West Seattle, Washington
01 Tuesday
Back in June, we covered a regional briefing in SeaTac by King County Sheriff Sue Rahr (left), sounding the alarm about how the county’s budget crisis might affect public-safety services — services that affect Seattle residents (and other cities) as well as those in unincorporated areas like White Center, including the Prosecuting Attorney‘s office and the courts. Now, as budget-decision time approaches, the sheriff has just announced another series of public meetings at which she, Prosecuting Attorney Dan Satterberg, and two presiding judges will appear; one is October 29th in White Center – details are on our partner site, White Center Now. (Another meeting that’s not too far away from West Seattle will be at Town Hall downtown, 7 pm on November 3rd.)
On partner site White Center Now, we peeked into the new White Center Swap Meet shortly after its doors opened (at the former Southgate Skate Center) this afternoon; later came this followup on a hot deal. Day 2 of the White Center Swap Meet is 10 am-4 pm tomorrow.
We mentioned the event this morning, and it’s continuing till 9 pm – a Zapotec weaver from a women’s collective in Oaxaca, Mexico, is exhibiting and selling weavings at Cafe Rozella on Delridge less than a block south of Roxbury; thanks to Ricardo Guarnero at Rozella for taking and sharing a few pix (he posted more info on the event and the weavers at White Center Now).
We’d never visited Hicks Lake, in White Center’s Lakewood Park, till we dropped by today to cover the annual cleanup there. We found the park and the 4-acre lake so lovely, we wanted to share the story with you, if you’re interested in checking out more of the green spaces that lie just beyond West Seattle; read the story here. (Also new on WCN, a short update on the White Center Swap Meet, debuting next week in the old roller rink.)
Just broke this story at our partner site White Center Now: King County Councilmember Dow Constantine‘s office has announced a discussion October 2nd about a potential Alcohol Impact Area in the White Center business district – and the announcement notes that since the district includes areas within Seattle city limits as well as unincorporated King County, authorities and community members on both sides of the line are invited – and that the concept of “adjacent AIAs in unincorporated King County and the South Delridge area” should be considered in the discussion. The discussion is set for 7 pm Thursday, October 2nd, during the regular meeting of the North Highline Unincorporated Area Council at North Highline Fire District headquarters. Read more here (the seventh news item today on White Center Now, with at least one more to come – newsiest day for our partner site since it launched seven weeks ago).
This event has been on the WSB Events calendar for a while, and it’s been previewed at partner site White Center Now, but the day’s getting closer and the call for volunteers (see the flyer here) has been renewed in the West Seattle as well as WC: A coalition of environmental and economic-justice groups plans to send volunteers to visit every home in White Center this Saturday to share information about energy efficiency. As you can imagine, that takes a volunteer force of hundreds; if you can spare some time that day, go here to find out how to get involved.
We just stopped at the White Center “PARK(ing) Day” (backstory here) park and are en route momentarily to the West Seattle version set up by KeyBank in The Junction. At the one in WC (more pix on partner site White Center Now), Sopha Danh of White Center Community Development Association and Richard Brown from Technology Access Foundation are going high-tech and low-tech – with laptops and produce – the latter, to help spark the dream of reviving a WC Farmers’ Market. The WC “park” will be on the west side of 16th SW, half a block south of Roxbury, in front of Full Tilt, till 3; the West Seattle one is scheduled to be in place till 4 – we’ll add pix here as soon as we get ’em.
Just posted at partner site White Center Now: Surveillance photos from the FBI, showing the man who held up the White Center Washington Mutual Bank yesterday. The FBI thinks he’s also to blame for two Burien robberies earlier this year.
Some of what was discussed at last night’s South Delridge/White Center Community Safety Coalition meeting will be of interest to anyone living/working in south West Seattle – including some good news about ongoing issues in the area — so we’d like to point you to the full report we have just posted on partner site White Center Now; you can read it here.
Of interest to West Seattle, since it could ultimately play into whether our boundaries stretch further south: We just discovered this on the City of Burien website and posted it at White Center Now – a quick check shows it hasn’t been reported anywhere else yet – According to this city news release, Burien is withdrawing its North Highline annexation request (which included the southern portion of White Center) for now – pending a new round of talks with other interested parties, including the city of Seattle. We’ll continue updating details in this new post at White Center Now, as we get them.
We originally posted this at White Center Now, where we’re the news-coverage part of the contributor team, but in case you didn’t see it there, we’re mentioning it here during weekend nursery-going time: Village Green Perennial Nursery (WSB sponsor) proprietor Vera Johnson‘s husband Bill Curtin is back from his latest Alaska fishing trip, and part of the catch is on sale at Village Green. Here’s the full story (with pic of a humongous halibut).
Published this on White Center Now this morning, but wanted to share it with you too: Results of the latest area grocery survey by volunteers working with the King County Food and Fitness Initiative, which is focusing on areas including South Delridge/White Center, though this survey included a few West Seattle supermarkets too. Read about it here.
Thanks to everyone who has checked out White Center Now, the blog about White Center, since its launch was announced here earlier this week. The site’s already abuzz with robust discussions about topics including potential annexation — check out the comments (28 so far). Recent posts also include a teen-authored article about White Center students becoming park stewards (read it here), a White Center Now review of Big Al‘s beer, and In Search of the Great Burrito. Lots more to come (including original coverage of a couple events happening later today).
