West Seattle, Washington
03 Sunday
Back when we visited the Duwamish River Festival in South Park last August (here’s our story), we mentioned an informational booth about upcoming Superfund cleanups on the eastern edge of West Seattle. We put our name on a list of interested parties, in hopes that would keep us in the pipeline for getting information to you. A followup flyer (identical to this) arrived in the mail (the EPA sent versions to 8,000 people in West/South Seattle) recently saying the Environmental Protection Agency is “developing a community involvement plan” for those cleanups – one of which is at the site known as Lockheed West Seattle (tons of official EPA info linked from this page). As a followup, an EPA rep called to invite us to come down and answer some questions (apparently we checked the “wouldn’t mind being interviewed” box on something somewhere) – and we did that this morning. Here’s what we learned – and how you can get involved:Read More
Got a “media advisory” from Seattle Public Utilities today, with a reminder that the foam-packaging ban passed by the City Council with the plastic-bag ban is taking effect January 1st (the bag ban is on hold pending a citywide vote next year) – and food-service businesses are invited to a “trade fair” this Wednesday, to meet with “sellers of compostable food-service ware” – if you’re interested, read on:Read More
(West Seattle Cheetahs after a big win: Very back row left to right: Coach MacKenzie and Ali Campagnaro. Back row left to right: Anne Jorgenson, Tatum Dahl, Charli Ann Elliott, Sam Tanzer, Laura Jetland, Julia Nark, Abby Tuthill, Sami MacKenzie, and Annalisa Ursino. Front row left to right: Maddy Winter, Nicole Roed, Kelsey Klapperich, Gabby Rivera, and Danielle Nielsen. Not pictured: Julia Denison
Just before Thanksgiving, we reported on the West Seattle Cheetahs girls’ soccer team heading for the state playoffs (here’s that story). They played in Burlington this past weekend – and we’ve just received an update from John McKenzie that they have now advanced to the state championship game next weekend! Here’s his report:
After winning the District 3 Presidents Cup on Sunday, November 23rd, the Cheetahs traveled to the Skagit River Soccer Complex in Burlington for the state semi-finals in the GU-12 division. The team was well-prepared and rolled through their group play with a 3-game sweep, winning 3-0 in game 1, 3-1 in game 2, and 1-0 in game 3. The sweep gave the Cheetahs the number 1 seed in their group. They went on to win their semi-final match 3-0 and will now play in the state championship game Sunday, December 14, at 9:15 AM at Starfire Soccer Complex in Tukwila.
“It was tough playing 4 games in 2 days, but the well-conditioned girls rose to the challenge. They are a tireless bunch and they all know their roles on the team and none of them have ego or attitude issues,” said Coach MacKenzie. “We could tell the other teams were getting tired and we never let up.”
Congratulations again to the Cheetahs, and good luck in the title game! (Their opponent: The Tracyton Tornadoes from Kitsap County. The game’s open to the public; tickets $5, kids under 11 free, $5 parking at the soccer complex.)
Another forecast update – The National Weather Service still is calling for possible snow Friday night and Saturday (hey! that’s Christmas Ship night at Seacrest, Lowman, and Alki!) but whether or not that happens, there’s definitely VERY cold air on the way – Sunday highs may barely get to freezing.
Thanks to Marco for sending word, and that picture, of a bus stop closure TFN on northbound 35th just south of Avalon (as the sign says, buses will pick you up 20 feet south of there). Shortly after getting his note, we went to check out the area, and discovered that construction congestion because of Avalon Center is REALLY intense today – a lineup of cement mixers in the center lane on Avalon stretching eastward from 35th, eastbound lane on Avalon and northbound lane on 35th blocked off at the corner, good idea to avoid that area if you can:
Avalon Center is a mixed-use building (ground-floor retail, about 60 apartments, per city permits) that’s been under construction for almost a year at the southeast corner of 35th/Avalon (here’s our update from 11 months ago). Here’s the architect’s project page showing drawings of what it’s supposed to look like.
Gas prices continue to drop — the national average is its lowest in five years, according to weekend reports — but they’re falling more slowly; two West Seattle stations actually have the same prices as they did during our last survey a week ago. As for everybody else, varying drops. In the list you’ll see ahead, the first number is regular, as posted on the stations’ streetfront signs; second number is premium (where posted)Read More
Thanks to Huzefa Mogri for sharing that overview of the scene inside West Seattle Christian Church‘s (WSB sponsor) new multiuse facility, opened unofficially for a dessert-theater performance Sunday night, with Taproot Theatre staging “It’s a Wonderful Improv Life” – zaniness ensued, as this photo suggests:
More on the new facility soon; Taproot, by the way, performs the same show at its Greenwood theater the next two Friday nights – info’s on their website.
