West Seattle, Washington
25 Thursday
A first-of-its-kind event is happening next Wednesday at West Seattle Office Junction (WSB sponsor): It’s an orientation/networking meetup for the Women’s Business Incubator, described as “a nonprofit business center for women starting locally focused businesses and for local women business leaders, with the goal to offer micro-loans, nurture leaders, connect with mentors, training and business services for women-led small business owners, professional office space, business services and start-up assistance; as well as quality drop-in child-care services for infants thru pre-K.” Those services are available for the 7-8:30 pm Wednesday (October 28th) meeting, if you need to bring along one or two children, plus there’s a small admission charge; see the ticket options here and sign up ASAP. The Office Junction is at 6040 California SW.
(WSB photo from the first Harvest Festival in 2012)
You ARE going to the fourth annual West Seattle Junction Harvest Festival on Sunday, we hope? It’s not just kid stuff. Everybody’s welcome to join the costume parade, vote in the chili contest, shop the Farmers’ Market … the festival is about 37 hours away (not that we’re counting)! Here are your essential festival facts. First, the schedule:
*Early morning-late afternoon: California closed between Oregon and Edmunds, Alaska closed between 44th and 42nd
*10 am-2 pm: Farmers’ Market
*10 am-2 pm: Harvest activities (most booths south of Alaska)
*11 am: Chili competition (fundraiser for West Seattle Food Bank, buy your “flight” – which entitles you to vote – at SW corner of California/Alaska)
*11:30 am: Costume parade from Junction Plaza Park (42nd/Alaska), led by West Seattle High School Marching Band, directed by Ethan Thomas
*Noon: Trick-or-treating at Junction businesses
Next, some of the activities (all free), presented at booths on and south of Alaska:
*Putt-putt golf – West Seattle Eagles
*Spooky tree photo-op – West Seattle Nursery
*Giant Tic-Tac-Toe and hay bales to play in – Hotwire Online Coffeehouse and EQ Fitness
*Cotton-candy maker – Eastridge Church
*Origami and puppies – West Seattle See Dogs
*Scary-face photo ops – WSB
And now, from the festival-presenting West Seattle Junction Association:
Full list of activity providers: Alki Art Fair, Bitter Cherry Tree, City Mouse Store, Cupcake Royale, Dream Dinners, Eastridge Church, Emerald Water Anglers, Endolyne Children’s Choir, Fraternal Order of Eagles, Holy Rosary School, Hotwire Coffee and EQ Fitness, Infinite B Canvas Creations, Pagliacci Pizza, PCC Natural Foods, School of Rock, Snooter Doots, SSC Coop Preschools, St. John the Baptist Episcopal Church, The Little Gym of West Seattle, The Office Junction, West Seattle Art Nest, West Seattle Blog, West Seattle Calvary Chapel, West Seattle Hi-Yu, West Seattle Kiwanis, West Seattle Nursery, West Seattle See Dogs, WestSide Baby, Westside School
And thank you, sponsors, for helping to produce this event: Bakery Nouveau, West Seattle Blog, Westside School, Curious Kidstuff, Pagliacci, Eastridge Church, Easy Street Records, Elliott Bay Brewery, Swanson & Seepersad Chiropractic & Massage Therapy, WestSide Baby
Forecast so far – cloudy but dry. See you in The Junction on Sunday!
(:15 of Instagram video looking north on 35th toward Trenton, recorded 6:20 pm tonight)
More than a month after SDOT rechannelized 35th SW south of Upper Morgan, work on the full plan finalized in July is “essentially done,” project manager Jim Curtin tells WSB. We checked in with him today because the topic came up at last night’s West Seattle Transportation Coalition meeting, with a short discussion of the signal timing in the rechannelization zone. Curtin says they are “still doing some fine tuning of the signal timing,” adding, “We actually had a signal malfunction at Trenton a few weeks ago, which threw us off schedule a bit. We have a temporary fix in place with a permanent repair scheduled to be completed in the next few days. We will continue to tweak the signal timing until it’s ‘dialed in’.” He says there’s one other issue remaining: “We’re also having some trouble getting a few folks to comply with the new parking restrictions for the short segment of BAT lane at Holden. We’ll make another attempt to reach these folks on Monday morning. We’ve knocked on doors and sent three letters to no avail. This time we’ll leave a note on their windshield.” Curtin says he is out on 35th daily – as he has noted publicly many times, he lives in Arbor Heights – and that a new round of data has been ordered, so that SDOT can “provide another update before the end of the year.”
Checking what’s new in the city’s online permit files, we happened onto a new proposal for a familiar address: 4439 41st SW in The Junction.
