West Seattle, Washington
14 Sunday
Thanks to JayDee for the view of the USS John C. Stennis passing by West Seattle shores this afternoon. Last month, the Stennis’s strike group had a change-of-command ceremony, while training to prepare for deployment, as the Kitsap Sun reported here; its own website has more about its preparations for deployment.
Two-scoop announcement from White Center’s Full Tilt Ice Cream this afternoon – they’re celebrating their third birthday next Monday by (a) being open – and subsequent Mondays too (founder Justin Cline says that was in the works anyway) – and (b) making a “matching gift” to the White Center Food Bank – however much ice cream they sell next Monday (June 20th), they’ll give that amount to the food bank. (What? Never been to Full Tilt? Barely a block south of West Seattle, 9629 16th SW. They open at 2 pm on weekdays.)
Today we welcome a new sponsor, HHL Insulation, owned by Humberto Hernandez-Lopez. New sponsors get the chance to tell you about their business, and here’s what HHL wants you to know: They are West Seattle’s green insulation contractor. At HHL Insulation, Humberto stresses the importance of having a positive impact on the immediate environment. He says, 
“We get a lot of clients from just word of mouth around the street here. People here like to support local businesses and know the value in doing so. It supports our local economy and also has a positive impact on the environment. HHL Insulation also likes to give back to our community by offering superior customer service and also offering eco-friendly insulation materials. We are aware of the importance of our impact on the community and the environment. Choosing our company means you will get the service you deserve. We pay attention to every detail and make sure the customer is happy during the entire process. We know that we are coming into your home, and we respect your living space. We do our best to be efficient and get the job done on a timely matter so you can get back to your life and enjoy your newly insulated home.”
He also adds that he works to make sure the client stays informed before work has even begun: “From the first meeting where we give you the estimate to the end of the job, the customer is always informed as to what is going on. They appreciate that we take the time to show them the process and give them the different insulation options to choose from. All this is done to inform the customer and let them choose. We don’t push anything on them. Or try and sell something they don’t need, which is common practice in this business. We don’t believe in this way of doing business. We would rather have a company that is honest and takes pride in honesty and integrity. Customers usually seek us out because they know someone who has had a great experience with our company.” Humberto is also a member of a local soccer club, and he enjoys dining out in West Seattle. HHL Insulation offers online scheduling at hhl-insulation.com, or you can call 206-510-8800.
We thank HHL Insulation for sponsoring independent, community-collaborative neighborhood news on WSB; find our current sponsor team listed in directory format here, and find info on joining the team by going here.
The West Seattle Water Taxi‘s regular vessel Rachel Marie is back in service after almost a week of repair work. It was returned to the run without fanfare yesterday afternoon, according to this update on the county website, which means the Melissa Ann is back on the Vashon route.
Since that crash last Thursday, with a car hitting a house in the 1700 block of SW Holden, we have learned more about the circumstances and what happened to the driver who police say was to blame. And we’ve heard from someone else on the same street whose car was smashed by a different driver days earlier. Read on:Read More
(Christopher Boffoli’s video from WSB ‘Liberty Belle’ tour story in 2009)
Thanks to Stephanie for the tip on this story: The restored B-17 known as “Liberty Belle” crashed in Illinois this morning, with all 7 people on board surviving. It was featured here two years ago, when it gave tours from Boeing Field, and WSB contributor Christopher Boffoli went along on one. The Chicago Tribune has details and photos from today’s crash.
7:50 AM TUESDAY: That same link has new photos and information today, bearing out what a commenter notes below – “Liberty Belle” made an emergency landing, everyone got out, and then fire spread through the restored plane.
This one does not directly involve West Seattle’s traffic lifelines (99, 509, etc.) but it includes other major Seattle-area highways and begins with the dire-warning line “Drivers can expect region-wide congestion Father’s Day weekend …” Full details from WSDOT here.