It’s festive … it’s sustainable … it’s affordable … it’s 24 hours away! Tomorrow night is Sustainable West Seattle’s Money-Free Shopping Spree, and you are invited – 6-9 pm, Camp Long Lodge. It’s a potluck and gift-swap occasion, and while SWS is hoping people will bring handmade gifts — the full list of what to bring (food and gift-wise) is on the SWS website — their latest bulletin also notes:
… if you don’t have time to pull together a gift between now and Monday, it is good to purchase something made by hand locally and give that OR better yet please consider offering a service/skill for 1-2 hours: gardening, bike repair, a foraging tour in West Seattle, wormbox 101, beekeeping 101, tutoring, a meal, making a dinner, kayak tour, etc. The possibilities of what you can give of some time to a neighbor are limitless …
In addition to the money-free gift swap, the event also features food, music by West Seattle acoustic guitarist Gunnar Goelitz, and guest speakers — West Seattle Chamber of Commerce executive director Patti Mullen (did you know the C of C is heavily involved in promoting sustainability? It’s even got a Green Team!), Sustainable Seattle executive director Sean Schmidt (who’ll talk about the Celebrate Local campaign that’s under way citywide this season), and WSB co-publisher Patrick Sand with a few words about the wonderful sense of community we’ve been seeing and reporting on throughout the year. That’s tomorrow, 6-9 pm, Camp Long Lodge (map), check out the complete details here.
They’re the biggest and brightest Christmas lights in West Seattle – the mega-display at the Menashe Family home on Beach Drive. We took a WSB video tour again this year — that first clip is a 2-minute walkthrough; next, Josh Menashe tells us what’s new this year:
Here’s a closer look at the mailbox he mentioned:
The Menashe display is along the southern stretch of Beach Drive – no direct access from the east but you can either hit Beach Drive from the Lowman Beach area and head north, or from the Jacobsen Road end and drive south. Here’s a map.
Santa Claus isn’t just comin’ to town – he’s here, till 4 pm (and noon-4 pm the next two Sundays) at Cupcake Royale, with photographer Donna Ryan, for Santa photos provided by the West Seattle Junction Association (WSB sponsor); donations are suggested, and go to three West Seattle nonprofits that have a heavier-than-ever load to bear this year – West Seattle Food Bank, WestSide Baby, and West Seattle Helpline. Meantime, kitty-corner via the Walk All Ways intersection at California/Alaska, the Hometown Holidays Headquarters tent is where you’ll find wreath sales for Pathfinder K-8:
Volunteering at the booth today for Pathfinder, Lashanna Williams and Jen Kocir. The school’s fundraising wreaths will be on sale at the HHH tent the next two Sundays (noon-4 in front of Key Bank) too. P.S. They’re doing face-painting too.
It’s so far away that the extended forecast could do anything in the meantime – but just the same, kudos to the WSB Forums for sounding first alarm on POSSIBLE snow at the end of the week; join the conversation here; read the “forecast discussion” here. 3:22 PM UPDATE: Official forecast just updated to include snow chance for Friday night-Saturday.
Just out of the WSB inbox from Ryan in Seaview, with the photo above:
Unfortunately I’ve got bad news to share. Sometime between 3 am (I was up feeding our youngest son) and 10:30 am, our beautiful 1959 Airstream trailer was stolen off its parking pad. It was double locked and in full view in the alley. We live on 45th Ave SW between Juneau and Findlay. We’d really appreciate it if you could post a photo or two on the blog asking for your readers to keep an eye out for it.
