Just got word that County Executive Ron Sims and West Seattle’s County Councilmember Dow Constantine(who chairs the council’s Transportation Committee) are about to announce “a proposed transit plan to add 4,000 more (daily) Metro bus rides during first phase of construction on the Alaskan Way Viaduct,” potentially starting next year (which is when a tangle of other transportation projects starts kicking in too). This comes days after Sims’ proposal of a two-stage 50-cent Metro fare hike in the next several months. They’re promising details at a media event tomorrow; we’ll be there.
Musicians 11 to 77 are invited to join the multi-age groups of Westside Symphonette as it gets ready to start a new season of rehearsals and performances — no audition required! Toni Reineke says you just have to show up. The first rehearsals are two weeks from tomorrow — Tuesday, September 16th, 5:30-6:30 pm for the junior orchestra, 6:45-8:15 pm for the senior orchestra. New location this year — the temporary (till summer 2010) home of Chief Sealth High School, which is the former Boren JHS at 5905 Delridge (map). Questions? E-mail Toni at tonireineke@comcast.net or call her at 206/243-6955.
Two months after the sign went up, the doors are ready to open for the first of two years Chief Sealth High School will spend at the former Boren Junior High on Delridge – and now there’s word that Sealth is inviting the community to a tour and barbecue next Saturday, 11 am-2 pm. Address: 5950 Delridge; here’s a map.
From the Times:Moses “Moe” Beerman, who helped in the creation of West Seattle’s wonderful murals, has died. His memorial is set for Fauntleroy Church on September 29th — which would have been his 88th birthday. The Times story notes that not only did he work on the murals, he also designed the fabled Hi-Yu float featured in the Junction Post Office mural shown above. ADDED 2:47 PM: From Judy Pickens:
As a tribute to Moe Beerman’s artistic talent and humor, Fauntleroy Church is putting together a collection of his cartoons to display at his memorial service and keep up for awhile afterward. Anyone who has a particularly cherished example of his work (card, poster, or ?) and would be willing to have it scanned and reproduced for the show should call the church office at 932-5600 or email info@fauntleroyucc.org by Sept. 19. One or two sentences about the cartoon (occasion, year) would be great, as well.
… welcome to WSB’s new and improved server, which should be almost immune to those occasional bursts of “Internal Server Errors” we experienced on the last one. Comments and forums are working again. But – if you happen to have access to two (or more) Internet Service Providers (ISPs), and one of them is seeing the site on its old server, you will see a message there noting you’re on the old server, and comments/forums won’t be working there (right now, in fact, we’ve got the new one on our Verizon connection, the old one on our Comcast connection). Thanks again for your patience!
As mentioned earlier, we’re moving servers/hosts tonight to increase capacity and reliability – to help ensure we continue to deserve your trust as West Seattle’s 24/7 real-time news source. As part of the process, we have to “freeze” the site at midnight for the database move – so you won’t be able to use our discussion features (comments and forum posting) overnight, and we won’t be adding new items here till we’re sure everything’s up and running on the new server. But remember that we’ve set up two other ways of publishing news/info during the transition if needed – besides our Twitter feed (accessible online at twitter.com/westseattleblog), we also have a backup site (which also would be deployed if WSB ever went down for a significant amount of time) at westseattleblog.wordpress.com. If you don’t see a Labor Day open/closed-info post here first thing in the morning, your ISP may not be seeing the new server yet, and we’d want to hear from you at westseattleblog@yahoo.com – thanks!
(The Michael Jackson original is unembeddable, so we’re showing the Star Wars version instead)
The summer may be over but a thrilling new round of fun has begun, per Lora Lewis from Hotwire Coffee (WSB sponsor), who just announced … she’s putting together a dance team to “join the Thrill the World Guinness Book of World Records event!” — thousands (millions?) of people doing the “Thriller” dance in groups, worldwide. The team’s already got a blog (check it out here; looks like Blayne of “Project Runway” fame is involved too) – plus the date for the first rehearsal: This Wednesday, 8-9 pm, Ginomai (southwest corner of 42nd/Genesee; that’s conveniently right before this week’s PR viewing party) — you’re invited — just RSVP by sending Lora a note at lora@hotwirecoffee.com. Subsequent rehearsals will be the same day/time each week; the Seattle event for Thrill the World, at which time this team will strut its stuff, is 11 am October 25. Lora’s already registered the team so as she puts it — “all you need to do is show up and dance!” (and she has a step-by-step video, so don’t worry if you’ve never done it before). More at the team’s blog (thrilltheworldws.blogspot.com), and the official worldwide website is thrilltheworld.com.
