West Seattle, Washington
05 Tuesday
Today was the date around which Seattle Public Schools superintendent Dr. Brent Jones had said he expected to release his list of up to five school closures. But – no list yet. We checked with SPS’s media team late in the day and they said they weren’t expecting anything today but “We’re hoping for later this week.” Meantime, West Seattle/South Park School Board Director Gina Topp has set her next community-conversation meeting for Sunday (October 27), 11 am-noon in person at High Point Library (3411 SW Raymond);
Time to start previewing Hallo-weekend’s big activities. Biggest of them all – the West Seattle Junction Harvest Festival on Sunday (October 27). It starts off with the costume parade, led by the West Seattle High School Marching Band, and includes trick-or-treating. But for the savory palate, a non-candy treat awaits – the flight of chili that will get you the right to vote in the cookoff benefiting the West Seattle Food Bank. Here’s this year’s lineup, as announced by WSFB:
Get ready to tantalize your taste buds at the West Seattle Food Bank Chili Cookoff during Harvest Fest! This year, eight fantastic West Seattle-area restaurants will compete for the coveted title of Best West Seattle Chili. Here are the contenders:
Easy Street Café
Elliott Bay Brewery
Fire Tacos
Husky Deli
Margie’s Café at the Center for Active Living
NW TX BBQ
Shadowland
The WestyWe’re excited to welcome a couple of newcomers to the competition this year. Margie’s Café at the Center for Active Living and Fire Tacos, who recently won Best Savory Taste at the Taste of West Seattle with their mouth-watering pork verdé, are joining the fray!
For just $15, you can purchase a flight of 8 chili samples, with all proceeds supporting the West Seattle Food Bank’s vital programs. These include food assistance, help with utilities and rent to prevent homelessness, clothing, bus tickets, and more. Join us at the Key Bank corner during Harvest Fest — the chili cookoff starts at 11am. Don’t miss your chance to vote for your favorite chili and help crown the winner of the Best West Seattle Chili trophy!
The Farmers’ Market will be in its usual spot and time (10 am-2 pm) during the festival (11 am-2 pm) but an extra block of California will be closed for festival activities – between Alaska and Edmunds.
The photo is from Ryan, who emailed to announce:
CThe Halloween show at the 4040 House is live! This year is our biggest one yet! The haunted jukebox is back with several new songs, even more lights, and some cool special effects!
The show runs every night between 6 pm and 9 pm. It’s located on 47th Avenue Southwest between Dakota and Andover. The street is quite narrow, so if you’re driving, please park on the side streets and walk up to the house.
Got decorations to showcase? Photos and info to westseattleblog@gmail.com – and see what we’ve already shown here!
(WSB photo, ballot box at South Seattle College)
With 15 more days to vote – until Tuesday night, November 5 – the West Seattle Chamber of Commerce held its first “Chamber Chat,” with the organization’s Government Affairs Committee focusing on candidates and issues on the ballot. They first heard from both candidates for the final unexpired year of the City Council citywide Position 8 term:
CITY COUNCIL CITYWIDE POSITION 8: Alexis Mercedes Rinck said she’s “fighting for a city that works for all of us.” She says that she’s worked “across 39 cities” and various organizations on housing policy, as well as restructuring UW’s budget. She said her roots go back to a troubled childhood but people who fought for her saved her. She wants to work for a “fairer tax system” and to move from “budgets with band-aids” to budgets that “set up” the city to thrive. In Q&A, she was asked how she’d work with colleagues with different goals/philosophies. She said that she felt she’d bring balance to the council. She said she could work with folks “from MAGA to Marxist” and currently works with reps for different cities that are all over the political spectrum. She said she helped work on homelessness-fighting plans, too. She stressed a collaborative nature to “get folks around the table … to problem-solve” and says that’s what she wants to bring to citywide office. Answering another question, about public safety, she said “Seattle kids deserve to go to school without fear” among other things and that action is needed now – building staffing “across the board,” including law enforcement and other responders, is her priority. “It’s not enough to just respond” – work on prevention is vital too, especially gun-violence prevention. She supports “permit to purchase.” She added, “We know what we need to do” – reports have made numerous suggestions – we just need to implement them. Housing would improve safety, too, she believes.
