It’s not ALL shouting, scuffling, and rabble-rousing
In fact, there’s an olive branch of sorts extended right now across the north side of the Fauntleroy walkover — a huge banner reading THANK U, SCHOOL BOARD. Couldn’t tell in the dark if it was courtesy of Cooper, Pathfinder, or both. But it deserves a little notice while the Wednesday night rumble is still getting play.
H*ll with Halloween, Noel’s a-knockin’
Christmas stuff keeps coming out earlier and earlier every year. This year seems more out-o-control than ever. Three examples are in full force at Westwood Village as we write: The Rite-Aid Halloween stuff is already on sale, with Christmas creeping into the aisles; in the “seasonal” section @ Target, it’s already gotten to the point where cute-n-cuddly Animated Lighted Sea Lions (for your yard) are rubbing elbows, er, flippers with the Animated Teeth-Chattering Skeletons; and Pier 1’s window signs proclaim this to be Ornament Preview time. WAIT UNTIL HALLOWEEN’S BODY IS COLD, FOR GOD’S SAKE! ISN’T NOVEMBER FIRST EARLY ENOUGH?
Meantime, if you are doing early holiday shopping anyway, here’s a sincere recommendation: The 2007 West Seattle Calendar. Here’s where you can buy it. (Honestly, who needs “16 Months of Precious Pugs” when you can represent for WS Pride!)
Construction updates
Got a closer look Friday at two of the higher-profile projects around WS: In The Junction, raised-crosswalk work has begun with an extensive dig-up on the east side of the southern block (near Petco). One observer noted he thinks the city should be putting up ground-lit crosswalks (as in White Center) instead of these speed-bump crosswalks. Too late now … Over at the ex-Rainier Roaster, workers were doing something with the second-story siding as the drive-thru Starbucks transformation rolls on. Wondered if they’re going to turn the 2-story building into a 1-story facility for SBUX, but the permit aps say “non-structural improvements.”
Admiral accident
West Seattle might make the news again tonight, thanks to yet another car crash. We saw at least two tv camerapeople getting video of a car that smacked into a brick column in front of the Admiral Heights complex on California just north of Admiral earlier this afternoon.
What’s up around West Seattle this weekend
And now, from our weekly sampling of What’s Up Around WS This Weekend (starting today — doesn’t everyone want a three-day weekend?) … as always, we don’t claim that this is all-inclusive … but fun nonetheless: Youngstown Arts Center is a jumpin’ place again this weekend, with events including “Ghost Game†dinner theater tonight and “The Night Parade†(featuring trapeze performances) on Saturday night … Fauntleroy Creek is a hive of excitement this weekend, with a Megawatt “field trip†on Saturday (you need to sign up, if they have room left) and drumming at 5 pm Sunday to call the salmon home … Then there’s lots of live music, including The Bend and The Quiet Ones @ Easy Street tonight, a full weekend of bands at Skylark Cafe … if you like bingo, the West Seattle Senior Center schedule says it’s Halloween Rainbow Bingo tonight … fun for the family with a marionette puppet show at Alki Community Center on Saturday afternoon … and “Tick, Tick … BOOM!†continues this weekend at ArtsWest; LATE ADD: how could we forget the Huling Bowl, WSHS vs. Chief Sealth, 7 pm tonight at the stadium next to SW Community Center! … As we say every Friday, please leave a comment or e-mail us to let us know anything cool that we’re missing!
Pathfinder/Cooper merger iced after all
Didn’t stay up to watch the rest of the turbulent School Board meeting (see below) – woke up early to find out it ended with an unexpected vote that iced the Pathfinder/Cooper merger and everything else left in the superintendent’s “Phase 2” plan. According to this morning’s P-I story, West Seattle school board rep Irene Stewart explained, in proposing the sudden vote, “I don’t think anybody needs to go through this for two more weeks.” (As the Times also notes, the board originally wasn’t supposed to vote on the plan till Nov. 1.) So our prediction turned out to come true after all, albeit in an unexpected way.
It’s getting ugly
Just happened to catch the school board meeting live on tv. Stopped to listen for Pathfinder testimony … after a couple of fairly mellow people from Pathfinder (and a West Seattle guy who sends his kids cross-town to another alternative school that’s threatened with “consolidation”), the public speakers turned to a more broad focus, including some quite incisive rabble-rousing, and a confrontation ensued. Something about a guy threatening one of the speakers. Hard to tell in those wide-angle public-access tv shots, but looked like someone might have gotten arrested or at least thrown out of the meeting. Wow. Will have to look for the online replay later.
Also not closing …
… any time soon, anyway … The Viaduct. The state’s done analyzing results from the inspection during last weekend’s shutdown; they say it “settled” just a little teeny tiny itsy bit since last checkup, and it’s still, like, kind of OK for us to drive on, but they promise to fix it if it settles just a little teeny tiny itsy bit more. Uh, guys and gals, any reason not to just put it up on the rack now and get goin’ with that? Given that the looming Greg vs. Chris Deathmatch over Tunnel Of No Love may leave us stuck with it for a long time …
Time machine
We’ve mentioned the Seattle city online photo archives before. Many of these photos were taken for relatively mundane motives, say, documenting big public-works projects. (If you want to look at the Myrtle Street reservoir/tower construction from every angle, for example, this collection could put you over the moon. And check out this view of what preceded the Fairmount Park field along Fauntleroy.) But tucked into the archives are a few surprises, such as this pic that can be regarded as a reminder of the kaleidoscope of differences between wartime then and wartime now.
