West Seattle, Washington
23 Saturday
38 weeks now since the Friday night announcement that King County had its first case of COVID-19 – now, we’re dealing with a surge, and here’s the latest:
NEWEST KING COUNTY NUMBERS: From the Public Health daily summary:
*37,435 people have tested positive, 638 more than yesterday’s total
*835 people have died, 1 more than yesterday’s total
*2,914 people have been hospitalized, 13 more than yesterday’s total
*612,290 people have been tested, 4.135 more than yesterday’s total
One week ago, those totals were 33.368/828/2,791/587,735.
STATEWIDE NUMBERS: See them here.
WORLDWIDE NUMBERS: 57.5 million cases, 1,372,000+ deaths – see the nation-by-nation numbers here.
IF YOU’RE STILL PLANNING A HOLIDAY GATHERING: Please don’t, local and state authorities said again today. King County’s public-health officer Dr. Jeff Duchin held a media briefing and outlined various troubling trends, including a current positivity rate of tests around 7 percent (South/Southeast King County are the major hot spots). Current COVID-19 hospitalizations are more than twice what they were earlier this fall. Overall, Dr. Duchin said, “There’s way too much contact going on in every area of our lives.” Watch his briefing here.
FINANCIAL HELP Gov. Inslee had a briefing today too. He announced more financial relief in the works:
$70 million in business support grants.
$30 million for the recovery loan program.
$20 million for rental assistance.
$15 million for energy bills for low-income households.
In the Q&A, he was grilled again about the newest business restrictions. He insisted that the state is “on fire” with the virus and as a result “it’s beyond risky to be in a restaurant right now,” among other places. You can watch his briefing here.
REOPENINGS: After weeklong COVID-related closures, Supreme and Ma’ono in The Junction (which share owners) reopened tonight.
SPEND LOCAL: Another tool to help you do that was launched today by the city – Shop Your Block.
FREE CHILD CARE: The city is making it available to income-eligible families through year’s end.
NEED FOOD? Three one-time pre-holiday distributions are happening in West Seattle tomorrow.
GOT INFO OR PHOTOS? westseattleblog@gmail.com or text/voice 206-293-6302 – thank you!
(SDOT photo)
The Delridge road-work crews that are paving the way for RapidRide H Line will take next Thursday/Friday off for the holiday, but otherwise it’s full speed ahead through fall and winter. More closures are ahead, SDOT says – from the weekly update, the status of side streets:
Side street closures on the east side of Delridge Way SW during demolition and paving
Currently closed (timing is weather-dependent and may change):
SW Alaska St (reopening date not yet determined; thank you for your patience)
SW Hudson St (through the end of November)
23rd Ave SW (through the end of November)
Puget Blvd SW near the Delridge P-Patch Community Gardens (through the end of roadway paving)Closing soon (timing is weather dependent and subject to change)
SW Brandon St (closed when SW Hudson reopens)
SW Willow St (closed when 23rd Ave SW reopens)
SW Thistle St (beginning of December)
Paving between Edmunds and Hudson may move to an additional lane as soon as tomorrow. Then next week, paving will start between Hudson and Puget. The full update for the week ahead is here.
One more reminder – tomorrow brings three chances for you to get holiday food at no charge if you need it:
EASTRIDGE CHURCH’S TURKEYS-AND-GROCERIES EVENT: Starting at 9 am Saturday, outside the church at 39th/Oregon, Eastridge’s annual distribution of turkeys and groceries, drive-up-style. They have hundreds to distribute (plus gloves, while they last) and ask people not to arrive early so as not to jam traffic in the area; please approach the church headed northbound on 39th. No-contact – pop your trunk – but keep your mask on, please.
FROM THE WEST SEATTLE FOOD BANK: In addition to what they’re doing at the food bank, they also have a special distribution on Saturday.
The West Seattle Food Bank, partnering with South Seattle College, will have a drive-thru distribution Saturday, November 21st at 10 am at South Seattle College, North Lot #1, 6000 16th Ave SW. Each family can receive a turkey along with a box of fresh produce and dairy. Everyone must wear masks and remain in their car.
Open to all, not just people who are ongoing WSFB clients.
GREATER SEATTLE FIL-AM SDA CHURCH’S HOLIDAY MEAL BOXES: The church at 2620 SW Kenyon has been doing periodic food distribution and on Saturday, starting at 2 pm, they will have 50 boxes to give out, with turkey, potatoes, stuffing, brownie mix, and fruit.
