West Seattle, Washington
02 Wednesday
Two West Seattle Crime Watch reports to share this morning, both involving cars – one stolen, one hit-and-run – read on:Read More
Not in West Seattle, but potentially of interest, so we’re sharing this announcement:
Jobseekers can get ahead of the competition this fall by brushing up their interview and presentation skills with Improv(e) Your Business Skills, a brand-new class from Taproot Theatre’s Acting Studio. Taught by two of Taproot Theatre’s skilled improv actors, this class will encourage the students to think quickly and respond on the spot, while expert coaching will help them take control of expressions, mannerisms and other forms of body language. Improv(e) Your Business Skills takes place at Taproot Theatre on Mondays from September 21 through October 26 from 7-9 p.m.
Fall quarter at Taproot Theatre’s Acting Studio also includes a variety of other classes for children and adults of all ages and experience levels. Fall quarter runs September 21 through December 8. Registration is open now. Classes are held at Taproot Theatre (204 N 85th St.) and Grace Fellowship Church (410 NW 62nd St.) in Seattle. Registration forms and class descriptions are available online at www.taproottheatre.org, or contact Taproot’s Acting Studio at (206) 529-3668 or studio@taproottheatre.org.
From the Archdiocese’s events page:
Santa Teresita del Nino Jesus Blessing
September 9, 2009
Seattle, WashingtonArchbishop Alex J. Brunett of Seattle will bless Santa Teresita del Nino Jesus, 25 units of housing for formerly homeless families, at 2 p.m. The housing, located at 2429 S.W. Holden St. in West Seattle, is a program of the Archdiocesan Housing Authority.
For more information call 206-328-5786.
Here’s a map to that location.
We promised nightly reminders; here’s a quick one. Next Tuesday’s primary is the first major election since King County went all-mail – so you need to mail or drop off your ballot by 8 pm that night (August 18th). Election authorities project a fairly low participation rate, but there’s no reason it HAS TO turn out that way – there are major issues/races to be decided, from Seattle Referendum 1 (deciding whether to approve the disposable-shopping-bag fee the City Council approved last year) to narrowing down big fields to two “finalists” in races including Seattle Mayor and King County Executive. You don’t actually have to mail your ballot – you can also put it in one of the 24/7 drop boxes around the county, including the Delridge Neighborhood Service Center (5405 Delridge Way; map) and the King County Library‘s White Center branch (11220 16th SW; map). The first results will be out shortly after 8 pm Election Night.
That photo comes with this report from Gatewood resident and West Seattle Internet business owner Bill Hibler:
This happened at 6:30 this morning. No one was hurt although my wife was pretty shook. The tree landed on the corner of the house where there is a bathroom. She was standing at the sink washing her hands when it hit, immediately causing the ceiling to sag and finally break through. I was upstairs and thought there was either an earthquake (the house shook pretty good) or lightning had just struck about 100 feet from the house causing the one of the loudest thunder claps I’ve heard.
There was NO wind. The root structure was rotten and just the weight of the rain on the very large leaves of a broad-leaf maple caused it to topple.
This is the kind of thing you want to have happen AFTER the West Seattle Garden Tour.
If you want a professional to examine the tree, call Mark Harman of Stonehedge at 206-937-7428.
Stonehedge is a WSB sponsor, we should note. As for the Garden Tour reference, Hibler’s garden was one of those spotlighted in our report during this year’s tour on July 19.
An update tonight on the conversion of 3207 California SW (formerly Muttley Crew Cuts, now in Admiral) to the future Swinery: Two weeks ago, we brought you WSB photojournalist Christopher Boffoli‘s report on Chef Gabriel Claycamp‘s project, including a look inside the space they’re remodeling (that’s one of Christopher’s July photos, at left). This afternoon, WSB’er Michelle, 
who lives nearby, e-mailed to say work on the space seemed to have abruptly halted, and that a “stop work” notice was posted. We first checked city records; they confirm that someone filed a land-use complaint last week, regarding the need for more permits in the remodeling process (though a permit application to convert the space from “residential” to “food processing” is shown as filed). Then we checked with Claycamp, who says, “Everything we have done so far is OK to do without a permit,” adding that he has a meeting with the city tomorrow to present plans, after which he expects the complaint will be resolved. (We left a message this afternoon for the city inspector who is handling the complaint, and will try again tomorrow.) Claycamp did say that he and his crew encountered a few surprises while working on the building, and that fixing those will push the Swinery’s West Seattle opening date into mid-September (they were hoping for this month, at one point).
