West Seattle, Washington
26 Friday
The city has just set the dates for feedback on the four potential municipal-misdemeanor jail sites (which include two in eastern West Seattle, as we’ve been reporting; most recent WSB coverage here) – the forum in WS will be 9 am July 26 in Brockey Center at South Seattle Community College, but a June 26 forum in South Park also is supposed to focus on the Marginal Way and Myers Way sites. Here’s the full text of the city announcement:
Seattle seeks feedback on possible municipal jail sites
Four dates set for public forums
SEATTLE – The city of Seattle announced today it will hold public forums around the city to provide information and hear feedback about possible sites for a new Seattle Municipal Jail. While residents are welcome to attend any of the forums, each will focus primarily on a specific potential jail site, as outlined below. The forum dates and locations are:Thursday, June 26, from 6 to 9 p.m. at the Aerospace Machinists Union Hall A, located at 9125 15th Place S. [map] focus: West Marginal Way and Myers Way sites
Saturday, July 12, from 9 a.m. to noon, in the Wellness Center at North Seattle Community College at 9600 College Way N. focus: Aurora site
Saturday, July 26, from 9 a.m. to noon, in the Brockey Conference Center at South Seattle Community College, located at 6000 16th Ave. S.W. focus: West Marginal Way and Myers Way sites
Wednesday, July 30, from 6 to 9 p.m. at the Seattle Center Exhibition Hall, located at 225 Mercer Street – focus: Interbay site.
Be ready for optimal walking weather when it arrives! From Chas Redmond, who put together the West Seattle Trails walking map with Feet First (and with your suggestions) – here’s the first list of places you can get a map (as well as tonight’s Southwest District Council meeting at the board room at South Seattle Community College, 7 pm, with guests including West Seattle’s King County Councilmember Dow Constantine):Read More
Happening here, with the to-the-point subject line coined by beachdrivegirl, “What month is it?” The forecast does have a tiny bit of hope … ADDED AT MIDDAY: The view from Seacrest at 11 am today. (Low-tide pix to come)
Checked the chart for the entire year; the -4.1 low tide at 11:51 this morning is as low as it goes for all of 2008. (Tomorrow’s close, -4.0 at 12:39 pm; beach naturalists will be out both days.) Meantime, we’ve had reminders to be kind to the wildlife that’s vulnerable at low tide – WSB’er “Bernicki” sent these photos showing what can happen if you’re not:
(photo by Akemi Hart)
That’s Princess-Nyosha McWilliams, a Pathfinder K-8 eighth grader (and future Chief Sealth High School student) wearing a special city-provided jacket that’s part of a big honor she just won – here’s the full story, sent by Eric Baer, co-president of the Pathfinder PTSA:Read More
Tree branches, a street sign, and an SUV door are among the items which didn’t make out well in some of the more unusual crime reports from the latest round we reviewed at the Southwest Precinct — they were publicly released for review within the past few days, but some are from older incidents. Here are the toplines on 16 incidents of note:Read More
Just re-checked the City Light outages hotline. They are now saying 2 am is when they expect to have power back in the north West Seattle areas that lost power in tonight’s pole fire. (206/684-7400 is that hotline, by the way.)
Mentioned briefly this morning while the meeting was under way – now here are the full details from this morning’s West Seattle RapidRide briefing presented to the Seattle City Council:Read More
The power’s out tonight for parts of Alki and some of the northern parts of West Seattle. A pole fire caused City Light to pull the plug for a couple of hours in order to make repairs. An update on City Light’s phone line said that work was underway as of 5:50 pm and the outage should last approximately two hours.
We just spoke to Chris Deering, the sister of the last two operators of The Corner Inn at California/Fauntleroy in Morgan Junction, and she confirms that The Corner Inn is closed. The building has reverted back to the owner and is now being advertised for lease. Chris says that on behalf of her late brothers she’d like to thank the many people who came to The Corner Inn over the years. 10:50 PM ADDITION: Before tips came in today about the shutdown (thank you to everyone who e-mailed and texted), we had been checking on the “for lease” sign that had appeared on the west side of the building (see the photo above). Worth noting that there was a development proposal (described on the city project page as a three-story apartment building with ground-level retail) filed for this site back in 2006 — no activity since June of that year.
You know, it’s a lovely day outside FOR FEBRUARY! and the worst part is that the cold temps coincide with the lowest tides of the year (tomorrow’s the lowest – as noted yesterday). Photographer Bob Bollen braved the elements and took some shots at Alki during low tide this morning.
So put on another scarf, stick the coffee in the microwave one more time, and enjoy.
As we reported yesterday, the “new” operator of the Admiral Theater – who’s also one of its “old” operators – spoke with WSB and provided information we’re writing up in two reports. The first one yesterday focused on the fate of the donations solicited by the historic theater’s former manager (read that story here); this morning, our second report has the details on what the new operator plans to do next – including a relatively quick timetable for a key decision on the Admiral’s future:Read More
If you want to see what local transportation leaders are telling the Seattle City Council Transportation Committee about West Seattle’s forthcoming RapidRide bus service — the briefing’s under way now (on the Seattle Channel, on cable and online). We’ll post a wrapup afterward, or bulletins if something dramatic is revealed. Looks like they’re starting with a lot of background that’s already been reported here in connection with previous public meetings and briefings. 9:28 AM ADDITION: Two noteworthy items so far – the West Seattle route will be called the “C Line” — also, the buses will have wi-fi service, likely free to the user. 10:01 AM ADDITION: Metro has put up a slide showing the route will go all the way to Westwood Village. This has not been officially announced previously. Metro also says the service is scheduled to start in September 2011 — previously they’d just said 2011.
