West Seattle, Washington
20 Saturday
The forecast may not be so hot as of this point, but our West Seattle weekend roundup includes plenty of indoor options if needed … including the world’s most famous all-female AC/DC tribute band, late-night comedy, an all-city “jam” for independent business people, the Rat City Rollergirls’ rummage sale on Alki, plus your chance to help beautify North Delridge … Those events and more, a click away:Read More
That’s what a spirited crowd did last night at City Hall, according to this P-I article, which mentions that somebody from WS was part of a contingent advocating a farewell to foam (containers).
This week’s Stranger gives another mention to a West Seattle mini-controversy that got surprisingly little attention earlier this spring (we only linked to it in passing): the city’s decision to deny a nudist group’s request to rent Colman Pool for a swimsuitless swim. At least The Stranger mentioned the group by name (Body Freedom Collaborative, site NSFW); the original account didn’t. So do you think the city should have said yes? (We can’t help thinking they would have been able to handle it by charging extra to put the plywood back up for a few hours.)
One more day left to file to run for something this fall. For WS residents, options include any of five Seattle City Council jobs, King County Prosecutor, King County Assessor, King County Councilmember for District 8, two Port of Seattle Commission jobs, and Seattle School Board member for District 6. Regarding the two district-specific jobs:
–So far Dow Constantine hasn’t officially filed for his County Council job (but apparently intends to); the always-interesting “Goodspaceguy” Nelson has filed to oppose DC in the Democratic primary; nobody’s filed to be a (brave) Republican in this race.
–Three candidates are now in the running for the WS-centered School Board seat that incumbent Irene Stewart is leaving — Steve Sundquist and Dan Dempsey, as previously mentioned, plus Maria Ramirez, who filed today.
One more WS-specific note; Seattle City Council seats are all citywide, but incumbent Tom Rasmussen does live here in WS; he has filed to run for re-election and so far is unopposed.
Unless the weather magically warms up, this might be a good night to stay indoors. One of your options is The Community Theatre’s production of “Carver’s Pieces,” based on three short stories by legendary Northwest writer Raymond Carver, 8 pm tonight at Youngstown Arts Center (tickets available online as well as at the door). “Carver’s Pieces” also plays tomorrow and Saturday, but there’s a bonus tonight — a chance to talk with the director and actors after the performance.
Oh dear, how will the West Seattle Birdcam folks handle this one? State wildlife experts want everybody to take their bird feeders out of service for a while or at least take extra steps to keep them mega-clean, because of a deadly outbreak. (At least this is an OK time of year for birds to be fine without feeders; there’s ample natural food such as bugs and flower nectar.)
All along Alki Ave, banners are now up (photo below) for the Seafair Pirates Landing coming up July 7. As we wrote last year (when all of about half a dozen people knew this site existed, so here’s the link again), this event is so much bigger and better than it used to be.
Lots more summer fun to come too; a reader just forwarded us e-mail about the neighborhood kids’ 4th of July parade in north WS (full text after the click):Read More
In our spot checks within the past 12 hours, Delridge Arco (left) is now matching Admiral/Cali Chevron at $3.17, the lowest posted WS price for regular that we’ve seen. Several others are close – Charlestown/Cali 7-11 is down to $3.18, and the Fauntleroy/Alaska stations were below $3.20 when last we looked.
In southeast WS, a sensor is tracking earth movement, and this story says that it’s moving northeast at a rate of up to four inches a decade. Scientists are keeping an eye on it and dozens of others around the NW in hopes they may get some clues about predicting earthquakes. If you want to know every geeky little thing about this site, including its latitude/longitude, go here and click on its log (symbol “SMAI”); you can also look at its charts here (choosing SMAI from the left-side menu). By the way, if you ever want to see a map of the most recent NW earthquakes (hours/days/weeks ago), keep this site handy.
You are, if you expect the ravaged roadway of Sylvan/Orchard (east of High Point and home to the sign at left) to be all good as new once the upcoming closure is through. Nope, just a short stretch, reiterates the project spokesperson in today’s Herald.
Just discovered that All the Best Pet Care has rented part of the former Alki Market space next to Cactus, and the locally based folks who own the chain confirm it. They say they’re hoping to open by mid-July, depending on how the permit process goes; owner/founder Susan Moss adds, “We are SOOO excited because West Seattle is such a vibrant community and the beach location we snagged is so lovely!” — and she says she has hired an Alki resident to manage the store. One more thing — Moss is looking for input on what would be ideal hours for the Alki store to be open; she says they were thinking 10 am-7 pm but wondering if the Alki-area lifestyle might be conducive to something different –leave comments on this post and we’ll make sure she sees them!
