West Seattle, Washington
23 Saturday
11:06 PM: The day’s second “assault with weapons” call for local police/fire. This time, they are still trying to sort out, after about 10 minutes, what, if anything, has actually happened. A caller claimed there had been some kind of fight involving knives near the Super 24 store in the 5400 block of Delridge, but so far, per radio traffic, police haven’t found any sign of it, nor any victim(s). We’re continuing to monitor.
11:15 PM: Still no word of any victims being found – the call has been “closed” on the Fire Department’s 911 log – but police are still searching for suspects reported to be armed with knives.
A food-truck roundup is the latest addition to the lineup for this year’s Delridge Day, now less than two months away. Just in from organizers:
The Delridge Day Planning Committee is on a roll, with several updates for the Delridge Day Festival on August 18th from 11 am-3 pm.
The newest feature to the festival is the Delridge Day Chow Down. It is the first Delridge Food Truck roundup, set to feed festivalgoers. The trucks are: Athena’s (Greek), Jemil’s Big Easy (Cajun), and Full Tilt Ice Cream!
More ahead:Read More
By Tracy Record and Patrick Sand
West Seattle Blog co-publishers
When we saw the agenda for last night’s Delridge Neighborhoods District Council meeting, featuring an SDOT presentation about “Delridge rechannelization,” we expected more information about this – rechannelization planned in connection with Metro Route 120 changes on the north end of Delridge.
Nope.
This presentation was about a new plan for mid-to-south Delridge rechannelization – and as you can see if you watch our video from last night’s meeting, its details surprised the District Council members too:
The South Delridge rechannelization plan, the SDOT reps said, is bundled with the forthcoming resurfacing/repaving of the same stretch, which was most recently detailed during Mayor McGinn‘s Town Hall in The Junction on May 3rd (as mentioned in our report on that meeting).
Read on for details of what the city unveiled last night, including the graphics of what the configurations are supposed to look like for each affected stretch, and news of one block where parking will undergo a dramatic change:Read More
Sister the cat is helping greet visitors at the Cooper Artist Housing loft of Liv Browning, during the open house that continues till 9 tonight. We met Sister and Liv during a quick mid-afternoon visit. The artists really are opening their homes, as well as showing their work. Liv and Sister are on the third floor, as is the stairwell where music and spoken-word performances are scheduled throughout the event:
You’ll see art in many media lining the old Cooper School’s hallways:
And you can visit the nonprofits on the ground floor (like Nature Consortium) or check out demonstrations in the Movement Studio. It’s all happening inside Youngstown Cultural Arts Center, 4408 Delridge Way SW.
Just shared by Ed Pottharst from the Department of Neighborhoods: An announcement from the city that SDOT wants to put new bike racks in south-of-downtown neighborhoods “to help encourage cycling as a form of transportation to our business districts. We would like your help with finding places to install them where they will be most useful …” and the local neighborhoods where they’re seeking ideas are Delridge and South Park. This is NOT for private property, but for “public right-of-way” (sidewalks, for example), and the installation would likely happen late this year or early next year. Got an idea? Contact Doug Cox at SDOT, 206-684-8264 or doug.cox@seattle.gov.
(Police on 16th, north of Roxbury, south of the reported crime scene)
10:33 PM: Police are searching right now in South Delridge for a suspect in what was reported to be a robbery. We don’t have full details yet but we have gone to the scene and can confirm a heavy police presence, including K-9 teams. The scanner indicates one person is being detained and another being sought. More as we get it.
10:44 PM UPDATE: Police at the scene are not saying much but do confirm one person is being questioned and another being sought. They say two people went into a business in the 9400 block of 16th SW and one of them showed a gun; the details of the reported robbery are still being sorted out. No injuries reported; no description made available to us for the person who’s being sought.