That’s the latest bar chart for responses to the neighborhood-plan survey we’ve been talking about – literally a once-in-a-decade chance to have an official say on where growth and planning goes from here. Whether or not you made it to the July 28th meeting to discuss the plans face to face, the city is hoping to get as many people as possible to fill out an online survey asking the same four questions. Yes, we know, it may not seem fair that Ballard/Crown Hill is ahead because it’s all lumped together as one neighborhood, while West Seattle has FIVE (Junction, Admiral, Delridge, Highland Park/Westwood Village, Morgan Junction), but nothing we can do about that now; it’s how things shook out a decade ago. But we’re not even being challenged by Ballard – our fellow online-only neighborhood-news providers at Rainier Valley Post are issuing a challenge to other neighborhoods. Not sure if this will turn into one of those Super Bowl bet deals where we each offer some famous local foodstuff (what IS an iconic West Seattle food, anyway? Husky ice cream, maybe?) – but we’ve up for a challenge. Before 5 pm tomorrow, go here to take the survey. If you don’t live in any of those five neighborhoods, fill it out for one that you frequently visit. The more voices are heard in this process, the better the end result; tell your friends, tell your neighbors, use SHARE THIS below to send this around.
Though it seemed to have a ring of finality, remember, the July 23 announcement that the city wouldn’t recommend paid street parking for The Junction was NOT the end of the year-plus-long city parking review of the area. Full findings and recommendations are yet to come – will some areas see more restrictions? fewer? or? — and if you want to be part of the process, here’s your next chance: The West Seattle Junction Parking Project Committee‘s next meeting is now set for a week from Thursday – 6 pm August 20th, at the Ginomai arts center (southwest corner of 42nd/Genesee; map). Dante Taylor, who’s heading the parking review for SDOT, explains, “At this meeting we will discuss the findings from the parking study and available parking management tools for WSJ.” You don’t have to be a committee member to be at the meeting. Need to catch up on what’s been reviewed and studied so far? Here’s our archive of Junction parking-review coverage; here’s the official project page on the SDOT website.
Just in, this alert from Paul at Coffee at the Heights (WSB sponsor):
Thought that we would put it out to all the West Seattle businesses, we took a counterfeit 20 today, about 12:30. Description of the guy is 6’1″ dark complexion, slender build, 3 Inch afro that was kinda messy, appx 30-35 years old, with a slight accent. Wearing yellow, green and blue striped oversized polo with faded light blue baggy jeans. We don’t know if he was on foot or in a car, but he headed out of our shop north on 35th Ave SW. Just a word to the other business owners out there.
To elaborate on the location, Coffee at the Heights is in the building on the northwest corner of 35th/Webster (map).
On behalf of the Southwest Precinct Advisory Council, Pete Spalding reminds us of the big block party coming up this Saturday afternoon: It’s time for the annual Picnic at the Precinct (official flyer here). Not only will you get the chance to meet many of the SW Precinct-based police who work all over West Seattle (and South Park), as well as precinct leadership, but, as Pete says, “There will be free food, entertainment, most of the divisions will have their equipment out there, and we have 20+ community and service organizations signed up to be there to tell the community about the work they do here in West Seattle.” Covering the picnic these past two years (2007 here, 2008 here), we’ve noticed the equipment often includes high-tech crimefighting tools (like the robot in the ’08 clip above) that tend to impress picnic-goers young and old. Drop by between 1 pm and 4 pm Saturday – SW Webster will be closed on the precinct’s south side (map), just west of Delridge. (Forecast doesn’t sound too bad so far.)
