West Seattle, Washington
06 Wednesday
Janel sent that photo early this morning from her neighborhood in The Arroyos, the southwesternmost area of West Seattle, wondering if the red water was a sign of an algae bloom. If it’s the same stuff that did the same thing in June of last year, it’s a “bloom,” but NOT algae – single-cell microorganisms known as “noctiluca.” Here’s one of our stories from last year. It is also NOT TOXIC, according to experts, and not uncommon, though the sight of it last year was enough to startle a sizable number of people. So far, we’ve only heard from The Arroyos – let us know if you see it anywhere else.
11:33 AM: Via a Twitter inquiry mediated by our friend Evonne from KING5.com, we hear this has shown up at Lincoln Park, too.
(Photo by Paul Swortz, via the WSB Flickr group pool)
Happy weekend! Some sunshine predicted (per the WSB Weather page). Here are some highlights:
TRAFFIC REMINDERS: The westbound Spokane Street Viaduct closes at 6 pm tonight – meaning NO I-5/BEACON HILL ACCESS TO THE BRIDGE – and is scheduled to stay closed for ongoing construction/repairs till 5 am Monday … If you are going to be out and about this afternoon, remember that two major events are happening in SODO, as detailed in the weekly citywide weekend-alerts list.
HELP CLEAN UP THE ADMIRAL DISTRICT: Be at Metropolitan Market (WSB sponsor) at 9 am – just to the south of the front door – to meet up with the Admiral Neighborhood Association for one of its periodic Adopt-A-Street cleanups. There will be free breakfast treats (and usually sack lunches afterward), and you’ll be provided with what you need to get out and clean up. Just a few hours will make a big difference.
27TH ANNIVERSARY SALE: All weekend, at CAPERS in The Junction.
TECHSTART EXPO: Come see what the elementary and middle-school students involved with this STEM program are up to – 10 am-2 pm at Brockey Center, South Seattle Community College, 6000 16th SW.
(added) TICKETS STILL AVAILABLE FOR MORNING GLORY DRAG BRUNCH: As of just before 11 am, Skylark Café and Club reported via Facebook that today’s Morning Glory Drag Brunch at noon still has room – so we’re adding it here.
SPRING WINE RELEASE EVENTS CONTINUE … at Northwest Wine Academy on the SSCC campus, 12-5 pm, including a food/wine pairing event 3-5 pm.
(added) AND MORE WINE: West Seattle Wine Cellars is pouring Walla Walla wines 3-5 pm today.
ANNETTE COTTRELL AT VILLAGE GREEN: The author of “The Urban Farm Handbook” will be at Village Green Perennial Nursery (WSB sponsor) to sign books today, 1 pm. Here’s the Facebook event page.
COOPER ARTIST HOUSING OPEN HOUSE: Demonstrations of movement, music, dance, and more are on the schedule for this event at the artist housing atop Youngstown Cultural Arts Center (4408 Delridge Way SW), 3-9 pm.
(added) SALSA ON ALKI: Debuting for the season tonight, according to a tip via Twitter that included this Facebook event link – 6 pm.
LIVE MUSIC: Willow and The Embers (along with Nicole Hardy‘s poetry) headline “Angels on the Radio: An Evening of Wine, Wit and Song” at Mind Unwind (2206 California SW), 5:30-11 pm … Gary Benson at C & P Coffee Company (5612 California SW; WSB sponsor), 6-8 pm … Ever, Little Red Long, Fey Moth at Skylark Café and Club (3803 Delridge Way SW), 8 pm… The Fuzz at Feedback Lounge (6451 California SW; WSB sponsor), 8:30 pm … (Anybody else? Send us a quick note sooner rather than later, so we can help get the word out!)
WEST SEATTLE GARDEN TOUR TICKETS: With five weeks to go till the July 15th tour, the ticket books are on sale starting this weekend – locations listed here.
Even MORE for today/tonight – and beyond – on the calendar!
