West Seattle, Washington
13 Saturday
By Tracy Record
West Seattle Blog editor
For the second time in two weeks, King County Wastewater Treatment brought a team to West Seattle to explain and discuss proposed solutions for a problem that sends more than a million gallons of untreated wastewater and stormwater into this part of Puget Sound in the average year.
This time, at Monday night’s meeting about proposals for the area feeding the Murray pump station at Lowman Beach, the proposed trio of solutions drew even more concern than the trio explained earlier this month for the area served by the Barton pump station by the Fauntleroy ferry dock. (The entire meeting presentation, by the way, is now online – see it here.)
One of them would involve digging up most of Lowman Beach Park, including its unique beachfront tennis court and two century-old trees. Another would involve acquiring homes across the street from Lowman, through eminent domain if necessary. Read on for a look at all three and what the crowd of about 40 at the Southwest Community Center meeting heard and said about them:Read More
Catherine e-mailed that photo, saying:
I don’t know if you ever publish simple photos of the good life on Alki – but I took this on Saturday and thought you might have a chance to share it.
How could we resist?
We’re writing this as the Admiral Neighborhood Association Crime Prevention Summit wraps up – no big headlines but more than 50 people are here, connecting with each other to talk about Block Watches, and hearing police share lots of good prevention info you can’t hear often enough. There’s also a plan for quarterly meetings to keep the focus on crimefighting (separate from the regular monthly ANA meetings). More details later. First, we have several Crime Watch reports to share from around the area – starting with a vehicle break-in at a popular park – read on:Read More
That Seattle City Light crew was a welcome, and long-awaited, sight in North Delridge today. In addition to sharing that photo, Betsy explains why:
One year ago, we submitted our first report to Seattle City Light asking them to fix the light on the stairwell from High Point down to 26th ave SW. This is a major thoroughfare, with folks walking down from High Point through to the bus at Delridge Way and to the High School. At least twice, a young woman stopped at our house after midnight, too frightened to walk up the stairs to her mom’s house. With dark falling at 4:30 in the afternoon in winter, many young folks heading home from school faced a very long steep slog in pitch darkness.
After one year of complaining and multiple reports lodged, today the nice folks at City Light came out and installed the first of two light poles. We’re somewhat mystified why they installed one of the poles at the bottom of the walkway at the street, when there’s already a streetlight on that exact corner. But we’re grateful for a new streetlight. The other pole is due to be installed soon to light up the rest of the street. These photos may be boring, but we are excited to light up the staircase safely!
Betsy,
North Delridge Neighborhood Council
10:19 PM UPDATE: Here’s the latest from the Times, saying WM is now advertising for replacement workers.
PREVIOUS REPORT, 4 PM: For the first time, Seattle Public Utilities has sent a news release alluding to the possibility of a solid-waste-pickup strike that would affect West Seattleites and hundreds of thousands of others. They’re not a party to the talks, though; Waste Management is in talks with Teamsters Local 174, whose members’ contract expires Wednesday night. No updates on the union site (though there’s related coverage on the site for Local 117, which represents Allied Waste drivers) nor on the WM site, but the latest update from our citywide-news partners at the Seattle Times says talks are continuing, with the help of a federal mediator; the company has said previously it would arrange for replacement workers if there’s a walkout. Meantime, the city’s news release boils down to “just keep doing what you’re doing” – read on for the full text:Read More
Following up on our weekend report that Westside School has reached a lease agreement with Seattle Public Schools to move into the former EC Hughes building in Sunrise Heights, we have updates on three other “closed” schools in West Seattle: First, SPS communications 
manager Patti Spencer says the district did not receive any lease proposals for either the former Genesee Hill or former Fairmount Park elementary campuses, which were offered in the same round as Hughes; Fairmount has been vacant since summer 2007 (photo left). As for the Westside lease terms at Hughes, in its second year of vacancy after two years of temporarily housing South Lake High School, Spencer says they’ll be made public when the agreement is signed and finalized. Meantime, we also asked about the Boren building‘s status once Chief Sealth High School moves out at the end of this school year – will anyone be moving in this fall? Nothing planned, but this is the future vision for the site, she says:
We are asking the School Board to designate BOREN as our Essential – Interim / Emergency building for the district – in case of a catastrophic failure at any secondary school (larger K-8 also) that we could move into with minimal costs.
The board’s next meeting is April 7th, but the agenda’s not posted yet.
Just in from WestSide Baby‘s Nancy Woodland – who will be honored next week as the West Seattle Chamber of Commerce‘s Community Hero of the Year – these photos and the following report came with the subject line, “A good thing happened in White Center today too!”
While helicopters were hovering overhead, WestSide Baby was receiving a generous donation from Huggies! A truck loaded up with 288 bottles of Huggies Body Wash AND 158 New Baby Gift Baskets arrived at our facility this morning. WestSide Baby receives hundreds of requests each week and we can’t wait to provide brand new items to local kids. The Huggies Body Wash is particularly great because the older children we serve (up to size 12), rarely have anything here in that category. The Huggies Gift Baskets have diapers, lotion, wipes and wash too. We were even lucky enough to have a volunteer services offered for the truck!