On the Sustainable West Seattle website, Kate Kaemerle has just published an obituary remembering Dale Roose, a former West Seattleite who died at age 55 in Tucson after a long fight with cancer. Kate’s writeup recalls Mr. Roose’s participation as a West Seattle Tool Library founding member. He and wife Tina Roose also had been WSB participants while living here, and you may also remember them for two West Seattle Crime Watch reports – he was the cancer patient whose car was stolen twice, including this past February, just as he and Tina were about to move. The first time, their story also was picked up by KING 5 TV, and both cases drew community offers of help. According to the obituary on SWS’s site, no funeral is planned, but donations can be made to the American Cancer Society in Mr. Roose’s memory.
For surface-street drivers just east of West Seattle: The recent East Marginal Way/Spokane intersection alert included a note about another upcoming project on East Marginal Way, just north of that area. Word just in from SDOT indicates that will start to affect traffic this Wednesday:
A contractor working for the Seattle Department of Transportation will reduce East Marginal Way South between South Hanford and South Horton streets to one lane in each direction starting June 15 between 7 a.m. and 3 p.m. In addition, the roadway will be reduced to one shared lane for both directions of traffic, controlled by traffic flaggers, at night between 7 p.m. and 3 a.m. The work requiring this traffic pattern is expected to be completed by June 17. Drivers should expect congestion. Access to nearby businesses will be maintained.
The purpose of the work is to prepare for the bypass route that is expected to be
open to traffic on June 20 for the E. Marginal Way @ S. Horton Street Bridge
project. For more information, please see the project Web
site.
This city map shows the work zone and the bypass they hope to have in place by this time next week:
(Photo by Stephen Elser from last round of low tides earlier this month)
We’ll see low-low tides all week – -2.2 today at 9:38 am, but it’ll be lower in a few days. Meantime, first day of the last full week of school for Seattle Public Schools students; we’re also in the last full week of spring – since summer arrives a week from tomorrow. But first, on with today. From the WSB West Seattle Events calendar:
NORTH DELRIDGE NEIGHBORHOOD COUNCIL: NDNC meets at 6:30 pm, NOT the usual location – here’s the meeting announcement:
Join us as we head into our new format for summer meetings – we’re taking NDNC outside! We will be holding our monthly meeting in a different Delridge park each month this summer, weather permitting. (Tonight) Greg Davis Park at Brandon and 26th, less than a block away from the library. If it rains, we’ll use our regularly scheduled library conference room instead. Our special guests on Monday will be the guys from Red Star Urban Farms, giving us a tutorial on how to raise your own backyard chickens in Seattle.
(added) PIGEON POINT NEIGHBORHOOD COUNCIL: Also meeting tonight – 6 pm, Pathfinder K-8 school cafeteria.
RACE TO NOWHERE: The documentary critiquing the education system and sparking discussions on how to change it will be screened twice today/tonight in the Arbor Heights Elementary library, sponsored by the Arbor Heights PTSA, with discussion afterward. 3:30-5:30 pm with child care provided, ticket info here; 6:30-8:30 pm, ticket info here. Organizers are also launching the online discussion group West Seattle Education Advocates, to continue the dialogue.
LIVING GLUTEN-FREE: Living Gluten-Free. Special event all day at Pharmaca Integrative Pharmacy/West Seattle (WSB sponsor); stop in and talk with a naturopathic doctor.
NIGHTLIFE: Trivia with Tom Hutyler at Christo’s on Alki, 7 pm … Karaoke with Kelli at Skylark Café and Club (WSB sponsor), 9 pm
If the school at 8402 30th SW were to stay open one more year, it would celebrate its 60th anniversary. David T. Denny Junior High School – named after the first member of the Denny Party to arrive in Seattle – opened in the fall of 1952, with 1,030 students, according to this Seattle Public Schools document telling its story, which says its enrollment peaked at more than 1,600 a decade later, with 22 portables in use.