As reported here last week, Stoyan Tanev, the owner of Delridge Vacuum and TV, was challenging the city’s revocation of his license, and an appeal hearing was scheduled for this morning before the Hearing Examiner downtown. We got to the Municipal Tower a few minutes late and discovered the hearing room empty, except for the examiner’s paralegal, who told us that Tanev did not show up, so the examiner will issue a “notice of default.” That means, according to the department’s published rules, the appeal is dismissed, as is allowed in cases where “without good cause, the appellant fails to appear or is unprepared to proceed at a scheduled and properly noticed hearing.” Last spring, he faced trial on charges of “receiving stolen property” but the case was dismissed because of an agreement in another case, reported here on April 21 after assistant city attorney Beth Gappert briefed the West Seattle Crime Prevention Council. That case involved charges of not having the proper license and not retaining used goods for the required 30 days before selling them. The shop was expected to close this summer; we have messages out to Gappert to check the current status of the situation.
Thanks to Mary Pat Byington at Alki Community Center for the reminder: 
Registration opens at noon today for fall programs at not just Alki, but all of West Seattle’s city-run community centers — which also means Delridge, Hiawatha, High Point and Southwest. You can see the brochure (left) with the combined listings for all of them by going here (Alki Bathhouse, South Park CC and Southwest Pool are included too). You don’t have to go to a center to sign up – you can do it online – through the SPARC system. But note that you need an account for online registration – this page explains how that works, and creating one isn’t instant. Even if you’re not signing up for something (yet), also note the fall brochure has the dates for major events from Halloween carnivals to Christmas Ship stops.
(Monday photo courtesy CoolMom.org)
In that crowd of more than 40 people visiting federal offices in downtown Seattle Monday morning were Tara Reynolds, Terri Glaberson, Jen Bradbury and Cynthia Tamlyn from the West Seattle chapter of CoolMom. The visit – which also included people from Washington Environmental Council, Fuse Washington, Climate Solutions and People for Puget Sound, among other groups – was meant to urge Senators Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell to take “action on a climate/energy bill that President Obama can take with him to Copenhagen in December,” as Glaberson explains. The bill, the American Clean Energy and Security Act (HR 2454), passed the U.S. House in a close vote earlier this year — after a CoolMom visit to the office of Seattle’s Rep. Jim McDermott – and now is facing a U.S. Senate vote (legislative details here). More on Monday’s visit on the CoolMom website; they also have a photo gallery here. If you want to tell the senators what you think about the bill, Sen. Murray’s contact info is here; Sen. Cantwell’s, here.
Porterhouse, the new restaurant/pub in the old Blackbird Bistro space by Admiral Theater, is opening at 3 pm Wednesday – just got that confirmed from a staffer. First to report it was the West Seattle-headquartered Washington Beer Blog, via Twitter (@beerblog). Also, thanks to Sarah, who e-mailed us a little while ago about a note on Porterhouse’s door announcing the Wednesday opening. Our most recent update on Porterhouse was this story on July 22nd; our first report was June 5th. Toplines, from those previous stories: It’ll be open to all ages; food hours 11 am-11 pm for starters; menu “gastro-pub … pub food with a twist”; 25 taps (21 added to the space’s pre-existing four!).