If you visit the WSB Forums, you may have seen a recent thread by Justin, co-owner of Full Tilt Ice Cream, suggesting a White Center blog. We had been working offline on plans for one for a while, so we contacted Justin and inquired whether there might be any advantage to a partnership — otherwise, if he was ready to launch something, we were ready to support it. 
Justin had been talking with another dynamic White Center entrepreneur, Ricardo from Cafe Rozella, but they hadn’t launched a site yet, so we agreed to join forces on a site that is intended to be very different from this one – much more of a true blog (WSB is at its core a neighborhood-news site, not so much a “blog” though we have the word in our name since that’s what we evolved from): White Center Now, at whitecenternow.com. We all started posting content within the past week (starting with the Big Al Brewing opening) and intended to keep it as a soft launch till we finished adding content on the sidebars and inside pages, but the company which had kept whitecenterblog.com idle for 9 months (the only reason we’re not launching at that URL – it wasn’t available) suddenly decided to do something with it starting today, perhaps inspired by the WSB thread, so we’re letting you know that White Center Now is already up and running – with some very interesting contributions already from Ricardo and Justin, and a couple of news items from us. It’s a very simple layout – we are not bells and whistles people – but you know that, if you are a WSB regular; it’s about the words, the pictures, the stories, the information. If you have White Center news, photos, events, information, ideas – and/or if you are interested in being a contributor – please e-mail whitecenternow@gmail.com. White Center and West Seattle will grow even closer together in the years to come, we believe, as travel to downtown gets more difficult, so we are honored to be involved with Justin and Ricardo – and the others to come – in this effort to tell, share, and experience the stories of this growing community.
The WSB Forums have been abuzz about it for a month so we couldn’t help but drop by to check it out – Big Al Brewing opened this afternoon in White Center (9832 14th SW, former home of Pacific Rim Brewing). The photo above is “Big Al” himself, Alejandro Brown (who has been among those participating in the WSB Forums thread); here’s the building in case you get lost:
One thing to note – Big Al Brewing is all about beer. No food, just brew. Also on tap tonight as the grand opening continues – live music.
It’s been discussed off and on in this WSB Forums thread for a few weeks, but now the word from “Big Al” himself is that this new establishment in White Center (former site of Pacific Rim) opens at 3 pm tomorrow. 9832 14th SW (map).
This one’s too good to wait for it to show up on the More page‘s citywide-media digest: The Times profiles Cafe Rozella (which is in the city limits so it’s really West Seattle as well as White Center) and includes a mention of Full Tilt – both mentioned/discussed often here among the pixels of WSB; White Center’s evolution gets a nod too. (Cafe Rozella just announced its music slate for the rest of the summer, by the way; see it here.)
West Seattle’s neighbors to the south are working on a cultural center, and the final plans were shown and discussed at a meeting last night. Dina Johnson from Highland Park Action Committee was there and posted this report, with photos and the latest rendering for the center, at the HPAC site.
A WSB Forum conversation about White Center included a reminder about Jubilee Days this weekend – we checked the Jubilee Days website, and it turns out the carnival starts today (3-11 pm daily, through Sunday), Steve Cox Memorial Park; this page has a map. The Jubilee Days street festival is Saturday and Sunday; here’s the full JD event schedule.
The first pinball (note the circa-1981 Mr. and Mrs. Pac-Man game at right) and video games are in … the ice cream is up at the counter …
… and Full Tilt Ice Cream on 16th SW (detailed WSB preview here with flavors, hours, etc.) is open for business as of a couple hours ago. Co-owner Justin Cline says the party really gets going tonight, with The Blank-Its playing from 9 till about midnight, but you can wander in any time before then and try the ice cream, paletas, and/or pinball. We’ll add a couple video clips in a bit with a closer look at the games; just wanted to post this reminder that they’re officially open.
(video no longer available due to blip.tv shutdown)
It’s in the Delridge/White Center area. Read more here to see if you can help. (That link, by the way, goes to a post on a new blog set up by Delridge Neighborhoods Development Association executive director Derek Birnie to share info on upcoming events and volunteer opportunities in the greater Delridge area; you can browse it any time at delridge.blogspot.com.)
Not the kind of potluck you’re probably thinking of – though there will be cookies! It’s a writers’ reading and music event tonight at Cafe Rozella (on the southern edge of West Seattle, 9434 Delridge), 7-9 pm. Here are more details, forwarded from Cafe Rozella’s Ricardo Guarnero:
This Spanglish Potluck features readings in Spanish & English by Hedgebrook alumnae Wendy Call & Maria Victoria. Also featured will be traditional Cuban music from Irene Mitri & her Charanga Danzón. This will be a reading like none other. There will be live words & music along with freshly-made Hedgebrook cookies and an opportunity to sing Las Mananitas (the traditional Mexican Birthday Song) to Wendy’s godchild. So come, bring a friend, bring your family and be a part of the fun!
If “Hedgebrook” doesn’t ring a bell – it’s a writers’ retreat on Whidbey Island (read more here).
Police are on the scene of an accident that’s causing some traffic trouble if you are trying to turn northbound on Delridge from westbound on Roxbury. Doesn’t look too major; we’re just alerting you to avoid the area (map).
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