(Screen grab of what City Light showed at the peak of this morning’s outage)
2:16 AM, FIRST REPORT: After seeing a “wires down” call on 31st SW turn up on the 911 log, we started checking the Seattle City Light system-status map to see if anyone was out of power. Nothing has ever shown on the map, but we’ve received a few scattered reports of power having been out for an indeterminate amount of time – California/Juneau, High Point, Fairmount. If you happened to notice yours go out, let us know where and for how long – thanks!
2:26 AM UPDATE: We have a Beach Drive outage report via Twitter. Our power has not gone out, not even a flicker, here in Upper Fauntleroy, for what it’s worth. (One minute later) It’s now on the map – City Light says 1,340+ customers (homes/businesses) affected but that may be an underestimate, since their map isn’t showing areas in Alki where we’re hearing from people.
2:38 AM UPDATE: Now we’re getting reports it’s back on, at least for some. Thanks to everybody for the comments, texts (206-293-6302 any time, which is also our 24/7 voice line), tweets, Facebook posts, etc. – since the SCL map lagged on this one, your alerts are how we got the word AND that in turn helped inform everyone else out there that it wasn’t just them. Whenever we find out what caused this, we’ll add the info – not sure if that info will be available over the weekend, but we’ll try.
3:10 AM UPDATE: High Point and vicinity reports being back on. City Light map, meantime, is definitely lagging, because now it shows what must have been the peak of the outage – more than 4,700 homes/businesses out – a bit earlier. We’re taking a screengrab and will add it atop this story, for posterity’s sake.
3:20 AM UPDATE: City Light news release confirms the peak tally of 4,700+ and indeed blames it on the “wires down” incident, now described as a “pole fire” near SW Findlay/30th SW.
Excitement and maybe a few nerves were evident – as you’d expect! – as the Seattle Lutheran High School Class of 2012 entered the school’s Menashe Family Gymnasium for their graduation ceremony last night. The 43 seniors comprise the school’s 32nd graduating class; Keegan White was this year’s valedictorian; Valerie Reid, the salutatorian. 15 of this year’s graduates qualified for the National Honor Society; this night also represented a milestone for their NHS advisor (among her many other roles), Shirley Vradenburgh, photographed pre-ceremony with SLHS principal Mark Henderson:
She is retiring after 32 years during which, as the school newsletter noted, she has “worked with every student who has graduated from SLHS.” A celebration is planned next week, but on this night, the spotlight was on the students moving to the next phase of their lives. Congratulations to them all!
Madison Middle School‘s Senior Orchestra performed together one last time Thursday night at the school’s second concert of the week, and our first clip begins with music director Clark Bathum‘s explanation preceding Rimsky-Korsakov‘s “Capriccio Espagnol.” (The music begins about a minute and a quarter in.) The concert also featured the Junior Orchestra, Combined Orchestra, and the Jazz Band, which is in our next clip with one of the numbers from their division-winning performance at a recent music festival:
Our coverage from Tuesday night’s concert is here.
Since there had been utility work in the Barton Pump Station (right) vicinity not long before last Sunday’s power problem led to a 46,000-gallon overflow into Puget Sound, we’ve been following up to see if that work had anything to do with it. Apparently not, according to both King County Wastewater Treatment Division and Seattle City Light.
While they have not pinpointed the problem’s cause and may never be able to – it apparently was triggered by a short power surge – here’s the likeliest scenario, according to SCL’s Scott Thomsen: Last Sunday at 3:18 pm, about 15 minutes before they got a call from the county about the pump-station problem, they had “a brief interruption on a (major) transmission line” – an osprey flew into a wire. Thomsen says that’s unusual for an osprey, and SCL wildlife biologists were sorry to hear about it, as the utility has been working to accommodate ospreys, which think utility poles are great places to nest, reminiscent of the tree snags they prefer in the wild. Meantime, as reported here last night, health authorities gave the county the all-clear to reopen the overflow-affected beaches after four days.
