West Seattle, Washington
09 Sunday
We’ve mentioned this on Twitter (where we sometimes post short bursts — police scanner traffic, etc. – that may never become full WSB stories) and been asked about it on Facebook, so it seems like it’s now worth a note here too: Police have responded to several trouble reports tonight on Alki and Schmitz Park; one of the Alki cases reportedly involved teenagers beating up at least one other teen, and there was also a report of some teens getting pepper-sprayed, with two of them turning up in Starbucks. No serious injuries that we have heard of so far but if this is any relation to the end of school, police did say at the West Seattle Crime Prevention Council meeting earlier this week that they had a plan not only for campus today, but for gathering spots tonight. Still, they’ve said it frequently – if you see anything that looks like trouble brewing, call 911.
(Photo taken mid-May along Alki Avenue)
As we reported from the West Seattle Crime Prevention Council meeting Tuesday night, police say things have been quieter on Alki in the month and a half since the May 1 shooting, but the Alki Community Council is taking nothing for granted. Following up on last month’s discussion with Southwest Precinct police leaders, the ACC held a “working meeting” last night to follow up on public-safety issues, and has come up with an action plan – including some components with which you can help. ACC officer Paul Carr has just published a summary to the ACC e-mail group – read on:Read More
If you have an iPhone (or Android), the county Health Department has come up with an app(lication) you can add to it to have handy in case of emergency – apparently it’s been out for a while so you may have it already, but if not, read on for the newly issued reminder:Read More
While much of the attention regarding the stalled Whole Foods development at Fauntleroy/Alaska/39th has focused on what will happen to, and in, the huge hole – one WSBer has been worrying about the road alongside the hole. She contacted the city to express her concerns and wanted to share the e-mail she received, regarding how it’s being monitored — read on:Read More
You may have heard some of this before but it’s vital to hear again when we’re in a situation like today/tomorrow with near-record heat expected (here’s the latest forecast) – the Seattle Animal Shelter has sent out words of warning – not only is it the right thing to do, but it’s a crime if you DON’T protect your pet – read on (P.S. that’s WSB mascot Miles sunbathing at left):Read More
With four Seattle Public Library branches in West Seattle, it’s likely a lot of people will want to know about this – so we’re sharing the announcement just in from SPL re: proposed “rules of conduct” changes (with a public hearing set for next week). If you remember a WSB Forums thread about someone who said they got in trouble for taking off their shoes in a local library, one of the rule changes will be of note:Read More
Six weeks after two city councilmembers joined a Delridge delegation on a tour of problem properties – long-vacant houses used by squatters, or otherwise threatening neighborhood health and safety (WSB coverage is here and here) – we have two updates. First, 4117 Delridge (map) – where we got the above video clip during the April 3 tour, with North Delridge Neighborhood Council‘s Mike Dady talking about the frustration that site has caused him for years – now has a demolition permit, issued just yesterday. (We saw a work crew at the site earlier today, though no backhoe in sight.) The permit says demolition will resolve a DPD case. Meanwhile, one of the councilmembers who joined in the tour, Sally Clark, mentioned her action plan in her monthly newsletter that’s just been e-mailed out:
… As a result of the neighborhood’s advocacy we will be looking at a change in the land use code to allow quicker demolition of a single family house. Right now you can’t demolish unless you have a plan and permit to rebuild. This concept makes sense in protecting housing stock and should be retained for multi-family areas. In single-family zones the requirement prevents owners who want to do the right thing from removing derelict homes. It’s not a perfect solution. I would rather see these houses reclaimed and lived in, but for some neighbors the wait for the perfect solution has already been too long. Watch for PLUNC to take up this idea this summer. If you’d like more information or have feedback about the idea of allowing demolition of single-family homes without a new building permit in hand, please contact me.
Here’s Councilmember Clark’s contact info; PLUNC is the Planning, Land Use and Neighborhoods Committee that she chairs — track its meetings and agendas here. Councilmember Tim Burgess was on the tour too and promised at the time to pursue a proposal to make property owners more accountable, though it hasn’t come up yet before the Public Safety (etc.) committee he chairs.
