West Seattle, Washington
23 Tuesday
Two days after the latest West Seattle Volunteer Recognition Awards ceremony, here’s another major celebration of local volunteer power: Tonight at The Hall at Fauntleroy, people who volunteer for the West Seattle Food Bank were in the spotlight, at the annual holiday-season dinner given in their honor. Among them, the three women in our photo, who are among the food bank’s longest-serving volunteers – Norma Arbow, Caroline Boone, and Asenath Brozovich – volunteering is for people of ALL ages! There are lots of ways you too can help the food bank, even if you don’t volunteer your time – other ways to help are listed on this page of the WS Food Bank website. (And you can give money any time!)
The Southwest Precinct sends holiday greetings and a wish for a (continued) low-crime season. Toward that end, precinct commander Capt. Steve Paulsen asked if we would share an SPD-provided list of holiday-specific crime-prevention tips with you. Even if you’re sure you’ve heard them all before – take another look. You’ll find the full list after the jump:
Gatewood Elementary students have just gathered a quarter-ton of pennies — but that’s only half their charitable work. Teacher Darren Radu, who also shared the photo, explains:
Over the past 4 weeks, kids from all classrooms worked together to bring in close to 500 pounds of pennies (and other coins) as part of the 2010 Penny Harvest. The bags of coins were shipped off to the local Penny Harvest offices last Thursday.
The next steps for the kids (in the New Year) will be to convene a Philanthropy Roundtable, where students from each grade will come together to research organizations working for justice in the community, country, and world, and determine which organizations are in most need of support. The Philanthropy Roundtable will then allocate grant funds from the pennies raised to these organizations. One of the Roundtable’s most important criteria is ‘leverage per dollar’ – the Philanthropists use their research to allocate funds in a way that works most effectively to make a positive difference in the world. Last year, Gatewood students awarded Penny Harvest grants to PAWS, Haiti Relief, the Mockingbird Society, and Child Haven. They had some guidance from teachers, but did most of the research and made the final decisions on where to send the money themselves.
The attached photo shows some of our many ‘harvesters’ with a few of the 30-pound bags they filled.
Big gratitude to the Gatewood community, families, and friends, for supporting this worthwhile work!
Darren Radu
4th/5th Teacher at Gatewood Elementary
ADDED 7:12 PM: Via Facebook, Stacey tells us Madison Middle School collected for Penny Harvest too – about 300 pounds.
Following our earlier report about Walt Hundley Playfield getting Parks and Green Spaces Levy money for new turf, as recommended by the levy’s Oversight Committee last night, here’s more big news from that meeting: Of the two West Seattle projects that were finalists for money from the levy’s Opportunity Fund, both will get money – one from the fund, one from other sources. The committee is recommending $520,000 for Puget Ridge Edible Park, a site for edible gardening, education, and more, proposed for a parcel in the 5200 block of 18th SW. (Added Wednesday – Stu Hennessey tells WSB that work should start next spring.) And it’s recommending that the Highland Park Spray Park – originally scheduled for a very basic installation where the HP wading pool is now – get “inflation funding” so that it’ll get the water- (and fun-) maximizing features that community advocates led by Carolyn Stauffer were asking for. The recommendations need approval from acting Parks Superintendent Christopher Williams, and then the City Council will vote on them next year.
That’s the map showing where the state’s installing automatic closure gates that are supposed to go down almost instantly if there’s a big earthquake, to keep traffic off the Alaskan Way Viaduct until it’s checked out. The work to install those gates has necessitated ramp and lane closures, and more are ahead in the next week, just announced and all listed here.
Pretty sure this is the first owl-attack report we’ve received in our five years of WSB’ing. Just out of the the inbox, from CS:
Just thought it of interest that my neighbor was attacked by an aggressive owl about 7:45 AM this morning as she was jogging up Bonair in North Admiral. The owl evidently grabbed at the top of her head. The neighbor said this was her second encounter with the Bonair owls. We were wondering if any other neighbors have had an encounter with the Bonair owls.
Rooting around for information on owl attacks, we came up with this 2006 story from the Seattle Times (WSB partner). No conclusions there as to why it happens – this isn’t even breeding season!
