West Seattle, Washington
28 Thursday
From last night’s Alki Community Council meeting (held at Alki UCC because the Alki Community Center‘s closed till July 25th):
PARK GUN BAN? The ACC has sent city leaders a letter urging support for a ban on guns in parks. Even if it’s not the city’s jurisdiction – if that would have to go through the state Legislature, as was suggested after the mayor proposed such a ban last year – ACC’s Paul Carr says they hope the city would lobby strongly for a guns-in-parks ban. The ACC’s support for this is a result of discussions that followed the May 1st Alki shooting (photo at left). Carr stresses that this is not a challenge to individual gun-ownership rights – but if firearms can be off-limits in a particularly vulnerable public place like a school, he asks, why not parks?
Ahead: Paper or pixels? And politics … Read More
DELRIDGE PLAYGROUND-BUILDING DAY: As previewed here last night. It’s been less than four months since first word that a new playground at Delridge Community Center could happen largely thanks to donated materials, time and labor, and today’s the day, with hundreds of volunteers on site.
“SAFETY CITATIONS”: 10-11 am, firefighters from Engine 29 will be on Alki looking for kids wearing their helmets properly – and they’ll get “safety citations” good for free Subway sandwiches!
HIAWATHA FUN FEST: Noon-3 today at Hiawatha Community Center – games, activities, prizes.
WEST SEATTLE HI-YU JUNIOR COURT CORONATION: During the Fun Fest, starting around 12:45 pm, the new Hi-Yu Junior Court will be announced and coronated (look for the stage on the east lawn @ Hiawatha).
FREE GUIDED ECO-HIKE: Once a month, the West Seattle-based Nature Consortium< offers a free guided hike through the West Duwamish Greenbelt, where it works on forest restoration, and today’s the day – 1 pm, meet at trailhead at 14th SW/SW Holly (here’s a map; RSVP if you can to lisa@naturec.org).
Though the primary election is officially one month from Saturday, voting begins in as little as two weeks – it’s an all-mail election, and ballots go out on July 30th. Starting tonight, WSB takes a closeup look at the Seattle City Council races and how several key West Seattle issues figure into them. Veteran journalist Kathy Mulady sets the stage, right before her first candidate report:
Two of Seattle’s longest-serving city councilmembers are giving up their seats. Jan Drago is running for mayor, and Richard McIver is retiring. The vacancies have opened up crowded contests, with 11 candidates running for the two seats.
Two other seats are also up for election, those held by Council President Richard Conlin and Councilmember Nick Licata. Both men are fighting to keep their positions.
In all, you will see 14 city council candidates on the primary ballot (with only one challenger, Conlin advances automatically to the November general election). In the days/weeks ahead, we’ll try to help you make a little sense of it all, at least in regard to West Seattle issues – like growth, and the economy.
–How do we preserve the hometown feel of West Seattle, and still bring new jobs here so people don’t have to commute?
–With more people comes more traffic – just as plans are laid to tear down the Alaskan Way Viaduct and replace it with a deep-bored tunnel. Should West Seattle have better bus service, or even a streetcar line like South Lake Union?
–And there are still lingering questions about plans for a new jail – does the city really need its own jail, and where would it be built? West Seattle is still officially a possible site – should it be?
We asked the candidates those questions and more. Check back here during the coming days to see what they say and ask your own questions. We have asked candidates to watch WSB and respond to questions asked by readers when they have a chance.
SEATTLE CITY COUNCIL, POSITION 8: ROBERT ROSENCRANTZ
By Kathy Mulady
Reporting for West Seattle Blog
Robert Rosencrantz has a theory about giving up – “don’t.” He also knows hard work pays off, and that the easy way often isn’t the best way. With those life lessons well ensconced, Rosencrantz, a 53-year-old Montlake resident, is making his third run for a Seattle City Council< seat.
Although his early life was spent on crutches, Rosencrantz went on to become a race-walker and runner. While in high school, he started sweeping and doing minor maintenance at an apartment building to save money for college. Now Rosencrantz owns four apartment buildings with his wife.
