West Seattle, Washington
29 Friday
From tonight’s citywide Skatepark Advisory Committee meeting at Parks Department HQ downtown, a suggestion that if you support the Delridge Skatepark and want to be sure it clears the final turns on the way to hitting the home stretch toward construction, you might want to be at the City Council Parks Committee meeting, 9:30 am January 21 (one week from Thursday). West Seattle-residing committee member Matthew Lee Johnston says city staff is recommending the committee give thumbs-up to the final funding plan, but it was pointed out that the Parks Committee is now chaired by new Councilmember Sally Bagshaw, so supporters want to be sure she knows the Delridge Skatepark plan has garnered lots of love along the way. If you missed previous reports on the skatepark, it’s been in the works a year and a half for the northeastern section of the playfield on the north side of Delridge Community Center; the plan rose from the near-ashes of previous proposals including a smaller skateboarding facility at the future Myrtle Reservoir Park. Johnston noted that there would be an opportunity for public comment, too, though instead of having 50 people take the mike, he and chair Ryan Barth suggested, “if we all just stood up and said, hey, we support it,” that would work too. Letters of support also were encouraged (you can e-mail councilmembers through the addresses you’ll find here). Once the money’s finalized, and a few drainage and engineering issues worked out, construction is still expected to start this spring, it was reiterated tonight. One committee member’s comment on that? “Been a long time coming.” For updates on this and other Seattle skateboarding issues, follow Johnston’s website, seattleskateparks.org.
This announcement’s just out of the postal mailbox (transcribed):
Seattle Parks and Recreation and West Seattle Little League have been working together to improve Bar-S Playfield, located at 6464 SW Admiral Way [map]. They are hosting a meeting to discuss these improvements and encourage you and your family to attend.
Please come and learn about the planned addition of restrooms, the upgrades to the snack shack, and the replacement of the temporary storage sheds.
The meeting is set for 7 pm January 27 at Alki Community Center; Parks contact if you’re looking for more info before then is Raft Hollingsworth, 206-615-1401, raft.hollingsworth@seattle.gov. (P.S. As noted here last week, WS Little League registration starts tomorrow night.)
One major meeting on the calendar tonight: When voters approved the Parks and Green Spaces Levy more than a year ago, that included not only a list of proposed projects to be funded – it also included creation of a $15 million Opportunity Fund, for parks proposals citizens could envision/pursue later. Decisions about almost half the fund money will be made later this year, and applications will be accepted this spring; the first West Seattle meeting to help guide people through the process — starting with the proposal letters due Feb. 2 — is tonight, 6:30 pm, High Point Community Center (map).
Story and photo by Jonathan Stumpf
Reporting for West Seattle Blog
Two design options for the Fairmount Playfield playground were revealed tonight at the second public meeting about the project.
A small group convened at the High Point Library, where Parks Department employees Pamela Alspaugh and Kelly Davidson unveiled two design plans for the playground. The finalized plans are the result of the December meeting that we covered here, with suggestions made about the feel of the playground and what features were important to residents.
Davidson, the project manager, briefly discussed the two designs, emphasizing the important takeaways from the December meeting, specifically that the playground should have a “natural feel,” “allow for imaginary play” and something “iconic should be included that will bring people to the park.”
Alspaugh revealed the two plans:
Jeremy – whose sign rallied “Team Elmo” – was one of the many KaBOOM! team members who came to Delridge last July to help hundreds of community volunteers build the playfield’s new playground – seen here at the end of that amazing day:
Want to see this happen in YOUR neighborhood? Betsy Hoffmeister from Delridge (who catalyzed the Delridge Playfield-playground process after months of working on a proposal for a different site) and Ann Limbaugh from Admiral have both forwarded word that KaBOOM! is coming back to Seattle in 2010 to build another playground and looking for potential places to do it. They’re not just looking at West Seattle – they’re casting the net citywide – but Ann and Betsy both wanted to make sure the word got out as many places as possible, especially since the application deadline is less than two weeks away – read on for more specifics:Read More
Happy New Year’s Eve-Eve! The West Seattle Holidays page is keeper of our New Year’s Eve list – more than 20 options, and another event’s been added – 9:30-11 pm tomorrow, you can join a Camp Long-sponsored Low Tide Beach Walk across from Me-Kwa-Mooks along Beach Drive. If you’re interested, you need to call to preregister today – 206-684-7434 – or preregister online by going here. Meantime, Camp Long has gone public with its full list of January/February highlights – read on to see it – we’ll be adding them to the WSB Events calendar too:Read More
As first reported in April, Camp Long‘s historic lodge is getting some long-needed renovations in the first wave of Parks and Green Spaces Levy spending. The Parks Department issued a reminder this week that the lodge is about to close for that $1 million project – see the reminder here. We clarified the dates with Parks spokesperson Joelle Hammerstad, who says that January 1 is the first official day of the shutdown, and the closure is scheduled to last into June. The rest of the park, she stresses, remains open, and the announcement on the city website includes info on how to start making 2010 reservations for Camp Long facilities (beginning January 12) – registration is already under way for winter programs at Camp Long and the city’s other Environmental Learning Centers (more on that here).