We mentioned this the other day; here’s another heads-up. **If** all goes as planned, tonight is likely the night we’re upgrading/changing servers (after 10 pm), to provide increased capacity and reliability, as we end the third consecutive month with more than half a million pageviews (and a new WSB traffic record). The server we’ve been using for the past eight-plus months has been RELATIVELY reliable but that’s not good enough for our commitment to be your 24/7 source of real-time West Seattle news. Once we point the site at the new server, there may be a lag before your Internet Service Provider (ISP) sees it, – most ISPs catch on within hours, but as we learned last December, not all – if you start to suspect you’re not seeing updated WSB content (between early morning and late night, we seldom go longer than a few hours without something new), please let us know (westseattleblog@yahoo.com will be the best address in this case) and also please bookmark westseattleblog.wordpress.com, a backup site (nothing there right this moment) we will use to communicate any updates on the move as well as any urgent news that happens during the transition time (we’ll also post updates on Twitter – even if you don’t want to join Twitter, you can read our updates any time at twitter.com/westseattleblog – we’ve also added a Twitter-centric page here on the site, click the tab). Thanks for your patience – and for being a vital part of WSB.
Not too long ago, Elise wrote with a question/concern about a van parked in her neighborhood and whether it had the right to be parked the way it was frequently parked. We made a suggestion or two in e-mail; some of her questions had to do with the rules about Residential Parking Zones (city webpage here), and as Elise proceeded to do some research, she thought you might benefit from what she found out:
1) Even if you have a zone permit (or guest permit) you must move your car every 72 hours. Basically, having the permit does not exempt you from those rules. But, you are allowed to park anywhere in your zone as long as you
have your permit.
2) The city is considering changing the rules on the # of permits that can be issued per/household to only 2. I asked when this would be in effect and she said she did not know. City Councilwoman Jan Drago chairs the Transportation Committee, so she would be a good person to contact in order to express support of this proposal (jan.drago@seattle.gov).
3) If you have complaints about habitual “junk” motor vehicles in the neighborhood it’s best to still call the abandoned vehicle hotline at 206-684-8763. This creates an electronic track record of the car(s) movements. Like the guy in our neighborhood with 8 cars – they refer to those people as “car ranchers” (anyone with between 5-30 cars) who constantly move their cars around on city streets to avoid getting tickets. The only way to have the city do anything about them is by creating the electronic track record. The person I spoke with at the Citizen Service Bureau (206-684-8811) also said the UW School of Law offers a free “Mediation Clinic” to help resolve issues between neighbors (obviously for extreme situations), but their # is 206-685-4140.
There’s more tree fruit on the citywide “what’s new” list for farmers’ markets this week, including today’s West Seattle Farmers’ Market (10 am-2 pm, 44th/Alaska). Check it out here (and let us know if you encounter any surprise finds!).
Most days, we get at least two or three lost/found pet reports to add to the WSB Pets page. Often, we get word of happy reunions within a few days. Sometimes, the search is so intense that, after the original post to the Pets page, there are in-progress updates, which we lately have been directing to the WSB Forums – and in one such case, that of Gibs’N the Irish Water Spaniel (photo above), the latest update is a happy ending – forum posts indicate he’s back home tonight. Some West Seattle pets are still missing – and have been for a long time – if you don’t routinely check the Pets page, please have a look from time to time – you never know when you might see one of those long-lost critters and be able to bring her/him home. (We have adoptable pets, and West Seattle pet owners’ favorite photos, on that page too!)
