West Seattle, Washington
23 Tuesday
So says Charlestown Cafe owner Larry Mellum, 
in an e-mail response to our inquiry about a note that a reader saw posted at CC, saying it looks like the project that posed the most immediate threat to the restaurant’s future is indeed stalled, or maybe even dead. (Background: First word of CC losing its lease was a year and a half ago; the community started rallying to save it last March; most recent Design Review meeting on the Petco store proposed for the cafe site was last August our last report on the project’s nonprogress was in December.) Tonight — here’s what Larry just e-mailed to WSB:
By all indications it appears that Madison Development has pulled out of the project. The Landlord’s agent, Rick Megenity, and I spoke last Friday and that is what he said.
Further, he indicated that Madison has not responded to the Landlord’s requests both in writing or verbally to tell them what is going on. Nor have they been able to meet the formal time lines for development that were laid out in the agreement between them. All that being said, Madison has NOT and I repeat HAS NOT formally backed-out. I don’t however believe that they have to. Because by virtue of their non-performance the contract likely has been breached. What this means without putting words in anyone’s mouth is that the Landlord is likely to proceed in finding some other means of re-development at the Charlestown location. They have indicated that this is how they would hope to proceed. In my conversations with them, we discussed putting some type of multi-use facility here that would include space for a restaurant suitable in size for a “Charlestown-like” location to be included. Although they cannot or will not lock themselves into anything at this juncture, I believe they would like it developed in that way.
So, there you have it. It looks like the community and ‘Charlestown has won the “first round” and by all indications we could be here for a long time to come. If not in our current form it will be in a form suitable for the landlord to receive what he wants — which is more rent out of the property, BUT STILL HERE situated with a couple of other retail and/or office tenants.
Thank you for your inquiry … and to all of West Seattle, thank you for your overwhelming support. It is truly humbling.
Best wishes,
Larry Mellum
Charlestown Street Cafe
We had checked both with Petco and with city planners in the past few weeks; Petco said only that they hoped to stay in West Seattle one way or another, city planners said they hadn’t heard anything in quite some time. (Previous WSB coverage of the Charlestown Cafe situation is all archived here.)
It bears repeating, we share these e-mails about coyote sightings NOT to fan any flames of anti-coyote hysteria, but just to remind everyone that West Seattle is full of wildlife large and small, and if you think “well, not in my neighborhood,” think again. We’re going to try to save them to share in bunches, though, rather than one by one, unless there’s something truly urgent to report. First, Charles sent this yesterday:
We live in Arbor Heights and around 2 AM were awakened by the yips and yaps that are common to coyotes. I have heard them before when I was in Arizona, but never in West Seattle. Looked out the window, and 2 or 3 were running through our yard and down to the ravine that empties out at Seola Beach.
And today, Mary sent this:
My neighbors have been sending e-mail out this week about a coyote that has been seen on Maple Way in the Lincoln Park Annex area (the Annex is just two blocks north of the park). She/he just showed up in my back yard and was a good size ‘doggie’ and is not afraid of people. It appeared she was headed for the park since she trotted south along our easement. On occasion we have heard of one, usually this time of year but only one or two sightings. This one has been in our neighborhood for over a month now and is frequently out during the day.
Once again, here is our favorite official state link about co-existing with coyotes.
Didn’t realize till reading this post on The Mortgage Porter (WSB sponsor) that Washington Federal is acquiring First Mutual. Both have West Seattle branches, both on California Ave; WF’s newly renovated branch in Morgan Junction, FM’s newly built branch is just north of The Junction. The acquisition closes on Friday.
Heavy smoke reported from the first units arriving at 9724 32nd SW, which is described as a single-family house. Everybody is said to have gotten out OK.
UPDATE: Here’s two pictures from WSB contributor Christopher Boffoli who also writes,
“Fire was out by the time I got there. Firefighters on the scene told me there were no injuries and they have not yet determined the cause of the fire. Every window in the house was totally blacked out from smoke damage.”