Since Ryan sent several photos, we’ve posted two more angles (one showing the back of the trailer, one showing the front) after the jump:Read More
That’s the view from the stage in the Farmers’ Market parking lot a couple hours ago, as your WSB co-publishers joined an eclectic crew of performers and guest tree-lighters for what turned out to be a double tree lighting (maybe not such a surprise if you saw the lights being tested last night) – the little “official” Junction tree, and the big tree right on the 44th/Alaska corner. Hope you enjoyed it; having sat through too many long events featuring endless speeches, we managed to make it through what was envisioned as an hour-long program in about 40 minutes. Of course, the nailbiting part is ahead of time, when you wonder whether anyone will show up – here’s the view from the refreshment-tent-to-be around 4:30:
Even around 5 till 5, almost no one was there, but we all chanted the mantra: No one in Seattle EVER shows up early for ANYTHING. And sure enough, before long, hundreds were on hand. Our pix are all from the stage/backstage view, but one group that provided a particularly festive view from any angle – the “Plaid Tidings” guys from ArtsWest‘s holiday show:
OK, now as for the actual tree-lighting – everyone was watching the small “official” tree, but instead, the big tree on the corner lit up – followed shortly afterward by the little one — Junior Member of the Team got both:
We’ll add some more video later – the Endolyne Children’s Choir did a great job too, as well as the plaid guys. Meantime, The Junction (WSB sponsor) is a hot place to be tomorrow, too – the first Hometown Holidays Sunday brings Santa photos at Cupcake Royale, noon-4 pm, along with mule-carriage rides and special in-store events (more here). SUNDAY NIGHT P.S.: Nice photo gallery by the fab M&M at Incremental Updates (one of the 100 West Seattle-based blogs whose automated feeds power our Blogs page) – get past the first couple showing us, and there are lovely shots of lots of nice folks having a great time. See it here.
We didn’t make it to this morning’s district-organized “community workshop” on the school-closure plan — same format as the one we covered Thursday night — but a report is up on the P-I site. It mentions Arbor Heights Elementary parent Gerard Denommee getting applause for suggesting taking the issue to state lawmakers and fighting for better public-school funding, rather than continuing to pit neighborhood against neighborhood to fight for shares of a shrinking pie. The Arbor Heights PTSA Yahoo! group also has an account of the meeting, and a more vivid description of the ovation received by Denommee, as well as a mention of Cooper Elementary parents’ presence (as they’d planned at the meeting we covered last night). Next meetings: Tuesday night, the School Board is scheduled to get new data and discuss the next phase of recommendations at a board workshop starting at 4 pm at district HQ; that same night, a district-organized meeting is planned at Arbor Heights, 6 pm. In the meantime, feedback can be sent to the school district any time at capacity@seattleschools.org. (All WSB coverage of this round of school-closure proposals is archived here.)
Just a couple of clips to add to the coverage we published this morning of this morning’s Rotary Club of West Seattle Christmas Shopping Spree – with Rotary volunteers joining 90 West Seattle kids at Sears in Sodo this morning for breakfast, lunch, shopping, and holiday cheer — above, you see the arrival; next, it’s some Christmas caroling with Rotarian Irene Stewart once the shopping was done:
Find out more about the Rotary Club at its website, westseattlerotary.org.
Also up early and volunteering their time early this morning: The Rotary Club of West Seattle. This is the day for their annual Christmas Shopping Spree at Sears in Sodo – when Rotarians team with local kids to share breakfast and lunch, shop for clothing and shoes, take photos with Santa, and more. The kids will go home with the items they’ve chosen and tried on – items they desperately need this time of year, including coats and socks:
… but there’s holiday fun later this morning too, and we’ll have pictures of that later. Rotary volunteers were there just after 6 am; the kids arrived around 7. West Seattle Rotarians have been doing this since 1972, and this year, they’re shopping with 90 kids from six West Seattle elementary schools (more background is on the Rotary Club’s website, where you can also find out more about the group, which meets Tuesdays most weeks – meeting info is in the left sidebar on the club’s home page).
That’s one of the slogans half-jokingly suggested toward the end of a small but spirited meeting at Cooper Elementary School tonight in Pigeon Point (map) – its first group meeting since Seattle Public Schools Superintendent Dr. Maria Goodloe-Johnson announced at Wednesday night’s School Board meeting that her staff — as requested by board members last week — was looking into possibly moving Pathfinder K-8 to Cooper instead of to Arbor Heights Elementary. The “Save Cooper … Again” refers to previous proposals to close or change the Cooper program, and some of tonight’s participants were veterans of those battles — read on for our report on the talking points Cooper is rushing to prepare as a late entry into the school-closure battle:Read More
From David in Gatewood:
I … wanted to get the word out about a pair of prowlers in the Gatewood area. I live on 41st behind Thriftway and came home to a neighbor of mine who stopped me and said she chased away 2 (african-american) men in our front yard this morning at 10 AM that were clearly prowling in the windows of our home. Our front yard has a white picket fence and she had said they had opened the fence and they were in our front yard looking in the home. She walked up to our yard with her large dog and they immediately retreated up the street to 41st and Frontenac. Thanks to our great neighbors but I wanted to let the area know in case anyone may have seen these guys today.