(September 2010 WSB photo)
Three months after the city-owned playfield in High Point got its new name, Walt Hundley Playfield (the photo above is from WSB coverage of the September ceremony), it’s getting something else new: Synthetic turf. That’s one of the decisions made at last night’s Parks and Green Spaces Levy Oversight Committee meeting; the money will come from savings in other projects, including the Delridge Playfield turf work that’s under way right now. Seattle Parks‘ Susan Golub says this is pending City Council approval. Tim McMonigle from the West Seattle Soccer Club tells WSB that High Point is one of the last two lighted dirt fields in the city (the other one, Washington, will get turf in this funding too). He adds, “This is great news … The Hundley field is centrally located in West Seattle, and is in a diverse area that will get a lot of use. The West Seattle Soccer Club is looking forward to Delridge coming online next month and to the Hundley conversion, as late in the season our grass fields can get pretty messy and frequently close. I’m sure there will be other sports organizations that will want this field developed with them in mind as well, much like Hiawatha and Delridge, so it is win-win for the West Seattle community.” The Hundley Playfield turf isn’t the only West Seattle news from last night’s Oversight Committee meeting – a separate story on Opportunity Fund decisions is coming up next.
A month and a half ago, Cara Kroenke at Southwest Youth and Family Services put out a call for help on behalf of the family members who survived an afternoon of deadly violence inside a West Seattle home in September – the murder-suicide shootings that left four members of the Phan/Harm family dead. We talked last night with Cara, who says a recent media report that the survivors were virtually homeless is not true – she has been working with them daily since October. They should shortly all have “permanent” new homes – she says the widower of the woman who opened fire now has an apartment of his own, while the other family members are awaiting final word on a 3-bedroom rental house. The woman who was shot, but survived, will get her bowling-alley job back when she’s ready to work again, Cara says. And the family is working to plan a memorial that in Cambodian tradition, according to Cara, is even more important than the first funeral – the 100-day remembrance. Read on for more about that and what the family needs now:Read More
If you arent sure what the Southwest Design Review Board is/does, that’s understandable, since it (like the city’s other DRBs) hasn’t made news much this year – only two meetings! It’s an all-volunteer, city-convened board that reviews major development proposals for this area (full explanation here). Just a few years ago, the board was meeting for most if not all of its potential twice-monthly sessions, but if there’s no project to review, there’s no meeting. The board needs full membership, though, just in case, and that’s why we’re sharing a final reminder about an opening; application deadline this Friday. Each member on the board (current roster here) has a role – and the one that’s opening represents the local business community. (You do not have to be a business owner, just able to review development applications through the “how would this affect local business?” prism.) Interested in applying? Get the application here; read more in the original citywide announcement here.
Those are youth musicians from West Seattle Community Orchestras, rehearsing last night at Chief Sealth International High School for the holiday concert they’ll be part of tonight – same place – 6:30 pm. Adults $5, children $1, but as the poster says, extra donations are always appreciated! … Tonight’s lineup also includes your chance to find out why the Duwamish River cleanup “feasibility study” matters to everyone in our area – find out about it, and have your say, 5:30-8:30 pm at Concord Elementary in South Park. … The Senior Center of West Seattle presents “Spirit of Salsa,” 10-10:45 am, for fun and exercise, no partner necessary, $10 drop-in … Enjoy your West Seattle Community Centers (WSB sponsor) to the fullest – sign up for winter classes (Southwest Pool, too) starting at noon today – find the info online by going here. … And remember our special holiday links: Events list here, shopping guide here.
By Tracy Record
West Seattle Blog editor
“It’s going to be hard,” acknowledged Liberty Bell Printing owner Michael Hoffman, talking with WSB this evening to announce the closure of his Junction storefront after December 22nd.
He wants to stress that he is NOT closing the business itself – Liberty Bell Printing and Design will continue serving customers, just not from a retail storefront.
Liberty Bell Printing is The Junction’s fourth-oldest business (after Husky Deli, Menashe and Sons Jewelers, and Terjung’s House of Gifts), says Hoffman, who has owned it for 10 years (out of the 38 total that have passed since it was founded). He says the decision to close is simply financial – “economic changes, technology changes; we don’t need to have a storefront any more.”
(WSB photos by Ellen Cedergreen)
What’s in the box? Part of the more than $400 collected by West Seattle Brownies who gathered tonight at Holy Rosary School. The money’s going to Union Gospel Mission, where it’ll buy more than 200 hot meals to feed people in need. The centerpiece of tonight’s event, which gathered five troops of 2nd and 3rd graders from all over West Seattle, was exchanging and decorating cookies:
And that gave them the chance to make new friends – celebrated toward the end of the event, as they sang their “Friendship Song”:
Coming up, local Girl Scouts will deliver birthday-cake-making kits to local food banks in honor of the 150th anniversary this fall of Girl Scouts founder Juliette Gordon Low.
1:30 AM UPDATE: Rosina Geary just sent word of the final totals from Monday night’s event:
We had 5 troops (60 Brownie Girl Scouts) in attendance tonight. We will donate 60 dozen cookies to the Union Gospel Mission. And the COMBINED TOTAL spare change collected from all 5 troops was $479.60. This will provide 250 hot Christmas Meals at the Union Gospel Mission.
The spare change, she adds, took three hours to count! The participating troops were #40890, #40699, #43253, #42472, and #40681.