(Alki, photographed this afternoon by Chas Redmond)
We’ll admit we’re enjoying the long-needed rain. The latest forecast suggests most of it will be over by tomorrow afternoon – and that would be in time for the first of THREE outdoor concerts in West Seattle in the next four nights: Tuesday night, it’s a city-presented Music in the Park concert outside the Alki Bathhouse, with the Toucans Steel Drum Band scheduled to play at 6 pm. Here’s a YouTube clip of the Toucans at Folklife in 2008:
The concert is sponsored by the Alki Community Center Advisory Council; no admission charge but you’re asked to bring a canned-food donation for local food banks. Then on Thursday, the fourth of six Summer Concerts at Hiawatha, presented by the Admiral Neighborhood Association (and co-sponsored by businesses including WSB), featuring the Elizabeth Carpenter Trio, 6:30 pm, also free – click the button to hear one of their songs:
By the way, concert organizer Katy Walum told WSB tonight that if there’s rain Thursday night, the concert WILL GO ON:
I have confirmed with Hiawatha CC that we are welcome to use their gymnasium in case of rain. We’ll try to make it as much like the outdoor venue as possible – bring your blankets and chairs, sit on the floor, bring your picnic dinner, etc. The stage will be set up at one end of the gym. The Elizabeth Carpenter Trio is a fantastic jazz trio with an incredibly talented female vocalist, and I hope that our lovely audience will not let a little rain deter them from checking out this week’s act. We may be missing summer, but we don’t have to miss summer music!
Again, that’s Thursday night at 6:30, at Hiawatha. Then Friday night in the Fairmount neighborhood, the second of four Summer Concerts at the Mount (WSB sponsor), with Maia Santell and House Blend, who performed in the series last year too – here’s our video from that show:
Showtime (also free) at The Mount is 6 pm; gates open at 5 and food/drink is available for sale. (Then, after all that great outdoor music, there’s an outdoor MOVIE Saturday night – “Pirates of the Caribbean” is next up for West Seattle Outdoor Movies on the Wall – but we’ll talk more about that later.)
We’ll be reminding you daily from here on out to get your ballot in the mail – we need the reminder too, as diehard oldschool in-person voters who are being dragged kicking and shrieking into the all-mail-voting age. Our favorite VOTE! reminders today come from Hella Bus, a site for the youngest voters, who they’re imploring to prove certain stats wrong. Meanwhile, the county King County Elections Department is publishing nightly 8 pm updates on how many ballots it’s received back — tonight’s update says they’ve received just under 8% so far: See the count here. (It’s broken out in various ways including cities and county-council districts; among the latter, the one including West Seattle – District 8 – has the second-highest percentage of ballots mailed back so far, 9.2%, second only to the 9.4% of District 6 (metro Eastside). If you would prefer to drop off your ballot rather than mail it, there are two nearby drop boxes, both available 24/7 till the voting cutoff time, 8 pm August 18th — the Delridge Neighborhood Service Center (5405 Delridge Way; map) and the King County Library‘s White Center branch (11220 16th SW; map) – here’s the full list of dropboxes countywide. Once you’ve dropped off or sent your ballot, keep checking here to make sure it’s been received. And if you’re still deciding how to vote – we’ve profiled many of the candidates and have a few more stories to run, plus a last look at the mayoral hopefuls; see what we’ve published so far, and watch for upcoming stories, by checking the WSB Politics coverage category (on the CATEGORIES list toward the bottom of the sidebar, where you’ll also find RSS links for each category, if you prefer to get your news via RSS). You should have received a voters’ pamphlet by mail as well as your ballot(s); if you want to find the guides online, here’s the city guide; the county/port guide links are here.
New information tonight from William Khazaal, son of Phoenecia at Alki restaurant owner Hussein Khazaal, who died suddenly over the weekend at age 63 (here’s our Sunday report, with dozens of memories and tributes in its comment section). William says his father’s funeral will be at noon tomorrow at House of Mercy in Covington (15004 SE 256th; map), and there will be a memorial celebration on Alki — with food — in the grassy area by the Bathhouse, right across from Phoenecia, this Friday night at 6:30; the family says the public is welcome at both events. Friday is a day when Mr. Khazaal’s family had hoped to be celebrating something very different: William says that would have been his father and mother’s 40th wedding anniversary.