ADDED 3:20 PM: Thanks to WSB contributor Sage K for this photo of the bullet holes in the window at Longfellow Creek Apartments (map), from the shots 23-year-old Rey Alberto Davis-Bell (photo at bottom of this post) is suspected of firing (nobody was hit/hurt) before the deadly Central District shooting in which he may also have been involved:
ORIGINAL 2:19 PM POST: OK, here’s more of what we’re piecing together from various sources regarding who police are looking for in the shots-fired case at the Longfellow Creek Apartments a few hours ago that is apparently linked to the shooting that seriously injured two people at a restaurant in the Central District (2:50 PM UPDATE: one of the victims there is now reported to have died):
-According to Scott from Central District News, police are looking for “a 2002 black Lincoln, 4 door, with license 210 XMJ.”
-Another source tells us that the suspect, 23-year-old Rey Alberto Davis-Bell, 23, has a long rap sheet. Police say he’s who they’re looking for in the Delridge shots-fired case, though they’re not yet ready to definitively link him to the CD shootings. Here’s his photo as posted on Slog:
The King County Superior Court jury found ex-Huling Bros. employee Adrian Dillard not guilty of burglary, 
but guilty of theft and guilty of money laundering. His former co-worker Ted Coxwell was found guilty of burglary and theft. All this in the scheme that came to light a year ago, involving stealing money from a mentally incapacitated customer and also taking the truck he’d come to the dealership to buy. Verdict came in just after 1 pm – details to follow later. 2:25 PM UPDATE: The jury, 3 women and 9 men, deliberated about 5 hours total — 2 yesterday, 3 today, reaching their verdict just before noon, breaking for lunch, then delivering it at 1 pm. As reported here earlier this week, prosecution testimony lasted more than a week, but defense testimony took only a day. In addition to the verdicts as mentioned previously, there also was a special finding that Dillard should have been aware that the victim, Richard Grey, was particularly vulnerable. Sentencing is set for late March; one other development of note, the judge granted the request of Coxwell’s lawyer to set his client free — Coxwell has been in jail ever since his arrest in mid-January of last year — he’s already served more than the maximum possible sentence for the crimes of which he has been found guilty.
Police are investigating shots fired at the Longfellow Creek Apartments at Delridge and Juneau. Nobody hit but some damage done. Updates later. 1:30 PM UPDATE: Thanks to the commenters who pointed out that this is believed to be connected to a shooting in the Central District – we were downtown at the courthouse for the Dillard/Coxwell verdict and away from our usual immersion in the rest of the mediasphere.
Kind of expected this one, once this waterfront building at 3633 Beach Drive went up for sale last April, and now it’s official: City records confirm it’s converting to condos. Upgrade work is about to start, judging by one permit that’s just been issued (which lists the owners as Alki Eight Partners, LLC, possibly hinting at what the future condos might be called; property records show they bought the building last month for $3,350,000).
Not the kind of potluck you’re probably thinking of – though there will be cookies! It’s a writers’ reading and music event tonight at Cafe Rozella (on the southern edge of West Seattle, 9434 Delridge), 7-9 pm. Here are more details, forwarded from Cafe Rozella’s Ricardo Guarnero:
This Spanglish Potluck features readings in Spanish & English by Hedgebrook alumnae Wendy Call & Maria Victoria. Also featured will be traditional Cuban music from Irene Mitri & her Charanga Danzón. This will be a reading like none other. There will be live words & music along with freshly-made Hedgebrook cookies and an opportunity to sing Las Mananitas (the traditional Mexican Birthday Song) to Wendy’s godchild. So come, bring a friend, bring your family and be a part of the fun!
If “Hedgebrook” doesn’t ring a bell – it’s a writers’ retreat on Whidbey Island (read more here).
Just out of the WSB inbox, from Denise:
I’ve got a giant garbage bag full of my three teen sons’ castoff stuffed animals. Most are in excellent condition. Do we know anywhere to donate these other than Goodwill or “the truck in your neighborhood”?
Good question, and we don’t have a West Seattle-specific answer. Do you?