That’s a video look at the crowd — about 100 people — from tonight’s Highland Park meeting, where neighbors gathered to further strategize opposition to two nearby sites on the city’s list of four potential locations for a new jail — the ones shown in these city aerials:
The crowd got support from King County Councilmember Dow Constantine and State Rep. Sharon Nelson, both of whom had said previously they’re opposing the sites. Constantine also unveiled a proposal that he thinks could render the city’s search a moot point — more on that, including clips from his energetic speech and Nelson’s remarks — ahead:Read More
Tonight’s meeting at the Alki Community Center on behalf of the Parks and Green Spaces Levy Citizens’ Advisory Committee was all about public input — no votes were taken, no decisions were made; those are up to the City Council (and Mayor) eventually, but first, recommendations come from the 28 committee members, including West Seattle’s Bruce Bentley, Sharonn Meeks, and Pete Spalding, all of whom were on hand tonight (along with several others). Here’s some of what those on hand wanted the committee to consider when deciding what might go into a new parks levy this fall:Read More
Less than two weeks after somebody knocked Cove Park‘s raven sculpture off its perch, Gary Dawson of the Fauntleroy Community Association sends word tonight that it’s back, writing: “The Raven at Cove Park returned to his perch today, looking not the worse for wear. But he certainly wishes that he will not have to suffer another assault like the last one. At Cove Park, the Raven, Native American Canoe replica, and the pebbled stream bed, like the Stream Echo overlooking the fish ladder at Fauntleroy Creek, are the products of a talented Northwest artist, Tom Jay. Tom was commissioned for both projects that was both publicly funded and by local donations as well. The art is on public property and any damage to either by vandals is subject to Seattle’s code of property damage. At this time there is no lead as to the person or persons responsible for damaging the Raven, but anyone with knowledge of such should contact any of the Board members of the Fauntleroy Community Association.” (Our original report about the vandalism is here.)
A spokesperson for the Seattle Parks Department confirms to WSB that the longtime director of Alki Community Center, Ken Davis (shown at left in WSB-reader-provided photo), is being moved to South Park Community Center. We checked after receiving several e-mails expressing concern about the change; one of those e-mails, plus more from the Parks spokesperson, just ahead:Read More
OK, maybe we were the only ones in suspense, but we had been watching the blacked-out nameboard at Tervo’s Mini-Mart on Fauntleroy and wondering if perhaps the store would change its name during its closure. Not likely given the new owners had applied for a liquor license with the store name (as noted here), but anything’s possible. Anyway, today the grand opening banner’s gone up, and the new sign is up too — same name. It had been closed for about a month, undergoing renovations as part of the ownership change (previous WSB coverage here); a development proposal for the site is still in progress too. (We reported the property for sale last year; the listing is now “expired” but county online property records don’t currently have any change in ownership listed)
You’ve probably seen “under new mgmt” on its marquee – or a different look on its website – or you read this thread or this thread on WSB. Now, we have details on the Admiral Theater‘s management change, after talking by phone today with its new operator – who is also one of its old operators. We’re going to write this up in two parts – the first part is the shorter one, but it’s got the answer to the question several WSB’ers asked in comments here – what about the $40 donations for new seats?Read More
“Fire in single-family residence” callout in the 3800 block of Delridge (map) – right by The Bridge – WSB team member en route to check it out. 2:51 PM UPDATE: Small fire, “handled before (fire crews arrived),” according to firefighters on the scene, who are already packing up to pull out (they later told us it involved transients and smoking – the house is apparently vacant).
Over the weekend, the city launched big changes for the Department of Planning and Development section of its website. Supposedly “easier to navigate,” according to the explanation in the dpdINFO newsletter posted today, but it took us a good long time to figure out where we could do the simple “look up a development by address or project number” search. That used to be accessible from the DPD home page, but now you have to go to the “permits” area, where you will find the lookup at web1.seattle.gov/DPD/permitstatus.
As reported here a few hours ago, we’ve got very low tides at midday all week – bottoming out on Wednesday with the lowest tide of the summer. The field trips weren’t waiting for that – the photo above shows Eastside kids swarming Constellation Park (buses parked nearby bore the names Issaquah, Bellevue, and Newport). We stopped by Lowman Beach, too, where these birds perched on tide-exposed infrastructure for an eagle’s-eye, er, seagulls’-eye view:
We’ve mentioned several business anniversaries in the past few days – and today, we have another one — Illusions Hair Design (WSB sponsor) is celebrating its 30th anniversary today (photo at left shows a bright blue “thank you, West Seattle” banner out front in honor of the occasion; we unfortunately missed our chance to snap a photo of their anniversary cake first thing this morning). As do many businesses that celebrate milestones like this, they’re offering customers a gift — at Illusions, today it’s 30% off all retail items.
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