2015 ELECTION: Mapping the City Council District 1 vote
(Click image for zoomable view)
Though the City Council District 1 race isn’t officially settled yet, and won’t be until after the recount, now that the election is certified, precinct-by-precinct results are available, and that’s what you see in the map above. It was made by Ben Anderstone, a political consultant with Progressive Strategies NW, who granted our request for permission to republish it here. The tones are green for Shannon Braddock and red for Lisa Herbold, on a graded scale, so that the lightest of each is closest to the almost exactly 50-50 split that the election became on a raw numbers basis. In all, per the final results sheet from the county (page 45), 45 percent of the registered voters in District 1 – West Seattle and South Park – returned their ballots. That’s 27,757 ballots out of 60,991 registered voters; almost 10 percent of them – 2,714 of them did not include a vote in this particular race.
West Seattle holidays: Menashe Family Lights going up
The season of light is about to begin, and nowhere in West Seattle does it shine more brightly than in the 5600 block of Beach Drive SW, where the famous Menashe Family Christmas Lights display is going up.
After seeing the work in progress, we stopped briefly late this afternoon to find out when the lights officially go on. Josh Menashe told us this Sunday (November 29th) is the night.
The box where you can drop off letters to Santa, as you can see, is back – and you’ll find Santa himself visiting on Saturday night, December 12th, 6-10 pm – bring a nonperishable food donation for the West Seattle Food Bank.
P.S. This is featured in our West Seattle Holiday Guide along with our area’s two synched-to-music light shows.
Holiday giving: Sun shines on Lunches With Love volunteers
Chalk signs pointed the way when we stopped by to see how the pre-Thanksgiving “Lunches With Love” volunteers were doing this afternoon in South Park. Steps from that sign, a garage was already filling with an estimated 400 sack lunches:
Upstairs, in organizer Lashanna Williams‘s sun-splashed kitchen, the all-ages volunteer crew continued making sandwiches and filling bags to deliver around the Sound tonight:
This is the third year for this day and night of pre-holiday giving:
You can still help – lunch-making was scheduled to continue until 6 pm, and then delivery starts around 9 – see our preview for location and other info.
UPDATE: Full moon tonight, second ‘king tide’ today, & aftermath of the first one
(UPDATED with photo from Wednesday afternoon high tide)
(Tuesday night photo by David Hutchinson: Moonrise behind Columbia Center)
Tonight brings the official full moon – 4:50 pm moonrise (per the moon/sun times on the WSB West Seattle Weather page) – and about an hour and a half before that, another “king tide” at 3:22 pm, 12.2 feet, ALMOST as high as yesterday. Some north wind is in the forecast too. But as for whether we’ll see anything like this …
(Photo courtesy Liesbet)
… we’ll have to wait and see. We did stop by Alki this morning to see the aftermath of Tuesday’s wildness (here’s our video/photo gallery if you missed it):
That sand and driftwood at Statue of Liberty Plaza comprised most of what caught our eye, aside from a few puddles left on the promenade.
P.S. If you miss the king tides this month – next month brings three more, right around Christmas, and then there’s a round in mid-January with the highest of all. They’re all on this list.
ADDED WEDNESDAY EVENING: We did stop by the Alki promenade just after high tide, around 3:30. Some splashes, but nothing huge. Beautiful just the same:
Sunny again tomorrow, says the forecast; high tide will be at 4:04 pm.
West Seattle Wednesday: It’s all about the giving
(West Seattle Montessori & Academy [WSB sponsor] photo: What their students are thankful for)
On this day before Thanksgiving, you can give others a reason to be thankful too. From the WSB West Seattle Holiday Guide, two Thanksgiving Eve-specific reminders:
TURKEYS FOR WCFB: The White Center Food Bank (which also serves part of WS) needs more turkeys, and welcomes dropoffs until 7 pm tonight. (They’re OK on volunteer help, and grateful to everyone who responded to that part of the most-recent request.) Just take them over to the food bank at 10829 8th SW.
‘LUNCHES WITH LOVE’: This annual community-powered effort to feed hungry people could use your help in several ways – drop off lunch supplies, make some sack lunches and take them over, help make sack lunches at LWL’s home-based HQ, help take the lunches around the area tonight to people who need them. Details are in our preview from Monday.
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We’re spotlighting other giving opportunities throughout the holiday season – you’ll find them in our guide, which also has holiday-specific information you might find useful tomorrow, including:
-Grocery-store hours
-Where to get coffee
-Restaurants that plan to be open
… and what happens AFTER Thanksgiving, too, from light shows to Santa visits to parties, concerts, special shopping events, and beyond. (We continue to update daily, so please keep sending info on your holiday events – editor@westseattleblog.com – thanks!)
From the Gator-bots: Student researchers hope you’ll help again!
Just a few minutes of your time can help student researchers. Last year, you answered the Gator-bots’ call; here’s what they’re up to this time:
We are the Gator-bots, a Lego Robotics team from Holy Rosary in West Seattle. Last year the West Seattle Community was extremely helpful as we researched ways to share new Technology. This led the team to come up with a creative way to share information. We used this research as part of a project that was then presented at a competition in December.
This year our challenge is to do research on TRASH! Our project focus is to choose a piece of trash and identify a problem with the way it is currently handled. We are looking for problems with the way we make, transport, store, or turn trash into something new. Then find out what is being done to solve the problem.
West Seattle is a very progressive community so we are looking for something new. As a team we discussed opportunities we each have and decided that Food Scrap management may be an opportunity. We found out that New York City developed a profitable project to reduce food scraps that were dumped into the garbage and turn that into a profit by selling it as compost. This required a lot of community work and awareness.
Our Survey is developed to find out more about our community and get some thoughts from all of you.
Thank you in advance,
The Gator-bots
Start the survey here!
TRAFFIC/TRANSIT TODAY: Thanksgiving Eve Wednesday updates
(Six WS-relevant views; more cams on the WSB Traffic page)
7:38 AM: Cold but relatively calm out there. Transit reminders for tomorrow again: The West Seattle Water Taxi will be out of service both days; Metro buses will be on a Sunday schedule on Thanksgiving, “reduced weekday” on Friday; Sound Transit Route 560 will be on the “weekend” schedule on Thanksgiving, “weekday” on Friday; Washington State Ferries‘ Fauntleroy-Vashon-Southworth run, regular schedule.
ONE MORE FRIDAY REMINDER: The annual holiday parade in the morning and Westlake Center tree lighting in the evening bring street closures – details are in the SDOT weekend preview.
8:28 AM: And a reminder for today – school’s out one hour early (for the schools that are still in session – elementary/K-8 has been out all week for parent/teacher conferences) to get the four-day Thanksgiving break started.
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