Long list of awesome holiday events for The Weekend Before Christmas – and here’s one where you can combine giving and receiving: The Holiday Giving Tree and Feast event 6-8 pm tomorrow (Friday) at Hiawatha Community Center (2700 California SW; map). Bring a toy to donate, and you get dinner for free. Rebecca from sister community center High Point CC found out the Hiawatha menu for us – she says it’s the work of a professional chef:
Roasted Turkey
Gourmet Macaroni & Cheese w/6 different cheeses
Sweet Potato and Red Potato Rosemary Olive Oil Dish
Corn
Rolls
Green Salad
Various Pies for Dessert
Hot Apple Cider & Cran-Raspberry Juice
Satsumas
Fruit Cocktail
That’s at Hiawatha, 6-8 pm tomorrow. Meantime Rebecca’s checking on progress for the HP toy drive we told you about yesterday. She also says ALL community centers have been collecting toys – the next few days are the time to make sure all toy bins and giving trees are taken care of!
Another followup in the story of the man who filed a lawsuit challenging the city ban on guns at certain Parks Department facilities by taking a concealed weapon into Southwest Community Center a month ago (and alerting the city in advance, which meant a security guard was there to meet him, as seen in our 11/14 photo at left): Bob Warden sent the media the documents that he’s filed seeking a preliminary injunction to stop the city from enforcing the law. Here’s the court document; we asked Warden if he has a court date set yet – he said no. The request for an injunction says in part, “If plaintiff went to the Southwest Community Center with his pistol tomorrow, there is no reason to suspect that the rule would not be enforced” and goes on to state as part of its argument, “banning armed good guys likely makes a place less safe from bad guys …” (Our partners at the Seattle Times are covering this story too – here’s the link.)
We’ve reported on this multiple times before but it’s so big, the Parks Department wants to make sure you don’t miss it: It’s time to start working on applications for a share of the $15 million Opportunity Fund created by the Parks and Green Spaces Levy voters approved last year. While the levy itself contained money for a variety of specific projects, this fund is set up so that community-initiated projects can get a share of the $. Read on for a just-out news release about the fund and the round of informational meetings next month, including the one announced for West Seattle:Read More
Local community groups, from the Highland Park Action Committee to the Highland Park Improvement Committee to sports leagues and dog owners, have long been talking and brainstorming about the 20-acre Westcrest Park expansion to be built atop and around the new West Seattle Reservoir cover – but only now is the official conversation getting under way, after a standing-room-only meeting — read on:Read More
Two updates – first, the full story from Wednesday night’s meeting on upcoming improvements to Fairmount Playfield’s playground – plus, new play equipment that just arrived at the West Seattle YMCA (WSB sponsor) – gotta see the Y’s pirate ship in flight! Both stories, ahead:Read More
Notice something missing in that photo? At West Seattle Rotary Viewpoint Park along 35th SW at Alaska, overlooking the West Seattle Golf Course, the totem pole’s gone, with only that blue steel post in place. (Here’s a Flickr shot of what you SHOULD be seeing there; [added 6:48 pm] at left, a Rotary photo.) After a WSB’er e-mailed us yesterday to say she noticed it missing, we put in an inquiry to the Parks Department to ask if it had been taken away for maintenance – and also went over, not just to get the photo you see above, but also to see if there was a note about work being done. Now we’ve just learned, Parks thinks it may have been stolen. We just talked with Terry Boden, who works on maintenance for parks in this area; he says he checked throughout the department to see if anyone has any knowledge of the totem pole being taken away for maintenance, but hasn’t turned up anything – so he’s planning to call Seattle Police to report it as a theft. As donors and stewards of the 33-year-old park, Rotary Club of West Seattle has been investigating too, Josh Sutton tells us – checking out a report of a stuck truck getting towed from the scene, possibly while trying to take the pole away; in fact, while there yesterday, we noted these tracks in the grass:
Parks received that report too and hasn’t been able to confirm it. So if you know anything about what happened to the totem pole, Terry Boden would like to hear from you – he’s headquartered at Lincoln Park, 206-684-7457.