The school-closure fight isn’t taking the weekend off: We stopped by Westwood Village on the way to the Cooper Elementary school-closure meeting (where we are now) – as promised, Arbor Heights Elementary parents are sign-waving outside Barnes and Noble, where students are at a “pajama party” tonight (and where a book fair all weekend is raising $ for Arbor Heights programs, as mentioned earlier) – we also saw at least one TV station (KIRO) there with a live truck, so you may have seen them on TV tonight. No other media here at Cooper, just us. More on their story later; the meeting has just begun (to recap – the district is now looking into possibly moving Pathfinder to Cooper instead of the original proposal last week to move it to Arbor Heights – more findings about that should come out at the board’s work session starting at 4 pm next Tuesday at district HQ).
Like last night’s Holiday Bazaar (WSB coverage here), Arbor Heights Elementary had long been planning a book-fair event tonight at Westwood Village Barnes and Noble – but now it’s taken on an added dimension. First, the book fair: 10 percent of B/N purchases made today through Sunday, with the voucher number 413831, will benefit various programs at AH, such as kindergarten assistant teachers and books for the school library. Meantime, Arbor Heights families will be there tonight for a kids’ pajama party starting at 5 pm, with kindergarten teachers presenting story time at 5:30, and in the meantime, the “Save Arbor Heights” campaign will be active outside, with signs and petition-signature-gathering. Tomorrow, they’re planning to be at the next “community workshop” (9:30 am) as well as School Board rep Steve Sundquist‘s Delridge Library gathering (3-5 pm) – more info on the Save Arbor Heights website.
We are in the King County Superior Court courtroom of Judge Michael Fox, where Brian Walsh has just been sentenced 
for the 2007 beating murder of “Benny” Reside (left), a mentally and physically disabled man who had been letting him stay in his apartment in Morgan Junction’s Cal-Mor Circle. This was the second part of a sentencing hearing that began October 17 (WSB courtroom coverage here), after Walsh pleaded guilty to second-degree murder (in a plea deal that we covered last summer). Prosecutors and family wanted the high end of the sentencing scale, 18 years, while defense argued for the low end, around 14. Reside’s sister Pam Reside Leach and brother-in-law Jeff Leach addressed the court again today (photo above shows Pam [left] directly addressing her brother’s killer [far right]), and for the first time, the killer, Brian Walsh, spoke as well, sobbing and asking the family’s forgiveness, reading from a handwritten statement. The judge is imposing the maximum possible sentence – 220 months, mostly, he says, because of the “absolute helplessness” of the victim, the unprovoked nature of the attack, and the savageness of the crime. More details from the courtroom – and the family’s reaction afterward (“It’s not a happy day,” Pam said) – will be added shortly. ADDED 12:38 PM: Read on for those details – what the family said, what the killer said, what the judge said:Read More
Just out of the WSB inbox from “a concerned Cooper parent” – to recap, one week after proposing that the Arbor Heights Elementary program be closed so that Pathfinder K-8 could be relocated into the AH building, the district is now also studying the possibility of Cooper Elementary as a Pathfinder home (which has been proposed and dismissed before):
Just wanted to get some information out about the possible closure of Cooper Elementary as a new location for Pathfinder. I understand that Arbor Heights has had a very vocal presence, fighting to keep their school alive. They have done a fabulous job. Unfortunately, their success puts Cooper Elementary on the chopping block.
The Cooper school family faces many challenges in organizing their efforts, including economic circumstances and language barriers. This makes us no less of a family, and no less deserving of community support. None of our kids deserve to be displaced.
We are holding a meeting at 6:30 pm (tonight) in room 107 at Cooper Elementary to organize ourselves and our message. Please attend if you can. If we don’t let our thoughts be known to the District and the public we may well lose the Cooper building to the Pathfinder program. Please come and contribute your thoughts and your voice.
Thanks for helping us get our message out. Hopefully the Delridge community can rally the same way Arbor Heights has and save Cooper Elementary!!
Arbor Heights also plans a protest and petition drive tonight at Barnes and Noble-Westwood Village during an already-scheduled school-related event; more on that separately, a bit later. WSB will of course cover both events.
Thanks to WSB’er “Chuck and Sally’s Van Man” for a tip that involves, yes, the long-closed Chuck and Sally’s Tavern in Morgan Junction (map): A film crew is there today. We went down the hill to check it out. It’s an independent production called “Greenspoke“; according to this site, “principal photography” just started a few days ago. A webpage for the film itself has the tag line: “Well-meaning scientists aim a green bullet at climate change. Bullets ricochet.” Here’s the online bio for its writer/director/producer Tom McEntire. (Film-crew members are also AROUND Chuck and Sally’s, as you’ll notice from the second photo we just added, taken across the street.)
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