No West Seattle Grand Parade? $3,500+ needed to save it
(WSB photo of 2011 West Seattle Grand Parade)
Organizers of the West Seattle American Legion Grand Parade – the one that thousands watch every July as dozens of floats and bands and community groups walk and roll and march down California SW – say they’ll have to cancel it if nobody steps up to contribute $3,500 so they can cover the costs. We’ve mentioned the donation drive earlier this year; here’s the latest from parade co-coordinator Dave Vague:
We want to thank everyone in the community who has donated to help put on the West Seattle parade so far this year, however, we’re still $3,500 short of the funds needed to put the parade on this year. As you know, we now are responsible for the cost of the street barricade signs and the bid has come in at $7,000, and so far we have only been able to raise half that amount. If we are unable to raise the additional money needed by June 1 we need to cancel the parade this year.
This was to be the parade’s 79th year, and as added excitement, it includes a 5K run before the start.
We are in desperate need in finding a sponsor or donor for the remaining funds by the end of May.
If anyone would like to donate or become a parade sponsor, contact Jim Edwards (wsbigband@ureach.com) or Dave Vague (vagued@comcast.net).
You can donate online via the official parade website, too. If you’ve missed our previous coverage – this is the second year the city has required groups to pay the cost of street-closure barricades; last year, the quote was about $3,000, and this year it’s up to $7,000. The parade does not charge entry fees and changing that wouldn’t help, because then they would have to pay more to get a different type of permit. If the parade doesn’t get canceled, it’s set for July 21st.
ADDED TUESDAY MORNING: Forgot to note that one of the West Seattle Community Garage Sale Day sales this Saturday is a benefit for the parade – it’s sale #140 on the map, at parade-presenting American Legion Post 160, 3618 SW Alaska in The Triangle.
See West Seattle’s newest ‘dog park’ during Community Garage Sale Day
(Photos by WSB’s Patrick Sand)
It’s the newest one, and the smallest one. A little patch of grass by a utility pole outside the Feedback Lounge (WSB sponsor) in Morgan Junction is there for the convenience of passers-by and their pooches. It’s also one of two new features you can admire during the SEVENTY-DEGREE SUNSHINE! expected for Saturday’s West Seattle Community Garage Sale Day, with The Feedback among the participants, putting on a Rock ‘n’ Roll Garage Sale (read more on their website) – they’ve also spruced up the spot where a tree came down last year:
Feedback general manager Bradi Jones dubbed it the “Sound Garden” in her note to us this afternoon, explaining, “Gia Griffitts [pictured], Tim Jones, and I just got done with revamping the front patch where the tree (s) had been, in front of the bar! We made it all nice and fresh! AND Rockin’! Of course!” Go have a look on Saturday while visiting what is Sale #210 on the official WSCGSD maps, now both available via this page here on WSB (including the printable 12-page PDF with the full listing of sales; also check out the WSCGSD Facebook page, where we are publishing updates and where sellers are invited to post more info and photos before Saturday, while buyers are invited to post if there’s anything special they’re looking for).
Want to be a Seal Sitter? RSVP for last pre-season volunteer training
There’s been no offseason for Seal Sitters this year – which means the volunteer marine-mammal protectors/educators/admirers have been wildly busy. If you’ve thought about joining them, here’s your last chance before things get REALLY busy again. From Robin Lindsey:
Seal Sitters MMSN will hold our final new volunteer training session on Saturday, May 19th at the Alki Bathhouse (2701 Alki Ave SW next to the Statue of Liberty). There will be a lecture/AV presentation from 10am-12. Following a 30-minute break, there will be a followup on-the-beach training lasting approximately an hour. Due to time constraints as pupping season arrives, we will not be able to hold another training until after the season ends. We hope to see folks who want to help protect marine mammals attend the training – and please rsvp to reserve a spot:
blubberblog.org/files/f1e2561025a2bc8063238a9180e25086-368.html
We encourage children to get involved in this empowering experience! Shown in the photo here is new volunteer 10-year-old Casey with her mom Dana and veteran volunteer Christine, looking after a pup at Lincoln Park.
West Seattle development: Semi-update on ‘The Hole’
(2011 WSB photo of ‘The Hole’)
Once Trader Joe’s opened on the northeast corner of 39th/Fauntleroy/Alaska, the “what will we all talk about NOW?” attention turned, for some, to the northwest side of the intersection, home to “The Hole,” the project known as Fauntleroy Place when it was excavated and then entangled in a court fight. That battle ended with a settlement that resulted in a foreclosure auction last October, with 3922 SW Alaska LLC as the only bidder – an entity of Madison Development. Since then, though, nary a word about what Madison – which recently completed the Element 42 apartments east of Admiral Safeway – intends to do with “The Hole.”
