(WSB photo from March 16)
In March, the first organizing meeting was held for a brand-new West Seattle neighborhood association, the Genesee-Schmitz Neighborhood Council (WSB coverage here). Now organizers have scheduled the first official, general meeting and want to make sure people who live in the area know it’s coming up, one week from tomorrow! Click ahead for full details on the 7 pm June 10th meeting at West Side Presbyterian Church:Read More
(The white geese of Fauntleroy’s shore, photographed mid-May by Bonnie) SOUTHWEST DISTRICT COUNCIL: Reps from groups/organizations around western West Seattle – the area the city considers the Southwest District – meet tonight at 7 pm, board room at South Seattle Community College (WSB sponsor). Deputy mayor Darryl Smith is a highlighted guest.
SCHMITZ PARK PERFORMS FOR SCHOOL BOARD: Just before tonight’s Seattle School Board meeting, around 5:45 pm, Schmitz Park Elementary students will present a preview selection from next week’s school musical, “Willy Wonka, Jr.”
NOT *IN* WEST SEATTLE EITHER, BUT … 2 chances today/tonight to see and hear the three finalists for Seattle Police Chief: You can attend (or watch a live online stream from) a special forum with them and the mayor at 6 pm, Rainier Room at Seattle Center – or, earlier, the City Council Public Safety/Education Committee hears from the finalists, City Hall, 9:30 am (agenda here; Seattle Channel will be live on cable and online).
Your Seattle Public Library team wants you to know that the Summer Reading Program has officially begun, never mind whether the weather agrees. Ken Gollersrud from High Point Library says there are “many great free programs over the summer for all ages right here at several West Seattle branches including Duct Tape Mania, Bookmaking for Teens, Save Our Amazing Raptors, Electronic Gaming, Zinery 101, Paper Airplanes, 20,000 Volts Under the Sea, among others.” You can sign up, and track progress, online – details here.
Starting right now, and continuing through this time the night of June 21st, nominations are open for the next round of West Seattle Volunteer Recognition Awards. WSB co-sponsors them with the Southwest and Delridge District Councils, which provide the volunteers who review the nominations and choose the winners. It’s a pretty simple concept: Volunteers need to be celebrated – and this is a way to honor the most hardworking, wonderful one(s) you know. This’ll be the third round since last spring; here’s who won the first round; here’s the list from the second round. Use the form below (or if it’s not working for you, here’s a direct link). There are four categories, for individual volunteers in community, environment, or youth work, and for a group award. Winners will be honored during the West Seattle Hi-Yu Concert in the Park at Hiawatha on July 20th.
That’s the promotional video for this year’s Lunafest – a one-night film festival of sorts – featuring short films by and about women. It’s been making its way around the country, and Thursday night, it’s in West Seattle at Admiral Theater, co-hosted by Stroller Strides of Seattle (which offers fitness classes in locations including West Seattle). Every place it goes, Lunafest is also a benefit for a local nonprofit, and as noted online, the West Seattle showing is benefiting the Salvation Army’s domestic-violence programs, as well as the Breast Cancer Fund, a Lunafest beneficiary nationwide. The 90-minute showing of short films (all described here) will be preceded at 6:30 pm Thursday with a silent auction and reception; more info on The Admiral’s website; tickets are available online here.
No news release or e-mail announcement yet – it’s not even on the official Seattle Parks page so far – but a city postcard that turned up in the postal mailbox today announces the date for the 4th and final public meeting on the design for the 20 acres of new parkland atop West Seattle Reservoir: 10 am-noon June 26, Southwest Community Center. The postcard says the “final schematic design” for the 20 acres of new park land, adjacent to the current Westcrest Park, will be unveiled at the meeting. The parkland was created by covering half of the previously open reservoir and filling in the other half; as reported here last Thursday, the reservoir lid is complete, and Seattle Public Utilities says the newly undergrounded reservoir is already two-thirds full. P.S. If you haven’t seen the three “concepts” shown at the last meeting April 24, they’re in this short version of the presentation that was given.
5:13 PM ORIGINAL REPORT: We’ve gotten two tips of a robbery at Viking Bank on the east edge of The Junction. Will be there shortly to find out in person. 5:19 PM: Adding photo in a moment. Police are definitely at Viking Bank (4022 SW Alaska) and we’re seeing would-be customers getting turned away. Working to get info of description(s). 5:31 PM UPDATE: Confirmed at scene that the bank was indeed robbed. Talked to Det. Jeff Kappel in SPD media unit – he says the robber was described as female, 55 years old, 5-1 or 5-2, sunglasses, black scarf, gray zip-up hoodie, thin build. Possible maroon SUV getaway vehicle. 5:48 PM NOTE: For those who were wondering, the last West Seattle bank robbery was the Admiral B of A on May 5th (here’s our original coverage; here’s our followup with news of arrests).
