West Seattle, Washington
07 Thursday
(Photo by Ann Anderson)
Where would we be without bees? Your favorite kid(s) can learn more about them at the West Seattle Bee Garden on Saturday, during the first-ever Kids Day presented by the Puget Sound Beekeepers Association! WSBG founder Lauren Englund shares the news:
Beekeepers from the Puget Sound Beekeepers Association are gearing up for the first PSBA Kids’ Day!
The day will begin with a story time hosted by the Seattle Public Library, followed by a variety of science activities. Kids will join a group and rotate through a live hive demonstration, scavenger hunt, and activity booths.
Booth themes will include Waggle Dance, Pollination Simulation, Bee and Flower Facts, Honey Tasting, Meet the Beekeepers, and Crafts.
Participation is free – we hope everyone can come join the fun! We recommend arriving a few minutes early to get assigned to your group before the Story Time begins. Registration/Sign-in will begin at 9:30 am. Parents/Chaperones, please plan to enjoy the event along with your attendees
Know if you can make it? Great! Please register here. Not sure? That’s ok. Walk-ins will be welcome too!
Registration helps them figure out how many kids to plan for, but again, it’s not mandatory. You can find out more about Kids’ Day on the WS Bee Garden’s website; if you’ve never been there before, here’s how/where to find it.
Great morning for a walk (-a-thon)! In this morning’s West Seattle Tuesday preview, we mentioned the first-ever Walk-A-Thon at The Kenney (WSB sponsor), raising money for its Resident Care Fund, which helps ensure that people living there don’t have to move if their lives outlast their assets. We stopped by around midway through, and were told about 50 residents and staffers already had joined in the walk around the west lawn of The Kenney’s landmark Seaview Building.
ORIGINAL REPORT, 12:07 PM: Just texted by Jeff Hogan of Killer Whale Tales: Orcas reported to be in Elliott Bay, headed toward Alki. On our way to look; please let us know if you see them!
1:26 PM UPDATE: We looked from Constellation Park, around Duwamish Head and beyond, no sightings, and we’ve heard nothing further; checked the Orca Network as well, and assuming this is the group of “transient” killer whales their readers spotted, they have no further sightings either, with speculation the whales might have gone into Kitsap waters. Could turn up later!
Depending on where you are in life, you might imagine the future as exciting, or worrisome, or a combination of both. If you tend toward the latter, you might take some reassurance in learning that plans are in the works for a “Village” in West Seattle. Even better, it’s so early in the planning stage that you can jump in and help make it something that you’ll look forward to being part of when the time comes. From the group working on it so far:
What is a Village?
A village is not a place – it is a plan for aging successfully in your own home. It is a membership-based organization with paid staff who act as a personal, central resource to coordinate access to services for you. These services can help you stay in your home as you age and could be provided by trained neighborhood volunteers, or you might be referred to a screened vendor/service provider for more complex needs and services. It could also include social and activity groups.
Services might include yard work, rides to the doctor or a friend’s house, housecleaning, companionship, pet care, painters, plumbers, grocery shopping, and educational and social events at nearby locations.
Your chance to commute via a battery-powered bus like that one is getting closer. At a media event today that otherwise was about its new electric trolley buses, Metro also had an update on the battery-powered-bus test that’s been on the way since a federal $4.7 million grant was announced five years ago:
… Over the next four to six months, Metro will take delivery of three 40-foot prototype heavy-duty battery-electric buses with fast-charging batteries, manufactured with a composite body by Proterra, Inc.
The new 38-seat buses can travel up to 23 miles between charges, and remain on the road up to 24 hours a day. Batteries take 10 minutes or less to charge. The prototype bus is expected to get 15 miles more from an equivalent unit of energy than a diesel-hybrid coach. A battery-charging station has already been set up at the Eastgate Park-and-Ride lot.
Metro will test the performance and efficiency of the new technology for up to a year on local streets and roads, to determine whether battery electric buses can be a future replacement option for Metro. The three prototypes will likely be tested on short routes serving the Eastside and downtown Seattle.
