West Seattle, Washington
25 Thursday
47 weeks have now passed since the Friday night announcement of the first King County case of COVID-19. Here are tonight’s updates:
KING COUNTY NUMBERS: From the Public Health daily-summary page, cumulative totals:
*73,801 people have tested positive, 356 more than yesterday’s total
*1,214 people have died, 8 more than yesterday’s total
*4,683 people have been hospitalized, 19 more than yesterday’s total
*810,109 people have been tested, 5,123 more than yesterday’s total
And from the COVID Vaccination Among King County Residents dashboard, our weekly check:
*126,474 people have received one dose
*21,910 people have received both doses
*214,425 doses have been allocated to King County
One week ago, the first four totals were 71,231/1,180/4,566/788,074, and the vaccination totals were 82,382/11,640/141,375.
STATEWIDE NUMBERS: See them here.
WORLDWIDE NUMBERS: 98.1 million cases, 2,107,000+ deaths – see the nation-by-nation numbers here.
PHASE 1 FOR WEEK 3: In the third “Roadmap to Recovery” report since the governor’s announcement of a new reopening plan, everyone’s still in Phase 1 for the week ahead. This week’s announcement also included the launch of this dashboard to monitor how regions are doing.
COUNTY HEALTH OFFICER’S BRIEFING: Dr. Jeff Duchin provided his weekly video briefing – see it here. He said we’re still on a “COVID rollercoaster,” though right now it’s going down. He also discussed the vaccination situation.
SPEAKING OF VACCINATIONS … still no mass vaccination sites planned on the peninsula. But as we mentioned last night, several local pharmacies are expected to offer it – eventually. As for large health-care providers, they’ve been vaccinating off-peninsula – CHI Franciscan‘s closest location, for example, is St. Anne Hospital in Burien. Sea Mar says it’s been vaccinating at locations including White Center BUT it does not have any vaccine available right now. Dr. Duchin said in his briefing today that more than 300 King County providers have signed up to offer vaccine – but many haven’t received any at all, yet.
COVID CLOSURE: West Seattle Grounds says it’ll be closed again Saturday because its staff is dealing with possible exposure.
NEED FOOD? Reminder – the Greater Seattle Filipino-American SDA Church has another food distribution tomorrow, 2:30 pm Saturday (January 23rd), 2620 SW Kenyon, first-come first-served.
GOT INFO OR PHOTOS? westseattleblog@gmail.com or text/voice 206-293-6302 – thank you!
The newest plan for an upzoned development site tops our look at what happened during the quarterly Morgan Community Association meeting this past Wednesday:
REDEVELOPMENT PROJECT: Project-team members from StoryBuilt were there to talk about the 41st/Graham project. Brandon Burrowes and Patrick Cobb, both West Seattle residents, explained that their company specializes in “infill.” The project at 6314 41st SW is a 20,000-sf, 3-parcel site upzoned by HALA Mandatory Housing Affordability to Lowrise 3. The project has changed since they had an early community meeting last year. The project will have fewer units (now 36), plus less height – 30 to 40′ in an area zoned up to 50′ – and more parking (15 spaces) than zoning requires (zero). The units will range from 500 sf to 1300 sf, in a mix of townhouses and flats, and though the city files still describe the project as “apartments,” the StoryBuilt reps say these will be units for sale, likely ranging from $300,000 to $700,000.
(Image from Google Maps Street View)
West Seattle’s only parochial high school will be under new management starting this summer. Here’s the announcement sent tonight:
Hope Lutheran Church and School is pleased to announce that Hope has accepted an offer from Seattle Lutheran High School to manage the high school as of July 1, 2021, after the conclusion of the current school year.
Hope and Seattle Lutheran have had a close relationship and ministry partnership, beginning 45 years ago when Hope was one of the more than 30 Lutheran churches in the Seattle area that worked together to open SLHS. Over the many decades of Seattle Lutheran’s ministry and educating thousands of students, many Hope members have attended the school as students, served as teachers, staff, and as board members, and supported the school in many other ways.
Hope Lutheran has agreed to manage Seattle Lutheran High School for a period of one year, and is actively engaged in a process of determining the feasibility of assuming the ministry of Seattle Lutheran permanently. More information will be shared as this process continues. Hope considers it to be a privilege and honor to continue the work that began in 1976 at Seattle Lutheran High School, and looks forward to the future.