If you happen to be a family with boys… Our shelves for both Size 8 and Size 10 boys clothes are completely empty for order fillers volunteering tomorrow. We’re open 9-1pm if you have time for a quick cleanout and drop off!!
WestSide Baby is at 10032 15th SW.
That’s Rebecca Hall, assistant coordinator at High Point Community Center, getting ready to give the starting signal to dozens of little ones (and parents) during the week’s 1st West Seattle egg hunt, part of the annual Toddler Eggstravaganza. So what did it look like when the toddlers (and parents) descended?
More egg hunts are coming up starting Friday (nighttime events for tweens/teens) and Saturday – see the list on our West Seattle Easter page.
ORIGINAL 11:19 A REPORT: We’ve received a few calls about the chopper over SE West Seattle/White Center. Officers are after a woman described on the scanner as having a shotgun; it started in the 10700 block of 18th. More to come. NOON UPDATE: We’ve just talked at the scene with King County Sheriff’s Office spokesperson Sgt. John Urquhart. He tells us this began when residents interrupted a burglary in progress. They’re OK but three suspects — including the aforementioned armed woman – are being sought. 12:45 PM UPDATE: Our video of Sgt. Urquhart’s media briefing is back in house; uploading now, but in the meantime, the newest details – one suspect was caught, two on the loose. He says all three are believed to be teenagers. (added) Here’s the video (you can hear the helicopter/s in the background):
ADDED 11:14 PM: Two more suspects have been arrested, after a raid on a South Seattle motel, according to this KING 5 report.
Just a quick note to say that we will open registration for West Seattle Community Garage Sale Day at 8 am this Thursday, and it’ll be open for three weeks, till April 22nd. The big day is Saturday, May 8, second Saturday in May as usual, 9 am-3 pm – if you haven’t heard about this before, it’s one day with individual, group, organization sales all over the peninsula – last year we set a record with almost 200! The event was founded in the mid-’00s by a nonprofit called Megawatt; when they disbanded, they looked for someone to take over their most successful creations – we took on West Seattle Community Garage Sale Day, and Delridge Neighborhoods Development Association took on Gathering of Neighbors (which is set for November this year). Stand by for full details about WSCGSD registration – just wanted to let you know Thursday’s Day 1. (A few eager garage-salers have already tried to sign up through last year’s form – please don’t, we’ll have a brand-new one Thursday. Thanks!)
TODDLER EGGSTRAVAGANZA: From the WSB Easter page: The first egg hunt of the pre-Easter week is for toddlers, during this morning’s Spring Eggstravaganza at High Point Community Center (map). Activities at 10 am, egg hunt at 11 am, activity fee $5.
PREVENTING CRIME: 6:30 tonight at Hiawatha Community Center (map), the Admiral Neighborhood Association-organized Crime Prevention Summit. Here’s our preview from last night.
FUN FOREST FUTURE: Not West Seattle-specific, but City Councilmember Sally Bagshaw mentioned it when Seattle Center‘s future – specifically, whether a Dale Chihuly museum might take over part of the phasing-out Fun Forest – came up at Delridge District Council earlier this month: The facility’s future is the topic of a public meeting tonight at 6:30 at Seattle Center House.
BREW DEBUT: Before tonight’s regular weekly 6 pm “Spin Your Wax” open turntables at Skylark Cafe and Club (WSB sponsor), Northwest brewery Ninkasi will be at Skylark at 5 pm to debut a new brew (details here).
That’s the official venue map, organizer David Stern tells us, for the West Seattle leg of HONK Fest West, the marching-band festival that will toot, honk and, well, march its way around the city April 9-10-11. The final day is when it’ll be here on the peninsula, with multiple venues in The Junction noon-5 pm Sunday 4/11, as the map shows – here’s the full schedule in text form (or click a marker on the map, and you’ll see the full slate for that particular venue). Part of California SW will be closed for the occasion.
On this second day of spring break (for most), hundreds of students are no doubt still buzzing about last weekend’s FIRST Robotics regional competition at KeyArena. West Seattleite Jim Edwards was there both days, Friday and Saturday, and provided these photos and info; he was there as proud dad to Kyle Edwards, an Aviation High School student who led the systems-integration team for Skunkworks, which competed:
Jim says Kyle “designed the scouting system for this year’s game.” The game, he explained, is not disclosed by FIRST until six weeks before the competition – that’s how long teams have to design and build their robot: “Once built, the robot is crated up and travels to events the team specifies. Other than limited pit times at regional events, no further work can be done on the robots.” This is animation of the game they had to play this year:
The competition’s workings are pretty complicated, but it all started with 66 teams playing 96 qualification matches all day Friday and early Saturday, Jim says; then Aviation was chosen to be part of the finals – as was the one West Seattle-based team that was there, Seattle Lutheran High School:
The Saints had a great run, making it to the semifinals, Jim reports; Aviation, meantime, got the prestigious Regional Chairman’s Award:
AHS also is going to the finals in Atlanta next month and was featured in this article from our citywide-news partners at the Seattle Times. And watch closely for an orange-shirted Seattle Lutheran team member’s soundbite in this KING5 story:
FIRST’s Washington chapter has a website too – see it here.
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