Regarding transportation, she said she lives car-free and relies on public transit daily. Safety on transit is a priority too. “On the whole, I’m really committed to creating a safe multi-modal transit system,’ prioritizing all ways of getting around, plus electrification, adding sidewalks, and finding “progressive (revenue) options” to fund all that. How would she support small business? “They’re the cornerstone of our community,” Mercedes Rinck declares, saying she worked at one as a restaurant, but knows owning one is a whole different thing. She also mentioned the end of the tip credit and said she’s committed to help figure out how to ensure affected small businesses can keep their doors open. She thinks the Office of Economic Development can do a lot of work for entrepreneurs and wants to hear more about what they have or haven’t been doing.
She was also asked about the Department of Neighborhoods, with a suggestion that the city doesn’t really reach out to neighborhood groups any more. “How do you get people in the neighborhoods involved again, get the department involved again in bringing those voices to the table?” Mercedes Rinck agreed she wasn’t seeing much DoN involvement so the department needed to be empowered to do more outreach; she said she needs to find out more about their staffing level and look for opportunities to invest – “we know that community engagement is a lot of time, time that people don’t have sometimes.” Next: Why is she seeking office? She thinks the city has a lot of urgent needs, like what she saw in her area, the Central District, which recently had two shooting incidents, Also – dealing with the high housing prices and cost of rents going up; she says we need more housing supply, She feels she’s “somebody to act, move with urgency,” and says, “Let’s get stuff done!”
Next was appointed incumbent councilmember Tanya Woo. In opening remarks, she said her parents had the first Chinese bakery in Seattle; she comes from a long list of business owners – her parents currently own a restaurant in Chinatown/ID. She has experience building “workforce housing” and has formed a public-safety group that started walking nightly in a time of anti-Asian hate and now walks weekly. The group, she said, segued into homeless outreach and assisted seniors as well. She said more incentives are needed for building affordable housing and believes that density and “more trees” can both happen. She is in favor of reducing permit wait times, which she says she’s experienced as a small business owner. “There isn’t going to be one thing that changes overnight – it’s all part of a puzzle.” Building back SPD staffing and having alternative responders are both important, she says, as well as figuring out how to connect people with services. “I imagine a city like where I grew up – where kids can go to school without worrying about getting shot,” like her worry-free days at Schmitz Park Elementary in West Seattle. Her priorities: Public safety, homelessness, housing affordability.
How would she work on council to fully and fairly represent constituents? She says the current councilmembers are “all friends, a civil group, all in person” so she doesn’t do anything without collaborating with other councilmembers (she mentioned collaboration with CM Rob Saka for one). She is all for “finding the common ground. … That’s where I reside, how do we work together to reach the greatest good?” She added, “We just have to try things” and make changes if it’s not working. “It’s all about listening and making sure people are heard … and being out in the community” She said she’s out at meetings and events at least once a day.
How does she approach public safety and transportation? “Balanced approach,” she says. Regarding police, “while we did not defund police, we demoralized police … since most are on patrol work, we are not able to investigate” as many crimes as before. “I also believe in a balanced approach” and supports expansion of CARE Team, LEAD, REACH, and seeing how other groups are working to increase safety. Regarding transportation, she says ST3 and ensuring community measures are being heard is a priority. “I know we’re not even there yet” regarding station siting. She was involved in assembling the Transportation Levy, while noting she isn’t allowed to advocate for it.
How will she advocate for small businesses? She thinks the impending compensation change is going to force a lot of small businesses to close. She wants to find ways to be proactive and help businesses pay for things like shatter-resistant glass treatment and anti-graffiti coating. Other issues plague businesses – trespassers, drug use right outside, employees not feeling safe coming to or being at work. She said she wants to hear what businesses like those in the Chamber need. “I feel the desperation of many businesses, the weight of” how policies are affecting them.