If you have a child who’s going to start kindergarten next fall — or maybe is still a year out, but you’re already thinking way ahead — there’s an event tonight you won’t want to miss. The 10th annual West Seattle Kindergarten Fair, 6-9 pm in the Brockey Center at South Seattle Community College (which, yes, if you haven’t been there, IS in West Seattle). Organizers gather principals, teachers, and parents from public and private schools around West Seattle, so you can talk with them to find out more. Kay Yano, a WSB’er who’s been in kindergarten-choosing shoes, confirms it’s a don’t-miss:
With the confusion and abundance of information that School Choice often brings, it is worth going to the Kindergarten Fair just in order to have all the options in one place at one time and to clarify which schools you have to go visit in person. I know that you made mention of it in the calendar of events, but it is really such an important event for those parents of 4 and 5 years olds that I thought that I would bring it to your attention. It is also early enough in the year that not everyone who is facing Kindergarten in the fall is quite focused on that decision yet to have even looked for something like the fair. It is put on by the Co-op Preschool Program that is based out of the SCCC Campus, but it is free and open to the public. It is also at a different time than it has been in the past, it has always been on Saturdays, and people may not be looking for it to happen on a weeknight, so it might sneak by them accidentally and a reminder would probably be helpful.
I went when my daughter was a year out from Kindergarten, and it was TOTALLY OVERWHELMING, and I left informed and exhausted, but it gave me info to chew on for a year before I really had to make my decisions, and then went again when it was getting to be choice time when she was 4. I love the school that she attends and that was really where I clarified much of my thinking about what we as a family needed out of a school.
If you haven’t been to SSCC before, here’s a map to its location in east West Seattle. WSB school resources: List of all public and private West Seattle schools, with web links and maps, here; school discussion opportunities in the forums here.
Kristen snapped that late today (thanks for sharing!) at the 16th/Roxbury Walgreen’s.
See the orange and blue on that map? It marks all the West Seattle streets where Seattle City Light crews will work over the next few months to clear tree branches from power lines. This was one of several maps shown at City Light’s open house at Hiawatha Community Center tonight. Only a trickle of turnout, but if you’re in the targeted area, City Light spokesperson Scott Thomsen says you will get direct notification — City Light workers have already started going door-to-door to tell residents what’s going on and what they can expect to happen; if you’re not home when they stop by, they’ll leave an info-card hanging on your door. The “blue” area will be tackled first, starting within the next couple weeks (loosely described, this includes parts of Seaview, Morgan Junction, Genesee Hill, and most of Beach Drive); City Light managers say the work will last about two months before they move on to the areas on the map in orange. The only significant section stretching east of California Ave is south of Fairmount Park; one spur that travels almost all the way to the eastern edge of West Seattle is along Brandon. If you have a tree that’s within 10 feet of a power line, you will be offered the option of pruning (which in most cases will entail fairly dramatic branch removal) or taking out the tree entirely (and replacing it with something unlikely to grow into the line). And it’s all in the interest of preventing further power-outage catastrophes like what happened around West Seattle in the December 2006 windstorm; trees too close to power lines, City Light says, are the number one cause.
Housing is a popular theme around here this week (and many weeks). Tonight we welcome a real-estate agent listing a West Seattle home, and we welcome an ad for new apartment homes in The Junction. First, the home: Jayson Cantu from Windermere R/E Wall Street has listed a home at 4415 SW Stevens — a sketch of it is part of his ad in our right sidebar. You can see a photo gallery at Jayson’s website (click here); you can call him at 206/851-1147. Now, the apartments — The MD is a brand-new apartment building “in the heart of The Junction,” now leasing 1-bedroom and 2-bedroom units; The MD too has lots of info online (click here). Thanks to Jayson and The MD Apartments for supporting WSB; if you’re interested in finding out how to join them and our other sponsors, here’s the page to see.
At least one community-group mailing list that we are on has just received a letter from the principal of Chief Sealth High School, John Boyd, in which he writes, “I feel like I cannot remain silent regarding my feelings about this issue any longer,” adding that he is “weighing the merits of options two and three” — two is the current project plus at least $5 million additional improvements to CSHS, three is a Denny rebuild on its existing site, with Sealth still getting some improvements. Here’s the letter as it was distributed; or if you have trouble with PDFs, here’s the text:Read More
Lora Lewis from Hotwire Coffee, WSB’s inaugural sponsor, just e-mailed to say: “We’ve just finalized a purchase of a coffee shop at the Pike Place Market; opening of the new Hotwire Pike Place Market will be the first week of March. My manager, Rena Poppell, has decided to jump into the world of small business ownership and will be opening this shop under the Hotwire name. This new location actually eclipses other Internet Cafes in the area and will make Hotwire the largest line of Internet coffee shops in the region. Also, by the middle of 2008 we’ll be set to offer Hotwire as a micro-franchise to people who are interested in opening their own Hotwire Online Coffeehouse.” Lora says you can find out more about franchising by checking the links on the lower-right side of the Hotwire home page (higher up the page, by the way, is the latest on the Hotwire Valentine matchmaking event).