Last year, a proposal to replace its single-family house with a 40-unit, 5-offstreet-parking-space apartment building drew neighborhood concern, which led to a special city meeting for comments on the project in May 2014. DPD records indicate that reviews for the apartment-building project continued into the early part of this year – and then the activity stopped.
Now there are two new early-stage land-use applications shown for the address, one for a “lot boundary adjustment” – the site currently consists of three lots zoned Lowrise 2 – and another for a four-unit rowhouse building facing 41st, with four offstreet parking spaces off the alley to the west.
This is the third proposal in three years for the site; the 40-apartment plan had been preceded by one proposing eight townhouses.
(WSB photo from October 14th)
Just in – the new start date for the sidewalk work coming up along the west side of California SW, south of Fauntleroy Way SW, in a community-requested Neighborhood Park and Street Fund project:
SDOT crews plan to start work on Thursday, November 5th. We will start near Starbucks and work our way south. To minimize disruptions, we will only remove as much sidewalk as we can fully replace within four business days.
The announcement continues ahead: Read More
This week’s quarterly Morgan Community Association meeting was so wide-ranging (as usual), we’re breaking it into two reports. This first one is something you’ll be hearing more about soon:
(WSB file photo)
You might recognize that mural from the back of the commercial building on the southwest corner of California and Fauntleroy. Dan Austin, who owns one of the businesses in that building – Peel and Press – told MoCA on Wednesday night that he’s leading a project to save the mural, painted by Bruce Rickett a quarter-century ago, as mentioned in this 1990 Seattle Times story. And “save” is the word, not just “restore” – Austin said it’s falling apart, and one more winter of rain/wind against the west-facing mural – which depicts the mid-1920s Morgan Street Market – might just peel some of it away.
He told MoCA he’s consulted with Peter Malarkey, who – as we showed you last month – recently restored the mural inside the Colman Pool building. Austin said there’s “a game plan” that he’ll be presenting to various civic organizations. He said that if this works, he would hope it would lead to a “blueprint” for action that could be shared with others in West Seattle to maybe get more of the local murals restored, especially the ones in The Junction.
The first sum of money that would be needed, $2,500, would stabilize the mural to get through the winter. From there, Austin said, there’ll be various price points for various stages of saving the mural, with the total restoration cost around $35,000. And yes, he confirmed, he’s talking to other tenants, including the building’s biggest one, Starbucks.
After Austin spoke, MoCA passed a motion in support of the project and lauded him for taking it on.
Coming up in report #2, more from the meeting, which had begun with an SPD update on the local arsons, as the most-recent one had happened in Morgan; we quickly added video of the briefing to what was at the time our most recent followup.
(Bottle from the briny deep, photographed at Seacrest by Laura Goodrich, shared via WSB Flickr group)
First – plan ahead for Halloween-season activities today through November 1st, by checking out the WSB West Seattle Halloween 2015 Guide, full of events like these four that are happening tonight:
HAUNTED HOUSE: 6-7:45 pm at High Point Community Center, built by teen-program participants, with the $2 admission benefiting their program. (6920 34th SW)
SPOOKY SCIENCE! At the West Seattle YMCA (WSB sponsor), members and non-members welcome, 6:30-8 pm. Details in our listing. (36th SW & SW Snoqualmie)
CARNIVAL: Halloween Carnival at Alki Community Center, 6:30-8:30 pm. $.25 per game or $7 per unlimited bracelet. (5817 SW Stevens)
DESSERT-THEATER CABARET: The Cabiri in “Ghost Game IX: Dead Gods” at Youngstown Cultural Arts Center, 8 pm. Tickets and details here. (4408 Delridge Way SW)
Other general calendar highlights for the rest of today/tonight:
SKI/SNOWBOARD SWAP DROPOFF: Something to sell at this weekend’s swap? Drop it off before 6 pm today at the VFW Hall. (3601 SW Alaska)
MONSTER DASH-ING TOMORROW? Pick up your packet (or register!) today at West Seattle Runner (WSB sponsor), 3-7 pm. (2743 California SW)
LIVE ‘AMERICANA’ MUSIC: Triple bill, 9 pm tonight at The Skylark. (3803 Delridge Way SW)
Though we couldn’t make it to Wednesday’s Seattle Public Schools Board meeting in person, two issues of concern we’ve covered recently were on the agenda, so we’ve reviewed the archived video to see how the discussion went.
Those items and our most-recent coverage:
*“Bell-time” (school start/end) changes, revised
*Boundary changes (with an eleventh-hour change in West Seattle)
First: Both were “introduction items,” so neither was voted on – the votes are planned at the next School Board meeting, Wednesday, November 4th. But the board members’ comments during this meeting might give some hint of how the votes will go; they didn’t voice major concerns or opposition, though both were topics of public comment during that portion of the meeting (58 minutes into this clip).
