, basement meeting room at Admiral Church (California/Hill). P.S. For comparison’s sake, here’s how the California side looked for the last meeting – it should be noted the changes are interior as well as exterior, since board members’ questions included what would be visible from the sidewalk as people walk past:
Just in from your 34th District state legislators: State Sen. Joe McDermott and Reps. Eileen Cody and Sharon Nelson invite you to a Town Hall meeting on February 20, 11 am-1 pm, at High Point Community Center. That’s less than three weeks before the current session in Olympia is scheduled to end; their main focus is expected to be the economy, but the announcement promises they’ll also talk about schools, health care, public safety, transportation and the environment.
Admiral UCC has chosen its new pastor, after a yearlong search. The Rev. Dr. Donald Schmidt, who’s been working on the Eastside for two years. Read on for the church’s official announcement:Read More
No, the big inflatable baby bottle outside the High Point Neighborhood Center is not some sort of birth announcement (though the center itself is still in its infancy). It’s to promote the baby-bottle giveaway/swap that’s happening till about 1 pm. As previewed here this morning, local environmental-health groups and Neighborhood House are hoping to encourage people to stop using certain plastic bottles and sippy cups – so they’re giving away glass bottles, accepting turned-in items, and also asking for support for legislation to ban the plastic component Bisphenol A.
Also on hand to help hand out the bottles – from left – Blair Anundson from WashPIRG, Ray Li and Mark Okazaki from Neighborhood House:
WashPIRG is trying to get the Safe Baby Bottle Act – banning Bisphenol A in products for children/babies – passed this year in the Legislature, where it stalled last year.
Speaking of art … From the WSB inbox: West Seattleite Mark Schlipper promoted a music festival with 11 x 17 posters on poles in a local business district – the art you see at left – and says they were gone within a day. He wonders if everyone is aware that posters like his have been legal for years.
I’m a curator of the Cumulus Music Festival. The festival, while not exclusive to it, does have a focus on Seattle and Northwest bands. As individuals and as an organization, we like to support our communities, and the artists in it. This is our second year, and as such I posted some fliers up around my neighborhood, specifically the Alaska Junction. A few local business offered their hand in support, the rest were up on utility poles.
And that’s where the issue lies.
People may not know this, but around 2002, the laws regarding postering changed, and made allowances for posting on utility poles (seattle.gov/transportation/posteringrules.htm). The responsibility for removal being placed on the poster themselves, or be fined. And yet, someone in our neighborhood felt compelled to pull down my posters within a day of putting them up. This didn’t strike me as the act of vandals, but as the act of someone who doesn’t understand the current laws regarding posting, and took it upon themselves to “fix” it.
Frankly I find it disheartening and insulting. Disheartening because we’re a community that celebrates its creative culture, often supports it, and at least seems to generally appreciate its presence in their lives, aren’t we? Because to me this is an attack on that very culture, on people who are trying to better their community with art, and on those artists themselves. Insulting because it’s defacing my legally posted work. Destroying my legally posted advertising, and essentially stealing money from me and my organization by doing so.
I commend people for taking some pride in their community, and would love to see this same enthusiasm in regard to filling the Whole Foods pit, or fining people that don’t clean up after their dogs. But this didn’t benefit anyone, just hurt someone trying to do some good.
We asked a few followup questions to try to figure out if the postering he says he did could have been so over-the-top that it was seen as a nuisance; he said, and added, “Only one poster per pole was posted. No other posters were covered. Staples were used on wood poles, tape on metal, fairly conservatively in both cases.” The issue of posters on poles was a hot one through the late ’90s and early ’00s; the onetime city ban was actually upheld in 2004, but by then city law had changed to permit them.
Every second Thursday, year-round, 6-9 pm, you can wander West Seattle, enjoying (and if you choose, often, buying) the work of great local artists, during the monthly West Seattle Art Walk. This Thursday is the big night for February, and Lora Lewis from Hotwire Online Coffeehouse (WSB sponsor) tells us artist highlights are now up at wsartwalk.com – plus you can see, and print, the walking map (get it here). Something new this time around – Sterling Images Gallery is offering a shuttle from The Junction to “Art Walk South” stops, including their gallery at Lowman Beach, The Kenney, West Seattle Cellars, and Gail Ann Photography.
By Tracy Record
West Seattle Blog editor
“Helloooo, Gatewood!”