You can read today’s full announcement and see videos on this county webpage. The Proterra website says Metro is one of 10 agencies in 9 states that is, or will be, using its buses.
(Today’s sunrise from Seacrest, by Julia Phipps)
Happy Tuesday! From the WSB West Seattle Event Calendar:
KENNEY WALK-A-THON: Underway now, and continuing until 1 pm. Visit The Kenney (WSB sponsor) to support the first-ever walk-a-thon on its Seaview Lawn – northwest side of the campus – supporting its Resident Care Fund. Bid on silent-auction items, too! (7125 Fauntleroy Way SW)
OPEN-HIVE DEMONSTRATION: 11 am, be at the West Seattle Bee Garden to see what happens in the hive! (31st SW & Graham)
IS THIS ON YOUR SUMMER BUCKET LIST? Second-to-last Tuesday night this summer for Alki Kayak Tours & Mountain to Sound Outfitters‘ weekly paddle races/demos, 6-8 pm. (1660 Harbor SW)
MEET THE CITY’S NEW PARKS SUPERINTENDENT: Second West Seattle stop on Jesús Aguirre‘s “listening tour” is Neighborhood House‘s High Point Center, 6:30 pm tonight. (6400 Sylvan Way)
EVENING BOOK GROUP: High Point Library‘s monthly group gathers tonight, open to all, 6:30 pm, reading “Year of Wonders” by Geraldine Brooks. (35th SW & Raymond)
LIVE MUSIC: Tonight’s options on the calendar include the Tuesday Tuneup benefit at Salty’s on Alki (WSB sponsor), 6:30 pm, and Shadowland‘s Starlight singer/songwriter showcase, 9 pm.
Out of the WSB inbox this morning, from TW:
I discovered my car stolen from my apartment’s off-street parking last night near Westcrest Park. It’s a black 1996 Honda Accord, license plate ALM 8630, with some distinctive damage on the right rear end (corner dented above the tail light). Please let me know if you see it around anywhere; the last time a car got stolen, a WSB tipster led the police to it. Would be great if you guys could do the same again!
If you do see this or any other stolen vehicle, please call 911 first, and then an FYI here would indeed be great.
(Four WS-relevant views; more cams on the WSB Traffic page)
Good morning!
ROAD WORK ALERT FOR TODAY: The Seattle Public Utilities project near Westwood is scheduled to continue today, to “pave 22nd Avenue SW between SW Barton Place and SW Barton Street from 7:30 am until as late as 6 pm. This work will require intermittent lane restrictions on SW Barton Place where it intersects 22nd Avenue SW [map], and on SW Barton Street between 21st Avenue SW and 23rd Avenue SW.”
REMINDER – WEEKEND CLOSURES: First, you might see northbound Alaskan Way Viaduct backups while Highway 99 closes both ways from the Battery Street Tunnel north to Valley St. in lower Queen Anne next weekend, Friday night (August 21) to early Monday (August 24) – details and maps here. Here in West Seattle, Alki/Harbor Avenues will be closed next Sunday morning (August 23) for the Alki Beach 5K (9 am start, but the closure will kick in sooner, and watch for the no-parking signs, too).
It’s been a hot summer in Seattle, and the city-run wading pools have helped countless kids cool off. But their season is short, so we’re reminding you that three of West Seattle’s four wading pools will be closed after this week: The E.C. Hughes wading pool’s finale is Friday (August 21st); for Hiawatha, it’s Saturday (August 22nd); and for Delridge, it’s Sunday (August 23rd). Our area’s only seven-days-a-week wading pool, at Lincoln Park, is open daily until September 7th, which is also the last day of the year for Highland Park Spraypark and for outdoor Colman Pool. (See hours and addresses for all of the above by going here.)
Thanks to James Bratsanos for sharing tonight’s sunset view … still a month-plus of summer nights left, even as the sun makes its exit a little earlier each evening, already almost an hour earlier (8:18 pm tonight) than the latest summer sunset (9:11 pm on July 1st).