The jury is now deciding the case of the two former Huling Brothers sales staffers. A court clerk says they got the case just after 2pm. That means defense testimony lasted just one day.
4PM UPDATE: The jury has gone home; they’ll be back in the morning.
For those following this internationally publicized case — according to the P-I’s Big Blog, Arbor Heights resident Edda Mellas, mother of tabloid-featured Italy murder suspect Amanda Knox, gave her first major interview to ABCNEWS, airing this Friday night.
In addition to the Seattle City Light tree-trimming meeting mentioned earlier, there’s another major event in West Seattle tonight — the second “open house” about the forthcoming RapidRide bus service, to replace route 54 in 2011. Though it’s three years out, several key decisions are being made now — with your input — including the route it will follow through and near The Junction, where its “terminals” (more than just bus stops, as shown above) will be, and where it will end (Morgan Junction? Fauntleroy? Westwood Village?) — and you can tell Metro what you think, as well as voice other opinions and ask questions, when you drop by the “open house” at the West Seattle Senior Center tonight, any time between 5:30 and 8:30. (Detailed WSB coverage of the RapidRide presentation at the last JuNO meeting is here; our brief writeup of last week’s RapidRide open house in Fauntleroy is here. If you miss tonight, you have two more chances — an “information table” at the Senior Center noon-3 pm tomorrow, and a meeting at the Southwest Library on Feb. 19th. You can also have a say by completing an online questionnaire here; deadline is this Friday.)
We checked with Lt. Steve Paulsen @ the Southwest Precinct this morning regarding two things around midnight last night — 
one that we heard on the scanner, one that a reader asked about. First, a report of possible gunshots heard in the California/Stevens vicinity (map) — he says police got a couple calls, checked it out; couldn’t find any evidence of what it was (could have been fireworks, hard to tell). Second, police recovered a stolen car after an operation that was quite interesting to listen to on the scanner: a Mercedes originally stolen from Tukwila was spotted in High Point, then at the 7-11 at 35th/Avalon, then Lt. Paulsen himself — out on late-night patrol — spotted it on Sylvan Way — after setting up “containment,” officers caught one suspect near 42nd/Fauntleroy, then recovered the car near 36th/Graham.
UPDATED 9:50 AM: Better photo from Bob Bollen (thank you!), followed by 40 seconds of video we went back to get right around the peak tide (about quarter past nine).
ORIGINAL POST:
This photo’s from just after 8 o’clock, and the high tide won’t even peak till just after 9 o’clock. But if you go out to gawk, wear something waterproof – the spray will get you all the way across the street from the water!
No snow, but there’s a strong breeze buffeting trees around, at least where we are — and that, according to Seattle City Light, 
is the number one cause of power outages: trees vs. power lines. As first reported here last month, City Light crews are coming to West Seattle soon for what the utility says is the first extensive round of tree-trimming here in almost a decade – and if you have a tree that’s in the way, NOT cutting is NOT an option — so SCL really wants to make sure everyone understands what’s going on here, before the trucks show up, and why the cuts tend to be big and dramatic, not just a snip here and a snip there. Best place to find out exactly what will happen and when – and to see if your specific neighborhood is included in what City Light’s announcement two weeks ago described as “Alki and North Admiral west of California Avenue in the north end of West Seattle and Genesee, Gatewood and Fairmount Park neighborhoods in the south end of West Seattle” – is to go to tonight’s meeting, 6:30 pm, Hiawatha Community Center.
During our discussion of townhouse design standards last Friday, ignited by Southwest 
Design Review Board member (and West Seattle architect) David Foster‘s investigation of micropermitting (first report here; City Council President reaction here), it was suggested we should photograph some of the townhouse projects. So we did. Please keep in mind that unless otherwise noted, these are NOT examples of the practice he is concerned about – instead, the thought here was JUST to take a look at townhouse faces for some of the larger, newer groupings, for anyone interested in seeing examples of current West Seattle townhouse construction, somewhat side-by-side. Here’s a sample from a weekend morning drive: (PS: TUESDAY MORNING ADDITIONS AT BOTTOM OF POST)Read More
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