That’s a photo we took outside Sanislo Elementary just before the morning bell today; at left is Jen Cole from the pedestrian-advocacy group Feet First, and at right, the man she describes as a “walking celebrity,” Mark Fenton from the PBS series “America’s Walking.” He joined a group of Sanislo families and Highland Park neighbors in a “walking school bus” this morning, traveling more than a mile from 11th/Thistle to Sanislo @ 21st/Myrtle, and then talked with students and parents outside the school. Along the route were a couple of crossings that have been high on local radar for safety improvements, including 12th/Holden in front of Highland Park Improvement Club – here’s our video as we crossed that busy route to and from eastern West Seattle:
While at that crossing, Highland Park Action Committee chair Dan Mullins, who was along for part of the walk, pointed out it’s one of the spots where HPAC’s new Traffic Committee (WSB story here) is working on safety improvements — that’s him on the left side of this next photo from the start of the walk:
You can see Fenton speak at Union Station downtown (map) tonight, 6 pm, during an event as part of the city’s Pedestrian Master Plan launch, spearheaded by SDOT (whose Jennifer Wieland joined this morning’s walk too).
Wanted to get you advance reminders of three big things happening tomorrow night, starting with this: The photo is from one of the final rehearsals of “Merrily We Roll Along,” the West Seattle High School student musical that opens tomorrow night. Marketing manager Sumeet Chadha sends this info too:
West Seattle High School Drama Club has been hard at work over the past few months putting together an adaption of Merrily We Roll Along. This musical features a variety of talented students singing, dancing, and performing at their best. If you haven’t checked out a West Seattle High School Production, now is the time to be pleasantly surprised at what high school theater is capable of.
“Merrily We Roll Along” shows for the following two weekends: May 7, 8, 9, 15, 16 at 7:30
Special Benefit Performance: May 14th at 8:00
$5.00 with reservation, $10.00 at the door. For tickets call: 206-252-8834
Performances at:
WSHS Theater, 3000 California Ave SW
ALSO TOMORROW – SNAP IN FAUNTLEROY: 6:30 pm is the time, Fauntleroy Church is the place, find out how to be ready for anything, as the Fauntleroy Community Association presents a free preparedness workshop with Seattle Neighborhoods Actively Prepare.
LAST BUT BY ABSOLUTELY NO MEANS LEAST – FIRE DEPARTMENT HONORS HEROES: Tomorrow night in the Bertha Knight Landes Room at City Hall downtown, the Seattle Fire Department holds its annual awards ceremony. Recipients include a West Seattle-residing firefighter/paramedic whose story we brought you earlier this spring, Dave Pedras (read that story here).
The Southwest Precinct Public Safety Newsletter is out, and it includes burglary and scam prevention tips – read on:Read More
The photos are courtesy of WestSide Baby’s Nancy Woodland, who’s at IKEA in Renton right now for the car-seat safety event that her group is co-sponsoring till 1 pm – first photo, the cars lined up as it began an hour ago, photo below, the car seats that had been brought in for recycling. If you can make it to Renton and are interested, full details are in our original preview on partner site White Center Now.
We first published this at partner site White Center Now, but the invitation goes for West Seattle families too: It involves a car-seat-safety event with which WestSide Baby is involved on Wednesday at IKEA in Renton, but if you have really old car seats (6+ years old) still sitting around, WestSide Baby would love to get them today or tomorrow because of a rare opportunity to recycle most of what’s in them – get the full scoop here.
It’s been a busy few days, so you might not have seen this on partner site White Center Now yet: If you live in south West Seattle, you’ll be interested in the crime updates — which included some good news! — plus Prosecuting Attorney Dan Satterberg‘s remarks, as reported in our coverage of the South Delridge/White Center Community Safety Coalition meeting Thursday night. See the story here. (Also of interest to south West Seattle: The Highland Park Action Committee‘s monthly meeting is tomorrow, 7 pm, 11th/Holden.)
Another reminder about a big event tonight — King County Prosecuting Attorney Dan Satterberg is scheduled to speak at tonight’s meeting of the South Delridge/White Center Community Safety Coalition (6 pm, St. James Place, 9421 18th SW; map). If you’ve got tough questions about the criminal-justice system and how crime suspects are handled after their arrests, he’s the elected official with the answers — although some of the decisions about sentences and criminal law ultimately are up to state legislators and the Governor. Here’s our report on his recent speech to the Rotary Club of West Seattle (and here’s our followup with the wild West Seattle car “chase” video he showed the Rotarians).