-Funny, we were just talking about Fauntleroy Place: A city council committee agenda that just landed in our inbox mentions a “possible vote” next Monday morning regarding the “alley vacation” that is a key part of the FP project.
-Another council committee has a briefing at 2 pm today regarding the latest version of the citywide skatepark plan. Two (updated from first version of this post; thanks to the reader who corrected us) proposed WS skateparks are currently on the list: Roxhill and Delridge.
-The city kicked off a push for low-flow showerheads today. If you haven’t tried ’em, you might be surprised. We converted to one during a remodel a few years back and it’s really not that dramatic a change.
A sign for Heliotrope Architects just turned up in the window of the future Spring Hill (north end of The Junction, ex-In Bloom). That led us to a page on Heliotrope’s site providing a peek at what’s in progress (it’s a flash site so no direct link; go here, click IN-PROGRESS, then click SPRING HILL RESTAURANT). Further investigation of info from that site led to another one declaring Spring Hill seeks to “redefine the French bistro in Seattle.”
Feels like West Seattle’s resident bald eagles have been more visible this year than ever. And tonight, a couple examples of photographic proof: First, a photo sent to us by reader Marci, taken recently just west of The Junction:
Second, Rhonda @ Beach Drive Blog posted some great eagle pix (and heron pix too) from her neck of the woods shore. These beautiful birds’ prevalence here is still a miracle, given the state of their species not that long ago.
New paving alert just out from the city for tomorrow and Friday, 9 am-4 pm each day, in the vicinity of West Marginal/Chelan.
A WSB reader wrote with this alert for everybody else out there — gas-siphoners were at work sometime overnight in the 46th/Brandon vicinity. Even with prices dropping, guess it’s still a temptation … if you don’t have a garage, a lock-equipped gas cap might not be a bad investment.
Which we have been, extensively … Here’s an ad for a single-family home in WS, less than $300K — with a furnace that runs on biodiesel, even! Open house this weekend but you gotta wonder if it’ll last that long. (And here’s one even cheaper.)
Put “Rat City Rollergirls” and “rummage sale” in the same sentence and you just know it’s gonna be something good. Not only are they having one at the Alki Bathhouse this Sunday, but right this very moment (or any time between now and then) you are invited to donate items for it … the dropoff address (in White Center) is in this LJ post.
This Times article about a shelved QFC project in North Seattle got us thinking, again, about the pending supermarket projects here in WS. We dug back to last July to revisit this P-I article that included developers’ hopes that both the 4100 Alaska project (reportedly with QFC) 
and the Fauntleroy Place project at the Schuck’s/Hancock corner (left), with Whole Foods, would both have begun construction by now. In reality – 4100 Alaska has gone through demolition, but the rest of the pre-construction process isn’t done yet; the next Design Review Board meeting about it is one week from Thursday. And Fauntleroy Place is still making its way through the city-permitting process; its website now says construction is expected to start by “mid-2007” (late summer/early fall was mentioned in this Herald story a few months ago).
Last weekend, we mentioned the jump-started campaign of Steve Sundquist for the WS-district Seattle School Board seat that Irene Stewart is relinquishing. The online campaign-filings list (which will be updated all week till the filing deadline Friday afternoon) now shows Sundquist has a challenger, Dan Dempsey. Can’t find an official campaign site for him but this appears to be a site he maintains. Meantime, the other WS-centered political position we’ll be voting for this year is King County Council District 8; incumbent Dow Constantine appears not to have filed papers as of this evening but had a campaign kickoff lunch today, so it’s a good bet he’ll be back on the ballot.
Just saw channel 7 in The Junction outside West 5 to present coverage of tonight’s City Council nightlife-ordinance hearing; the story’s not on their website as of this writing, but you can read about what happened (minus the WS angle) at the P-I site. Also at Slog, where Skylark gets a shoutout.
We’ve mentioned both of these before but now they’re almost here, both happening tomorrow night, and in a time frame that easily facilitates a visit to both:
– “NEIGHBORS IN BUSINESS” OPEN HOUSE: It’s your one-stop-shopping chance to find out more about dozens of businesses in the West Seattle and White Center area. Reps from more than 40 local businesses will gather at the Brockey Conference Center of South Seattle Community College (which really is in WS; here’s a handy campus map) from 5-8 pm tomorrow. Door prizes and food, too!
– CHIEF SEALTH IB ACCREDITATION CELEBRATION: If you drop by “Neighbors in Business” early enough, you can make it over to this event at Camp Long from 7-9 pm tomorrow. It’s a community celebration of Chief Sealth High School’s accreditation for the prestigious International Baccalaureate program, with music by the Sealth mariachi band, and dessert.
| Comments Off on West Seattle’s June weekend wildness, second installment