Neighborhoods 953 results

Alki Council: Sidewalk squabble, McMansion rules, more

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That’s newly elected Seattle City Council President Richard Conlin, speaking tonight to the Alki Community Council. “Every neighborhood counts,” he declared, and hit on several hot topics. But the hottest topic of the night took center stage before he spoke, when a large, displeased group of Alki Point residents tried to pass a resolution about the one issue that had brought them all to the meeting:Read More

“December was catch-a-burglar month”

January 16, 2008 11:59 pm
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 |   Crime | Neighborhoods | Safety | West Seattle news

That quote from Southwest Precinct Sgt. Jeff Durden at Tuesday night’s West Seattle Community Safety Partnership meeting — from which we have a few holdover notes to share with you before too much more time elapses, in addition to the news we reported last night about the high-security funeral that’ll be at Freedom Church next Tuesday. To elaborate on that quote, in the past month, SW Precinct leadership estimates its team has arrested more than 15 burglary suspects. Lt. Steve Paulsen noted that detectives and patrol officers are working more closely together, literally – four detectives are now based at the precinct, rather than elsewhere, which means more chances for them to talk face-to-face with the officers working the streets. “Our clearance [case-solving] rate has just been remarkable,” Lt. Paulsen noted. Not only are they arresting suspects, but he says they’re recovering lots of stolen property too. And they also praised community members whose eagle eyes and quick phone calls are helping them detect crimes and catch suspects more quickly. Other notes from the WSCSP meeting, including community “trouble spots” they’re watching:Read More

Signs of a slowdown — the good kind

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The city has just put up these speed-limit signs in the Alki alley that’s just west of 59th (map). Alki Community Council president Jackie Ramels tells WSB the neighborhood campaign to get these signs was led by Steve Cuddy, who also successfully pushed for the speed bumps on 59th, which is a major street between Alki Ave and Admiral Way but is a particularly bad place to speed since it runs along the south side of Alki Elementary, Alki Playfield, and the Whale Tail Park/tennis courts area. Speaking of the ACC, it meets tomorrow night (7 pm @ Alki Community Center), with guests scheduled to include City Council President Richard Conlin and the owner of the soon-to-open Alki Urban Market, Thampipillai Thilakarajah (featured in this WSB report, a shorter version of which also appears in the brand-new Alki News-Beacon). You don’t have to be a member to attend.

New edition of the Alki News-Beacon now available online

Editor Cami MacNamara just sent the link. Its articles include a contribution from us again, a shorter version of our interview with the entrepreneur who’s opening the Alki Urban Market (the WSB version is here). The Beacon is published by the Alki Community Council, which is having its next meeting this Thursday, 7 pm at the Alki Community Center, with a guest appearance by new city council president Richard Conlin.

Highlights of West Seattle’s week ahead

January 7, 2008 5:44 am
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 |   Neighborhoods | West Seattle police | West Seattle schools

Much going on this week – all listed on the WSB Events page – but here’s a small sampling we want to highlight:

TODAY/TONIGHT — Back-to-school day for everyone who wasn’t already back by the end of last week. School open house/tour season is revving up too, with Seattle Lutheran High School having one @ 6:30 tonight (more open houses & tours on the aforementioned Events page, including the West Seattle-wide Middle School Information Night on Thursday, and please send us your open house/tour schedule if it’s not there already).

TOMORROW — Next meeting of Junction Neighborhood Organization (JuNO), 6:30 pm at Ginomai (SW corner 42nd/Genesee), with topics including RapidRide and Adopt-A-Street. Read more on the new JuNO site. (Are you connected to your neighborhood organization? We’ve got a list on the right sidebar of this page.)

WEDNESDAY — Biggest event today involves the rest of the city as well: The Seattle Police Department will begin implementing geographic changes as laid out in the new Neighborhood Policing Plan. You can read it here; we are working on a standalone report about this, but among other things, it means the Southwest Precinct here in West Seattle no longer will handle Georgetown; its remaining turf remains split into two “sectors” but the layout of “beats” within those sectors will change (see page 15-16). Also Wednesday — At 4 pm, before their regular semiweekly meeting, Seattle School Board members hold a “work session” for updates on the controversial Chief Sealth High School/Denny Middle School shared-campus plan. (Recent WSB coverage: 12/19 school board meeting; 12/12 Westwood Neighborhood Council meeting.) Then at 7:30 pm, people interested in the environmental permits required for the Nucor steel mill’s crane-expansion project are invited to a public hearing at Alki Community Center.