(video unavailable due to blip.tv shutdown)
Rev. Pat Wright and the Total Experience Gospel Choir – which practices at West Seattle’s Kenyon Hall — co-headlined tonight’s first-ever Westsidewalk three-act concert: At three venues in Fauntleroy Church and the old Fauntleroy Schoolhouse across the street, each group played half-hour sets simultaneously – punctuated by breaks so audience members could rotate to the next group/venue. While Total Experience played inside the church sanctuary, the Ballard Sedentary Sousa Band performed outdoors:
(video unavailable due to blip.tv shutdown)
And Sambatuque‘s sleek samba jazzed up The Hall at Fauntleroy:
(video unavailable due to blip.tv shutdown)
Tonight’s proceeds benefit Seattle Artists, which operates Kenyon Hall and its programs (including Kindermusik with Lou Magor). Lots more summer music ahead – in addition to live indoor shows like those at Skylark Cafe and Club (WSB sponsor) Thursdays-Sundays (schedule here), two outdoor series are still to come: the Admiral Neighborhood Association’s Summer Concerts at Hiawatha (co-sponsored by WSB) start Thursday night with Alma Villegas (full series details here), and Providence Mount St. Vincent will present its Friday night concert series starting August 7.
Chas Redmond shared that photo from Camp Long, where it was a beautiful night to sit in the forest and enjoy the Mater Matrix Mother and Medium performance. We also received this photo from Sharonn Meeks, who estimated about 200 were on hand and shows us a closer look:
Tonight’s performance is over, but artist Mandy Greer‘s crocheted river, part of the Water Calling “temporary public art” series, is scheduled to remain in the forest through the end of this month.
This afternoon, it was just piles of wood chips and a cleared, fenced site – by early tomorrow morning, it will be abuzz with hundreds of volunteers building the new playground for Delridge Community Center, and Holli Margell has sent an update with some things you might want/need to know:
Traffic Alert – With Build Day happening this Friday, we are expecting over 250 people to arrive at the Delridge Community Center by 8am. As a result, we have strongly encouraged all volunteers to arrive by bus, bicycle, skate board, foot or through carpooling. However, we realize not everyone can do so resulting in additional traffic during the morning commute along SW Genesee Street and Delridge Way S.W.
Once the playground is built, it needs to sit untouched while the cement dries. Please don’t be disappointed if you go to the Delridge Community Center and can’t play on the playground this weekend. This is for your safety.
Everyone is invited to help us celebrate this momentous community project!
What: Delridge Playground Grand Opening
When: July 23, 6:30 pm
Where: The Delridge Community Center Playground, of course!
4501 Delridge Way S.W.
We will enjoy light refreshments and live music while the children play!
And in a comment on an earlier report, Betsy Hoffmeister adds:
It’s not too late to have your name or business recognized on the playground wall! Cash donations are still being accepted and will be on the day of; also, donations of food and beverages for the grand opening are enthusiastically welcomed — we will have a grand opening at 6:30 pm on July 23 where we will be serving, at very least, 200 cupcakes donated by Coffee to a Tea With Sugar. If you want your name up on the playground wall, contact us to donate! helpdelridgeplay@gmail.com Thanks neighbors!!
In addition to the photo we shared earlier this afternoon showing the man who’s believed to have robbed both the U.S. Bank branch in The Junction yesterday and a Maple Valley bank five days earlier, we also now have a photo from last Friday’s holdup at the Alaska USA branch in Westwood Village QFC. The FBI acknowledges it’s not that clear, but it’s all they have. No additional description, just the photo. Same advice if you see this one – call 911.
Last week, the city said it expected the 16th SW paving work to start “the week of July 20th”; now SDOT has sent an update saying the road closure (and detour shown above) will kick in a week later than that. Read on for the latest advisory:Read More
Here’s hoping they don’t need the incentive to wear their helmets properly anyway – but just in case a little encouragement helps, the Seattle Fire Department says West Seattle’s own Engine 29 will be out on Alki between 10 and 11 am tomorrow, “handing out Safety Citations to children who are properly wearing their helmets. The program will continue through the summer at Fire Stations throughout the City. Each citation entitles the child to a free child-size sandwich at participating Subway locations. The goal of the program is to reduce the incidence of childhood head injuries.” Engine 29 is also scheduled to be in the West Seattle Grand Parade on Saturday.
In the comments after our report on yesterday morning’s robbery at the U.S. Bank branch in The Junction, some wondered if the dreadlocked bandit who struck in Maple Valley July 10th was the same dreadlocked bandit who got away here. The King County Sheriff’s Office now says yes, it’s believed to be the same guy. Sgt. John Urquhart from KCSO says, “The robber in both stick-ups was wearing a multi-colored hat with fake dreadlocks. In the Maple Valley robbery the man handed the teller a note which said ‘Give me all the money’ and mentioned something about a gun. No gun was seen, however. He was given the cash and left the area on foot.” The photo above is from the Maple Valley heist; we’ve asked the FBI for any photos available from the one here, but so far none have been provided. If you think you’ve seen this man, call 911.