Big competition tonight at the West Seattle Hi-Yu Festival‘s combined monthly membership meeting and holiday party. Main order of business: Pitches and voting for next year’s float theme. Junior Court Princess Riley Fredericks had the winning idea, and even made a model for her pitch: Sparkling Seattle, celebrating some of the best and brightest in our city.
That was one of six proposed themes, and the competition was so close, three rounds of voting were needed to come up with a winner (and even then, it was close). The others included a space concept, a flight theme, a space-aliens-signifying-everyone’s-welcome-in-WS theme, a circus motif, and the “wild, wild Northwest.” Next step: Sketches by float designer Steve Fisher, who was among the two dozen or so people at the meeting inside the St. John the Baptist Episcopal Church Hall. Also tonight, a Hi-Yu tradition: The plaques and trophies from the previous parade season are given to individual royalty members for caretaking; this year, the “Dreams Do Come True” float won five awards, at the
(Photos courtesy Hope Lutheran School)
That’s Tracy Dart, West Seattle breast-cancer survivor and activist, high-fiving a Hope Lutheran student at the end of the fifth-grade class’s special journey. Hope’s Bil Hood explains:
Last fall the Fifth Grade Class at Hope Lutheran School decided to do what they could to help out Team Tracy as they participated in the Susan G. Komen 3-Day Walk for breast cancer research. It started with writing encouraging letters that the members of Team Tracy could read while they were participating in the walk and grew from there.
The students wanted to walk as well. They decided that they would not be able to do 60 miles, like the members of the 3-Day did, but they could walk around the block. And for the last several weeks, they hit the street in all kinds of weather aiming to walk 60 laps.
Last Friday they were joined by Tracy herself and other members of Team Tracy as they completed their 60th lap around the block.
By the way – tonight’s the night that Team Tracy is the beneficiary of the first-ever fundraising Monday Night Scrabble tournament at Skylark Café and Club (WSB sponsor) – starting at 7:15 pm
Two notes came in over the weekend asking about what appeared to be an FBI SWAT team raid early Friday at a home on Genesee Hill. We have finally confirmed what that was about. It’s a case you might already have seen in regional/national media, though the stories published so far did not mention the “Seattle” arrest was in West Seattle. Agents arrested a suspect, 40-year-old Arkansas resident Mark Krause, who was visiting someone here who by all accounts has no tie to the case. Krause is accused of placing a homemade explosive device six months ago at a church in Osage, Arkansas, that was serving as a polling place (which is why this is a federal case). The device was inside a soda can, and that’s what several people thought it was when they picked it up at the church and moved it around in subsequent hours until someone noticed it had wiring.
Sometimes, it’s not what you see that makes the story, it’s what you don’t see. In this case, we noticed the “for sale” sign is finally gone from outside the long-vacant, often-vandalized Shoremont Apartments at 2464 Alki SW, 6 months after two notes brought first word the sign had gone up. We checked with agent Steven Chattin, who confirms a purchase deal has closed. However, he says, the client requested no discussion of the details – rather than listing it for a certain asking price, after a bank had taken possession, they put out a request for offers. King County records show a deed of trust granted a few days ago to two people with a Mercer Island address. ADDED MONDAY NIGHT: Further research reveals that at least one of the buyers already has West Seattle property holdings, including apartment properties on California SW in south Morgan Junction.
We don’t randomly check the commercial-real-estate listings as often as we used to – many multimillion-dollar listings have been up a long time, no surprise given the market – but we just found a new one of note: The “strip mall” at 6540 California SW in Morgan Junction is listed for sale. That’s the one with New Teriyaki and Wok, Domino’s Pizza, a freestanding BECU ATM, and the Shell station/minimart. Everything on the site but its billboard is one-story, but it’s zoned for up to 30 feet. Asking price: $2.5 million. See the listing here. (The most expensive public commercial listing for West Seattle right now: $8.1 million for the six-acre 4500 West Marginal Way SW site that includes Gray Line’s bus yard – which just signed a new 5-year lease, according to the listing.)
WSB lost/found pet reports are usually handled via the Pets page – but we’re showing this photo, shared by Susan via Facebook, here on the main page because we received so many calls/notes about these two yesterday, it seemed half of West Seattle had spotted them. They were reported to be wandering Admiral/Alki, and many were worried; we even heard police-scanner reports about them again this morning. Finally, Susan caught them a little while ago, and took them to the VCA Animal Hospital at 5261 California SW – where, she says, they couldn’t find chips, so their ownership remains a mystery. They’ll likely be headed to the Seattle Animal Shelter next, so if you have any idea whose they are, now that you’ve seen a photo (our listing from yesterday didn’t include one), now’s the time to come forward.