That’s how West Seattle High School principal Bruce Bivins (photo left) greeted the Gatewood Elementary PTA last night as he and 1st-year Madison Middle School principal Henterson Carlisle (photo right) made a guest appearance to tout, and ask questions about, their schools. It was an introduction of sorts, because until the new Student Assignment Plan attendance-area maps were finalized, designating Gatewood as a feeder for Madison and WSHS, it had been more aligned with West Seattle’s other middle/high-school pair, Denny/Sealth.
Because of the way the feeder groups are set up, projections suggest Madison and WSHS could be under-enrolled within several years, while their south-end counterparts could be stuffed, so the principals are faced with the task of marketing their schools as well as running them – to make sure potential enrollment is maximized. (WSHS has its open house coming up this Thursday night, 6 pm, as Bivins mentioned more than once.) Their selling points – and Q/A – after the jump:Read More
By request – we’ve expanded the WSB Forums’ Freebies/Deals/Sales section to add Trade/Barter. And the first qualifying listing was already up as of very early this morning – see it here. (And a reminder – West Seattle-area businesses can list job openings FREE in the Jobs Offered section.)
ELECTION DAY: Gotta say it again: ***No more West Seattle/White Center dropboxes.** As the League of Women Voters reminds us, downtown (500 4th Ave.) is the closest one. You can drop yours there or Tukwila till 8 pm – otherwise get it in the mail, with a stamp. 2 Seattle Public Schools levies (info here) are on the ballots; they require a simple-majority “yes” vote to pass.
BABY BOTTLE GIVEAWAY: WashPIRG, the Washington Toxics Coalition, and Neighborhood House are giving away baby bottles made without BPA (bisphenol A) as part of an awareness campaign. They’re encouraging people to bring their old plastic baby bottles to swap out. All welcome, 11:30 am-1 pm at Neighborhood Center in High Point.
GREENDRINKS: Hours later, HP Neighborhood Center will be the scene of a citywide gathering of local sustainability advocates and other greenminded folks, the monthly Seattle Greendrinks, 5:30-9 pm.
NORTH DELRIDGE NEIGHBORHOOD COUNCIL: NDNC hasn’t said yet if this is its permanent new time/day/place, but after the library-schedule change forced them out of their previous routine, this is what’s up for February: 6:30 pm tonight, Youngstown Arts Center.
ADMIRAL NEIGHBORHOOD ASSOCIATION: 7 pm, Admiral Church basement meeting room. The agenda was posted last night on the ANA Yahoo! group; you should be able to find it (along with last month’s minutes) by going here.
FAUNTLEROY NEIGHBORHOOD ASSOCIATION: Monthly board meeting, all welcome, 7 pm at The Hall at Fauntleroy.
What else? Yes, there’s more – see the WSB Events calendar.
We’ve reported several student fundraisers but hadn’t heard about this one till this item appeared in Seattle Public Schools‘ newest School Beat e-newsletter:
Highland Park Elementary students raised $1,091.35 in four days to aide the earthquake victims in Haiti. More than 80 percent of the students at Highland Park receive free and reduced-price lunch. The school’s head secretary, Margaret Young, helped organize the fund-raiser by asking teachers to share information about the devastation in Haiti . After adding up the collections each morning, Principal Ann Gray and head teacher Rhonda Moore read the total contribution amounts to the students.
“We praised the compassion, understanding and generous nature of our students and parents to give to such a worthy cause. Our students continued to donate their coins, which consisted of mostly pennies. The students were excited and proud … and so were we, as a school,” Moore said.
Congratulations!
Toplines from Monday night’s Pigeon Point Neighborhood Council meeting: Though Andy Worline has stepped down after nine months as PPNC chair, new co-chairs have stepped up: Jim Sander and Theresa Ball. Former chair Pete Spalding ran tonight’s meeting, though. He’d invited David Dockendorf, principal of Pathfinder K-8, which as of this school year is housed in the Cooper School building where PPNC has long met. Dockendorf said about 470 students are now enrolled, with a kindergarten waiting list of about 20. In Q/A, he was asked about school-bus traffic, particularly why buses leave going different ways even though they all arrive along the same route; the principal promised to check. He says Pathfinder is continuing now-discontinued Cooper Elementary‘s tradition of working with the Nature Consortium in the adjacent West Duwamish Greenbelt. Speaking of parkland, PPNC also discussed the application that’s gone out for money to turn the old City Light substation at 21st and Andover (map) into a park, potentially with play equipment and benches.
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