Once a month, the West Seattle Chamber of Commerce is hosting small brown-bag gatherings that president/CEO Patti Mullen has dubbed “Lunch with LEOs” – local elected officials. We’ve made it to all three, and today, the guest was City Councilmember Bruce Harrell, who heads up the council’s Energy and Technology Committee. The roundtable chat with seven of us representing local businesses/organizations covered a wide range of topics; of most interest – will Seattle City Light rates go up? Harrell stressed that SCL is technically a distinct entity but that he hasn’t seen any “data” regarding alleged money woes, which he says include “leaked” suggestions they might seek a rate increase of 20 percent next year. He says, “There might be a rate increase of some sort, but nothing close to that,” promising to closely scrutinize any such request, and the utility’s operations. He also discussed the city’s just-submitted application to get federal funding to put City Light on a “smart grid” – they’re hoping for up to $100 million of the $200 million he says it would cost to install technology that would enable more efficient management both at the operations level and at the individual customer level. Harrell says it would also assist in outages, potentially rerouting power around a trouble spot. That was good news to Marcia Chittenden, operator of the Chittenden House B&B, who told the story of how her business was without power for a week and a half after the December 2006 windstorm. According to Harrell, the “smart grid” money is being sought from a “stimulus” fund administered by the U.S. Energy Department and a decision on the grant should be in by October. Other projects Harrell says are on the drawing board include pursuing subsidized broadband for some low-income residents. Participating in the gathering as well as covering it, we put in a pitch when it was time to go around the table: Since his committee oversees technology as well as energy, we asked to have Seattle Police crime information available online, in something closer to real time – right now, the primary way reports are distributed to the media involves turning them into PDFs, copying them onto CDs and distributing them to precincts for reporters to peruse.
We’ve talked a lot about the West Seattle Grand Parade at midday Saturday, the first Outdoor Movie on the Wall Saturday night, and other big events in West Seattle this weekend – but before your plans are set in stone, a shoutout for one more major event: The 15th annual West Seattle Garden Tour is this Sunday – and since it’s self-guided, 9 am-5 pm, you can tour at your leisure. We got a sneak peek at one of the 8 featured gardens a few days ago, the Hailey Family Garden in Admiral (see it here on the WSGT website). Above, a photo of just one tiny corner, showing one of the ways small and large in which color are texture is wound throughout this garden – with open sunny “grassland” out front, and a shady refuge (including beautiful birches) in back. In addition to the Haileys, the team that created this garden – wrapping around a classic, remodeled Admiral home — includes designer Shon Robinson, who was there to do a bit of tidying when we stopped by:
Every stop on the Garden Tour will feature something special. Along with the 8 tour stops, your West Seattle Garden Tour ticket includes admission to Northwest gardening legend Ciscoe Morris‘s lecture at noon at The Kenney, and a chance at winning raffle prizes including a bench donated by Capers (one of the places where tickets are still available) and a stone bench that you’ll see on display at the aforementioned Hailey Family Garden, plus many other items listed here – including, from WSB sponsor Endolyne Joe’s, a $100 gift certificate and $175 gift basket. Here’s where else to get tickets – including online at Brown Paper Tickets (which you in turn can exchange at two places Saturday or Sunday for ticket books).
It’s the city department we discuss the most here, so we’re guessing you’ll want to check out SDOT’s new website. With it – a new Twitter account through which they promise traffic alerts, @seattledot (they used a different one a bit during last year’s snowstorm). And they’ve put the Community Parking Program, which includes the Junction parking review that’s been under way for a year and a half, on Facebook. Plus, you can get their news releases via RSS. (We’ve had state transportation news on our Traffic page via RSS for a while so we’ll add city shortly too.)
Local artist Paul Sorey posted his crime report in the WSB Forums – Two tons of stone, stolen from the Fauntleroy Church parking lot last weekend. Paul’s post links to a webpage he created with photos of similar stones. We just called him to find out a bit more: He says the stone was meant for use in a memorial garden at the church, and the two tons of stolen stone represent about a quarter of what they were using for the project.
More from last night’s Morgan Community Association meeting: New details about how Metro promises it will be beefing up West Seattle bus service, even though the “RapidRide branding” for planned service improvements is proposed to be delayed a year. What Metro’s Jack Latteman discussed with MoCA includes a plan to add rear-door card-readers to hundreds of buses to speed things up – read on for details on that and more:Read More
If you live in the greater Alki/Beach Drive area, the Alki Community Council‘s hoping to see you tonight – but not in the usual place. The Alki Community Center is closed for work till July 25, so tonight’s ACC meeting is at 7 pm at Alki UCC (here’s a map).