THURSDAY — The Southwest Design Review Board is back in action, this time looking at the mixed-use “Spring Hill” project south of The Junction. (Latest WSB reports on that project: Neighbor concern here; meeting announcement here.)

FRIDAY — The West Seattle Kiwanis Club presents a free community concert by the Seattle Symphony, 8 pm @ West Seattle High School.

Again, those are just a few of this week’s events – listed here along with dozens of other West Seattle events planned all the way through October at this point — if yours isn’t there, e-mail us (or go here for our postal-mail address if you prefer to send announcements that way).

Neighbor organizing opposition to 5020 California project

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The first Southwest Design Review Board meeting of the new year, one week from Thursday, is scheduled to look at the Spring Hill apartment/retail mixed-use building proposed for 5020 California and 2 parcels south of that address (area photo above; developers BlueStar told WSB last week there’s no project rendering yet). As mentioned in our December 11 update, it’s now outlined as a 6-story building with 90 apartments, 100 parking spaces, and 4,000 square feet of retail. Area resident Mary wanted other neighbors to know that she’s drafted a letter opposing it and that they can contact her if they want a copy of it or are interested otherwise in joining forces:Read More

One week till Christmas Eve: West Seattle daylight decor

December 17, 2007 3:01 pm
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 |   Holidays | Neighborhoods | Seen around town

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Those Fairmount Springs folks have done it again – decorating their traffic island along Fauntleroy (which sported Halloween spirit earlier this fall) – augmenting the year-round candy-cane striping of the stop-sign poles. And this time they’ve included a little sign taking credit (closeup below); their website, by the way, is among the neighborhood-group sites we’ve just collected for a new list you’ll find on the right WSB sidebar.

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Neighborhood tidbits

December 16, 2007 5:28 pm
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 |   Highland Park | Neighborhoods | West Seattle news

-The collection of links on the WSB right sidebar formerly titled WEST SEATTLE MISCELLANY is now WEST SEATTLE NEIGHBORHOOD GROUPS — several local activists have suggested it, and we hope it will be a reminder to everyone that West Seattle has some great groups well worth getting involved with. We’re pretty sure our list has all the big ones; if you have a smaller neighborhood group (whether it has a website or an e-mail group) and we missed it, please let us know.

-While checking in with those neighborhood sites, we noticed that the Highland Park Action Committee is looking for a 2008 chair, with this pitch: “Become the new HPAC chair and make a positive difference in our neighborhood. And what perks! like a cool secret handshake. You’ll find out the rest after you’re sworn in.” Interested? In Highland Park? Here’s the HPAC website.

-Tomorrow is when the full City Council is scheduled to take up the industrial-zoning issue that’s attracted the most coverage regarding how it could affect our neighbors to the east in Georgetown, but could affect some industry-/port-neighboring land in eastern West Seattle too. Here’s the full text of the proposal. Lots more coverage at Blogging Georgetown (multiple posts currently linked from its home page); Mid Beacon Hill wrote about it too (here); the measure passed a council committee last week (P-I story here). If you’ve got strong feelings on this issue, get them to the City Council (e-mail addresses and phone numbers here) by tomorrow morning.

JuNO gets a place of its own

Online, that is. Junction Neighborhood Organization president Erica Karlovits has set up a blog-style site for the group; check it out here. And as you’ll see on the website, the next JuNO meeting is set for 6:30 pm January 8 — for everybody who lives in and around The Junction and wants to get connected with ways to keep it a great place to be.

Tree view in Seaview

December 12, 2007 6:11 pm
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 |   Neighborhoods | Seaview | Seen around town

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Bill Barna (disclosure: WSB sponsor) sent the photo (thanks!) with word that a big tree-planting project is under way on a number of streets in Seaview – this photo is from 49th south of Alaska.