Recognize the lettering on that sign – the first sign ever to be displayed in the windows at Martin’s Way, the recently opened shop at Delridge and Findlay? If you do, you’re likely a customer of Tony’s Market, the produce stand at 35th and Barton. Three months after opening (here’s our January story), Martin’s Way is stocking fresh produce from Tony’s – right now, 8 kinds of vegetables and 17 kinds of fruit (a few of which are in this photo):
And with Penny’s chips in stock, you can even buy the makings for chips and guacamole, as the Memorial Day weekend approaches:
MW proprietors Vik and Nikhi also are stocking the items with which they started operations – an extensive selection of bulk spices, specialty salts and sugars, and some grains. Meantime, back to the Tony’s partnership – Vik says he first met Tony’s founder/namesake Tony Genzale in 2004 and was impressed with him as an entrepreneur and community member; since Tony’s death a year and a half ago, his son Joey Genzale has been running the business, so Vik says he spoke with Joey and his mom and they liked the idea of Vik stocking some of their produce – which he hopes to dub “Tony’s Market at Martin’s Way,” with a portrait of Tony hanging in the store. (Stand by for updates on that.) Martin’s Way is open noon till 7 Tuesdays through Saturdays, noon till 3 on Sundays (northeast corner of Delridge/Findlay).
Though the development slowdown has meant not many Southwest Design Review Board meetings the past few years, the board now has two on the calendar.
(Sketch described as development team’s preferred ‘concept’ – click image for larger view)
4724 CALIFORNIA: We told you 3 weeks ago about the meeting date for this Junction project, so this is just a reminder – Thursday night, 6:30 pm, Youngstown Cultural Arts Center (4408 Delridge Way SW), is the first design review for the proposed 100-or-so-unit development at the ex-Petco site in The Junction. Last Thursday, we brought you the first look at concept sketches that the project team has shown to community members in advance of the formal meetings, as well as the “massing” – size/shape – options in the “packet” put together for Design Review (see it here).
9051 20TH: This planned two-phase, 40-plus-unit project in South Delridge had its first Design Review meeting on March 8th (WSB coverage here). It’s now tentatively scheduled for a second meeting on June 14th, 6:30 pm at the Senior Center of West Seattle.
2:42 PM: Via Facebook and Twitter, we’ve been told of a police search in North Delridge. People in the area say they were told police are looking for a man who might be armed. They’ve blocked off SW Brandon in the vicinity of 26th SW on the boundary of Camp Long, and tow crews are there, reportedly because of a stolen car. We’re working to find out more. No report of any injury related to this so far.
2:55 PM UPDATE: Per the scanner, police are reopening SW Brandon.
3:30 PM UPDATE: A little more information from police – a car went into a ditch; a man and woman were heard yelling, and she apparently said he had a gun, then somebody reported hearing what sounded like a shot. A K-9 team was brought in to look for the man (no word at this point about the woman who was yelling) but couldn’t find him.
7:34 PM UPDATE: Lt. Alan Williams from the Southwest Precinct has a full summary of the incident tonight: “An adult male assaulted his 17 yr old girlfriend in an automobile, during which time he drove recklessly and crashed into the woods south of the West Seattle Golf course. The suspect fired a shot at the victim and then fled into the woods. The car sustained a bullet hole through the passenger door outward, but the victim was not hit. A large wooded area between the West Seattle Golf course and High Point was contained and 2 K-9 units tracked/searched the wooded area for an extended period of time without locating the suspect.”
(SPD Blotter featured this case a few hours after we published that update.)
The “fishbone” bridge along Longfellow Creek in North Delridge is always a beautiful sight … even with something startling at one end, which was the case for a while this morning, as Rose e-mailed us to report:
As I was walking along the path from All-Star Fitness in the Dragonfly Park, I saw a tow-truck. Kinda strange. I kept walking and found another tow-truck at the bridge and asked what was going on….the nice young man pointed out to me the stolen car. It was missing the front bumper and hood. The front tires were taken off but left behind. Seattle’s finest in blue were there also.
Rose also shared the photos (thank you!).