Thank you to the West Seattle community, and Hope and Seattle Lutheran communities, for your support as we embark on this new partnership together!
The two schools are located a little more than one block apart in The Junction – Hope Lutheran at 42nd/Oregon, SLHS at 41st/Genesee.
A month and a half after Seattle Public Schools Superintendent Denise Juneau announced she’ll leave when her contract’s up this June, the School Board has decided what’s next – an interim superintendent. According to the agenda for next Wednesday’s school-board meeting, the board will vote on whether to offer the interim job to Dr. Brent Jones, who was the district’s Chief Equity, Partnerships and Engagement Officer for three and a half years, until June 2019. Since then, he’s been an assistant general manager at Metro. Approval by the board would authorize negotiations with Dr. Jones to spend a year as interim superintendent without being a candidate for the permanent job. If you’re interested in commenting on this or any other item during Wednesday’s meeting, the agenda explains how to sign up starting Monday.
Reader report from Gregorio, who says it happened in the 4400 block of 35th SW:
I had a vehicle outside my apartment rummaged through last night after potentially leaving it unlocked. There’s been a lot of suspicious activity in the area, including a white van that’s constantly parked near the Rotary Viewpoint park. I know my neighbor also had their car windows smashed in a few weeks ago.
It’s been reported to police. Even if nothing is taken, you can report a car prowl online – go here.
(WSB photo, Thursday)
The repaving-and-more project paving the way for RapidRide H Line on Delridge continues. Here are the toplines for next week’s work, as sent by SDOT:
Electrical upgrades along the west side of SW Webster St to Sylvan Way SW begin soon
Trenching and demolition in the sidewalk will begin as early as January 27
Sidewalk restoration and paving to begin in FebruaryRoadway demolition and paving on west side of Delridge Way SW between SW Holden St to SW Kenyon St in early February
Paving will follow shortly after and include roadway, sidewalk and curb restorationSelect driveways for business in Zone C are now open
Remaining driveways will be poured soon*We will also be installing the curbs for the roadway median in Zone A. Traffic will also shift again in Zone B soon. We ask that people driving practice caution when driving through this area, as the traffic patterns will be very different in the next few weeks.
The full preview for the week ahead can be seen here.
Thanks for the tip. North Admiral coffee shop West Seattle Grounds says it’ll be closed through tomorrow because of possible virus exposure. From the WSG website:
We are sorry to announce that we will be closed January 22nd and 23rd (Friday and Saturday) in order to take all the correct precautions to keep our staff and community safe. We have been informed that our staff may have been exposed to the Coronavirus so we are making sure that all of our lovely staff gets negative tests back until we resume our regular takeout service. We encourage you to continue to stay the positive and wonderful customers that you are and enjoy all the wonderful January weather we are having!
Like many businesses, WSG has dealt with closures before, and its website has links for showing extra support to the shop and its employees.
2:19 PM: Second big Seattle City Light power outage this week – this time, 5,700+ customers, some in southeast West Seattle and west South Park. Above is a closeup of the WS areas affected – to see the full outage zone, which stretches into Burien, go to the SCL website map. This started about an hour ago; no word yet on the cause.
3:18 PM: Via Twitter, City Light says this was caused by “a downed tree that came into contact with overhead power lines.” In a comment below, Bill says the culprit tree appears to have been one that fell near the 509 ramp on the Olson/1st/etc. hill.
6:01 PM: Most of the areas in the image above are still out – almost 400 customers – but the rest are back on. Note that commenter Patience points out this is still affecting traffic in the Olson/Myers vicinity at the east end of the Roxbury corridor.
11:52 PM: Just checked the map – 74 customers still out.
(WSB file photo)
One month ago, we reported on Grillbird Teriyaki‘s crowdfunded ‘pay it forward’ concept – customers buying gift cards that are in turn given to people in need. Now proprietor Matt Parker has a new idea, and sent us this announcement:
Our Pay It Forward program has been so successful by gifting out warm meals to those in need this Winter. Just in the last month we have already given out over $3,000 in gift cards! This gave me an idea how we can continue this generosity from our amazing customers.
COVID-19 has proven to be a disruptive force in every manner of life. We cannot overlook how this is affecting educators, the ones who are teaching our youth even in these challenging times. Teaching, a very social and interaction-based profession, has been forced into an isolating experience. Educators are working through the struggles, finding ways to adapt their virtual classrooms to fit our new reality and shifting the goal of teaching.