Here’s an option for dealing with all those corks left over from your holiday party: As bin 41 (WSB sponsor) wine-shop proprietor T. Frick McNamara puts it, “We’re on a roll for recycling corks!” Since starting their program this summer, they’ve recycled 500 pounds – a quarter-ton! – of corks. She explains, “Often folks put these either in garbage or the garden compost can, not realizing there are options for reusing this valuable renewable material. We’re teamed up with ReCORK of Amorim in California. They work with a company called Sole, who by spring of 2011 have vowed to use all recycled cork material instead of virgin cork to make the soles of their shoes. ReCORK is also working with a company in Portugal to replant new cork trees to help end the cork shortage.” You can bring your natural corks (no synthetic) to bin 41 in The Junction any time (maybe during Wednesday’s tasting?) and put them in the recycling box (shown above). Questions? bin41@me.com. (Also check out the store’s holiday hours in the WSB West Seattle Holiday Shopping/Business Guide – now with a new feature enabling you to share/e-mail individual deals from the page.)
From the WSB Events calendar and West Seattle Holidays list: AAA West Seattle is having its holiday open house all week – stop in, 4701 42nd SW, 10 am-4 pm … It’s “Open Mike Monday” at Senior Center of West Seattle at 3 pm (call to sign up) … Bingo at Alki UCC church, doors open 5:30, 1st game at 6:30 (6112 SW Hinds) … West Seattle Hanukkah party co-sponsored by Seattle Kollel and West Seattle Torah Learning Center, 6:30 pm (call for location – contact info here) … As previewed here, two school events are also at 6:30 pm: Find out about the new Westside School middle-school program (7740 34th SW); get a design update on the Lafayette Elementary School playground project, school library (2645 California SW) … Monday night Scrabble, raising $ for local causes, starts tonight (previewed here) at Skylark Café and Club (WSB sponsor), 7 pm registration, 7:15 pm game (3803 Delridge Way) … High Point Library Family Story Time tonight, 7 pm (35th/Raymond).
Followup on last weekend’s news about three teams from the West Seattle Soccer Club winning their district championships and heading into the Recreational Cup statewide tournament: All three played so well this weekend, they’re in the state championships! WSSC’s Tim McMonigle says that, for any or all of the teams, “A win would mean they are the best recreational team in the state for their age bracket.” All games are at Starfire in Tukwila – on Saturday, the BU-11 Crush plays at 11 am on Field 9; and on Sunday, the GU-14 Cheetahs play at 11:15 am on Field 2, the BU-19 Sambas at 1:30 pm on Field 1.
WESTSIDE SCHOOL MIDDLE-SCHOOL INFO NIGHT TONIGHT: One month after announcing they’re expanding to add middle school, Westside School (WSB sponsor) is having an informational meeting tonight for interested families. 6:30 pm at Westside’s new campus (former Hughes School in Sunrise Heights, 7740 34th SW).
LAFAYETTE PLAYGROUND PROGRESS REPORT TONIGHT: The “Play It Forward” project to match a $100,000 city match-it-or-lose-it grant has a community meeting tonight about the playground improvements’ design, 6:30 pm, school library (2645 California SW) – and a fundraising auction this Friday, too.
NEED MONEY FOR COLLEGE? INFO EVENT AT WSHS West Seattle High School invites you to learn how to get it, at a FAFSA (Free Application for Federal Student Aid) information session this Thursday, December 9, 6:30-7:30, in the West Seattle HS Theater. WSHS invites you to “bring all your financial aid questions. Go home with answers!” (3000 California SW)
WEST SEATTLE ELEMENTARY SELLING ‘ENTERTAINMENT’ BOOK: Special deal from West Seattle Elementary, in its first year of a high-stakes, high-intensity improvement effort that’s gained regional attention: They’re raising money by selling Entertainment coupon books, $25. Stocking stuffer, perhaps? Stop by the WSE office in High Point, 6760 34th SW, during school hours, or call Diane Stuart in the WSE office, 206-252-9450.
Congratulations to the fall/winter 2010 West Seattle Volunteer Recognition Award winners! A ceremony this afternoon next to West Seattle Junction Hometown Holidays Headquarters honored the four winners (more than four people in the photo, since one is a group award) of the twice-yearly awards, which are sponsored by the Southwest District Council, the Delridge Neighborhoods District Council, and WSB. The winners this time around are Sawyer Coe (youth), Patrick Dunn (environment), Roxanne Simonds (community), and West Seattle Be Prepared (group). Here’s our unedited video of the entire 6-minute ceremony (held on a busy streetcorner, so a bit noisy/bumpy), emceed by Erica Karlovits, co-chair of SWDC and president of the Junction Neighborhood Organization:
No time to watch? Read on for a closeup look at each honoree:
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