At the end of our last update on the “rechannelization” proposed for a stretch of Delridge Way SW, in connection with changes along Metro Route 120, we mentioned having asked SDOT for clearer graphics, since the ones linked from Metro’s website weren’t optimal. Jeff Bender, who had represented the city at last Tuesday’s open house at Youngstown Cultural Arts Center (WSB coverage here), has provided a few that do seem much clearer, which might be helpful if you haven’t commented on the proposal yet. Above, the cross-section; he also provided PDFs that show the entire stretch of the proposed rechannelization from Delridge/Andover to Delridge/Oregon – here they are in simple black/white, or here, as an aerial-photo overlay. Though the reconfiguration discussion has been bundled into the bus-route discussion so far, Bender told us there is a separate SDOT review process under way right now – here’s how to get your comments to them. He did not indicate a deadline, but we’d say “ASAP,” since Metro had set this past Friday for its deadline to receive overall comments on the proposed Route 120 changes, including removal of some stops.
(2011 Delridge Day photo by Ellen Cedergreen for WSB)
Saturday, August 18th, is the date set for this year’s North Delridge Neighborhood Council-presented Delridge Day, and though that’s almost four months away, organizers – who put it together at the last minute as something of a rescue operation last year! – are signing up sponsors and vendors NOW, as well as musicians. Here’s an update from Holli Margell:
Last year’s 5th Annual Delridge Day was a true community success. North Delridge Neighborhood Council’s Co-Secretary, Amanda Leonard, stepped up when the previous organizing group’s lack of funds threatened to cancel the festival. The result? A community-wide celebration that included the Delridge Skatepark Grand Opening, over 40 vendors and more than 2,000 attendees. Plans for an even bigger 2012 Delridge Day Festival are currently under way.
The 2012 Delridge Day Festival is planned for August 18th from 11 AM-3 PM at the Delridge [Community Center] Park. This year’s festival will feature two new activities: the first Alki Bike and Board Skate Contest and a music stage. Interested musicians can e-mail Chas Redmond at credmond@mac.com and provide links to their music.
The planning committee is working on securing sponsors and vendors to make this year’s event happen. The sponsorship and vendor fees not only support the festival, but also give back to the community as 15% of all fees are donated to the ARC (Associated Recreational Council), which provides scholarships for Community Center classes at the Delridge Community Center.
Vendor and Sponsor packets are available online at www.ndnc.org/delridgeday – which is also where to keep up with festival plans – or by emailing the planning committee at delridgeday@ndnc.org.
One followup to a report we published Wednesday afternoon: Though the proposal for “rechannelization” – changing lane configuration and parking availability – along part of the northern stretch of Delridge Way SW has been bundled into discussion of other changes along Metro Route 120, SDOT does have a separate comment process. Here’s how SDOT’s Jeff Bender, who was at the Route 120 open house at Youngstown on Tuesday, answered our followup question:
The proposed Delridge rechannelization still needs to be reviewed and approved by SDOT. We worked with Metro to support their open house last Tuesday and to help gather more community input on the proposed rechannelization and other elements of the proposal. SDOT would like to approve a final rechannelization design within about a month so it can be implemented by September.
The City is very interested in comments on all elements of the proposal, and will consider all ideas we receive as the approval process moves forward. Interested parties should feel free to send any comments to me.
He’s at jeff.bender@seattle.gov – we have also asked if they have any renderings that more clearly show the proposed changes, since the only ones we’ve seen (PDF here) are difficult to read.
This Friday is Metro‘s deadline for comments on the big changes proposed along Route 120 in Delridge. Last night, they took comments in person – via butcher paper, among other methods – during an open house at Youngstown Cultural Arts Center; they also are offering an online survey. Even if you’re not a bus rider, you might want to take a look and offer an opinion, because the plan includes “rechannelization” for a stretch of north Delridge Way SW, with bike/bus lanes plus less parking. Here’s how Metro summarizes potential effects of the changes overall:
Bus riders— If you ride Route 120, you’ll have a faster trip and your bus will probably spend less time waiting at busy traffic signals. If your bus stop is planned for closure, you may have to travel farther to get to or from it. Many of the remaining stops will get new amenities such as bus shelters, landing pads, and/or benches.
Drivers— If you drive, you may experience more delays in your evening commute southbound on Delridge Way SW due to the added southbound bike lane and the elimination of on-street parking.
