(Photos by Ellen Cedergreen for WSB. This is “Summer,” Best in Show and Gervais Award winner, by Maddy Jones of Seattle Lutheran)
This week, ArtsWest Gallery in The Junction is full of work by local high-school students, and tonight was the reception/awards ceremony for the juried exhibit.Ellen Cedergreen was there for WSB and reports that there were a total of 14 winners in all from our area’s three major high schools: Chief Sealth International, Seattle Lutheran, and West Seattle High.
The show was judged by West Seattle-based artist RobRoy Chalmers. Arts West’s Nichole DeMent told WSB she chose him due to his visibility in so many different avenues in the arts, his potential for good leadership, and because he is “a fantastic artist.” Chalmers and DeMent handed out the monetary awards to the students, with “Best in Show” receiving a special award.
(WSDOT construction photo from May 20th)
This turned up in the latest “Seattle Area (Road) Construction Look Ahead” – the Alaskan Way Viaduct has another weekend closure coming up in two weeks, June 10th through June 13th. It’ll be structured like the one two weeks ago: The Viaduct is scheduled to be closed in its entirety 11 pm Friday, June 10th, through 5 am Monday, June 13th, except for the NORTHBOUND stretch between the stadiums and the Battery Street Tunnel, which will reopen at 10 am Saturday, June 11th (doesn’t do drivers heading out of West Seattle much good unless you take surface streets to the stadium-area northbound on-ramp). This is part of the ongoing work to rebuild the southern (Holgate to King) stretch of 99.
Gus Mears is one of the local Boy Scouts who, along with other volunteers, has been putting up flags and crosses on veterans’ graves at Dignity Memorial-Forest Lawn Funeral Home and Cemetery (WSB sponsor). We caught up with him just as they were finishing work this evening. His last stop was the only Civil War veteran’s grave at the cemetery east of High Point. You’re invited to honor veterans past and present at the annual Memorial Day service at Forest Lawn on Monday, co-sponsored by American Legion Post 160, 2 pm.
More than a thousand flags/crosses are placed each year on graves at Forest Lawn.
Here’s the summertime chance of a lifetime – a six-week trail-skating series with the Rat City Rollergirls‘ “Rain of Terror” travel team. For six Thursday nights, starting June 2nd (one week from tonight), you’ll hit area skating trails “followed by a heart-pounding off-skates workout” and then a visit to “a nearby watering hole for a refreshing beverage.” RC Rollergirl “Lucinda Pack” shared news of this tonight and says spots are still available – the trails are all around the region, from Renton to Sammamish, with an Alki session planned, all ages welcome, $80 for the entire 6-week series (orientation plus 5 skating sessions, and a T-shirt). Here’s where to sign up.
Just over the ridge in South Park, an exciting day at the community food-gardening site known as Marra Farm. First, a soccer star from the Mexican national team – which is in Seattle to play the Ecuador national team on Saturday – stopped by to meet fifth-graders from nearby Concord International School. 44-year-old Luis Roberto Alves, known as Zague, hung out for a while with the students from Linda Martinez and Kate Ayers’ classes. Besides autographing, he also dropped into a pickup game of keep-away:
The students had walked over from Concord to join in on the final part of a work party with about 50 Home Depot employees from around Seattle:
Their volunteer work included donations of strawberry plants and materials for new garden beds; the West Seattle/Fauntleroy YMCA (WSB sponsor) facilitated the project through its programs at Concord (which is considered part of the West Seattle region for Seattle Public Schools), where the Y supports Head-Start preschool, Community Learning Center programs with after-school academic/enrichment classes, and before- and after-school child care.
The wait is almost over, for fans of Zippy’s Giant Burgers. West Seattle Blog/White Center Now contributor Deanie Schwarz has just spoken to Zippy’s proprietor Blaine Cook, who says the opening date/time is officially set – next Tuesday (May 31st), 10:30 am. Zippy’s left its original location in Highland Park on April 16th, amid much uncertainty that followed the building’s foreclosure (its previous owner ran the now-closed SeaMart store on site), and had hoped to reopen in White Center about a week and a half later, but challenges with permits and upgrades stretched the time far beyond what they had expected and hoped for. As first reported here in February, the new location is at 9614 14th SW.
Just in from Seattle Parks – A mechanical problem at Colman Pool is causing problems with heating the water that’s brought in from Puget Sound, so the pool won’t open for the season until Sunday, instead of Saturday, since the part won’t arrive in time for fast repairs. Usually, Parks explains, the water is heated to 84 degrees (from the upper-40s Sound temperature) – but even with the expected repair schedule, the water will be cooler than normal, in the 70s, when the pool opens on Sunday. Parks spokesperson Joelle Hammerstad tells WSB the problem is unrelated to the vault work that had been under way by the pool the past few weeks. Here’s more info from Parks’ frequently updated site “Parkways.” The pool’s schedule brochure (minus this change) can be seen here, and it includes word that Colman Pool will celebrate its 70th birthday with a 4th of July party, 1:45-4:45 pm.
If you missed Monday night’s Citizen Transportation Advisory Committee workshop in West Seattle, the last of three planned around the city is tonight, at Washington Middle School (2101 South Jackson; map). The question posed here on Monday was two-fold: What are your transportation priorities, and how would you pay for them – would you support new taxes and fees, and if so, how much?
During the forum attended by about 20 people at the Southwest Library, the message delivered through boards and PowerPoint presentations – which are all linked here – was clear: Seattle’s transportation system is currently hanging by its financial fingertips, so if you want anything more than bare-bones progress, the city says, you will need to be further taxed, or tolled.