(WSB photo, October 15)
We’ve been watching court records for a month, and charges were finally filed this week against Matthew A. Hazelbrook, the man arrested after hundreds of neglected or dead animals were found at his Delridge home. (Our original coverage is here and here.) Hazelbrook, 54, is charged with 17 counts of animal cruelty. From the charging documents:
The defendant often travels out of State and has kept properties in other jurisdictions. The defendant was in possession of at least 211 live animals of different species on two adjacent properties that were living in deplorable conditions-ammonia, feces, lack of food, lack of water, lack of space; and there were deceased animals in cages, on the ground, and in cages with live animals. The animals were suffering from medical conditions that were being untreated. In addition to the various animals that were located as deceased on scene, at least seven animals have died since being seized due to the defendant’s neglect. The defendant poses a risk for acquiring and neglecting more animals as he runs a transport business across state lines, is involved in 4H groups, has unknown properties, and the condition of this property and the animals likely developed over a significant period of time going unnoticed and unreported. Hoarding situations such as this are complex and the defendants are prone to recidivism.
The charging documents say that the mid-October search warrant that led to Hazelbrook’s arrest followed a complaint about dead animals on the property two months earlier. Investigators say they found more than 100 dead animals and 222 live animals, most with no access to food, more than half with no access to water – 128 guinea pigs, 77 rabbits, 7 chickens, 3 guinea fowl, 3 dogs, 2 chinchillas, and 2 mice. More than half the impounded animals needed some kind of medical care, investigators say. The 17 charges are based on the number of animals assessed as being in “critical” condition, some of which did not survive.
(Seattle Animal Shelter photo from last month – one of the rescued animals)
Hazelbrook has been out of custody since posting bond on $7,500 bail one day after his arrest in mid-October. He is scheduled for arraignment – to enter initial pleas to the charges – next Wednesday (November 25th). The documents note that his only conviction record is for third-degree theft 33 years ago.
Spend local! We’re continuing to get West Seattle businesses’ updates in the wake of this week’s statewide rule changes, and we’re sharing them along with updating our ongoing lists. Here are three more:
CLICK! DESIGN THAT FITS (4540 California SW): From this longtime WSB sponsor:
We’re open with lots of options on how to get your Click! fix.
Visit our brick and mortar shop in the heart of West Seattle’s Junction. We’re open 6 days a week, our regular hours will be updated at this link throughout the holiday season. Our capacity is 4 customers in-store at a time with a 20 min limit. If we’re at capacity a crew member will ask that you wait to enter. Face masks are required and we have a number of sanitizing stations throughout the store. Please mind the floor markers to keep distance from others.
We’re also are open for Private Shopping Appointments (in-store or virtual) during the afternoons + evenings on Tuesdays and Sundays. Learn more and book your appointment here.
Our Gift Helper Service is the perfect non-scheduled (and discreet) way to get personalized gift suggestions sent straight to your inbox! Just fill out this form and we’ll be back to you shortly.
Most of the shop is also online – click though our virtual Click! (ha!) by exploring current window displays and featured collections from the home page or perusing categories in the menu bar above. All web orders over $75 ship free within the US and we’re taking the show on the (local) road with free West Seattle delivery on orders over $50!
HEAD TO TOE: From the day spa in The Admiral District:
Head To Toe Day Spa is open for services as well as retail & gift certificate purchase. We encourage anyone wishing to purchase products or a gift certificate to call & pay in advance so we can have their order ready for curbside pickup. We also accept retail & gift-certificate orders through our website which can then be mailed or picked up. Appointments can also be requested online.
When we reopened in June after a three-month closure, we took extensive measures to ensure the safety of all guests & staff including:
Reducing spa capacity for staff & guests
Mandatory hand sanitization & temperature check for anyone entering the spa. Masks required at all times.
Mandatory sanitization in treatment rooms between all services as well as hourly spa wide sanitization.
HIPPA air filters & LED sanitizers in all rooms.
We encourage bi weekly COVID testing for all staff (no staff members have tested positive since March).
All service providers wear KN95 masks as well as face shields during all services.
Where possible all cloth surfaces have been removed or covered & single-use products are used whenever possible.