Bike riders— If you bike, you will benefit from the addition of southbound bike lane along Delridge Way SW between SW Oregon Street and SW Andover Street and a northbound shared bus, bike, and off-peak parking lane. You may need to be more alert as you negotiate the shared bus lane with buses, right-turning vehicles, and parked cars.
Neighbors— If you live or own a business along Delridge Way SW between SW Andover Street and SW Oregon Street, you or your customers will have fewer parking options due to the added bike and bus lanes. Parking will be allowed in the bus lane during non-commute hours. See a diagram showing how parking on Delridge will change.
The Delridge/Andover intersection in particular drew some attention while we were at the open house; Metro reps were being asked if they had observed the area’s jam-packed traffic before suggesting that – including the truck traffic bound to and from the Nucor steel plant. There was also discussion centered on the proposed removal of some stops – here’s the list of stops to be closed in West Seattle/White Center:
Delridge Way SW
Northbound (at SW Oregon St)
Southbound (at SW Oregon St)
Northbound (at SW Edmunds St)
Southbound (at SW Edmunds St)
Northbound (at Puget Blvd SW)
Southbound (at Puget Blvd SW)
Southbound (at SW Orchard St)
Southbound (at SW Holden St)16th Avenue SW
Southbound (at SW 110th St)Closing fall 2012
SW Henderson
Westbound (at Delridge Way SW)
26th Ave SW
Northbound (at SW Cambridge St)
Southbound (at SW Cambridge St)
SW Roxbury St
Westbound (at 22nd Ave SW)
Eastbound (at 20th Ave SW)
Some stops are to be moved/added, as well; take a closer look via this map).
As for the rechannelization – the changes are to be made primarily between Andover and Oregon on Delridge, as shown here.
Metro’s website for the proposals says the changes will start as soon as next month (for some of the stop-spacing plans); again, they’ve set Friday as the deadline for comments – use the survey link above, or e-mail haveasay@kingcounty.gov.
P.S. For a neighborhood perspective, North Delridge Neighborhood Council co-chair Amanda Leonard was among the open-house attendees and has published a summary on the NDNC website – see it here.
(Julie Schickling, “Volunteer of the Year,” with Council President Sally Clark; photo by Dina Johnson)
“Most neighborhoods don’t do what you’re doing right now,” City Council President Sally Clark told the first-ever “Gathering of Heroes: Celebrating Volunteers” event tonight, “taking a moment … to simply say ‘thank you’ to one another and recognize good deeds.”
(Photo by Holli Margell)
The “moment” was a two-hour event attended by more than 50 people from around eastern West Seattle – plus some neighbors from over the ridge – at High Point Neighborhood Center to celebrate volunteers working hard to improve the community, the people that organizers dubbed Delridge’s Unsung Heroes. You might recall, the Delridge Neighborhoods District Council put out the call for nominees – and while the original thought was to choose honorees from among them, they decided to celebrate everyone who was nominated. Then at night’s end, two finalists were announced for “Volunteer of the Year” – here’s the reading of the nominations, then the announcement of the winner, and a few words of explanation from Council President Clark about the Jefferson Awards for which that winner will be nominated:
The winner, Julie Schickling from the Highland Park Improvement Club (how she led the charge to save the HPIC building was well-told by our partners at the Seattle Times in 2009), and the other finalist, Alejandra Ruiz Diaz, from the Roxhill Elementary PTA, were among 27 honored individuals and groups. Here they are (including our truncated descriptions of how the event program explained their achievements):
from Highland Park
Betsy Harris – public-safety volunteer
Blair Johnson – “volunteered in multiple capacities”
Julie Schickling – “led the double facelift at the Highland Park Improvement Club”
Carolyn Stauffer – spray-park project leader, Westcrest Park expansion, more
from High Point
Mat McBride – Camp Long Advisory Council, chairs Delridge Neighborhoods District Council
Peter Miller – ESL computer lab teacher
from North Delridge
Gale Hurley – public safety
Dave Brown – preparedness
Jake Vanderplas – Greenways