But now, Denny’s five buildings have only a matter of days left to house students and staff. After the last classes later this month, Denny principal Jeff Clark and his team will move into their new building barely a block east, adjacent to Chief Sealth International High School, and the old buildings comprising the original Denny campus will be torn down.
This Tuesday, an informational meeting about the demolition and ensuing sports field/park construction is planned, mostly for neighbors and other interested community members.
But for the sentimental side of a school about to be turned into rubble, a gathering this weekend packed the punch.
Community members – alums, former staffers, anyone and everyone – were invited in for “One Last Look” on Saturday morning, concluding with memories shared in the cafetorium.
Among those reminiscing – Denny’s renowned music director, Marcus Pimpleton, also a former Denny student, talking about the support he received while studying there – and the support he has worked to give while teaching there:
The “essence” of Denny, Pimpleton insisted, will move with it to its new building. And its co-location with Sealth brings many possibilities, said Aurora Lora, the district’s executive director of West Seattle-region schools:
Many concerns and questions about the Denny/Sealth site-sharing have simmered in the years since the co-location plan surfaced; the schools’ principals answered questions just last month. But as Lora said, the focus now is on the move, and a fresh start. As for the demolition/construction project, the community meeting is at 6 pm tomorrow (Tuesday, June 14) at Southwest Community Center – we have more information on that, and the schedule for the months ahead, here.
The fields are set for the August 16 primary – and another Seattle City Council candidates’ forum is on the horizon for West Seattle. 
As previously noted, council candidates will be at the WS Chamber of Commerce‘s next monthly luncheon meeting June 22 for a “speed networking” event. And just announced this weekend, the next day – Thursday, June 23 – the West Seattle Democratic Women will host all four candidates for City Council Position 1 – Maurice Classen, Bobby Forch, incumbent Jean Godden, and West Seattleite Michael Taylor-Judd. Though WSDW usually meets for lunch, this will be an evening event – no-host bar at 6:30, dinner at 7, program at 7:15 pm, and the group says “candidate endorsements will be considered.” Dinner is $12 WSDW members, $15 nonmembers (or you can just get coffee/dessert for $5). Reservations or questions: wsdwomen@yahoo.com, 206-935-3216.
SIDE NOTE: All 4 Position 1 candidates participated in the 34th District Democrats‘ forum a month ago – we have it on video here; last Wednesday, the 34th DDs gave a dual endorsement to Godden and Forch.
Alki photographer extraordinaire David Hutchinson shared these photos, explaining:
There is always interesting wildlife to see while walking along Harbor Avenue. It can be Sea Lions or Harbor Seals out in Elliott Bay, Canada Geese and their goslings along the shore, or Bald Eagles being pursued by crows. The attached photos were taken recently. The first is a Bald Eagle heading home in the evening to its nest near Salty’s. The second is a Killdeer protecting its nearby nest with a typical distraction display.
For the sake of both the airborne and seagoing wildlife, it’s important to keep our shorelines clean; toward that end, as noted here previously, David and others with the Alki Community Council are involved with beach cleanups; last weekend, those cleanups were featured in this report on KING 5 News (with interviewees including Eilene Hutchinson and Seal Sitters’ Robin Lindsey).
Before we have to get back to all the seriousness, as the new week looms, yet more weekend whimsy: Stacy shared the photo, explaining, “Sunny Sunday fun on Alki today.”
If you were at Alki today, among the surrey pedalers, the sunbathers, the volleyball players, and everyone else enjoying the afternoon, you might have noticed … pom-pom-waving cheerleaders. The young women of the Chief Sealth International High School Cheer Squad spent six hours washing cars at Alki Auto Repair. Since the clouds stayed away until late afternoon, they had perfect weather – and by the time we checked in around 2:30 pm, they had already raised $500. (Side note: Last day of school for Sealth and other public high schools in Seattle is still a week and a half away – June 23rd.)
