day : 18/06/2017 4 results

The Alki Community Council met this week for the first time since last month’s deadly shooting.

(WSB photo by Christopher Boffoli, May 23)

No arrest yet, Southwest Precinct Lt. Ron Smith told the group on Thursday night.

Aside from that high-profile crime, the area’s main ongoing problems – like the rest of West Seattle – remain car prowls and auto thefts, both of which are up this year from the same time last year. “Crimes against persons,” such as assaults, are down 17 percent. Read More

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LIGHT RAIL: You’re invited to the West Seattle Transportation Coalition’s routing workshop Thursday

June 18, 2017 7:10 pm

| 37 COMMENTS

| Transportation | West Seattle news

While Sound Transit 3-funded light rail to West Seattle isn’t scheduled to open until 2030, project development of the route will be “initiated” later this year, according to ST’s newest timeline. That’s why the West Seattle Transportation Coalition is having a community-led workshop on Thursday, and circulating this invitation/reminder tonight:

Life sure gets busy, but you won’t want to miss the West Seattle Transportation Coalition Light Rail Station Routing Workshop this Thursday, June 22, 2017 at the Hall At Fauntleroy, 9131 California Ave SW, from 6 pm to 9 pm.

Here’s the meeting agenda so you can be thinking about what you want to comment on:

6:00 – Welcome – Michael Taylor-Judd

6:30 – Introduction and Background – Thomas Linde

7:30 – Breakout Tables
1 – Delridge Station
2 – Avalon/35th Ave SW Station
3 – Junction Station
4 – Route Maps and Bird’s Eye Views
5 – “The Kitchen Sink”

8:30 – Report Out and Next Steps

9:00 – Conclusion

Our aims for this community-led workshop include sharing information about light rail costs, options and impacts as well as identifying where the community and neighborhoods want light rail to be routed to best serve West Seattle. There will be light refreshments, a Children’s Coloring Corner, and Sound Transit and King County Metro will have a table with local information.

We’ll have several different ways for you to give your comments. After the workshop, WSTC will assemble all the results into a formal document and present it to Sound Transit, the King County and Seattle City Councils, the Seattle Department of Transportation, and local stakeholders, and urge incorporation with ST3 plans.

P.S. While Sound Transit will not be presenting at this event – they’ll be there to observe – they did give a presentation at last month’s WSTC meeting. We weren’t able to cover it, but we did follow up with ST spokesperson Kimberly Reason, who described it as “a very high-level presentation to WSTC that focused on system expansion and the implementation plan. We were sure to be clear that we haven’t started project development yet; the focus was to educate them on our process for moving forward.” We asked for the slide deck with those points – you can see it here (PDF) or below:

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FOR OUR WILDLIFE: Clean up Alki Beach with Seal Sitters and friends next Saturday

June 18, 2017 6:04 pm

| 6 COMMENTS

| Environment | How to help | West Seattle beaches | West Seattle news | Wildlife

(Photo by Robin Lindsey)

As this weekend winds down, here’s a plan you can make for the start of next weekend: Lend a couple hours next Saturday morning to help Seal Sitters keep Alki Beach wildlife from being harmed by trash. Here’s the announcement:

Let’s clean up our act! Join Seal Sitters Marine Mammal Stranding Network and co-sponsor Sno-King Marine Mammal Response on Saturday, June 24th, as we clean up Alki Beach and surrounding sidewalks and streets to help reduce the impact humans have on our fragile marine ecosystem and save wildlife (photo is a typical early morning scene at Alki during warmer months). Trash on the beach becomes treacherous in the water. The “Sentinels of the Sound” cleanup is from 9:30-noon with assembly at the Statue of Liberty Plaza (Alki Avenue SW and 61st Ave SW).

All marine life is endangered by marine debris and plastics pollution. Many, many thousands of marine animals and sea birds are injured and die each year from derelict fishing gear, marine debris, and pollution. They are entangled and drowned by nets and gear – strangled and contaminated by plastics.

Harbor seals (who do not migrate and are year-round residents) and resident Puget Sound orcas, both animals at the top of the food chain, are especially hard hit by pollutants from storm runoff and plastics that break down into microscopic particles and enter the food chain. These deadly toxins are then stored in the blubber of marine mammals and passed on in mothers’ milk to nursing young.

You can truly make a difference for wildlife. Come on down and grab a bucket and pair of “pluckers” (if you have your own, please bring them). RSVP is requested – e-mail sealsitters.outreach@msn.com – to ensure there are enough materials on hand. If you can’t attend on Saturday, you can make every trip to the beach a personal cleanup day by taking a bag and gloves along with you to pick up and dispose of trash. Every little bit helps!

Please visit Seal Sitters’ website to learn more, in-depth, about the dangers of marine debris and pollution.

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Thanks for your patience! Tech work update

June 18, 2017 4:49 pm

| 4 COMMENTS

| West Seattle news | West Seattle online

Thank you so much for your patience. We’ll be starting to publish new stories again, now that our technical project is complete. For the first time in almost nine years, we have moved server companies, to address various issues that have worsened in recent months and weren’t being resolved. If you’re seeing this message, you’re seeing WSB at its new “home”; most ISPs take just a few hours to recognize such changes for websites, but some take longer, so if for example you check WSB at work tomorrow and don’t see updates beyond a “site note” post timestamped this morning, that’s what’s going on. Or if you see any other type of problem on the site right now, please let us know – we’ve tested and tweaked but you might notice something we didn’t – editor@westseattleblog.com – also try clearing your browser cache/history if you can (or refresh the page while holding down the shift or control key, depending on your browser). Thank you, and now on with the news (it’s been a quiet day so far in West Seattle, we’re happy to say).