P.S. Check the sunset/sunrise and moonset/moonrise times on the WSB West Seattle Weather page, any time.
(Late-afternoon screengrab from WSDOT webcam)
Five months after parts of the Highway 99 tunnel machine were lifted out of its “access pit” along the Alaskan Way Viaduct, the state says its contractor reports they’re getting close to putting the repaired parts back in. From WSDOT’s update today:
Seattle Tunnel Partners has begun reconnecting the two largest pieces of the SR 99 tunneling machine’s front end. On Saturday, Aug. 15, crane crews from Mammoet lifted the machine’s bearing block into place atop the cutterhead and drive unit. The newly reconnected front end of the machine will remain at the surface while Hitachi Zosen installs its motors. When installation of the motors is complete, Mammoet will lower the 2,000-ton piece back into the pit. … STP’s most recent schedule indicated the lowering of pieces would begin in early August, but some parts had to be remanufactured due to tight tolerances – measured in millimeters – that need to be met as the machine is reassembled. Those new parts have since arrived and been successfully installed. … Once the machine is in the pit, crews will begin the lengthy task of reconnecting wires, hoses and other parts to the portion of the machine that remains in the ground. A series of tests will follow to ensure the machine is ready to resume mining.
So far, WSDOT says, its contractor still “has a plan in place to resume tunneling in late November as scheduled,” but it notes that it “cannot verify the contractor’s schedule.”
When last we checked with Chipotle to see if its West Seattle Junction opening date was set yet, the company was aiming for late August. After three people sent notes today asking for an update, we first checked the 4730 California SW storefront – it looks nearly done; the menu’s even up. So we contacted the Chipotle media team, who say it’s opening September 10th. Hours: 11 am to 10 pm daily.
One year after 38-year-old Admiral resident Duane Atwood‘s arrest, he has pleaded guilty and been sentenced in one of the two cases against him – indecent exposure and failure to register as a sex offender. Making a periodic check of the files, we discovered Atwood was sentenced last Friday. He pleaded guilty in connection with an incident in July of last year on Beach Drive near Cormorant Cove Park, in which he called out a question to a woman who was walking by his vehicle, then exposed himself when she approached to reply. The victim got his license-plate number, which eventually led investigators to Atwood. They subsequently discovered he had moved back to the area four years earlier without re-registering as a sex offender as he was required to do because of a 2000 conviction in another West Seattle case, an arson/burglary incident found to have been committed with sexual motivation.
Last Friday, Superior Court Judge Judith Ramseyer sentenced Atwood to one year for the indecent exposure/failure-to-register case, as recommended by the King County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office. Though he has already been in jail longer than that, he remains there because of an unrelated charge filed five months after his indecent-exposure arrest. We reported on that case last December, when he was charged with felony harassment, accused of repeatedly calling an acquaintance in the middle of the night in 2012 and 2013, progressing from sexual innuendo to threats of rape and murder. The online court docket says he was scheduled for trial in that case later this month, but the date’s been postponed to October.
Thanks to Barbara for the photo from the north-side beach at Lincoln Park – part of a big tree, apparently downed during last Friday’s storm.
She observes, “Must have been a mighty roar going down.” The final official rainfall total for Friday afternoon, by the way, was 1.2 inches.
The first day of classes for Seattle Public Schools is still weeks away, but hundreds of students are on site this week at many schools in West Seattle, for Kindergarten Jump Start. It’s a voluntary “weeklong experience for new kindergarteners and their families to learn about their new school.” Most participating schools will have half-day sessions all week, 9 am-noon. According to the district flyer, schools participating in our area are Alki, Arbor Heights (at Boren), Concord, Fairmount Park, Gatewood, Highland Park, Lafayette, Pathfinder, Roxhill, and Sanislo.
Two West Seattle Crime Watch reader reports this morning:
ANOTHER STOLEN VAN: Both vans stolen last week and reported here were spotted and returned to their owners; maybe you’ll be the one to find the van taken from Staci‘s home:
Our gray 2004 Toyota Sienna was stolen last night from the street in front of our house, 21st & Roxbury, between the hours of 12:00 am – 8:00 am. License plate 660 XPY.