Gatewood Elementary principal Rhonda Claytor shared the photo, explaining:
This is a picture of Gatewood Elementary teacher Dana Bogel and fifth-grade student Claire Palmer-Paige, at Camp Warm Beach in Stanwood, conquering the wall challenge. Our 4th and 5th grade students have been at camp since Wednesday and many have challenged themselves to climb the wall, ride horses and row canoes for the first time in their lives. Additionally, they do many cooperative challenges and work together in groups. They also seem to enjoy the food and swimming pool!
Checking out the Gatewood website, we noted other special offerings – including four days this summer that the school library will be open for summer-reading checkout.
That photo is from a tour of the Spokane Street Viaduct construction zone this afternoon, just as the city gets ready for another major closure. While our full tour report will have to wait till this evening, we wanted to issue a closure reminder before everyone heads out for the weekend: The closure is WESTBOUND ONLY, on the bridge between I-5 and Highway 99, and the time is unusual: 6 pm Saturday till 5 am Monday. (Remember, as noted here yesterday, there’s a lot going on Saturday afternoon in SODO, so the city didn’t want to start the shutdown till all that lightened up.) You will NOT be able to get onto the bridge from I-5 during the closure, but you WILL be able to get to it from Highway 99. Meantime, more later on what we saw, and learned about the project, during our tour.
Just shared by Ed Pottharst from the Department of Neighborhoods: An announcement from the city that SDOT wants to put new bike racks in south-of-downtown neighborhoods “to help encourage cycling as a form of transportation to our business districts. We would like your help with finding places to install them where they will be most useful …” and the local neighborhoods where they’re seeking ideas are Delridge and South Park. This is NOT for private property, but for “public right-of-way” (sidewalks, for example), and the installation would likely happen late this year or early next year. Got an idea? Contact Doug Cox at SDOT, 206-684-8264 or doug.cox@seattle.gov.
Just heard thunder here at WSB HQ in Upper Fauntleroy; the National Weather Service called for a chance of thunderstorms in this “short-term forecast” (possibly even “small hail”).
Thanks to those who have called and e-mailed about what they describe was a SWAT team presence in Sunrise Heights. We have confirmed with the Southwest Precinct that officers were attempting to serve a warrant for a “high-risk subject”; we just checked the area and it appears the officers are gone, so now we’re trying to find out if they made an arrest.
West Seattle High School is in celebration mode this afternoon. Principal Ruth Medsker just announced they’ve won a major grant from the city Families and Education Levy:
West Seattle High School was awarded one of five high school Levy grants! We will be receiving $350,000 per year for the next seven years! It was an extremely competitive process and we are very proud of our grant, and the continuing work we will be doing to support students. The funds are from the City Levy. Below is a snapshot of how we will be spending the funds:
*Full time Academic Intervention Specialists to case manage the academic success of all 9th graders teaching 1 Focus class, coordinate University Tutors, manage Mandatory After School Study Halls and Saturday Schools, monitors daily individual student academic progress, collaborates with teachers, participates in AIS and 9th grade team meetings, tracks progress toward meeting Levy Target goals, attends Levy meetings, calls 9th grade families, refers identified students to SIT, collaborates with feeder middle schools for early intervention, coordinates 9th grade MAP testing.
*Fund additional counseling services for our 9th graders to do the following; schedule all 9th graders in appropriate classes, hand schedules Focus students, plan 9th grade Parent Night, track 9th grade attendance, and creates attendance agreements for identified students, participate as a member of the Student Intervention Team, organizes parent/teacher conferences, implements the roll out of ConnectEdu to 9th graders and supplemental curriculum to support College and Career Readiness.
*A half-time Social Worker provided by community partner YMCA. The other half will be shared with our feeder Madison Middle School. He/she supports a caseload of 10-15 students; provides home visits, coordinates care and direct counseling, family parenting classes, screening to support academic success and improved attendance.
*Pay for community partner YMCA to have a full-time Senior Director of Education and Development on-site and integrated into the WSHS community. A $26,000 program budget to provide 2-4 in-school and 8-12 after school enrichment and/or service based activities. Responsible for tracking all 9th graders to ensure they are involved in a minimum of one extracurricular activity during the school year and removing barriers for participation that arise for some students. Priority enrollment for identified 9th graders in “Y” activities will be given.