For quite some time, we tried to find out through the PR agency that had been speaking for Madison. They said they’d see what they could find out – but no updates ensued. Finally today, while working on various followups, we tried contacting Madison’s Tom Lee directly. His reply was short, but full of promise:
We are still working very hard on the project and hope to have an update for you soon.
As for the site’s DPD file, the only even-remotely-recent activity has been a renewal of permits in late March.
Can you help sort Stamp Out Hunger donations this Saturday?
(WSB photo from 2011 ‘Stamp Out Hunger,’ donation-sorting at Junction post office)
Since it coincides with West Seattle Community Garage Sale Day each year, so we always ask that you donate to the Stamp Out Hunger food drive before shopping/selling that day – your Postal Service carrier will pick up donations of nonperishable food left by your mailbox or (if you have a mail slot) door. But here’s another way to help Stamp Out Hunger this Saturday – Audrey from White Center Food Bank sends word that volunteers are needed at the Westwood Village Post Office to help with the donated food:
Help Food Lifeline and help the White Center Food Bank. White Center Food Bank gets thousands of pounds of food from this every year…..
Volunteer at the 2012 Stamp Out Hunger food drive! Stamp Out Hunger is the county’s largest one day food drive. With the help of the National Association of Letter Carriers, we at Food Lifeline are striving to collect over 500,000 pounds of non-perishable food in the greater Seattle Area.
This year marks the 20th anniversary of the Stamp Out Hunger Food Drive. Watch for the blue bag in your mailbox for the nation’s largest one-day food drive, Stamp Out Hunger on Saturday, May 12th. Fill your bag with healthy non-perishable food and leave it by your mailbox so your letter carrier, Food Lifeline and White Center Food Bank can make sure it reaches hungry people in your community.
Food Lifeline is recruiting 170 volunteers to serve at 17 postal stations around Seattle, Bellevue and Mercer Island. We’d love to encourage White Center folks to lend a hand at the Westwood Post Office – of all the remaining stations, Westwood is in need of the most volunteers – 14 spots!
Encourage your friends, family and colleagues to volunteer this May 12th (especially at Westwood Post Office) to help end hunger in Western Washington!
Food Lifeline told us last week that the Junction Post Office already has all the volunteers it needs. If you can help at Westwood – find out how by going here.
West Seattle beaches: Starry, starry tide at Cove Park
Under the pilings alongside Cove Park, the pocket beach north of the Fauntleroy ferry dock, we were “seeing stars” at the tide’s lowest point about an hour and a half ago. We went to Cove Park because soon it will be off-limits for two years of pump-station work. Our favorite sight: The tracks made by a small sun star:
If you watched the star itself, you could barely tell it was moving, but the tracks in the wet sand showed its progress added up (a handy thought for those projects that seem to take forever). Tomorrow afternoon’s low tide will be almost as low as today.
New West Seattle food trucks: Lucky Devil, La Playita
Two more food trucks on the West Seattle scene:
LUCKY DEVIL DOUGHNUT CO. DEBUTS TOMORROW: This one makes its first West Seattle appearance tomorrow at the “pod” in the Uptown Espresso parking lot in The Junction, 8 am-2 pm. Lucky Devil is not just about doughnuts as you know them – the signature dish for this truck, according to the news release we received, is the malasada, a fried and sugar-dusted Portuguese creation that is wildly popular in Hawaii, where Lucky Devil’s owner/founder, chef Josh Goldman, lived for 10 years. According to the news release we received from Lucky Devil, they’ll sell you a malasada for a buck. They will also have rotating selections from the rest of their donut menu, which includes everything from a POG (orange-filled donut with guava and passion frosting, also Hawaii-inspired) to Babe the Blu Ox (maple bar with bacon) to the namesake Lucky Devil (chocolate cake dipped in ghost chili-chocolate glaze, with cherry-red drizzle). You can buy donuts in singles, half-dozen, or dozen. By the way, you can track the Uptown food-truck pod at wseattleeats.com (though we notice Lucky Devil’s not there yet – Hallava Falafel has been added for Thursdays, though!). Lucky Devil, meantime, is on Facebook, here.