Tammy & Chris Stewart – fighting drug houses/street activity
Amanda Leonard – saved “Delridge Day” in 2011, co-chairs North Delridge Neighborhood Council
Nancy Folsom – skatepark liaison, cleanup organizer
Betsy Hoffmeister – “gets things done when others see no way”
Vonetta Mangaoang – DESC advisory committee
Patrick Baer – Delridge Community Forum
Parie Hines – NDNC
Mike Dady – “diligent in his pursuit of a better community for more than 12 years”
Michael Taylor-Judd – “longtime advocate for transportation and transit”
Benjamin Canfield – preparedness
from Puget Ridge
Pamela Dore – Block Watch captain
Tasha Mosher – “Recovery Garden”
from Pigeon Point
Gene Recker – quiet steward, cleanups
Helen Shampain – directs Community Orchard of West Seattle
from Westwood
Alejandra Ruiz Diaz – active PTA parent @ Roxhill
“special groups & people”
Willard Brown – development of affordable housing, DNDA board president
Delridge Branch Library Homework Helper Team (John, Robyn, Jim, Linda, Michele, Elaine, Robert, Dang, Joyce, Phil, Gary)
Longfellow Creek stewards
Jay Mirro, Scott Blackstock, Mike Arizona, Kirsten Rohrbach
Those at the celebration, which included a buffet dinner sponsored by Tuxedos and Tennis Shoes Catering and Events (other contributing sponsors included the Delridge Day Committee), also heard from Christa Mazzone-Palmberg from Sound Alliance. Organizers promise coverage to come on the Delridge Grassroots Leadership website. This was intended to be something of a pre-func to tomorrow’s Gathering of Neighbors – you’ll see more than a few of these dedicated volunteers there – hope to see you at Chief Sealth International High School during the GoN, 11 am-3 pm Saturday!
The Delridge Produce Cooperative board is about to take the next step toward potentially running a food store in the future Delridge Supportive Housing building: Next week, it’s expecting to submit a Memorandum of Understanding to DESC. That was one headline from Monday night’s DPC meeting at Delridge Library. Representing the co-op were board members Ariana Rose Taylor-Stanley and Ranette Iding; they were careful to say that the MOU is not a lease, nor a guarantee of one, but it will enable architects to move forward with planning the development of the ground-floor commercial space they’re likely to occupy in the building. DPC is hoping to find a community volunteer who can help them with the MOU.
(Photo by Holli Margell)
A comment following Sunday’s report of burglaries at Youngstown Cultural Arts Center mentioned vandalism at Delridge P-Patch. We don’t know if it’s related, but we do know more about the P-Patch problems tonight, thanks to this firsthand report from Valerie:
The storage shed at the Delridge P-Patch (5078 25th Avenue SW, at 25th Ave SW and Puget Blvd SW) has been vandalized , with holes chopped into the walls from the outside and both doors badly damaged, twice in the past five days. So far nothing has been stolen, but both times the damage has required considerable effort to repair. Police reports have been filed for both attempts, but of course after the fact there’s not much to be done except make the repairs.
People garden here through the city’s P-Patch program, which not only provides individuals with a space to garden in the city, but P-Patches also donate a significant amount of fresh, organic produce to food banks around the area. All P-Patch maintenance and improvements are done on a volunteer basis by people who garden there, and it’s dispiriting to have to make repairs after pointless acts of vandalism.
We’d appreciate it if people would keep an eye out, and if anyone sees anything suspicious at the Delridge P-Patch, or any P-Patch, please report it to Seattle Police.
And if you see this before 7 pm, one more reminder that tonight is the monthly West Seattle Crime Prevention Council meeting at the Southwest Precinct (Delridge/Webster).
Management at Youngstown Cultural Arts Center in North Delridge says this has never happened before – and they hope you can help make sure it doesn’t happen again:
Hello Neighbors – I am sad to say that your neighborhood Cultural Arts Center, Youngstown, has been the victim of two break ins in the last week. The SW Precinct officers have responded to our calls quickly and dusted for fingerprints while taking our statements.