Most groundbreakings involve dignitaries, never-used-before-and-never-will-be-again shovels, and one ceremonial jab at the dirt. Not the groundbreaking at West Seattle’s Our Lady of Guadalupe this afternoon. The parish’s pastor, Father Jack Walmesley, got behind the controls of a backhoe and dug into the future site of OLG’s Parish Life Center and Gymnasium, as parishioners cheered (and, off camera, Tom Hutyler emceed). Earlier in the event, “Father Jack” wore more traditional priestly garb as he spoke about the project – we’ll add that clip laterhere’s that clip:
The new 10,000-square-foot facility will include community meeting space as well as areas for parish events and sports (read all about the project here – and see sketches – here).
It’s been half a century since a vaccine breakthrough led to the near-eradication of polio in the U.S. But as the Rotary Club of West Seattle is explaining today in The Junction – the rest of the world is a different story, particularly isolated areas of Asia and Africa. Till 5 pm today, West Seattle Rotarians are by KeyBank with an iron lung – the device that paralyzed polio victims needed to keep breathing. Contributions will go toward the Rotary International campaign to match a nine-digit grant from the Gates Foundation for worldwide polio vaccination, to wipe out the disease once and for all. (P.S. The WS Rotary’s Berry Sale is under way too, supporting all their charity programs including the Christmas Shopping Spree – you can order online; deliveries are just weeks away.)
Five West Seattle Crime Watch reports this morning – starting with the search for a hit-run driver. Amy sent the above photo and explains:
Our 1997 Toyota Tercel was struck by a hit and run driver Saturday morning (6/11) in the 3900 block of SW Orchard. The car is totalled with front body damage on the right side. The perps lost control coming around the corner at 39th and Orchard, tore up our neighbors parking strip and came to a hard stop against our parked vehicle pushing it backward about five feet. Damage to the car that hit would be the front passenger side. We did not hear the accident but our neighbor heard the crash sometime around 12:30 to 1:00 am. It was not a pretty car, but we had it for 13 years, it ran great, and it was much needed transportation for our family. We did call the police and received a case number-11-187004
After the jump – 4 more reports, starting with a stolen tandem bicycle (photo included):Read More
As noted overnight, the Alaskan Way Viaduct closure ended much earlier than WSDOT had projected – it is fully OPEN again this morning, and the blank traffic-info sign we photographed at dawn along Fauntleroy Way SW is further proof (absent a live AWV camera). But why leave West Seattle, unless you absolutely have to? From our Events calendar:
FITNESS FOR VITALITY 5K/10K: The last race in trainer Annette Herrick‘s spring series along Alki is at 9 am this morning – you can walk or run, and same-day registration is available – starting at 8 am. More info here.
CHIEF SEALTH CHEERLEADERS’ CAR WASH: Chief Sealth International High School‘s Cheerleaders invite you to come get your vehicle cleaned and shined at their fundraising car wash at Alki Auto (56th and Alki), 10 am-4 pm.
WEST SEATTLE FARMERS’ MARKET: 10 am-2 pm, The Junction (44th/Alaska). Market manager Catherine Burke says today’s returnees include strawberries and “live lettuce”; the kids-tent activity will be presented by Woodland Park Zoo.
POLIO-FIGHTING FUNDRAISER: Rotary Club of West Seattle plans to be in The Junction today with an iron lung, demonstrating that the fight against polio isn’t over yet. 11 am-5 pm, by KeyBank at California/Alaska.
TWO CHANCES TO ADOPT A NEW FELINE FRIEND: Friends of the Animals Foundation adoption event with cats and kittens from 11 am – 2 pm at Next to Nature in The Junction … Kitty Harbor (3422 Harbor SW) is open for its second weekend of the season, 2-6 pm today.
COOKING CLASS: At West Seattle Produce with Cinnamon Berg: Grilled Pizza, 11 am. We will make the dough, sauce and toppings, then grill up a home-cooked pizza without the hot oven or delivery charges! $30 12 and up, kids under 12 free with paid adult. Register cinnamonberg97@gmail.com (or drop by to see if there’s still room for today).