That’s Shelly‘s beagle. She e-mailed WSB to share her story about an incident you might describe as “dog-walking rage” – someone literally lashing out at her and her dog when they stopped for a bio-break – read on:Read More
Two West Seattle items from recent Land Use Information Bulletin and Daily Permit Issuance lists:
“DETERMINATION OF NON-SIGNIFICANCE” FOR 33 HOMES NORTHEAST OF PUGET PARK: The street address is listed as 4741 15th SW, which isn’t on Google Maps‘ radar, so the closest we can link you is the same block of 16th, immediately west. The notice of this decision says the project comment period was originally open in 2006, but there’s an appeal window now that the DNS decision is in, deadline August 24th. You can see the notice, and how to appeal, here; the project page is here but doesn’t list any other permit applications so far. Now to the other side of West Seattle:
APPLICATION TO REMOVE 13 EVERGREENS (AND OTHER VEGETATION): The city has opened a public-comment period for that proposal in the neighborhood pictured above, at 8746 Fauntlee Crest Way in Fauntleroy (map). The online notice doesn’t specify the exact location of the 13 trees/2,800+ square feet of vegetation “to be removed in an environmentally critical area,” but does mention a steep slope and a “re-vegetation management plan.” We have a request for comment out to the landscape architect listed as the contact. The notice says comments will be taken through August 19th. The project page is here; no other permit applications are listed.
(Tip: Want to know what development activity is pending in your neighborhood? This DPD map is one way to keep tabs.)
The City Council just postponed a briefing it had been scheduled to receive this morning on the “Central Waterfront Concept” for the Alaskan Way Viaduct corridor – aka, the bored tunnel. But there’s new information on the project today: WSDOT has finally gone public with videos that were previewed to “working group” members earlier this summer. The one above takes you through the tunnel; this one, what the waterfront would look like after The Viaduct comes down (currently expected around 2016):
WSDOT discusses the simulations in more detail here. Meantime, the “working groups” are on summer hiatus, but scheduled to meet again in fall to review the latest proposals for not only the tunnel itself but also the transportation systems/networks/grids at both ends. (Here are links to graphics showing what they’ve been looking at so far.)
While West Seattle only has one RPZ – Restricted (formerly “residential”) Parking Zone – right now, potential changes in the rules have attracted attention here because other areas are interested in RPZs, particularly residential neighborhoods in The Junction. After a long round of hearings and meetings, the city has now released its “draft Director’s Rule” on RPZs, triggering a month-long public-comment period. See the 20-page proposal here; see the contact info for comments here. In the “draft rule,” page 14 is where you will find the proposed criteria for establishing a new RPZ, including these points:
An RPZ may also be initiated as part of a comprehensive neighborhood parking plan. For example, in 2005-2009, SDOT established 10 new or expanded RPZs with extensive community engagement as part of broader on-street parking management plans. …
The Director may establish a new or expand an existing RPZ when 75 percent of the curb space
parking on 10 contiguous blocks (20 block faces) is generally occupied, and when over 35
percent of those vehicles are used by non-residents. If these conditions are not met, SDOT will
formally notify the person(s) requesting the RPZ that it did not qualify. Even if these criteria are
not met, the Director has authority to establish an RPZ when the parking problem would be
ameliorated and the public interest would be served by creation of an RPZ. …
(The first is noteworthy for The Junction, since its “comprehensive neighborhood parking plan” review is still in progress.) September 8 is the comment deadline; contact info is on this page.
Just called SFD to get an update on the Saturday night fire at a house in the 3000 block of SW Manning (map), noticed by many not because it was a big fire — the flames and smoke did not last long — but because of the location on a slope between the south end of Admiral Way and the east end of the West Seattle Bridge. Spokesperson Dana Vander Houwen says it was accidental — a paint tarp with primer on it “spontaneously combusted” in the basement (as noted in our original report, neighbors had mentioned ongoing remodeling work at the house). SFD estimates the damage totaled $55,000. (Saturday night photo by Tony Bradley)
The spokesperson for the homeless encampment that calls itself “Nickelsville” — ensconced at Terminal 107 Park in West Seattle (July 24 photo at left by Christopher Boffoli) for two weeks now, after a month and a half at another WS site — sent out a media update last night with several new developments. Key among them: What they say is a new tactic, authorities serving what they describe as “eviction papers” to individual campers, ordering them to appear in King County Superior Court. Read on for the full update:Read More
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