That’s Addie Killam of Highland Park, getting ready to ride her new hand-operated bike along Alki this morning. If Addie’s name sounds familiar but you just can’t quite place it – we first told you about her in this April report, when news came that she had become paralyzed after a freak surfing injury. Later, friends, family, neighbors, and WSB’ers worked to help fix up a house so she could come home to West Seattle this past June after weeks of rehab in a Colorado hospital. Now, Addie’s in training for a special Mike Utley Foundation fundraising ride coming up in about a month. Along the Alki bike path, we talked to her for a moment before her training ride this morning:
The Mike Utley Foundation raises money “to find a cure for paralysis”; Utley’s story is detailed here — he is a Seattle native who was a football star at Burien’s John F. Kennedy High School and then at WSU, followed by two years in the NFL, till the injury that paralyzed him in 1991. He underwent rehab at the same place in Craig, Colorado, where Addie spent time earlier this year. Now he lives in Wenatchee, where she’ll be riding her new bike in the 50-mile Dam2Dam on September 27:
Out of the WSB inbox, from Don, who wants you to be aware of what happened to him:
In the neighborhood due south of Alaska Junction’s Jefferson Square, we discovered that mail had been taken from our box, opened, and gone through, in search of credit card information and anything else of value. The perps tossed the remainder in our yard, which was ironic, as one thing of value turned out to be some expensive train tickets for an upcoming vacation trip. The only thing we actually lost was one of those fake credit-card-like things on a junk-mail come-on from American Express, but we found pieces of the neighbor’s mail near our house as well. When we mentioned this to USPS personnel, they told us to call the police and file a report, and let the local postmaster know as well.
BE ON THE LOOKOUT. These creeps take advantage of unlocked mailboxes and have no problem committing local and federal crimes. They are probably working neighborhoods across the area.
In a later e-mail exchange, Don told us police would not take a phoned-in report because nothing of value was missing. We will be checking with local police leadership after the holiday to see if there is a baseline for reports to be taken in this kind of situation; Don’s filing a report online with USPS, in the meantime.
Thanks to Imelda for that photo looking southwest from just south of Alki Point around 6:30 this morning. The latest forecast promises a “mostly sunny” holiday on Monday!ADDED 1:26 PM: Just found out that co-publisher Patrick got this great shot of a great blue heron near Alki Bathhouse this morning, so we wanted to share that too:
One week from today is the first of four presentations at West Seattle-area library branches focusing on early literacy. They’re happening at four different branches, one day each month from September through December, and they’re geared toward parents, educators, and child-care providers. Free of charge, but you need to register; more info here.
That’s Westcrest Park Off-Leash Area (map) — West Seattle’s only off-leash park (featured in this West Seattle 101 chapter) — and in the north parking lot adjacent to it, you’ll find some “Westcresters” having a dog-cookie bake sale this morning, 9:30-noon, raising money for the upcoming PAWSwalk. (If you can’t go buy treats, but would like to find out about supporting them in the walk, here’s their page; the walk is a week from today in Magnuson Park.)
We’ve had two reports today of markings like the ones at left — placeholders for “sharrows” — appearing along California SW (thanks to Scott C and Patt for the tips) in various spots between Alaska and Morgan Junctions. “Sharrows” are meant to remind drivers and bikers that they share the road. They’re already in place on other major routes including Admiral Way and Beach Drive (
(who chairs the council’s Transportation Committee) are about to announce “a proposed transit plan to add 4,000 more (daily) Metro bus rides during first phase of 
Car-Free Sunday of the summer. Last week, Car-Free Sunday #1 on Capitol Hill was cut short by rain and roiled by controversy, but the 
to provide increased capacity and reliability, as we end the third consecutive month with more than half a million pageviews (and a new WSB traffic record). The server we’ve been using for the past eight-plus months has been RELATIVELY reliable but that’s not good enough for our commitment to be your 24/7 source of real-time West Seattle news. Once we point the site at the new server, there may be a lag before your Internet Service Provider (ISP) sees it, – most ISPs catch on within hours, but as we learned last December, not all – if you start to suspect you’re not seeing updated WSB content (between early morning and late night, we seldom go longer than a few hours without something new), please let us know (
Most days, we get at least two or three lost/found pet reports to add to 
Just posted on 
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