West Seattle, Washington
26 Friday
(In the car, Cindy Koch and Toby; behind the car, Susan Bates and Toby’s brother Baxter)
You might recall the saga of Toby the dog, a rescued yellow lab who had just been adopted into a new home in West Seattle when he bolted – leading to posters everywhere, sightings, and an ongoing thread in the WSB Forums. He was finally found safely, and now, 5 weeks later, Will Nothdurft sent the above photo and this story to say thanks and share more of how the story came to a happy ending:
Thank you, West Seattle!
Readers of the West Seattle Blog were instrumental in helping a very special lost dog to be found. The small yellow lab, “Toby,” had been rescued from an abusive life in Eastern Washington and cared for by the Vashon Island Pet Protectors organization, until he found a West Seattle family to adopt him.
But he wasn’t ready. Traumatized as a pup and terrified of strangers, he escaped immediately and was lost in northern West Seattle for more than a week. His Vashon caretakers posted fliers on utility poles all over West Seattle and soon caring residents began phoning in “sightings.”
ORIGINAL 7:09 PM REPORT: That’s the trophy at stake tonight at Southwest Athletic Complex in Westwood, with Chief Sealth International High School as the home team this year for the annual Sealth vs. West Seattle High School varsity-football faceoff. The game’s just getting under way; we’re tweeting updates from the stadium on our sports/special-events @wsblive Twitter account (you can click there to see the latest, even if you’re not a Twitter member). We’ll have a full report later on both the game and the surrounding festivities.
8:55 PM: If you aren’t at the game or following Twitter updates, it was WSHS 23, Sealth 7 at the half. Second half now under way.
10:09 PM: Game now over. Final score WSHS 43, Chief Sealth 7. The trophy presentation is yet to come. We’ll have a separate story with video highlights later.
(WSDOT photo from last weekend’s inspection)
As promised, WSDOT released results of last weekend’s Alaskan Way Viaduct inspection before the week came to an end. From the announcement:
Although no new structural damage was found, data collected by … survey crews
showed a column on the east side of the viaduct south of Yesler Way had settled a half-inch since the July 2010 visual inspection. This particular column has settled approximately 1 7/16 inches since the 2001 Nisqually Earthquake. This is still within the established column settlement threshold of 6 inches.“The settlement we discovered during this inspection is very minor,” said Jugesh Kapur, WSDOT State Bridge Engineer. “While the Alaskan Way Viaduct is continuing to settle, it is still safe for drivers.”
“The viaduct is continuing to slowly shift and sink,” said Alaskan Way Viaduct Program Administrator Ron Paananen. “While this settlement is minor, it’s a reminder that we must press on with replacing this vulnerable structure.”
For the latest on what’s happening with that process, check our report from this week’s meeting of the South Portal Working Group – including the announcement of another viaduct-project open house in West Seattle (November 16 at Madison Middle School) to discuss the Draft Environmental Impact Statement that’s due out in a week.
No, the paranormal investigation didn’t scare her away. Log House Museum director Andrea Mercado told us when we saw her during that event a week ago that a long commute is one of the reasons she would soon be announcing her departure. The official announcement comes in a news release just sent by the Southwest Seattle Historical Society – read on:Read More
If you check out that feed, you can’t really tell where it’s happening – you’ll just see a video-game screen and hear some voices – but it’s potentially video-game-playing history, and it’s happening in West Seattle, according to what WSB contributing researcher Katie Meyer has turned up. The player is 41-year-old John McAllister, who’s set records before for video-game playing/scoring (earlier this year, it was Asteroids); he’s going for a record playing Joust. The game machine’s owner is a well-known figure in the gaming world, known online as SanTe, and his home near Westwood Village is said to be where the Joust machine is hooked up to a PC, streaming what McAllister’s been up to. He’s going for the highest score ever, which means he has to pass 107,000,000 points and then some, a record set 25 years ago. Various gaming writers have been mentioning this (here’s one update from a few hours ago). Unless something goes awry, McAllister should break the 25-year-old scoring record in a few more hours. If you look at the screen, by the way, the score doesn’t reflect the official total – Katie explains that it rolls over every 10 million points – he’s approaching 100,000,000 at last report.
Story and photos by Jason Grotelueschen
Reporting for West Seattle Blog
A local author took center stage at the monthly meeting of the Alki Community Council at Alki UCC Church on Thursday night, along with discussions of disaster preparedness and city-budget concerns affecting Alki Community Center.
The final hour of the meeting was devoted to a presentation by Alki author Peter Stekel (above) who talked about his book, “Final Flight: The Mystery of a WWII Plane Crash and the Frozen Airmen in the High Sierra.” The book, published last month and available on Amazon, chronicles Stekel’s extensive research into the 2005 discovery of the body of an “ice man” pilot in the Sierra Nevada mountains, and Stekel’s resulting discovery of airplane wreckage and an additional pilot’s body.
The meeting opened with remarks by Alki parent Lisa West (who had also collected signatures and spoken at last week’s Seattle budget hearing), expressing concern about service reductions at Alki Community Center as part of the proposed cuts announced by Mayor McGinn last month (WSB coverage here). West said the city’s plan would reduce the center’s weekly operations from 53 hours to 15 hours (7 of those on a single day – Friday), and that the closest alternative (Hiawatha) is “too far up the hill for kids to walk to.”
West encouraged community members to let the City Council know that Alki Community Center is important, by visiting the council’s “IdeaScale” website and voting for continued funding (link is here). NOTE: The city’s third and final public budget hearing is Tuesday October 26th.
ACC trustee Tony Fragada added that the city’s proposed budget cuts would also affect Department of Neighborhoods funding and encouraged citizens to keep that in mind while getting involved with the discussion.