The Southwest District Council usually meets the first Wednesday of the month but moved and shortened its meeting this month to combine with an SDOT presentation about neighborhood traffic calming – and that brought out more than a dozen extra attendees. At left, SDOT’s Christina Legazpi with a radar gun, which her colleague Jane Rebelowski explained is often the first tool to determine if your neighborhood really needs help. If you sign up and get at least four more people on your street to join you, you’ll be able to take a class on how to use a radar gun, which will be loaned to you. She suggests neighbors work in pairs to track how fast cars are going and what type of cars are seen speeding. They notch two hours of logged observations to gauge the speed problem. Then comes the next phase – SPD enforcement and/or installation of calming measures. They can include signs, humps, chicanes, chokers (chicanes right across from each other) … all explained here, all potentially funded by money you can apply for. So how effective are the various measures? she was asked – and: Why not put up more stop signs? She says the federal government outlaws simply using stop signs for traffic calming – and they’re easily ignored anyway. Some attendees said they’d applied for traffic calming and gotten turned down; Rebelowski said she’d take a look at the specifics of their applications. If you’re interested in finding out more about how to confirm whether your neighborhood has a problem, and then figure out what to do about it, e-mail her: jane.rebelowski@seattle.gov – and note that this year’s deadline to apply for projects like traffic circles is fast approaching, end of the month.
The group also heard from Andrea Petzel with the same presentation on “backyard cottages” that she gave to the Delridge District Council last month – the city is considering allowing them in more areas. One attendee asked if there would be a vote or whether the City Council would “just ram it down our throats.” Junction Neighborhood Organization president Erica Karlovits expressed concern about density; Petzel said the cottages would only be allowed on single-family lots, but Karlovits pointed out that in The Junction, single-family residences are in close proximity to the ongoing new high-density building. Petzel countered by saying the city planned a maximum of 50 permits per year and she didn’t think that would ultimately affect density. (According to the “backyard cottage” program website, they’ve been allowed in Southeast Seattle for three years, but only 18 permits have been sought.)
U.S. Senator Patty Murray has announced that $7.6 million more transportation dollars are coming to our state for ferry operations – and $2 million is earmarked, we’re told, to go toward a new vessel for the West Seattle run of the King County Water Taxi. (The other money is going toward a Seattle-Bremerton foot ferry, as well as $3 million for Washington State Ferries‘ Anacortes terminal and $750,000 for a new Skagit County ferry terminal serving Guemes Island.) The $2 million would be “more than half the cost” of a new ferry, according to King County Council Chair Dow Constantine‘s office. (Meantime, some of Constantine’s opponents in the King County Executive race continue kicking the Water Taxi around as a political football – eastside State Rep. Ross Hunter, who said the other day that he’d kill the county-run ferries altogether, promises “startling numbers” about passenger ferries at a media briefing this morning — in front of a Lake Union yacht dealership.) 11:27 AM: Daily Weekly has posted a bit about Hunter’s latest anti-KCWT attack.
We mentioned during our West Seattle Summer Fest coverage that we are working with a group of youth doing multimedia internships through Delridge Community Center, and this morning we have a report. The group is Digital Darkroom – we’ll tell you a more about them later, as we are working fast to get out more stories this morning, but with the Delridge playground construction happening tomorrow, we didn’t want to wait on this – it’s great to have our DCC playground coverage enhanced by interns who are based right there! — TR, WSB editor
By Nick Wolf
Digital Darkroom Intern
This Friday, the Delridge Community Center is receiving a long-overdue remodel for its playground. The old playground was removed about two weeks ago when contractors came in to take out the old playground equipment.
This project started when Ryan Spencer (photo above) answered a surprise call from KaBOOM! Ryan, who works as the assistant coordinator for the community center, was excited that Delridge CC was selected to receive a new playground. KaBoom is a non-profit organization based in Washington, D.C. It remodels and builds new playgrounds for organizations across the nation.
The volunteer work necessary to get the job done has been sponsored by the Bank of America Charitable Foundation, a city Department of Neighborhoods grant, and the North Delridge Neighborhood Council.
When volunteers started the excavation they found concrete and some rubber still left in the old playground foundation, so it’s taken about eleven days to remove the remainder in order to start from a fresh foundation. An old and outdated manhole was also uncovered; it has been shortened and covered up with concrete and gravel.