Thanks to Tim McMonigle from West Seattle Soccer Club for another update on the Hiawatha Playfield renovation work – including that photo of workers on the job in today’s brilliant sunshine:
They have finished gluing the lines and have been waiting for a dry day to spread the rubber pellets. They are out there today spreading the pellets, so hopefully they should be done with that tomorrow, given the forecast for more sun. They spread the pellets with what looks like what you would use to fertilize your lawn, only much bigger and drawn by a tractor. Then the machines in the field have big brooms that help settle the pellets into the turf.
On the east side of Hiawatha (part of the same levy project), they have upgraded the field with long jump, pole vault and shotput areas. I believe the last thing then is to rubberize the top of the track, and it should be open.
We were hoping to use the field for our December games, but I don’t think they will open it up in time. But it looks beautiful compared to what was there before. We are looking forward to using the field next year, along with Delridge, which is supposed to give us two full-sized fields in fall of 2010.
City updates (through mid-November) on the $3.6 million Hiawatha project can be found here.
This final day of the month is relatively quiet — nothing major on the calendar. But the first public meetings for two West Seattle park projects – both funded by the Parks and Green Spaces Levy – are happening later this week, so here’s an early reminder: 6:30 pm Wednesday night, Fairmount Playfield playground improvements, for which $170,000 is budgeted, will be discussed at High Point Library (map). Then at 7 pm Thursday night, the new $3 million Westcrest-adjacent parkland created by the now-under-construction covering of West Seattle Reservoir (right) will be the topic at High Point Community Center (map). Lots more this week too – your next chance to get involved with neighborhood groups including the North Delridge Neighborhood Council, Highland Park Improvement Committee and Westwood Neighborhood Council (check out their remodeled website!) – it’s all on the WSB Events calendar (and all the holiday excitement – revving up for the West Seattle Christmas Tree Lighting this Saturday – is on the West Seattle Holidays page).
Probably the shortest community meeting we’ve covered in a long time – barely half an hour (followed by about 20 minutes of folks milling around asking questions and looking at drawings): Monday night at Delridge Community Center, the Parks Department unveiled the tweaked design for the $3 million-plus Delridge Playfield improvements project, funded by last year’s Parks and Green Spaces Levy.
The project’s basics consists mostly of artificial turf, new lights and 25,000 more square feet of field space added to the current 175,500, with additional sports being accommodated: Following up on requests from last month’s meeting, lines will be added for lacrosse, so the field will be striped for baseball, softball, Little League, soccer, women’s lacrosse, men’s lacrosse and Ultimate Frisbee (which now will get two courses on one field rather than spreading them across two, at the request of advocates at the first meeting). Baseball and softball will trade corners between the SW and NE sections of the field; project manager Ted Holden said the field will have four colors of lines (dyed versions of the same Field Turf that’s being used for the entirely of the four-acre site) – besides white, men’s lacrosse will be in yellow, women’s in red, Frisbee in blue, as shown above. (Holden had the meeting’s 10 or so attendees choose between two shades of blue turf; they chose the lighter one.) He also said there would be two 50-foot stretches of fence along the northwest side of the field to keep soccer balls from going down a steep slope – it’ll arch from 10′ to 15′ at the middle of each section:
Holden also said he was glad to report something he said at the last meeting was wrong – the Field Turf is partly recyclable – its crumb rubber goes into “quiet asphalt,” its plastic is melted to make products including windbreaker jackets, etc.
He said the $3.2 million budgeted for the project should cover what needs to be done, but extras such as bleachers would have to be paid for “as money is available.” He expects to send the project out to bid by the end of January, with construction to be done next summer, June through August.
A few final tweaks were suggested at the Monday night meeting – some changes to the Ultimate Frisbee area on the north side of the field, including cone markers, and adding a little more turf to the west side of the site. Holden said those requests will be incorporated into the design, and the final version will be posted online soon; watch the official project page.