We want to give a meal to every teacher in West Seattle. We will be gifting out these meals to one teacher a day, but if you would like to help us out so we can reach more teachers, you can purchase a gift card in the available amounts on our online store. At checkout, provide the name and email of the teacher you would like this to go to in the NOTES section, and we will send them a e-gift card in that amount.
Alternatively you can email us the name and email of a special teacher in your life that you would like us to send a gift card to and we will add them to a list that we will send out to over time. matt@grillbird.com
If you haven’t been to Grillbird, it’s at 35th/Morgan.
ORIGINAL FRIDAY REPORT: Noticed today that the sign is up at the future Ross Dress For Less at Westwood Village, a year and a half after we first reported their plan for the former Barnes & Noble bookstore space (empty two years now). As the banner says, they’re currently hiring for the new store (search 98126 here and you’ll see the openings). We have a message out to a corporate spokesperson to see if they have an update on the opening timeframe.
ADDED MONDAY: We heard back from a corporate spokesperson who says the current expected grand opening date is March 6th.
Port of Seattle commissioners are elected in a countywide note, but the seats are of special interest here given the port facilities along West Seattle shores, along Elliott Bay and the Duwamish River. 
So we’re noting that Port Commissioner Stephanie Bowman has officially announced she’s running for a third 4-year term. Bowman is a Beacon Hill resident. Her announcement says she plans to “focus on economic recovery in the upcoming year and new term.” As points of pride in recent years, she points to “the work we’ve done to build career pathways and apprenticeship programs for young people coming from high school into skilled trades.” She also notes sustainability work and the port’s change in governance from a “traditional CEO” to an executive director, which she calls “a ‘no drama’ approach to Port management.” So far, no one else has registered a campaign for that seat, Position 3, but the primary isn’t until August 3.
P.S. The Port Commission meets twice a month – you can track meeting info here. They also meet monthly with their Port of Tacoma counterparts as managing members of the Northwest Seaport Alliance, the two ports’ partnership.
Students planning to play sports for Seattle Public Schools when they resume this year need to be ready, so this clinic is being offered next week in West Seattle. Here’s the announcement:
The Denny Wellness Center, located inside of Denny International Middle School, is hosting a Sports Physical Clinic.
WHEN: January 25th- 29th, 8:00 – 4:30 pm
WHERE: Denny Wellness Center located inside of Denny International Middle School [2601 SW Kenyon]
WHO: Any Seattle Public School student who is interested in playing sports and has not yet had a physical or whose physical has expired.
COST: We do not charge fees or copays, though we may bill your insurance. There is no cost to you. No student will be denied services due to inability to pay.
STEP 1: Register by scanning the QR code in the flyer with your phone or call our clinic to request a registration form via email.
STEP 2: Call 206-923-2809 to schedule your appointment!
Students may also be seen at their local school-based clinic. For more Neighborcare Health school-based locations, go here.
6:12 AM: It’s Friday, January 22nd, the 305th morning without the West Seattle Bridge.
ROAD (ETC.) WORK
Low bridge closure – SDOT plans to close the low bridge 8 am-1 pm Saturday to all but emergency vehicles, so it can be inspected. Here are the bus-reroute plans:
Delridge project – The SW Thistle closure continues between Delridge and 20th. Here’s what else is happening.
California and Myrtle – The sewer-repair project continues – if driving/riding on California, watch out for the bumps, though the grade has been improved.
CHECK TRAFFIC BEFORE YOU GO
Low Bridge: Second week for automated enforcement cameras, while restrictions are in effect 5 am-9 pm daily. Here’s a bridge view:
West Marginal Way at Highland Park Way:
Highland Park Way/Holden:
The 5-way intersection (Spokane/West Marginal/Delridge/Chelan):
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 all the other detour-route neighborhoods, both the arterials and neighborhood streets!)
To check for bridges’ marine-traffic openings, see the @SDOTBridges Twitter feed.
You can view all local traffic cams here; locally relevant cameras are also shown on this WSB page.
TRANSIT
Metro – On regular weekday schedule – if you’re not subscribed to alerts, watch @kcmetrobus on Twitter for them
Water Taxi – On its regular schedule
Trouble on the roads/paths/water? Let us know – text (but not if you’re driving!) 206-293-6302.
| 6 COMMENTS