BELL TIMES: Discussion began at 52 minutes into the video clip above. It was acknowledged that the “tier” times for next year will be 10 minutes later, so that’s why “Tier 3” (latest-start) schools – including Lafayette and STEM K-8 in West Seattle – will be starting at 9:40. (The new times, in addition to being featured in our previous coverage, are on the last page of the documents for this agenda item.) Board member Sue Peters said she’s a Tier 3 parent and she wondered if there might be someway to roll the times back even “five minutes or so.” It was also noted that in two years, the district is scheduled to go to a longer school day – so, might a two-tier system be possible then? Assistant superintendent for operations Pegi McEvoy said they’ll “be looking at it.”
BOUNDARIES: The discussion began just after 2 hours, 3 minutes into the video above; the agenda documents are here. Enrollment planning director Ashley Davies reminded board members that the boundary changes were originally approved in 2013 – with one exception, what’s known as “Area 53” in West Seattle is now going to move from the West Seattle Elementary zone to the Roxhill Elementary zone starting next year, instead of going to the Arbor Heights zone. She noted that fewer than 10 students currently live in that area. West Seattle/South Park’s board member Marty McLaren summarized concerns voiced at last Monday’s meeting at EC Hughes – to which Roxhill is expected to be moved once Hughes is renovated/expanded – describing it as “a strong amount of resistance,” bringing “angst” to WS Elementary in particular. Board member Peters asked about the plan for Roxhill once Hughes is reopened. That hasn’t been finalized, Davies said, but she characterized Hughes as “much larger” than Roxhill, saying that after the upgrades, it’s “going to be a much better environment for teaching and learning.” She also reiterated that Hughes isn’t expected to reopen before 2018. McLaren conveyed that some in the Roxhill community would rather see their school renovated so, she said, “just be aware it’s a continuing point of interest.”
SOMETHING TO SAY? The school board’s feedback address is schoolboard@seattleschools.org.
If you hadn’t noticed its ghostly debut on the WSB navigation bar (or, the inside-pages list on your phone) Thursday – we’re calling your attention to the West Seattle Halloween 2015 page, now live, three dozen events so far. They’re not all on Halloween – it’s a two-weekend extravaganza again this year. Carnivals and other kid stuff, bar parties, business-district trick-or-treating … all in one place. Most of the events were already on the WSB West Seattle Event Calendar, but we make a special page for easy reference/sharing. Something missing? Please send it ASAP – editor@westseattleblog.com – thanks!
(Four WS-relevant views; more cams on the WSB Traffic page)
7:05 AM: One incident of note as we start this morning’s traffic watch – a stalled vehicle partly blocking one lane on northbound I-5 near Seneca St. No outbound incidents otherwise, so far.
On the transit front, we have had two Metro trip cancellations announced via alerts/tweets so far – this one just in:
Transit Alert – Rt 55 to downtown Seattle due to leave California Av SW & SW Atlantic St at 7:43 AM has been canceled.
— King County Metro (@kcmetrobus) October 23, 2015
And also the Route 56 cancellation for 6:29 am, announced with just a few minutes of lead time. Last night, we published our story about Metro’s driver shortage, which it hopes will be alleviated soon.
7:09 AM: Quick resolution to the I-5 stall – the vehicle has moved on.
WEEKEND ROAD-WORK ALERTS: Two you should know about – first, the Fauntleroy end of the bridge will have one lane closed each way starting sometime tonight, for repairs, as announced here. Second, the 5-way intersection just west of the low bridge will be getting safety improvements this weekend and next, as announced here.
7:14 AM: If you’re heading toward the 1st Avenue S. Bridge – WSDOT reports a crash in the left lane of NB Highway 509 just north of Cloverdale.
ANOTHER WEEKEND ALERT – HARVEST FESTIVAL ON SUNDAY: By now, after four months, you’re used to the West Seattle Farmers’ Market closing California SW between Oregon and Alaska from 10 am-2 pm on Sundays. But this Sunday is different: The Junction street closures will be expanded for the annual Harvest Festival (as they have been for the past three years, resembling the Summer Fest footprint, including Alaska between 42nd and 44th and California south of Alaska), with “harvest activities” (including other businesses and nonprofits) 10 am-2 pm, the chili competition on the southwest corner of California/Alaska at 11 am, the costume parade from Junction Plaza Park (SW corner of 42nd SW & SW Alaska) at 11:30 am, and business trick-or-treating at noon. See you there!
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