(Meeting video, unedited. You’ll want to fast-forward through 1-on-1 conversation break, between 17 and 32 minutes)

By Tracy Record
West Seattle Blog editor

After thirteen months of gestation, the city’s Community Involvement Commission was born Thursday night.

It arrived on the second floor of City Hall, five floors below the conference room where Mayor Murray had announced the plan to create it by executive order.

“It’s been a long process,” acknowledged Department of Neighborhoods director Kathy Nyland, the highest-ranking city staffer in attendance at the commission’s first meeting. She said getting the right staffing in place was a major reason. Danielle Friedman is now on board as the program coordinator, and led most of the meeting – which you can see in its entirety in the unedited video above.

But first, Nyland offered the backstory.

The plan to create the Community Involvement Commission came in a surprise mayoral announcement we covered in July of 2016. The city’s 13 “neighborhood district councils” – groups of volunteers representing smaller community groups and organizations – knew the system was being reviewed, and were looking forward to a report on that review, when the mayor abruptly announced the system would be “replaced” by the new CIC. On elaboration – as Nyland again stressed last night – the councils were not disbanded or dissolved, but the nominal city funding they received (about $500 each per year, generally spent on meeting-room rental) was pulled, and the level of city-staff support was cut.

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Just announced by the city – a round of Neighborhood Matching Fund grants that includes three projects in West Seattle:

$100,000 to Gatewood Elementary School PTA to rebuild the existing one-half acre grassy field area within the playground. Improvements are based upon the Master Plan and full construction documents created with community input. The physical improvements will occur this fall. (Community match: $78,185)

$60,000 to Delridge Neighborhood Development Association to organize the Delridge Neighborhoods Let’s Talk Race Series. The 12 events will use film, dialogue, restorative justice, and storytelling to transform the narrative around institutional and historic racism and build stronger relationships between community organizations, individuals, and groups. (Community match: $47,860)

$27,500 to Longfellow Creek Neighborhood Path for 24th Ave SW to create a more intentional Longfellow Creek Trail connection along 24th Ave SW between SW Willow St. and SW Graham St. This project will coordinate with a design project by the Mid Sound Fisheries Enhancement Group to reduce flooding, improve drainage, and restore habitat along Longfellow Creek. (Community match: $27,047)

The grants are from what is now called the Community Partnership Fund, the larger of two NMF grants the city offers. Meantime, the fund’s citywide grants also included one for South Park:

$50,000 to Sea-Mar Community Health Center to produce Fiestas Patrias, a free 2-day cultural festival which provides opportunities for the community to come together to celebrate Latin American arts, culture and heritage through music, dance, food and more. (Community match: $29,500)

Fiestas Patrias includes a parade, festival, and health fair in South Park on Saturday, September 16th, and Sea-Mar is inviting parade participation – here’s their post in the WSB Forums.

One more reminder – if you’re not already well aware – 6-9 pm tonight is officially Night Out (originally National Night Out Against Crime) coast to coast, with people gathering to celebrate and renew neighborhood solidarity, collaboration, preparedness, resiliency, and more. We just checked with Southwest Precinct Crime Prevention Coordinator Jennifer Burbridge, who’s been coordinating the plans precinct-wide, and she tells WSB that the final total of registered block parties in West Seattle and South Park is 275:

The SW Precinct looks forward to visiting as many Night Out Against Crime block parties tonight as possible! Expect to see the Community Policing Team, the Crime Prevention Coordinator, the MCPP Research Analyst, precinct leadership, as well as patrol officers, out and about tonight!

Even if you are not participating, please be aware that many non-arterial streets will be closed for those block parties, with neighbors of all ages talking, dining, and playing in the street, so be extra careful wherever you go.

And tonight will be our 10th year of WSB as-it-happens Night Out coverage (since 2008), stopping at some parties and adding photos sent by others (easiest way is sending from your phone to ours, 206-293-6302, same way you can reach us with breaking news and questions/tips 24/7). So check in here starting just after 6 pm!

One week from tomorrow, August 7th, is the deadline for comments on the Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) for the Housing Affordability and Livability Agenda (HALA)’s proposed Mandatory Housing Affordability (MHA) upzoning. That was one of the main topics at this quarter’s Morgan Community Association meeting, which also included a Lowman Beach Park seawall update and a preview of a community cleanup next weekend:

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From the “in case you were wondering” file: The city Department of Neighborhoods had promised results by July 18th in the “Your Voice, Your Choice” voting for park/street projects – the first time it was trying “participatory budgeting.” The date came and went and the project website changed its languaging, unannounced, to a promise of August. Finally an explanation appeared this week on the department’s Front Porch blog-format website, saying “the delay is caused by more voter participation than expected”: 7,500 votes in all from around the city, with 2,000 of those on paper ballots. The online update did not mention that the project also had a personnel change – it was noted at a local community meeting earlier this month that Jenny Frankl, who had launched and evangelized it, was no longer with the department; the YVYC website now lists Kraig Cook as the project’s coordinator. DON now says it “hope(s) to announce the final vote results in each council district by early August.” Each district was allotted up to $285,000 to fund three park/street projects; we first reported on the plan last January.