Promises, promises
Yet more of those Seattle Prop 1 signs are up, many more captioned “Fix This Street!” than “More Bike Trails!”, and now that’s really starting to ring like a false promise — we’ve looked at the collateral (starts on page 33 of this City Voters’ Guide; the ordinance placing it on the ballot can be read in full here), and we’re just not seeing specifics on exactly which streets they’re promising these extra taxes will fix.
Meantime, on the state level, would you recognize your state legislators if you were standing next to them at the supermarket? Might as well have a look. All three of them have Republican opponents for this election — here’s the matchup for state senator, for “position 1” state rep, and for “position 2” state rep. (Click the “statement” links on those pages, and you’ll see their photos.)
Yeah, I’m still bitter
Couldn’t let this go unremarked … Mayor “No Monorail Because The Voters Have Spoken” sticking to his tunnel-or-else guns in today’s Times, despite the paper’s poll showing 75% of respondents want something other than the insanely expensive tunnel:
“I’ve gone through the peaks and valleys of building a light-rail system in this city, and there were times in 2000 and 2001 where it was about as popular as Prohibition,” said Nickels, a Sound Transit board member. “We stuck it out and in 2009 we’re going to open light rail to the airport, and today if you took a poll there would be consensus that it was the right thing to do.”
And yet the monorail deserved to die after losing one of five votes? … leaving our side of the city completely and utterly without non-bus mass transit.
Numbers game
A new wave of campaign signs washed up along Beach Drive and other points in West Seattle today, this time plugging Seattle Proposition 1, aka Hizzoner’s “Bridging the Gap” transportation tax. (Along Me-Kwa-Mooks Park, a pro-Prop 1 sign promises “More Bike Trails”; closer to Alki Point, the signs exhort “Fix This Street” — hmm, I’m not so sure that Beach Drive-paving $ is in there.) These signs join a semi-early blitz of “No on Referendum 1” signs, and if you think there’s potential for confusion between Prop 1 and Ref 1, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet — throw in King County Props 1 and 2 (plus Seattle Initiative 91, Seattle Charter Amendments 6-16, three state initiatives and a state referendum), and you might think you’re looking at a math worksheet instead of a ballot.
In case you haven’t done your research yet, here’s a few bullet points:
–Seattle Prop 1 raises property taxes for a variety of transportation projects, NOT including the viaduct. About $12 extra per month if your house is worth $400K.
-Seattle Ref 1 asks if you approve of the city’s strip-club regulations (including the famous “four-foot rule”).
-King Co. Prop 1 asks if you’ll let county leaders sell off some real estate along Lake Union and the Duwamish (scroll down that page for the full list), which all dates back to a bond measure from almost a century ago.
-King Co. Prop 2 raises sales taxes a tenth of a percent to pay for more bus service (the list on this page mentions Delridge as a key corridor).
We’ll get to the double- and triple-digit ones later. No endorsements here at this point, though we have to say, we’re still a little consumed by bad feelings about the signature-gatherers for Ref 1, who stood outside the Westwood Village Target some months ago and tried to grab shoppers’ attention by barking, “DO YOU HATE STRIPPERS?”
Tunnel schmunnel
West Seattle’s Most Famous Politician may well be cursing into his coffee this morning. Since no voter verdict is pending, a paper & pollster decided to take The Pulse of the People another way regarding Viaduct Vs. Tunnel Vs. Neither. The best stuff is in the middle of the story — the Guv says she’s glad to have SOME kind of public feedback; Hizzoner says, in effect, never mind the people, he’s got the back of future generations; West Seattle respondents say (60%-40%) JUST REPLACE THE DAMN THING AND BE DONE WITH IT, ‘KAY? One thing about the story bugs me, though. It mentions that the first round of questioning to poll respondents included asking them about The Third Option. However, the story never gets around to mentioning exactly how many preferred it. (Maybe there’s a breakdown in the “dead tree” version of the paper? Speaking of dead trees, that’s one of our next topics.)
Mystery no more
Chalk another one up for West Seattle Blog Spouse, who bet me that the ex-Remo Borracchini spot in The Junction would become a “fancy bakery with something French in its name.”
Sometime in the past 24 hours, a sign went up, as follows: “Coming soon (to delightfully spoil West Seattle with bread, pastry, cakes, chocolates and coffee)/Bakery Nouveau/home of world baking champion 2005/USA top 10 chocolatier 2004/William Leaman.”
According to a variety of online references, Leaman’s been at Essential Baking Company in North Seattle for a while and does indeed have quite an impressive resume, dating back into his teens. West Seattle’s got a fair amount of good bakeries — so could this mean we’re in for something great?
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