NEW TACO TRUCK ON ALKI: You might already have spotted the La Playita truck at the beach, since it’s been there about a week:
La Playita is set up in the Alki Auto Repair lot. Jeff shared the photo (THANKS!) and reports that “the tacos are very good.” (No web or FB page for this truck that we can find.)
Feeling summery? Suggestion time for West Seattle Outdoor Movies
(WSB photo from August 2011)
On this sunny day with the temperature headed for the 70s, it’s a perfect time to dream of summer … a time for getting out of the house as much as possible, even on those summer nights, which six times a year bring the much-awaited West Seattle Outdoor Movies to the big screen in the courtyard next to Hotwire Online Coffeehouse (WSB sponsor) – fun FREE events with food, music, and benefit raffles throughout the season, too, with community co-sponsors including WSB. Movie time is a little over two months away, and planning has begun, so movie mastermind and Hotwire proprietor Lora Swift wants to hear which movies you would like to see this summer. Keep in mind that the movies need to be family-friendly – doesn’t mean just “kid stuff,” but nothing TOO adult – and you might want to take a minute to consult the lists from previous years before offering your suggestion:
2011’s movie lineup: Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, Pee Wee’s Big Adventure, Airplane, Despicable Me, Jurassic Park (1), Toy Story 3
2010’s movie lineup: Mamma Mia, War Games, Fantastic Mr. Fox, Wayne’s World, Up, Star Trek
Any further back, and it’s probably fair game to come around again if there’s a demand for it, so suggest away, by posting a comment here!
West Seattle Monday: Tide; traffic; cooking; baseball…
(Thanks to David Hutchinson for the goose-and-gosling photo; click it for larger view)
Happy sunny Monday! Highlights from the WSB West Seattle Events Calendar:
WESTBOUND SPOKANE STREET VIADUCT OVERNIGHT CLOSURE, BUT NOT AT THE USUAL SPOT: SDOT is NOT closing the ENTIRE westbound Spokane Street Viaduct – just a short section right at 99 – but that still means, if you are taking the westbound West Seattle Bridge from I-5 or Beacon Hill, you cannot take it all the way to West Seattle; you will be detoured down the Harbor Island ramp and will have to take the “low bridge” the rest of the way. Again, this is a late-night/early-morning closure scheduled to start at 9 pm each of the next four nights (as announced by the city last week).
LOWEST TIDE OF THE MONTH: If you can get out on the beach, today’s low tide, just before 12:30 pm per our favorite chart provider, is -3.4 feet, just before 12:30 pm. The Seattle Aquarium‘s volunteer beach naturalists will be out south of Alki Point and on the Lincoln Park beach near Colman Pool, 10 am-2 pm.
WSHS, SEALTH IN BASEBALL PLAYOFFS: The Metro League‘s postseason tournament starts this afternoon and West Seattle High School and Chief Sealth International High School are both playing today (thanks to Chris for the tip) – WSHS vs. O’Dea at 3:45 pm at Hiawatha, Sealth vs. Blanchet at 6 pm at Southwest Athletic Complex.
WEST SEATTLE COOKING CLUB: The WSCC‘s 3 pm meeting at Beveridge Place Pub (6413 California SW) is themed “fruits and vegetables” – make something and bring it to share!
ADMIRAL DISTRICT BUSINESS ASSOCIATION: The semi-new organization for Admiral businesses meets at 4 pm at the Heartland Café‘s Benbow Room (4210 SW Admiral Way).
DESC PROJECT ADVISORY COMMITTEE: The advisory committee for DESC‘s 66-unit Delridge Supportive Housing project at 5444 Delridge Way SW meets again tonight, and this time they will get an update from the project’s architects; the agenda is here, and the public is welcome = 6:30 pm at Youngstown Cultural Arts Center (4408 Delridge Way SW).
West Seattle traffic alert update: I-5 onramp crash cleared
ORIGINAL 7:07 AM REPORT: It’s on the 911 log and WSDOT confirms it via Twitter – “part of the N/B I-5 on-ramp from the W. Seattle (Bridge) is partially blocked due to a collision.” We’ll monitor that (and any other traffic challenges ahead) with updates as we get them.
7:30 AM UPDATE: Added the “live” image from the WSDOT camera pointed that way. The truck’s still there but the fire/medic crews have cleared out.
7:39 AM UPDATE: WSDOT says the scene is now completely clear. However, residual backups take a while to clear, especially in peak traffic, so your commute might still take extra time at this point.
| 39 COMMENTS