We will soon have an outdoor open air cabana with space heaters for guests to wait under to ensure social distancing in our lobby.We care deeply about our spa guests, each other, and our families & friends. We will continue to do all that we can to support this amazing West Seattle Community we call home.
For appointments
M-F 8:30 am-7:30 pm
SAT 8:30 am-5:30 pm
SUN 10:30 am-6:30 pmFor retail
10:30 am– 5:00 pm Daily
SEATTLE DIVE TOURS (4217 SW Admiral Way): Not just tours!
Offering scuba-diving tours, training, and travel.
Small retail shop/training space. What we don’t have in store – we can get from our vendors including Aqualung, Diving Unlimited, Light and Motion.
Owned and based in West Seattle. PADI 100% AWARE, Green Star Dive Resort. Member of 1% for the PlanetOffering:
Curbside service
West Seattle Delivery
Discount Code for online store and booking system ‘WSI’ – 10% off any item for West Seattle residents
We’ve also added a specific ticket on our booking system for new divers to complete their Open Water E-learning and Pool work with us here and you can do your Open Water check-out dives in your warm-water location.
Got a business update? westseattleblog@gmail.com – thank you!
(Rendering by Atelier Drome Architecture)
The Southwest Design Review Board voted last night to give its final approval to the 115-apartment proposal for 3417 Harbor SW, just north of the west end of the West Seattle Bridge. All five board members were there for the online meeting – eight and a half months after the first review at the board’s last in-person meeting – along with the city’s assigned planner Crystal Torres and architect Michelle Linden from Atelier Drome Architecture. Board members agreed that the architects had done a good job of followup on the recommendations from the first meeting. Most of the board thought the east side facing Harbor could use more balconies. Linden said that the current design reflects SDOT‘s rules on how to use space above streets, but she would see if it is possible to add balconies.The board also wanted the architect to rethink the materials for the southeast-entrance area. Public comment came from neighbors on 30th behind the building. One said they appreciated meeting with the developer and architects, but the building just isn’t in keeping with the overall character of the neighborhood. The others also said the building wasn’t what they thought should be in the space, again because it is out of character. Design Review boards, however, only have say over the design (see the meeting packet here), not veto power over projects. You can still comment on other aspects of the proposal, though, through the planner – email crystal.torres@seattle.gov – as it continues to go through other reviews for land-use and construction permitting.
(Photo from past, in-person OLG Ethical Trade Sale)
In pre-pandemic years, we’d have a long list of local holiday bazaars/one-time sales, where you could do some of your gift shopping while supporting artisans/makers both local and global. This year, some have canceled, but others have gone online, like Our Lady of Guadalupe‘s Ethical Trade Sale, happening right now:
Ethical Trade Sale: Get Your Chocolate Advent Calendar, Gifts, and Coffee Today!
Our Lady of Guadalupe’s annual Ethical Trade Sale is online this year! Many of the artisans, farmers, and communities we support through the sale are struggling this year as COVID spreads and sales slow. Through our virtual sale, you’ll find a large variety of unique, quality gifts, AND 20% of sales come back to OLG! Win, win, win! Simply shop through our custom parish page. Bonus, you can get a $10 gift card on 11/21-22 (code: SEGC20). This year, we are also selling Pura Vida coffee. Pura Vida has been VERY generous every year, donating 100% of sales (sometimes even more!). Their business is struggling with COVID and now we can return the generosity. To order their delicious ground or whole bean coffee, contact Erin at erinpedras@centurylink.net by November 30. We’ll have coffee ready to pick up at OLG on December 12 from 11 am-3 pm. Interested in products from our other annual vendors? Visit our website for their links!
Is your bazaar/fundraising sale/other holiday event happening online this year? westseattleblog@gmail.com – thanks!
Family and friends have said goodbye to Rick Ream – and are sharing what he wanted you to know:
N. Richard “Rick” Ream
August 1, 1955 – November 13, 2020N. Richard Ream made his exit on Friday the 13th. He wanted to pass along the following:
As a longtime reader, first-time contributor to these pages, I struggled on where to start. Knowing you are dying should make it easier to write an obituary… and yet. Way back in June of 2010, I was diagnosed with kidney cancer, which presented a sizable but not insurmountable hurdle to the best-laid plans. It went into remission, but before I was able to get a good look in the rear-view mirror, the cancer came back in my lungs. The official diagnosis of metastatic stage four renal cancer and a fresh wave of “science experiments” (avenues of treatment to control but not reverse the spread) slowed but didn’t stop me. I probably should have revisited my obituary, but after retiring from Boeing on April Fool’s Day after 32 years, I found myself with too much to do to bother with that. I threw myself back into house projects, restoring classic cars, and the celebration of the marriage of my only daughter with not one but two ceremonies and lots of family and friends. Despite my own health battles, I visited my father five times a week at the nursing facility he resided at for two years until his passing.