If you see it, call 911.
MORE STOLEN PATIO FURNITURE: From a Highland Park resident:
My Pier 1 Bird cage hanging chair with a beautiful flower woven into the back was stolen with the turquoise cushion attached last night around midnight. My dogs barked and they chased something that I thought was a raccoon. It must have been the people stealing the chair. It was out of view and I didn’t check around because I thought they were chasing an animal and called them back in. My house is on the 9000 block of 13th Ave SW.
That’s the second stolen-patio-furniture report we’ve published in recent days. Meantime, as we finished this, we just got word of this theft:
STOLEN BOAT: From Marlo:
*Stolen boat out of Jack Block Park.*
We last used it three weeks ago. It’s a 22-foot Four Winds. We were headed out today to volunteer our boat for a family camp in Olympia to give tubbing rides to the kids when my husband noticed it was not there.
(Cedar waxwing, photographed Friday before the rain by Mark Wangerin)
Happy Monday! From the WSB West Seattle Event Calendar, and time-sensitive reminders:
WEST SEATTLE (ADMIRAL) LIBRARY CLOSURE: The 2-week closure at Seattle Public Library‘s West Seattle (Admiral) branch starts today, as the exterior accessibility improvements move to front-steps replacement. If that’s your regular branch, here’s what you can do in the meantime. (2306 42nd SW)
DEADLINE FOR JUNCTION PLAZA PARK ART PROJECT: Artists’ responses with qualifications are due today. Details in our original report.
PLAY GAMES! On today’s calendar at Meeples Games (new WSB sponsor) – “My Little Pony Academy 101” at 4 pm, “Android: Netrunner League” at 6:30 pm, and more. (3727 California SW, upstairs)
AFTERNOON BOOK GROUP: 2 pm today, check out this month’s afternoon book group at Southwest Library. They’ll be reading “Short Nights of the Shadow Catcher” by Timothy Egan. (35th SW & Henderson)
WSHS ATHLETE/PARENT MEETINGS FOR FALL SPORTS: First one is today, for football and girls’ swimming, 6 pm. If you missed the reminder we published earlier this month about all the meetings, here’s the full slate. (3000 California SW)
HIGHLAND PARK ELEMENTARY TOWN HALL: One year after a community conversation about how to lift up Highland Park Elementary whether you’re part of the school community or not, a “town hall” is scheduled tonight (here’s our preview from two weeks ago) to see how things are going. All welcome. 6:30 pm at the school library. (1012 SW Trenton)
FAMILY STORY TIME: 6:30 pm at High Point Library – bring kids of all ages. (35th SW & Raymond)
‘AFTER HOURS’ FINALE: The last episode in the cabaret-style series with ArtsWest artistic director Mathew Wright and “Seattle’s leading ladies” is tonight, 7:30 pm, this time featuring Katherine Strohmaier – check here for ticket availability. (4711 California SW)
QUIZ NIGHT: 7:30 pm at The Skylark – free, with cash prizes. (3803 Delridge Way SW)
SEE THE FUTURE: Preview tomorrow, the rest of the week, next week, next month, beyond … here.
(Four WS-relevant views; more cams on the WSB Traffic page)
Good morning! No West Seattle incidents right now, but if you use 14th Avenue S. in the South Park area, note that a house-fire response TheSouthParkNews.com coverage here is blocking at least part of the road, just south of the SP Bridge, between Cloverdale and Director.
ROAD WORK ALERTS FOR TODAY: As announced last week, the Seattle Public Utilities project near Westwood has repaving work scheduled starting today, to “pave 22nd Avenue SW between SW Barton Place and SW Barton Street on August 17-18, from 7:30 am until as late as 6 pm. This work will require intermittent lane restrictions on SW Barton Place where it intersects 22nd Avenue SW, and on SW Barton Street between 21st Avenue SW and 23rd Avenue SW.” SPU’s paving work on Orchard east of Delridge also is scheduled to continue today, with “closure of the westbound lane on SW Orchard Street (east of Delridge Way SW) between 7:30 am and 4 pm.”