Thanks to Jim for the tip – the stoplights at 30th/Roxbury (map) are out right now (and no temporary “stop” signs had been set up when we went over for a photo shortly after his tip came in) – because of the evening sunshine, the glare might fool you into thinking you have a green light; we’re checking to make sure somebody’s reported the outage.
(photo courtesy Mayor Nickels’ office)
As part of the city’s Youth Violence Prevention Initiative, five public middle schools, including Denny in West Seattle, will have officers on campus. The four officers on the citywide team were introduced at Seattle Public Schools HQ today; here’s the official announcement.
Since nothing fills our inbox as fast as a more-than-fleeting helicopter sighting over West Seattle, we wanted to take the chance to give you ADVANCE WARNING about helicopter activity that’s planned tomorrow and may be visible from southeast West Seattle and White Center/Top Hat. The announcement comes from the Seattle Fire Department, about training tomorrow at 9401 Myers Way S (map here; Google Street View image below):
The Seattle Fire Department and Snohomish County Sheriff’s Office will conduct helicopter emergency operations training at the City of Seattle Joint Training Facility [9401 Myers Way S; map] on Wednesday, April 15. The drill will prepare both agencies to work together in the event of a regional disaster.
The Snohomish County Sheriff’s Office UH-1H Bell “Huey” Helicopter is equipped with a rescue hoist, which will be used to practice lowering and raising teams of four firefighters onto and off of the roof of a training building. They will also test their skills at lowering equipment onto the roof. The techniques practiced in the drill will help prepare both agencies for special rescue operations including fires in high rise buildings, emergencies aboard ships or other hard-to reach locations and for delivering equipment and resources in the event of a major earthquake or other natural disaster.
Time frame, you ask? Early afternoon in particular, since the media’s been invited to photograph this around 1:30 tomorrow. P.S. Just heard on the Mariners broadcast that this Saturday is the Salute to Armed Forces, with pregame activity starting around 5:30 pm – a flyover is mentioned in the promotional blurbs, and those tend to have West Seattle in the flight path to Safeco – last year, we briefly caught the choppers on video.
One week after the city’s finance director warned that budget cuts would be forthcoming because of a $40 million-plus revenue shortfall, we just got first word of what will be affected. First major West Seattle effect: The project to replace Fire Station 32 in The Junction is likely on hold till at least 2011. Read on for more details, and what else was revealed in this morning’s briefing:Read More
That’s a view through the open front door of the last stop on today’s tour of Delridge-area problem properties, organized by North Delridge Neighborhood Council co-chair Mike Dady. Though he’s been fighting to get something done about vacant/trashed buildings in the area for three years, this one just turned up on his radar the other day – and in fact, when the tour group arrived, it turned out a city notice was posted:
Because of “high hazard” of imminent danger, the notice warned, the premises needed to be vacated by next Thursday. Those notices come from the Department of Planning and Development, whose top brass was on the tour, including director Diane Sugimura. City Councilmembers Sally Clark, who chairs the Planning, Land Use, and Neighborhoods Committee, and Tim Burgess, who chairs the Public Safety Committee, were there too — he’s in this photo with Dady, looking at the first stop on the tour:
So was City Council candidate David Bloom, who got involved after hearing about the problem during a West Seattle visit, plus Department of Neighborhoods director Stella Chao, Mayor Nickels’ public-safety liaison Julien Loh, and concerned neighbors — more than 20 people. The city leaders acknowledged that some of these problem properties are an “unintended consequence” of a city law meant to “preserve housing” — which instead has resulted in vacant, crumbling buildings left standing.
At the very end of the tour, when everyone else had left, Dady expressed cautious optimism that change might be coming; Burgess said he’s introducing a proposal to crack down on property owners who allow illegal activity on their land, and Sugimura expressed support for changing the code that prevents those owners from tearing down even their own buildings without a plan for replacement. More specifics, and photos, coming up later.
Beyond the incident-by-incident crime reports, we work to bring you “big picture” context whenever it’s available. When we saw Southwest Precinct Lt. Steve Paulsen at a meeting the other night, he mentioned he was about to brief the SWP Advisory Council on March crime stats for the area, so we asked for the same overview, to share with you:
Car prowls are up over February. Items stolen are purses, iPods, GPS, wallets, laptops … items that could easily be taken out of vehicles to lessen the probability of being prowled. Suspects are teenagers and drug addicts. We have seen a trend that teenage females are also being involved in this crime. It only takes a few seconds to enter a vehicle and take the items. Some vehicles have been left unlocked as well. The suspects are looking for opportunities and easy pickings.