Read on for more meeting notes: Read More
Big week for West Seattle’s biggest elementary school (526 students as of the newest enrollment report), Lafayette. Yesterday, we showed you a second-grade class’s special field trip; today, the entire school’s involved in the biggest fundraiser of the year, the annual Walk-A-Thon. Above, lining the course to cheer on the walkers – some run:
And some get company – that’s WestSide Baby‘s Nancy Woodland taking a lap earlier this morning. School fundraisers like this rustle up cash for what the budget just doesn’t cover any more – though at least the schools still get great folks like the Lafayette office team, Ms. Selena and Ms. Connie:
For years, by the way, Lafayette has been working on upgrade its playground – and an entirely different round of fundraisers is under way to take advantage of a grant that’ll evaporate if not matched – look for that story coming up here on WSB. And if you have a school fundraiser, celebration, event, need, whatever, that you want to make sure the greater West Seattle community knows about – send the info this way! Thanks!
(Art on closed ex-Genesee Hill Elementary building, photo shared by neighbors in July)
West Seattle’s newest community council/association, the Genesee-Schmitz Neighborhood Council, just had its latest general-membership meeting last night at West Side Presbyterian Church. The biggest news comes in one of GSNC’s biggest areas of emphasis, the fate of the former Genesee Hill Elementary School, now in its second year of vacancy. Mary Fleck heads the GSNC subcommittee regarding the school and says they’ve been talking with Seattle Public Schools and the city. SPS says the building is not for sale, and is not scheduled to reopen any time in at least the next few years. (As we’d reported earlier this year, it was offered for lease but there were no proposals.) The neighborhood’s cleanups and gardening projects have made the most progress toward keeping it out of disrepair; next step, GSNC plans a round of neighborhood meetings to gather opinions on what should/could be done with the buildings. The district was reported to be open to talks about more use of the GHE gym and auditorium.
Also at GSNC – Presentations from Cindi Barker on preparedness (West Seattle Be Prepared), Benjamin Kinlow on crime prevention (Block Watch), and Dot Beard on the West Seattle Crime Prevention Council. (Kerrie Schurr organized last night’s meeting and noted that crime prevention, safety, and preparedness were areas of particular interest for those who attended the last meeting.)
The Genesee-Schmitz Neighborhood Association doesn’t have a regular meeting schedule yet but you can keep an eye on its website at gsnc.wordpress.com.
Just getting notes in multiple channels about a low-flying helicopter over North Delridge. Checking! 10:28 AM NOTE: Southwest Precinct says there’s no police search under way right now, so it’s not law enforcement …
(WSB photos by Ellen Cedergreen)
Whatever you do for a living, you know being in business is hard work. So last night, members of the West Seattle Chamber of Commerce took a break, just for one night, to have a good time while raising money for the organization’s ongoing work to strengthen West Seattle’s economy. Even chamber president/CEO Patti Mullen got a chance to relax a bit:
That’s Patti on the left with twin therapists Jessica and Michelle DeShayes of Alki View Massage. Another popular event during the “Bordeaux, Bites, and Boogie” celebration at Herban Feast‘s Sodo Park was lipreading:
The “lipsologist” for whom those lip-print-bearing partygoers were waiting in line was Jilly Eddy, here doing an analysis:
With the microphone, here’s Paul Binder from PB&J Textiles, which moved this past year to new headquarters next to Skylark Café and Club (WSB sponsor) in North Delridge:
And we caught up with the CEO again, here with Bonnie David of Salty’s and Molly Swain from Providence Mount St. Vincent:
If you’re a West Seattle businessperson but not a Chamber member – here’s membership info. (WSB is a member; we signed up a few months after becoming a business 3 years ago.)
(Lincoln Park photo by Flickr member nakean)
Though Halloween itself is nine nights away, spookiness is on the rise in a big way starting tonight, so don’t forget to keep an eye on our special Halloween page of events/activities for all ages (with listings through Nov. 1st). Tonight’s highlights include night 3 of “Evil Dead: The Musical” at ArtsWest (7:30 pm), 1st of 4 nights for The Anunnaki Project‘s annual “Ghost Game” at Youngstown Arts Center (8 pm), “Northwest Ghost Stories” at the Duwamish Longhouse (7 pm), The Little Gym of West Seattle (WSB sponsor) with a Halloween Carnival tonight open to all, 4-5:30 pm for the tiniest kids, 5:30-7 pm for pre-K and grade-schoolers (free but bring food-bank donations), and Delridge Community Center‘s Halloween Carnival 6-8 pm … From the non-Halloween listings on the Events calendar – Delridge CC is also where you’ll find the West Seattle Garden Club, meeting 10 am-2 pm, including a presentation on bats … High Tea at Merrill Gardens-Admiral Heights (WSB sponsor) at 3:30 pm today, RSVP to 206-938-3964 … Tonight’s the crosstown-rivalry Huling Bowl football game with Chief Sealth IHS hosting West Seattle HS, Southwest Athletic Complex, 7 pm, festivities start at 5 pm, full schedule here … Whalebones plays Easy Street Records in The Junction, 8 pm … It’s the second and final night of the Seattle Lesbian and Gay Film Festival (WSB sponsor) at Admiral Theater – buy tickets here … 6:30 pm tonight in Gatewood, you can reach out across the globe to help Pakistan flood victims – here are full details.
Many of West Seattle’s neighborhood councils/associations meet monthly. Those that don’t tend to have jampacked agendas when they do get together – and as usual, that was the case with the Morgan Community Association‘s quarterly meeting on Wednesday night. Of all the topics tackled, the long-in-the-works RapidRide bus system briefing was the beefiest, but the MoCA meeting also brought news about other subjects from an impending development to neighborhood crime/safety concerns – read on:Read More
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