Over the weekend, after local TV stations reported a teenager had been beaten up in Highland Park early Tuesday and had said his attackers made racist remarks, we promised to work to get the police report as soon as possible. Today’s the first day it’s available; even the SPD media officer who was on call over the weekend did not have access till now. But SPD has now provided the report narrative, and we have transcribed it below in its entirety. One new detail you’ll see in the narrative- an officer spoke with two potential suspects shortly after the victim was discovered:Read More
Just got word from the Seattle Mariners that a West Seattle poet is one of their three finalists in the nationwide “All-Stars Among Us” contest (sponsored by Major League Baseball and People Magazine). From the Mariners’ announcement:
Richard Gold, of West Seattle, founded the Pongo Teen Writing Project to help abused and neglected kids heal through writing poetry about their experiences. Over the past 15-years, Pongo has helped over 5,000 kids in such places as juvenile detention centers, homeless shelters and psychiatric hospitals. Gold says writing, especially poetry, has powerful therapeutic value because the act of expression is a relief that helps young people understand and cope with their emotions surrounding often traumatic losses in their lives.
You can vote for him (or any other finalist) by going here by June 20th. Each MLB team will have one winner, and all 30 will be honored during the pre-game ceremony at the MLB All-Star Game on July 13th (this year it’s in Anaheim). The Mariners’ other two finalists are Puyallup’s Tim Hannah, who founded Jamie’s Heart after losing his two-year-old daughter to a congenital heart defect, and Lake Forest Park’s Alyse Rome, who founded Amazing-Kids.org to inspire and honor excellence in children.
With two days to go till Thursday night’s open-house celebration at Fauntleroy Schoolhouse, one of its major tenants, the Fauntleroy Children’s Center, is welcoming some outdoor cleanup help today – a small herd of goats. Four of them were at work on various ivy-and-other-invasive-infected spots around the back parking lot when we stopped by, so no big group shots, but FCC’s Kim Sheridan says, “They should be here for the day, cleaning up our planting beds and miscellaneous greenery that needs their attention.” (The one in our photo was taking a quick break to stare – wistfully? – at the nursery stock on the other side of the fence from his designated ivy patch.)
Thanks to Pete Rowen for the photo – he’s one of several people who e-mailed this morning to share the news that the “For Sale” sign just went up at Alki’s vacant, vandalized, weed-ringed Shoremont Apartments (2464 Alki; map). As reported here a month ago, the bank that owned the site – once slated for ultra-modern condos – was taken over in April by the federal government; the city has continued to write up the site for various code violations, but the inspector told us that due to the ownership situation, that had been little more than “an exercise in paperwork.” We couldn’t find the new for-sale listing online so we talked with one of the agents listed on the sign; Steven Chattin tells WSB that the listing will be online in a few days – they’re “having a website built for the property right now” and it should be live later this week. (The website for the team that’s selling it is here.) He says there’s no listing price: “We’re going to do a call for offers on June 25th.” We asked if he knows whether anything will be done about the condition of the site in the meantime, and he said not to his knowledge – “it’s being sold as-is.” (Note: We will always disclose if we alter a photo beyond cropping/light adjustment – so please note that we blurred out a big black-paint tag that’s on one of the boarded-up windows in Pete’s picture.)
Last year at West Seattle Summer Fest, the then-new (Heart) Delridge T-shirts were a hit – at the information booth, we fielded multiple queries on where people could find the North Delridge Neighborhood Council‘s table so they could buy one. Just got word from Holli Margell of NDNC (who’s modeling the shirt in the 2009 photo at right) that they’re selling them at this Saturday’s Delridge Day/Sustainable West Seattle/ReFRESH Southwest Festival – but you need to preorder, so that yours will be waiting for you at the NDNC booth:
We have a new batch of Heart Delridge T-shirts ready to sell to raise money for the North Delridge Neighborhood Council. Sized from kids 2T to XXL, they cost $15. You can reserve one of them by e-mailing heartdelridgetee@gmail.com with your name and desired size and it will be waiting for you at the booth.
The festival is 1-5 pm Saturday on the Delridge Community Center grounds; several big events will precede it in the morning, including community-cleanup activities and Delridge Walks – there’s still time to get a group together to walk to the festival, and potentially win a prize! You can sign up here. Meantime, there’s more festival info here, including activities/music highlights.
Metro‘s out with a reminder this morning that the next of its three-times-yearly “service revisions” is coming up June 12. Nothing major for West Seattle, but the announcement includes a reminder of the three routes that will be affected by the South Park Bridge‘s permanent closure on June 30th, as well as a reminder about the routes that are currently affected by the Spokane Street Viaduct Widening Project, two weeks after shutdown of the westbound 1st Avenue South ramp to the West Seattle Bridge. Read on for the highlights:Read More
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