P.S. The projects that were in the running in District 1 (West Seattle/South Park) are shown and described in the “voter’s guide.”

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

The Admiral Neighborhood Association should be ready to announce the lineup for this year’s Summer Concerts at Hiawatha within a week or so.

That’s one of the toplines from the June ANA meeting this past Tuesday night at The Sanctuary @ Admiral.

(WSB file photo)

SUMMER CONCERTS AT HIAWATHA: As announced earlier this year, the ANA-presented free concert series is set for six Thursday nights as usual, starting July 20th, 6:30 pm on the east lawn of Hiawatha Community Center – this year new volunteer organizers, Stephanie Jordan and Josephine Davis, are planning it and they told the meeting they’re close to finalizing the lineup.

4TH OF JULY KIDS’ PARADE: While ANA doesn’t coordinate the West Seattle 4th of July Kids’ Parade in North Admiral, it supports the event and participates in the Hamilton Viewpoint Park event that follows, with concession sales, and that was discussed too. FIT4MOM is presenting the parade this year and as noted here last week, a crowdfunding campaign is on to cover the increasing costs of permits – you can donate here. As it does every year, the parade starts at 10 am July 4th (a Tuesday this year) from 44th SW/Sunset (map); no preregistration necessary – kids and their families can just show up and be part of it.

PUBLIC SAFETY: Following up on concerns heightened since last month’s as-yet-unsolved deadly shooting at Alki, ANA and the Alki Community Council are looking at a joint public meeting about public-safety issues. Alex Clardy from Councilmember Lisa Herbold‘s office was at the meeting and offered to help coordinate, as Herbold had suggested a community meeting even before that flashpoint incident.

HALA REZONING: An early draft of an official ANA comment letter was circulated and discussed, but final action won’t be taken until next month’s meeting, which is still within the comment timeline for the Draft Environmental Impact Statement that the city published a week ago. Also under consideration, an ANA-led walking tour of Admiral to point out key issues.

ADOPT-A-STREET CLEANUP: The rescheduled quarterly community cleanup is this Saturday (June 17th) – be at Metropolitan Market (41st/42nd/Admiral; WSB sponsor) at 9 am; snacks and equipment are provided.

The Admiral Neighborhood Association meets second Tuesdays most months, 7 pm at The Sanctuary; next meeting will be July 11th, then no meeting in August.

During today’s shopping and selling, other community events included at least three cleanups. We hope they all went well! Tonight, we have a wrapup on last Sunday’s Morgan Junction cleanup, from organizer Jill Boone:

On Sunday morning, we had nine adults and nine kids of varying ages picking up litter all along California Avenue from Othello to Raymond. The area looks so clean now! We picked up five bags of trash.

Jill says they’re going to do it again on June 17th June 24th – RSVP to her at litterleague@gmail.com –
if you can’t make that date but are interested in helping with one or more during the summer, you can also use that address to join her notification list.

The biggest news at last night’s Admiral Neighborhood Association meeting was word of speed bumps on the way to another waterfront trouble spot. That was revealed during this month’s SPD briefing:

SOUTHWEST PRECINCT BRIEFING: Community Police Team Officer Jon Flores was at ANA to talk with attendees. He brought stats:

In Admiral, residential burglaries are down 7 percent year to year; 16 have been reported so far this year, compared to 23 by this time last year. Car prowls have been a big issue and year to date the numbers are up, 61 in Admiral year to date as of today, 41 to this time last year. The precinct is proactively patrolling West Seattle hotspots, including undercover – “you won’t see us there, but we’ll be there” – such as Lincoln Park.

Precinct commander Capt. Pierre Davis, Officer Flores said, wants people to know that the precinct is working with the Traffic Enforcement division to have patrols on Alki this summer. And he also the SW Precinct Bicycle Team is now “fully functional” and will be deployed in Admiral and Alki this summer as things get busier. In general, as summer nears, Alki becomes the area where officers also are told to be if they are not on emergency responses somewhere else, “to set the tone.”

Officer Flores added that he is working with some neighborhoods on traffic calming and ongoing problems, such as the section of Beach Drive that worked with SDOT to get the OK for speed bumps.

That’s when he mentioned that speed bumps are coming to Don Armeni Boat Ramp, as a result of coordination with Seattle Parks. Read More