Today, the Associated Recreation Council’s Digital Darkroom interns took photos of the volunteers beginning work on this project (like Nancy Folsom, above) and interviewed organizers and workers. We’ll be covering this story through to completion and will post again on Friday and Monday.
Thanks to Digital Darkroom! We are excited to work with them for the next month.
Thanks to everyone who sent notes via e-mail, Twitter and Facebook asking about a big police presence about an hour and a half ago in the Schmitz Park area. Southwest Precinct Lt. Ron Smith explained what it was about: He says officers pulled over a vehicle “for the purpose of IDing a suspect of an assault investigation.” However, the suspect bolted. Police meantime discovered the suspect also was “wanted for violation of a protection order,” according to Lt. Smith. With the help of K-9 tracking, officers found the suspect, who “will be booked for violation of protection order and obstruction of a police officer.”
As previewed here last night, Seattle Congressmember Jim McDermott‘s bill proposing federal recognition for the Duwamish Tribe had a hearing today in the U.S. House Natural Resources Committee. We watched much of the half-day hearing via live webcast and spoke later in the day with McDermott spokesperson Mike DeCesare. Our question for him, after the committee listened to testimony from supporters (including Duwamish Tribe chair Cecile Hansen, whose written testimony can be read here) and opponents — while also considering similar bids from other tribes including the Southwest Washington-based Chinook — was: Now what? DeCesare confirms that there’s no guarantee the committee will vote on the bill, but he emphasized – repeatedly – during our short phone conversation that it was a “huge” step simply for a hearing to be held; McDermott himself had said during the hearing that it was “a long time coming.” (The Duwamish were briefly recognized in the waning days of the Clinton Administration; then, as was recapped during today’s hearing, that was canceled early in the Bush Administration, with a procedural error cited – missing signatures on paperwork. The Duwamish are fighting that decision in court.) We haven’t yet found anyplace with a detailed report on today’s hearing, and the video is not yet archived on the committee website; here’s a list of the witnesses who were originally scheduled — we know from the portion we saw that there were others, such as one of McDermott’s fellow Washington Congressmembers, Jay Inslee, who provided one of two West Seattle references heard in the early going, when noting that his father had taught at Chief Sealth High School, named after the Duwamish’s legendary chief, chair Cecile Hansen’s great-great-grand-uncle and our city’s namesake. The other reference came from McDermott, who quoted a letter from Holy Family School students saying they were shocked to learn the Duwamish had to fight for recognition. A good portion of the hearing was spent discussing the federal requirements and procedures involved in gaining recognition, and a contention that the process was admittedly “broken” and would soon itself be the subject of legislation. Meantime, if you want to watch what happens to the Duwamish recognition bill, it is HR 2678.
Just in from Regina, who says this happened early Monday morning:
We live on Gatewood Hill – 38th off of Morgan [map]. Around 3:45 I awoke to the sound of people talking in what seemed to be my yard. I woke from a deep sleep and thought maybe it was a dream. Looking out the window I saw a white male about 6 ft tall, dressed in a black tank top and black pants, muscular, pacing up and down the street. We all know the neighbors and this agitated person didn’t belong. Then I heard shots.
Turned out the shots were him smashing the glass to pieces on a neighbor’s car with nothing in it. Other neighbors who had just returned from the airport yelled and gave pursuit of him and his getaway vehicle. The car with his friend fled one way, the dressed-in-black thug the other.
We believe he was trying to steal the car as it was the cheapest on the block, clearly had no alarms and there was nothing in it visible to be stolen. Police tried to find him, but the thug is gone. Watch out. This happened between 3:45 and 4:10 am on Monday.
In Seaview tonight, a special gathering brought together family and friends of JB Webster – the West Seattle real-estate agent, Seafair Commodore and community advocate whose death after a short illness shocked the community back in April. The gathering was “A Toast to JB,” a private fundraiser for the new plaque in his honor at Alki Statue of Liberty Plaza. The photo above shows (from left) Mr. Webster’s widow Christi Webster with tonight’s event hosts, Rob and Patricia Shiras. With Mr. Webster’s fellow Seafair Commodores — who turned out in force for his memorial at Alki UCC — due in The Junction this Saturday for the West Seattle Grand Parade, we asked if they are doing something special in his memory; Christi Webster says they’re wearing a special black/white pin with the initials JB, and that Seafair has a new membership award in his memory, since he was a prolific recruiter of new members. ADDED: Thanks to Edna Bishop for forwarding this photo taken by Jason Mercio, who donated his services for the event:
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