Auto thefts continue to go downward. The flavor of the month for March is Honda Civics.
Residential burglaries are down from February – mid 40s [total number for the area], which is less then our normal average, 50 or so. Items taken are the same as in car prowls. Weekdays, between 10 am and 1:30 pm, is the hot time. We made 5 arrests in March which cleared several cases.
You can also get the latest on West Seattle crime trends in person — and ask key precinct personnel about concerns in your neighborhood – by attending the next WS Crime Prevention Council meeting, 7 pm April 21 at the precinct (Delridge and Webster).
One week ago today (WSB coverage here), that vacant North Delridge house in the 5400 block of 26th SW (map) was cleaned out by a city crew; it’s now slated to be auctioned off on April 17th foreclosure auction. The ongoing issue of Delridge-area problem properties – from vacant and squatter-besieged, to occupied but debris/deterioration-plagued – is one of the items on the agenda for tonight’s North Delridge Neighborhood Council meeting, 6:30 pm at Delridge Library (map). NDNC co-chair Mike Dady, who has been working a long time to get the city to take notice of the issue, has finally succeeded, and we are now two days away from a tour he plans to lead of some of the problem spots (community members invited, meeting time/place is 2:30 pm Friday at Delridge Uptown Espresso). City Councilmember Sally Clark and Department of Planning and Development director Diane Sugimura have already RSVP’d, and since our original reports on this, the mayor’s public-safety liaison, Julien Loh, also has contacted Mike, who has invited the mayor to join the tour; a city attorney’s office rep is expected to be along too. (12:25 pm addition: We’re also told Councilmember Tim Burgess will be there, as will Department of Neighborhoods director Stella Chao.) One other development: The city’s Customer Service Bureau director has circulated a note reiterating city codes regarding properties like these — read on to see it (we’ve added inline links to the code sections she mentions):Read More
By Tracy Record
West Seattle Blog editor
“One in five sixth graders in our state is drinking alcohol now. But only five percent of sixth grade parents think their kid is drinking.”
Sixth graders – drinking? A startling thought — maybe not in the abstract, but it is if you know a kid that age. They’re on the edge of teenhood, and yet they still have frequent moments sparking the thought, “Really, they’re still just kids.”
The quote is from Chris Volkmann, an Olympia mom who will be speaking at Madison Middle School in West Seattle on April 8 with her son Toren Volkmann; the two have written a book together, “Binge to Blackout.” Before you switch off into “oh, just more preachy stuff” mode, listen to Chris’s invitation: “Just come out and talk with us.”
Toren is 26 now but truly lucky to be alive. I hoped to talk with him before writing this story but missed a connection; nonetheless, Chris’s side of the story is no less compelling – and if you have a child of any age, her suggestions for a non-typical way of discussing drinking with your kid(s) are priceless.
It’s easy in the news business to just let stories drop after the initial report – tougher to remember to follow up, and then to find the followup information. But we do our best to keep checking back, and in that spirit, wanted to let you know what happened in a few notable collision cases — these can be the toughest to follow up on, since a major collision may require weeks or months for the Seattle Police Traffic Collision Investigation Squad to investigate and then for prosecutors to review before a citation or charge is filed. Here’s what happened in two cases — months old, but both cases eventually resulted in Municipal Court-handled citations that haven’t been reported before:
That photo is from last September 4th, when a 15-year-old girl was hit by an SUV while crossing 35th at Juneau in High Point (map). She was out of the hospital within two days, but the investigation and review took months; finally, Municipal Court online records show, the SUV’s 40-year-old driver was cited for passing a vehicle stopped at a crosswalk.
Just a few weeks after the 35th/Juneau incident, we interviewed the motorcycle rider who survived being hit by a minivan in Westwood earlier in the year:
Karen Derby told us the story of her recovery in the months following the June 15, 2008, crash at 30th/Trenton (her story here; original crash report here). Municipal Court online records now show that, also after a long investigation, the 19-year-old driver was cited for running a stop sign.
We are still checking on a few other past cases, including the deadly crash at California/Dawson last fall that killed 92-year-old Rosemary MacCorkindale and, much more recently, two Junction collisions, including the one March 9 in which a pickup driver hit 13 other vehicles, and we’ll let you know when there’s something to report regarding the aftermath of those.
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