6:45 AM: The closure zone in South Park has extended south to Concord to give vehicles more room to turn around, per scanner traffic.
LOOKING AHEAD – TWO CLOSURES TO REMEMBER: Highway 99 will be closed both ways from the Battery Street Tunnel north to Valley St. in lower Queen Anne next weekend, Friday night (August 21) to early Monday (August 24) – details and maps here. Also, Alki/Harbor Avenues will be closed for a few hours next Sunday morning (August 23) for the Alki Beach 5K.
7:27 AM: 14th Avenue S. has reopened in South Park. SFD is still at the fire scene but has moved off the arterial.
8:32 AM: Quiet commute so far, otherwise. We continue to monitor via a variety of sources – your tips are much appreciated (if on the road, of course, wait until you get where you’re going, unless you’re a passenger) – that’s how we first heard about this morning’s South Park fire, for example: 206-293-6302 is our 24/7 hotline, text or voice, for whatever’s happening *now*. Thank you!
You’ve probably seen those signs around Admiral and east Alki. They’re not for a political campaign – they’re for the citizen-advocacy campaign to get the Port of Seattle to change its mind about part of the process leading up to its planned modernization of Terminal 5; the web address on the signs points you to this online petition.
Though Terminal 5 has made headlines in the past several months for the short-term lease that brought in part of Shell’s Arctic-drilling fleet, this isn’t related to that. This has to do with the port’s long-term plan for the sprawling terminal in northeast West Seattle, as reported here more than a year ago – the plan to make it “big-ship ready,” as the phrase goes. Not that the ships that called at Terminal 5 until its closure a year ago weren’t big – but they weren’t as big as the ones that are expected to dominate the business in the years ahead.
Right now, the port says it doesn’t need a full environmental review for the proposal, because ultimately, it contends, the volume won’t be any larger – it’ll just come on bigger, and fewer, ships. Port reps defended that contention when they spoke at the West Seattle Transportation Coalition‘s meeting last month (WSB coverage here, including first mention of the neighbors’ petition campaign). Nearby residents cited multiple reasons why they believe a full environmental review – which includes issues such as traffic and noise, not just ecological effects – is warranted.
A new twist since that meeting: The city reopened the comment period on a certain part of the process – the “shoreline substantial development application” – because it lost a month’s worth of citizen comments sent in via the Department of Planning and Development‘s online system. DPD spokesperson Wendy Shark confirmed this to us when we inquired via e-mail:
An upgrade to the Land Use Information Bulletin (LUIB) application was made on June 29. Before the upgrade, comments sent via the link posted in the LUIB were forwarded directly to the Public Resource Center. That didn’t happen after the upgrade. The issue was brought to our attention by members of the public when they noticed that their comments had not been uploaded to our electronic library. We corrected the problem on July 29.
Here’s the revised official notice – if you used the form attached to the previous notice to send in a comment after June 29th, you’ll want to send it again. And if you haven’t commented on it yet, neighbors point out that unless there’s a turnabout on the environmental-impact review issue, it could be your only chance to comment on those impacts. The notice summarizes the project as:
Shoreline Substantial Development Application to allow improvements to existing container cargo facility (Terminal 5). Project includes removal and replacement of portions of pier structure, including crane rails, decking and piling, dredging of approximately 29,800 cu. yds. of sediment, and under pier shoreline stabilization. Project also includes installation of an electrical substation and utility upgrades. Determination of NonSignificance prepared by the Port of Seattle.
That last part is what the neighbors take most issue with – that’s the declaration (read it here, and read the “environmental checklist” here) that they don’t think a full environmental impact review is needed. Even if the terminal’s container volume is the same as before, or even less, many other factors have changed, they point out – population and traffic, for example, and that’s why they think a study is merited.
For now, September 4th is the new deadline for comments on the modernization project – via this form, or via e-mail at prc@seattle.gov.