Other questions: A local bank manager asked about graffiti vandalism, calling “demoralizing” despite not being on the scale of drug addiction or homelessness. It’s “demoralizing” to see buildings defaced, and it seems to add “a temperature of chaos … it’s like a war on our city.” Woo agreed, “I abhor graffiti.” She said her group has chased vandals down to let them know how much their deeds hurt small businesses, especially in “historic districts” that might have rules making it even harder. She feels graffiti comes down to “consent” – yes, there’s some consensual art out there, but much graffiti is vandalism detracting from the “beauty of our buildings.” Other factors delay cleanup like weather and waiting for the availability of cleanup crews. Invited to say a few closing words, she made allegations against her opponent’s stands on various issues, including saying Mercedes Rinck’s interest in “more progressive revenue” is not realistic because most of a long list of recommendations are for taxes that “are illegal.” (Mercedes Rinck wasn’t there to rebut because of the event’s format – each candidate appeared individually.)
TRANSPORTATION LEVY: The group was also scheduled to hear from guests for and against the Seattle Transportation Levy; no pro-levy guest was available, so committee chair Jordan Crawley offered some basic information about the $1.55 billion levy. Former Seattle City Councilmember Alex Pedersen – former chair of the council’s Transportation Committee – spoke against it. He was asked about his biggest concerns regarding the levy, which he said would be “Seattle’s biggest tax ever.” He feels it’s “unaffordable, inequitable, and would be ineffective.” Rents would go up, he says, as property owners pass the cost through. One point on equity – he says it could have at least partly gone through a less regressive funding source. He also says it’s not doing enough for pedestrian safety and bridges, among other things; he’d also like to see its projects “broken into smaller pieces” – the repaving funding all goes into 15 big projects, he says, but could go into more smaller projects that repave more streets. In all, he would just like to see it redone and sent back to voters in the first half of next year. Some supplementary funding is necessary, he says, so that’s why he favors rejecting this one and calling for something new to be drafted quickly.
The Chamber also was scheduled to talk about the statewide initiatives on the ballot, but also did not have a “pro” guest, and we couldn’t stay for that part of the program. Your ballot should have arrived by now – if not, here’s what to do!
On Sunday, we published an invitation to a “community paint party” all afternoon at the new “welcoming mural” under the overpass just north of the Luna Park mini-business district. This afternoon, we went by for a look at how it’s coming along.
We didn’t have time to stop and talk with the mural crew but last we heard they were planning to wrap up by tomorrow (Tuesday, October 22).
2:57 PM: Police and fire are responding to a reported pickup spinout/crash near the Admiral exit on the westbound West Seattle Bridge. No details yet on injuries or traffic effects.
4:32 PM: SFD tells us, “Crews evaluated a 22-year-old man who reported no injuries.”
(Reader photo from April, the formerly planned Molly Moon’s space)
Half a year after Molly Moon’s Homemade Ice Cream uncloaked plans to expand to West Seattle by hanging a banner at 4540 California SW, we have updates.
For one, Molly Moon herself tells WSB today that “We hope to open in West Seattle in the spring. It’s been a wild ride with this location and real estate in the Junction. we hope the community believes we’re worth the wait. We’ll try hard to get open around the time the sun stays up until 7 pm again!”
Here’s a big part of that “wild ride” – Instead of opening in the ex-Seattle E-Bike space, they’ll be opening in the space that Cupcake Royale just vacated a few doors down, as rumored. When we asked about it previously, they weren’t ready to comment, but they’re confirming the plan now: “It was touch and go and I wasn’t sure it would happen, but we closed on the purchase of the West Seattle Cupcake Royale on Friday. We will file for building permits there and open our shop on the corner of California and Alaska. … Our plans for the corner space are the same — we’ll be making all the ice cream on site, like we do in all of our locations, and creating about 15 – 20 living-wage jobs with upward mobility opportunities when we open. We’re really looking forward to joining the WS community!”
Meantime, they’re looking for a “great tenant” for their originally planned space at 4540 California, for which they have a 10-year lease. If interested, email (updated) hello@mollymoon.com.
The update and photo are from Chief Sealth International High School athletic director Ernest Policarpio:
The Chief Sealth Slowpitch Softball team, after losing a tough first-round matchup vs Holy Names 15-5 on Thursday, won 4 straight this weekend to clinch a state trip to Yakima this weekend. Bracket (here).
The team, which won the Metro League championship a week earlier, went to the state tournament five years ago.