ULTIMATE FRISBEE: West Seattle Family Ultimate Frisbee – today’s the monthly 2nd Sunday event at 11 am, Hiawatha Playfield, southeast corner.
WEST SEATTLE SUNDAY SOCCER: The adult/big kid soccer pickup game every Sunday morning is at Delridge Playfield (4501 Delridge), all ages and skill levels are welcome! 8 am.
OUTDOOR SWIMMING Final pre-season weekend wraps ups for Colman Pool in Lincoln Park, starting with lap swim at noon (7-day-a-week summer operations start next Saturday).
OUR LADY OF GUADALUPE GROUNDBREAKING: The community celebration of the ceremonial groundbreaking for the new Parish Life Center and Gymnasium is at 12:15 this afternoon in the lower playfield, followed by a multicultural potluck.
LAST DAY OF SIFF: Final day for the film festival, and four films are screening at the Admiral Theater in West Seattle, starting at 1 pm, concluding with “Flamenco, Flamenco” at 8:30 pm. Full schedule here.
LOVING DAY: Celebration of the anniversary of the court ruling that led to the end of remaining laws against interracial marriage in the U.S., sponsored by MAVIN, 1-3:30 pm at Youngstown Cultural Arts Center, live music and more (details in this WSB preview story).
LIVE MUSIC: Once Minutos, 3-5 pm at C & P Coffee (5612 California SW) … All-ages show with Brian Wagner of Pablo Trucker, Lowlands, Wes SP8, 7 pm ($5 cover) at Skylark Café and Club (3803 Delridge Way SW; note, both C&P and Skylark are WSB sponsors; got a live music listing? send it so we can include it, the further in advance, the better!) …
Through both pre-sale donations and during-sale shopping, Saturday’s yard sale to raise money for Joplin, Missouri, tornado survivors was a success, reports Steve John, whose relatives were hit hard:
Thanks to the efforts of [neighbors/sale organizers] Leah and Johanna, and the generosity of all who donated items and attended the garage sale, 1,008 dollars were collected! My entire family has been overwhelmed with the support of our neighbors and fellow residents of West Seattle.
We tweeted an in-progress photo; Steve shared the after-sale photos (the one below features Leah, Johanna, and Sam).
During the Saturday night sock-hop fundraiser for West Seattle-based Family Promise of Seattle at Holy Rosary, we talked with board member Lynne Downs about the shelter service’s reopening: She tells WSB they have already helped two homeless families, 11 people in all, just since last Monday, and have met their goal of hiring a case worker.
It’s been a long road back for Family Promise, since their August announcement of a “hiatus” till they could raise enough money to resume operations, but in March, they vowed to reopen in June – and so they have. It’s a nationwide model involving a partnership with organizations (usually churches) that take turns hosting and feeding the families at night, while FP offers a day center and other help so the families can get back on their feet – and in this area, it’s the only place homeless families can stay together (instead of separating to go to men’s/women’s shelters). Miss the fundraiser? You can donate online right now, here.
WSDOT sent word late Saturday night that the Alaskan Way Viaduct closure is over: “During the closure crews successfully removed and temporarily replaced two of the structure’s support columns to make room for construction of the new SR 99 southbound roadway through SODO. Crews also tested the automated viaduct closure system.” Both directions are fully reopened. (Above, a photo tweeted by WSDOT, showing one of the columns taken down during the Saturday work.)
(Photo courtesy Serevi Rugby)
One more addition to our roundup of West Seattle summer camps (initiated after some camp providers sent word they still had room for kids to sign up): 2-time Rugby 7s World Cup Champion Waisale Serevi and his team from Serevi Rugby are teaching “the basics of seven-a-side rugby” in four sessions at Hiawatha Playfield this summer. The introductory camps are for ages 7-18, both genders. More info and online registration at serevirugby.com. (Our previously published list of camps is here – no guarantees they all still have room, but if you’re looking, it’s worth checking!)
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