Safe to say, putting off the inevitable has never been a problem. As a jack of all trades, master of none, I enjoy helping out my large extended family with their own projects. I was born on August fool’s day, as the third of four children to Norm and Virginia Ream (Lisa, Don and Mike rounded out the family). I took apart my first car engine at age twelve, and went to work part-time as a mechanic for Stromberg’s Chevron in West Seattle as soon as I could, in addition helping my father’s construction company with projects all over the Pacific. After graduation from West Seattle High School, I enrolled part time at Seattle Central Community College where I met my future wife. I received my Airframe and Powerplant Mechanics License, and hired on as a machinist with Boeing. Over the years, I got to do some pretty cool things there. Among my favorites was selective-etch titanium chemimilling and later integrating robotic arms with six degrees of freedom to improve drilling efficiency on the Boeing 787 assembly line. Initially, the robots weren’t particularly accurate, but they were deathly consistent. Problem solving to consistently produce parts within thousandths of a meter was fun stuff.
In my free time, I’ve always been a fan of racing. In my youth, I ran my ‘57 Ranch Wagon, two-door station wagon far faster than the posted speed limit, tearing up the ski slopes and skies, as well as diving around Puget Sound. With age came wisdom that drag racing might not be the healthiest activity, so I started helping others go fast; first as a crew member for unlimited hydroplanes and then later as pit crew and biggest supporter of my wife, daughter, and niece’s inline speedskating careers as they competed both nationally and internationally.
Time flies when you are having fun, and the rest of the time too. For those of you whose paths I have crossed, I’d like to thank you for making it a fun ride. Realizing I’m not going to be around forever has been somewhat of an inconvenient truth, but I’m survived by my wife of 42 years, Catherine Ream, my daughter Micki Alapati (Jay), my sister Lisa Chamberlain (Clark), my sisters-in-law Annie Wedlund, Deenie Olleman (Ed), my brother in law Steve Cross (Billie), my nieces Tara Wedlund, Natalie Robinson, and Cybil Burnside (Tony), and my nephews Andrew Davis (Mary Ellen) and Nic Cross (Charliann), as well as numerous cousins, second-cousins and friends.
Preceded in death by my father (2019), mother (1983), brother Mike Ream (1983), brother Don Ream (1983), brother-in-law David Cross (2013), niece Julie Davis (2005), cousin John King (2017), and cousin Eric King (2019). I wish to be cremated, and my ashes laid to rest on my family’s beloved Vashon Island home. At some point in the future, there will be a celebration service. In lieu of flowers, I request donations to Seafair. So long, and thanks for all the fish!
(WSB publishes West Seattle obituaries by request, free of charge. Please email the text, and a photo if available, to editor@westseattleblog.com)
6:16 AM: Welcome to Friday, the 242nd morning without the West Seattle Bridge. (Maybe another ~540 to go.)
ROAD WORK
Delridge project: Paving and utility work continue. Here’s the bulletin for this week, with next week’s update expected later today.
CHECK TRAFFIC BEFORE YOU GO
West Marginal Way/Highland Park Way:
Highland Park Way/Holden:
The 5-way intersection (Spokane/West Marginal/Delridge/Chelan):
Restricted-daytime-access (open to all 9 pm-5 am) low bridge:
The main detour route across the Duwamish River, the 1st Avenue South Bridge (map) . Here are two cameras:
The other major bridge across the river – the South Park Bridge (map). Here’s the nearest camera:
Going through South Park? Don’t speed. (Same goes for the other detour-route neighborhoods, like Highland Park, Riverview, and South Delridge.)
Checking for bridges’ marine-traffic openings? The @SDOTBridges Twitter feed is working again.
You can see all local traffic cams here; locally relevant cameras are also shown on this WSB page.
TRANSIT
Metro – Fare collection has resumed.
Water Taxi – Also charging again.
Trouble on the roads/paths/water? Let us know – text (but not if you’re driving!) 206-293-6302.
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