(WSB photo from 2014 Alki Beach 5K)
Run with your family and friends – and/or bring them to be your cheering section! One week from today, you can run, or walk, in the Alki Beach 5K, which raises money for Northwest Hope and Healing to help cancer patients. More than a thousand people are expected to leave the finish line at 9 am next Sunday, August 23rd, on Alki Avenue near 61st SW, running (on the temporarily closed-to-vehicles road) to Anchor Park and back. You have until this Friday morning to register online and get the discount registration rate – do that here right now. (Kids under 6 are free.)
In a time of rapid growth and change – there is still room for, and ways to, preserve historic structures. That’s what David Rogers showed and told the Southwest Seattle Historical Society‘s two special gatherings this week – one at its Log House Museum, whose restoration he supervised, and one during a dinner gathering in The Junction. Missed them? SWSHS shares video of both – see the embedded highlights above, and also via its page about his visit. Rogers is proprietor of Logs & Timbers, LLC, in Rhododendron, Oregon, near Mount Hood. Some of his other projects include a historic cabin in the San Juans and a homestead cabin in a park near Ellensburg.
One more reminder (thanks to Forest for the suggestion): Today’s the last day the Admiral (officially “West Seattle”) branch of the Seattle Public Library will be open, until August 31st, including its book drop, so if you have something to drop off or pick up, get there before 5 pm today. While the library’s remained open during accessibility-improvement work so far, the 105-year-old branch has to close while the front steps are replaced. Here’s the info on how and where you can transact library business in the meantime.
In West Seattle Crime Watch this afternoon:
POLICE INVESTIGATE GUNFIRE REPORTS: Thanks to those who texted us (206-293-6302, any time) about possible gunfire heard in the past hour in the Roxhill/Westwood area, and then the ensuing police response. We found officers investigating at 27th/Roxbury; they had not yet found any evidence of gunfire, such as shell casings or property damage, nor were any victims reported, so far. Witnesses reported a red car might have been involved, and police are investigating that. We’re continuing to check back on what if anything they’re finding.
From the WSB inbox:
STOLEN CAR: From Margaret in Highland Park:
Our car was stolen out of our driveway last night some time between 10 pm and 8 am on 13th Ave SW between Trenton and Henderson. It is a purple 2014 Honda CR-V AWD. South Carolina license plate KIR 919. Police report has been filed this morning.
Please call 911 if you see it.
ATTEMPTED CAR THEFT: From Todd and Amy in Seaview:
We know we are late to report but someone tried to steal our 2002 Dodge minivan last Wednesday night/Thursday morning. It was parked in the alley between 41st & 42nd Ave SW and Graham (just north of Morgan Junction). I came out Thursday morning 8/13 to find the car had been ransacked, the ignition switch lying on the floor and a hole in the steering column.
Looks like the anti-theft device did its job. Apparently they didn’t want our old cassette tapes, CDs or wetones. Why they wanted an old mom van is beyond me. This little incident is going to cost over $1500 bucks to repair. I suspect since they couldn’t get our car started they went and got Ray’s van instead (which sounds like it wasn’t too far away from ours). A police report was filed Thursday morning.
STOLEN BIKE, FOUND BIKES In addition to filing a police report if your bicycle is stolen, please let us know – lately we are receiving an increasing amount of reports of bicycles discovered, abandoned, and while we are advising the finders to report police know, you might be able to get it back sooner if there’s a match here. So far this weekend, we have a report of a bike theft at an apartment building in the 3000 block of 63rd SW in Alki, with another bicycle, a black Schwinn, abandoned nearby and tagging found on a railing; also a Schwinn bicycle (color unspecified) abandoned behind a building at Delridge/Andover; and a blue Trek bike found in an unspecified area of West Seattle.
ADDED 2:41 PM – FOLLOWUP: Thanks to a reader for finding Ray‘s stolen van, reported in Crime Watch on Thursday night. She called 911 last night after reading the report here and connecting it to the van that had turned up on her street near Morgan Junction – and Ray confirms today that police contacted him last night to say it had been found. (The other stolen van in that CW roundup also was found, as updated there.)
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