*Pay for community partner University Tutors to place 15 plus content specific tutors at WSHS in math and science classes and to support Mandatory After School Study Hall and Saturday School.
*Pay for a .2 FTE Academic Interventionist to teach a focus class for re-classified 9th graders. We will use carry forward performance pay from 20011-12 to pay the $20,000 cost.
(WSB video of Caspar Babypants performing at 2011 West Seattle Summer Fest)
Waiting for the West Seattle Summer Fest music lineup? It’s expected to be out next week, according to Susan Melrose from the West Seattle Junction Association – but she confirms to WSB that Caspar Babypants will be back, performing on the first day of the festival, Friday, July 13th (just five weeks from today!), on a small stage that’ll be on SW Alaska next to Junction Plaza Park “at a kid-friendly time” to be announced. Susan says that’s the “community performance stage,” where you’ll find “performances, demonstrations, cake-eating contests, and music,” and they’re currently accepting applications for people whose talents might be best showcased here. So, Susan invites you: “If you have a dance troupe or other act, please e-mail info@westseattlefestival.com with details.”
When the charity beer Hi-Yu Brü launched earlier this year, as part of an ongoing West Seattle/White Center series of locally brewed beer benefiting charities, some suggested its proceeds should have benefited its namesake festival. Now, the most popular charity beer in the series is re-launching, and its proceeds WILL benefit the West Seattle Hi-Yu Summer Festival. Feedback Lounge (WSB sponsor) proprietor Jeff Gilbert sends word that Löwman Bräu is relaunching today at his bar and eight other local venues – in West Seattle, West 5, Shadowland, Mission, The Bridge, Löcöl, Beveridge Place Pub, and in White Center, Big Al Brewing and Company. Jeff says it should be available at all nine places as soon as they open today.
From partner site White Center Now: The King County Sheriff’s Office will soon install two video-surveillance cameras in WC. Deputy BJ Myers, who announced them at last night’s North Highline Unincorporated Area Council meeting, says he believes they’ll be the first “overt” cameras KCSO has installed – that means they’re not secret; their presence will be obvious, and that’s part of the point. As soon as a few weeks from now, they’ll be up at 98th/16th and 15th/Roxbury. Here’s the full story, on WCN.
(The Seattle Great Wheel across the bay is now illuminated, as David Hutchinson‘s image shows us)
MEET YOUR SCHOOL BOARD REP: Marty McLaren‘s last scheduled community conversation of the year is at 10:15 am, Southwest Library (35th/Henderson). She’s scheduled to be there till 12:15 pm, if you can’t make the meeting from the start.
SNEAK PEEK AT NEW HISTORY EXHIBIT: The Log House Museum‘s new traveling exhibit, created with the help of students, is offering a “sneak peek” this afternoon at Madison Middle School, 2:30-4 pm, and the public’s welcome. (Madison is one of the schools whose students participated; more info here.)
HELP A LOCAL STUDENT SAVE LIVES HALF A WORLD AWAY: We told you earlier this week about West Seattle High School senior Fatuma Ali‘s benefit at Youngtown Cultural Arts Center to help get safe food and clean water to East African refugees. Tonight’s the night, 6-9 pm (4408 Delridge Way SW).
SEATTLE LUTHERAN HIGH SCHOOL GRADUATION: Tonight at 7:30 pm in the SLHS gym, followed by a reception at nearby Hope Lutheran. (Here’s our list of all upcoming graduations.)