West Seattle-residing City Councilmember Tom Rasmussen, who lives in West Seattle and chairs the council’s Transportation Committee, spoke briefly as the gathering began. More ahead:Read More
Those volunteer-created murals are destined for display on the vacant Delridge site that’s been interim home to many local schools – the former Louisa May Boren Middle School – in hopes that’ll cut down on repeated graffiti/tagging vandalism. Community advocate Pete Spalding is leading the project and invites you to be part of the next step:
Many Delridge area residents were disappointed and frustrated when the Seattle Public Schools district chose to board up the Louisa Boren School this year due to inactivity of the site. A number of community members pointed out to the school district that this would lead to tagging and potential vandalism to the site. As many of you have noted, this has in fact been the case.
After many discussions with School Board President Steve Sundquist and others within the school district, an idea came up to deal with the problem.
On a recent Saturday, 900 Starbucks volunteers showed up to do projects in the Mt. Baker neighborhood. At Franklin and Muir they had over 200 of these volunteers doing painting, grounds cleanup, and playground projects. One of the painting projects was to paint 40 plywood murals for the Boren building.
Now we need volunteers from our Delridge community to help finish the project. These 40 murals still need to have the back and sides painted to help increase the longevity of the murals. On Saturday, June 4th from 9 – 11 am there will be a work party at the Louisa Boren School site. Please come out and help your community in this project to attempt to curtail the tagging and vandalism at this location. All of the materials and tools to do this project will be provided.
If you are interested in helping, contact Pete at bayouwonder@comcast.net or call him at 206.579.4373. (Boren’s status, in case you wondered, is that it’s remaining in the SPS inventory for possible emergency use.)
PARENTING WORKSHOP: At Alki Arts (2820 Alki Ave SW), 7 pm – 8:30 pm, Creating a Whole and Healthy Family, with Bill Dean. This is for parents who are concerned about their kids who may be struggling, or who just want to find out how to assist their children as they begin to traverse the slippery slope of adolescence.
STUDENT ART RECEPTION/AWARDS: This week’s high-school-student art show at ArtsWest Gallery culminates in an artist reception/award ceremony event tonight, 6-7:30 pm.
WEST SEATTLE DEMOCRATIC WOMEN: 11:30 am at the West Seattle Golf Course. (New website: westseattledemocraticwomen.org) Speaker: Elaine Rose from Planned Parenthood Votes Washington on “legal issues in women’s reproductive rights” w/Q & A. Discussion Group before the meeting will discuss the DOMA or Defense of Marriage Act. Discussion Group meets from 10:30 am to 11:15; Registration begins at 11:15 am.; meeting begins at 11:30 am. Lunch $12 for members; $15 nonmembers; and $5 for drink/dessert. Call (206) 935-3216 to see about last-minute attendance.
CAMPAIGN KICKOFF: King County Councilmember Joe McDermott officially launches his re-election campaign at Roxbury Lanes, 5:30-7:30 pm – details here.
BURLESQUE: Westside Burlesque Review at Skylark Café and Club (WSB sponsor, 3803 Delridge Way SW). 21 and over only. Doors at 9 pm, cost is $7.
DINNER: Tuscan Tea Room and Romanza Floral in The Junction debuts dinner service tonight, Thursdays-Fridays-Saturdays, 5:30-10 pm. Menu here.
SANISLO FUNDRAISER: Thanks to Shane for the tip; order pizza from Red Star Pizza tonight, mention Sanislo Elementary, they get part of the proceeds.
(Photos added 6:36 am) 6:01 AM: We’re near 38th and Oregon, which is blocked to traffic because of police activity including the SWAT team.
6:10 AM: Police on scene won’t comment, but whatever it’s about, it’s ending, and they’re leaving. We received a few notes saying people in the area heard loud explosion-type noises within the past hour; there’s no indication from the Fire Department’s 911 log of anyone needing medical attention, but SWAT officers do use devices creating noise as a diversion – we’ll be asking if that’s what happened.
7:09 AM UPDATE: Det. Mark Jamieson with the SPD media-response unit confirms it was a warrant situation – a “high-risk search warrant” with the hopes of finding a particular (not publicly identified) suspect. As for whether they did or didn’t, he’s still checking, so we’ll probably have yet another update here later.
It was something of a meeting within a meeting, as the first official Seattle Parks community meeting on the spray-park project – to be built at the site of the Highland Park wading pool (above), closed for almost three years – started after a short period of HPAC updates.
Project manager Kelly Goold began with an overview of how it began as a simple project with $200,000 planned from the Parks and Green Spaces Levy – whose Oversight Committee had two members on hand, chair Pete Spalding (from Pigeon Point) and member Donna Hartmann-Miller (from Maple Leaf) – until Carolyn Stauffer, now co-chair of HPAC, led a plan to seek more money from the levy’s Opportunity Fund (as first chronicled here in early 2010). The proposal won approval, and the spray park now has a $635,000 budget, which means “we’re going to be able to build a more robust spray park,” Goold explained. He says the city has applied for an additional $100,000 grant from the state’s Recreation/Conservation fund, but won’t know till early next year whether they’ll get it.
After the basic facts – it was time to talk design.Read More
Here’s the summertime chance of a lifetime – a six-week trail-skating series with the 
The wait is almost over, for fans of 
If you missed Monday night’s 
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