(Sunday sunset from Emma Schmitz Memorial Overlook, photo by Eugene Lee)
Here’s our highlight list for the hours ahead, mostly from the WSB West Seattle Event Calendar:
COMMUNITY CUP SHOWCASE: Multiple artists’ cup creations are on display all month at Dubsea Coffee (9910 8th SW), open until 2 pm.
ARBOR HEIGHTS FOOD TRUCK: Rotating semiweekly food truck visits, 40th/107th, 4-7 pm.
GET CRAFTY: 6-10 pm, Monday brings “Crafting and Creativity Night” at The Missing Piece (9456 35th SW), info here.
D&D: Weekly D&D at 6:30 pm at Meeples Games (3727 California SW). All welcome, including first-time players.
GRIEF SUPPORT GROUP: 6:30 pm evening group with Listening to Grief, preregistration required. (4034 California SW)
MONDAY NIGHT TRIVIA! Four places to play tonight – Every-other-week music quiz at Easy Street Records (4559 California SW), 6:30 and 7:30 pm … 7 pm at The Good Society (California/Lander); 7 and 8 pm Sporcle Pub Quiz at Three 9 Lounge (4505 39th SW); 7:30 pm with QuizFix at The Skylark (3803 Delridge Way SW)
MEDITATION IN FAUNTLEROY: You’re invited to free weekly Zen sitting/meditation in the chapel at Fauntleroy UCC (9140 California SW), 7 pm-8:30 pm.
MEDITATION IN ALKI: The Alki Dharma Community also hosts Monday night meditation at Alki UCC (6115 SW Hinds), 7-8:30 pm.
MUSIC AT THE ALLEY: The Alley in back of Bonjour Vietnam is open – tonight, live music from The Westside Trio, 8 pm at The Alley (behind 4509 California SW), 21+, no cover.
SING! 9 pm start for Monday night karaoke at Talarico’s Pizzeria (4718 California SW).
If you have a West Seattle/White Center event to add to our calendar, please send the info to westseattleblog@gmail.com – thank you!
9:02 AM: Just got a text from Kersti Muul reporting that Southern Resident Killer Whales from J-Pod are in the area – southbound in north Elliott Bay, last seen off West Point. Let us know if you see them!
9:42 AM: Kersti reports they’ve now been seen toward the west side of the Sound, off Bainbridge near Winslow.
6:07 AM: Good morning! Welcome to Monday, October 21st.
WEATHER + SUNRISE/SUNSET TIMES
Showery, high in the mid-50s. Today’s sunrise will be at 7:38 am, while sunset will be at 6:09 pm.
ROAD WORK
*The low bridge will be closed Friday through Sunday for cylinder re-installation.
*The Admiral Way Bridge seismic project continues; the north half of the bridge remains closed, with one lane each way on the south side, until the project switches sides, likely next week. Fairmount Avenue remains closed under the bridge.
*The Delridge pedestrian-bridge earthquake-safety project also continues, with narrowing at Delridge/Oregon.
*SDOT says the Spokane Street Viaduct resurfacing project is complete – no more lane closures.
TRANSIT
Washington State Ferries today – 2 boats on the Triangle Route, no “unscheduled third boat” this week and likely next. Also, possible delays offloading at Vashon, due to lane closure 6:30 am-3 pm. Both of those situations are explained here.
Metro buses today – Regular schedule.
Water Taxi today – Regular schedule.
SPOTLIGHT TRAFFIC CAMERAS
High Bridge – Here’s the main camera, followed by the Fauntleroy-end camera:
Spokane Street Viaduct – This view usually looks westward, with eastbound lanes at left and westbound lanes at right:
Low Bridge – Looking west:
1st Avenue South Bridge:
Delridge cameras: Besides the one below (Delridge/Genesee), cameras are also at Delridge/Juneau, Delridge/Henderson, Delridge/Oregon, and video-only (so you have to go to the map), Delridge/Holden and Delridge/Thistle.
MORE TRAFFIC CAMS: All functioning traffic cams citywide are here; West Seattle and vicinity-relevant cameras are on this WSB page.
If you see a problem on the bridges/streets/paths/water, please text or call our hotline (when you can do that safely, and after you’ve reported to authorities if they’re not already on scene) – 206-293-6302. Thank you!
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