LIVE MUSIC TONIGHT! Lots of it – including Bob “Bobcat Bob” Rice at C & P Coffee Company (5612 California SW; WSB sponsor), 6-8 pm … Auklet performs during a Friday night of music and art at Alki Arts (2820 Alki SW), 6-9 pm … Josh Harty at Kenyon Hall (35th/Kenyon), 7:30 pm … Badlands, Rocket Surgery, The Last Great Cavalry at Skylark Café and Club (3803 Delridge Way SW), starting at 8 pm … Barbie Anaka at Salty’s (1936 Harbor SW), 8-10 pm …
In February 2011, much concern was expressed when KUOW reported on the Beloved Mexico food truck that has been a fixture next to West Seattle Produce, saying its owner Christian Guerrero had lost his day job, and the truck was struggling. Reporter Deborah Wang e-mailed us to let us know she followed up, and the story is airing on their station today – but you can listen to/read it here now. Things, she reports, are looking up.
(Click for larger image; photo by WSB’s Patrick Sand)
Congratulations to Holy Rosary School‘s fifty-six 2012 8th graders, who posed just before their graduation tonight. Thanks to David for the tip – we’ll admit we haven’t historically tracked middle-school ceremonies as consistently as high schools, and spot-checking school calendars, we see we’ve already missed a few (plus, not all middle schools have ceremonies). But we DO have all the high-school (and beyond) dates:
SEATTLE LUTHERAN HIGH SCHOOL: Friday (June 8), 7:30 pm, school gym
CHIEF SEALTH INTERNATIONAL HIGH SCHOOL: June 16, 1 pm, Memorial Stadium
WEST SEATTLE HIGH SCHOOL: June 16, 5 pm, Memorial Stadium
MIDDLE COLLEGE HIGH SCHOOL: June 18, 7 pm, Brockey Center at South Seattle Community College
Speaking of which, that’s West Seattle’s lone post-secondary school:
SOUTH SEATTLE COMMUNITY COLLEGE: June 19, 2:30 pm, Benaroya Hall
Thanks to Suzanne Krom for catching the photo of George Capestany (right) and son Brannden Nokes, as they walked through her neighborhood with goats Bama (with Brannden) and JJ. She learned, “George keeps them as pets and they earn their keep by eating blackberry vines and other invasive vegetation. It turns out that George uses them instead of using pesticides. He’s considering renting them out to others for this purpose. The goats are super-friendly and easy to walk. Very dog-like.”
Back on Sunday afternoon, we showed you the signs (photo left) that had just gone up after news of an hour-long overflow from the Barton Pump Station north of the Fauntleroy ferry dock. Tonight, King County Wastewater Treatment Division says health agencies have given the all-clear for the closed beaches to reopen. King County’s announcement late today adds: “The volume of overflow into Puget Sound was estimated at 46,000 gallons. Tidal conditions and water pressure contained a substantial amount of wastewater inside the outfall pipe, which enabled crews to use submersible pumps to capture and return a significant amount of wastewater back to the pump station so it could be conveyed to the West Point Treatment Plant in Seattle.” A two-year upgrade project that’s about to get under way at the pump station includes an emergency generator; recent preparation work had involved the power system in the area, but the county hasn’t yet said whether the Sunday failure – blamed on a “failure of the main breaker,” according to spokesperson Annie Kolb-Nelson – was related to that at all.
Just received from the White Center Food Bank, which serves part of West Seattle too:
Volunteers Needed ASAP!
We are currently in need of volunteers that are available for daytime distribution hours including Monday, Wednesday and Friday from 10 am until 1 pm. Duties include: set-up of the distribution line and assisting clients with food selections. Groups and individuals are welcome. If available, please contact Audrey Zemke our Volunteer & Resource Coordinator at 206-762-2848 or email her at audrey@whitecenterfoodbank.org. Thank you!
Also from SDOT – the weekly spring/summer roundup of big events around the city that just might affect traffic. In particular, Saturday afternoon in SODO will be crowded, so if you are NOT either going to the UW commencement at CenturyLink Field or the Mariners’ game next door, you will likely want to keep your distance. Here’s the full lineup, Friday-Sunday:Read More
The next round of Spokane Street Viaduct Widening Project-related closures has just arrived in e-mail from SDOT, including the weekend westbound closure they’ve already announced, plus other closures/changes AND a projected reopening date for the 1st Avenue South offramp from the eastbound SSV – read on!Read More
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