Youngstown is the home to several well known and respected non-profit organizations, two of them, Power of Hope and Nature Consortium, both have been broken into this week.
In the six years since Youngstown opened we have not experienced anything like this. As anyone who has been a victim themselves understands, our sense of security has been shaken.
We suspect that these break-ins have happened between midnight and 5 am. If anyone living or working in the neighborhood noticed anything out of the ordinary recently, especially the nights the break-ins occurred (Monday night into Tuesday morning and/or Friday night into Saturday morning) please report it to the SW Precinct immediately.
Thank you.
Margaret Way, DNDA @ Youngstown
And if you see anything suspicious *in progress* – there or elsewhere – call 911.
If you have been following the saga of the Delridge Supportive Housing building that the Downtown Emergency Service Center plans to build in the 5400 block of Delridge, you know that DESC has committed to include a commercial space on the northwest side of the building, and that the Delridge Produce Cooperative is considered to be the likely tenant for that space, to open a “greengrocer”-type food store, as DPC describes it. But as DPC reps have been saying, it’s going to be a long road between now and the potential opening of that store in early 2014, and they can’t go it alone – they would love to have YOUR help. The community meeting mentioned by a DPC rep at last week’s North Delridge Neighborhood Council meeting (WSB coverage here) is now two nights away, and DPC sent out a reminder about it today, – it’s part of the meeting’s listing on the WSB West Seattle Events Calendar (see the full announcement here). The DPC has been working for more than 3 years on a mission near and dear to many hearts in eastern West Seattle – more fresh food. They hope to enlist local residents to help toward that goal – from the meeting announcement:
We plan for a large part of our produce purchases to come from the Delridge community itself, and so we have a great need to reach out to neighbors to find and recruit members and growers. If we connect gardeners to the food hub that we are growing, we can all eat healthy, local food without paying the high prices that we are all used to seeing for organic produce at the grocery store.
If you can help with that – or in some other way – or just want to know more, the DPC hopes to see you at 6:30 pm Monday, Delridge Library (Delridge/Brandon).
Still time to go join some of your West Seattle neighbors busy beautifying the North Delridge area right now for the annual Spring Clean. Headquarters is Delridge Community Center, but volunteers (including Jackson the dog!) were planning to fan out to a variety of locations, till noon.
Business was a big topic at Monday night’s North Delridge Neighborhood Council meeting – local businesses present and potentially future. Read on for our toplines:Read More
8:08 PM SUNDAY: It was originally Louisa Boren Junior High School … with multiple school using it as temporary quarters in recent years … and now, the Seattle Public Schools site at 5950 Delridge Way SW has a new sign officially declaring it the “Louisa M. Boren Building.” As you probably know, it will be home to a new school, K-5 STEM at Boren, for at least the next two years, and the first wave of enrollment letters for the opt-in school are scheduled to go out one week from tomorrow. Meantime, the school Design Team meets again Tuesday night at 6:15 pm at school district HQ in SODO; you can plug directly into discussions about the new school on its community-created Yahoo! discussion group, here.
ADDED MONDAY AFTERNOON: Just received the link for district notes on the Design Team’s long Saturday session – you can see them here. New principal Dr. Shannon McKinney is now here from Arizona and joined the team for the session focusing on curriculum and related items.
One week from today, as North Delridge Neighborhood Council Beautification Committee chair Lisa Taylor-Whitley puts it: “Two hours of your time will make a visible difference in our neighborhood.” It’s the annual North Delridge Spring Clean, 10 am-noon on April 14th:
Volunteers will meet at the Delridge Community Center, 4501 Delridge Way SW, and break into groups from there.
We will provide the bags and pickers while you will provide the labor to spruce up our neighborhood! We will be cleaning Delridge Way from Andover to Juneau, pruning around the “Welcome to Delridge” sign, and planting plants at the Community Center.
P.S. And for other neighborhood happenings and discussions – NDNC’s monthly meeting is Monday, 6:30 pm, Delridge Library, agenda info here.
| 4 COMMENTS