Two meetings tonight, both involving the Parks Department – we’re writing up the quick highlights of the second Delridge Playfield meeting shortly, but first, a few notes from Pete Spalding on the Parks and Green Spaces Levy (which is funding the playfield work) Oversight Committee meeting downtown: Both involve the levy’s Opportunity Fund, a chunk of cash set aside for neighborhoods and others to pursue park projects that weren’t specified in last year’s levy. First, Pete says the committee approved the criteria for projects pursuing a share of that money, without major changes from the draft criteria; second, a West Seattle meeting is scheduled so that potential applicants can get technical assistance – if you’re thinking about pursuing an Opportunity Fund project, mark your calendar for January 7, 6:30 pm, High Point Community Center.
4:36 PM UPDATE: From the mayor’s office, which is now handling all comment on this: “If this resident plans to enter a Parks facility with a concealed weapon, he will be asked to leave. If he refuses, he will be arrested.”
ORIGINAL 12:04 PM STORY: Seems like Southwest Community Center and Pool is just the place to be tomorrow, more than usual. First we published news last night of a group renting the pool tomorrow night for a clothing-optional swim (since their first choice, Ballard Pool, is closed for repairs) – now, a man says he’s planning to challenge the city’s park/community center gun restrictions (already targeted in a lawsuit) by showing up at SWCC at noon tomorrow with a concealed weapon. He cc’d us and other media on a “courtesy” letter to the city; his entire letter is ahead – but first, a note: We asked if he chose that time and place for a particular reason; he told us he was hoping to attend the “Dogs in the Hood” show. Read on for the letter:Read More
(Photo courtesy Seattle Parks and Recreation, from project sign installation Thursday)
From the last meeting of the Highland Park Action Committee, we reported that Seattle Parks had set a December 3rd meeting for discussion of the West Seattle (Westcrest) Reservoir park design (here’s that story). Today, the official flyer’s out, setting the meeting time for 7 pm Dec. 3, High Point Community Center. Main point of the meeting, per the announcement: “To learn what the community priorities are for transforming the 20 acres of open space” that the reservoir-covering project will create. Here’s the official flyer.
(September 2009 photo by Christopher Boffoli)
… two months later, it’s a clothing-optional swim at Southwest Pool, just announced on Twitter. Seems the folks behind the bike ride also sponsor a series of skinny-dipping evenings at city pools – usually at Ballard Pool, but a closure there has just been extended, so this Saturday night’s swim has moved to West Seattle’s only city-run indoor pool. It’s a private rental, 8-10 pm (hours the pool would otherwise be closed), raising money for the World Naked Bike Ride events (like the one in West Seattle two months ago) and the Gardens Everywhere Bike Parade – more info here (ticket prices and a whole long list of rules, regulations and prerequisites) if you’re inclined to join them.
The citywide Skatepark Advisory Committee got a closer look last night at those new Delridge Skatepark design renderings mentioned here yesterday. (The one above is oriented with the south side at the top of the art – the rectangle is part of the wading pool.) They incorporate comments from previous public meetings as well as a technical fix; the biggest change is the split into two bowls – the “egg-shaped” one you see various from 6 feet deep to 10 feet deep to allow for a drainage pipe that runs beneath. The revisions also fix a problem with the “drip line” around the park’s existing trees. Committee members offered their thoughts about the bowls’ vertical incline and also some concerns about stairs in the park and how they’ll affect skater traffic. Parks Department project manager Kelly Davidson is taking comments through November 20 (kelly.davidson@seattle.gov) and is hopeful the project will go to bid in March. She also says the $75,000 King County grant requested as part of the project funding has won a committee vote and has one more hurdle to clear.
Yet another Parks Department project is in the works for West Seattle with Parks and Green Spaces Levy money – improvements at the Fairmount Playfield playground – and now the dates have been announced for two meetings to discuss the design: December 2nd and January 6th, both at 6:30 pm, both at High Point Library. (The project objective is described briefly here, and also on the official flyer.)
West Seattle skating advocate/writer Matthew Lee Johnston at SeattleSkateparks.org has a big scoop – a look at the latest versions of Delridge Skatepark design. See all seven images here; he also notes that it’ll be reviewed at the citywide Skatepark Advisory Committee meeting tonight, 7 pm at Parks HQ downtown. (Hat tip to North Delridge’s Nancy Folsom for writing about this at Delridge Grassroots Leadership.) EDITOR’S NOTE: The original version of this item a few hours ago mentioned a Nov. 23 Parks meeting – that’s about the nearby Delridge Playfield improvements, NOT the skatepark – sorry about that, and thanks to Nancy for the catch!
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