West Seattle, Washington
19 Friday
Got a request for a WS Super Bowl poll. Bears or Colts? We don’t have time to go find some site that’ll give us real poll code but tell everyone your prediction in this post’s comments! (P.S. If you’re making Super Bowl guacamole — which we did LONG before it was trendy — Thriftway has a killer deal, tons of mega-ripe avocadoes for 45 CENTS EACH.)
Yard signs have finally popped up, but, especially if you don’t have a kid in Seattle Public Schools, you still might not be entirely aware there’s an election on Tuesday. Yes, there is — almost $900 million dollars worth. Here’s our 2 cents, if you haven’t already voted by mail, or haven’t really thought much about which way to go: Seattle School District Proposition 1 could be considered discretionary; it spends hundreds of millions on construction projects (including a new Denny Middle/Sealth HS campus here in WS) that some say don’t represent the most urgent needs for this kind of $. However, Seattle School District Proposition 2 is NOT discretionary. A “yes” vote on Prop 2 renews a levy (in other words, no change in tax rate) that provides a quarter of the district’s budget. If you vote no on Prop 2, students WILL be hurt. And unlike some of the people in this article, many local families don’t have the $ to just say “oh well, it’s off to private school then” (and trust us, even if they do, some private schools are startlingly overrated). No matter what you decide to do regarding school Prop 1, please vote yes Tuesday on school Prop 2.
Seems we’ve dissected the pizza issue down to the last clove of garlic. Now if you can bear one more food fight … WS needs non-KFC fried chicken. Got a craving for spicy fried chicken tonight and we had only two real choices: drive to Renton for Popeye’s, or drive to the Central District for Ezell’s. (We chose the latter.) Long ago, Ezell’s had a nearby outlet — the south-of-White Center spot that was previously a Wendy’s and more recently El Chalan (now mysteriously closed; even its entrances are blocked). Yes, we know grocery-store delis have fried chicken, but that’s not the same!
Remember the exotically named, misleadingly marketed Verge Condos on Harbor? Six months to the day after we muttered about the peculiarities of their website, seems at least a few remain available, since today a soggy sign-waver was stationed nearby:
Yet another grand-opening date to mention. Thanks to the folks at Friends of Southwest Branch Library for writing to say the branch’s reopening celebration is set for Saturday, March 10. This is the library branch on 35th in the Westwood area; hard to believe construction’s been under way more than a year!
Just when we were about to declare this a slow Friday night and back away from the computer, e-mail arrived with a note a WSB reader says he just got from the King County Elections Department, warning that Providence Mount St. Vincent will not be a polling place next Tuesday because of “sporadic cases of the norovirus over the past month.” According to the letter, three precincts whose residents usually vote at PMSV are instead being directed to vote at High Point Community Center. (Can’t reach anyone to find out more on this, but the Times did recently mention a general increase in local nursing-home noro outbreaks.)
Things are going to be busier along Cali Ave just south of Morgan Junction — construction has begun on the townhomes-to-be across from Gatewood Church (this land was sold along with the church, which is still up for re-sale, though its listing now says “subject to inspection”) — the building on the north end of the property is already gone and the heavy equipment’s moved in.
Probably not as sunny as last weekend, but hey, who needed another long walk along the water (sigh) … Today and tomorrow, check out the classes @ PCC West Seattle … This afternoon, the High Point Library screens a documentary about Cambodian refugees in Seattle … Tonight, roll into Friday Night Family Skating @ Alki Community Center … All weekend, “How I Got That Story” continues @ ArtsWest … Saturday night, Camp Long’s offering a winter pottery class for almost all ages (brochure page 12) … Sunday, go to The Junction to look for surprises at the Winter Farmers’ Market (10 am-1 pm, don’t miss the Fuji apples); after that, if you want to avoid everything connected with That Allegedly Big Football Game, it’s the TV-free Anti-Super Bowl Party @ West 5, promising “happy hour pricing” from the moment they open, till 6 pm. (Anything else worth mentioning this weekend? Let us know.)
OK, we are completely aware this is a gimmick cooked up by Metroblogging Seattle to try to get more readers, by conning other blogs into a link, though we wouldn’t have known they were running a “Best Blog in Seattle” contest except for the fact one lone person followed a link from there to here. NONETHELESS — we don’t suppose it would do any harm if you drop by MS to vote for us on Monday. Seems the preliminary round is one day only (like those olden-days sales at Bon Marche Bon Macy’s). Even more important on Monday, don’t forget about this (we’ll be there too).
Construction appears to be starting at the Gionnoni’s Pizza (STILL don’t know who they are)/Taco Del Mar site at Westwood Village. Noticed tonight that a fence is up (where a tree lot stood weeks ago), with a construction trailer and Honey Bucket on hand too.
In December, the city promised curb bulbs, for starters, to make things a little bit better at the 47th/Admiral intersection where Tatsuo Nakata was hit and killed. Construction was supposed to have started by now; an e-mail tip noted there’s at least an outline on the street (which we subsequently, albeit non-thrillingly, photographed):
According to this P-I update, the judge who ruled today on the ballot language for next month’s Viaduct Vote at least asked a question on behalf of all us West Seattle commuters (sadly it seems there’s no good answer to that question yet):
Seu said access to downtown is planned at King Street, though he couldn’t answer Erlick’s question about exactly how a West Seattle resident could get downtown from a new tunnel. “There is no final design,” Seu said.
In all of our recent pizza patter (which has some fascinating new comments), questions kept popping up — like pepperoni atop the mozzarella — about which West Seattle Asian restaurants deliver. So guess what — just confirmed a tip from “The House” — Tom Yum Koong in The Junction has a banner up proclaiming that it’s delivering, starting today.
Every time we see folks tapping away on their laptops at local coffee places, we wonder … student? blogger? or perhaps, author? You might have more reason to suspect the latter at Uptown Espresso in The Junction these days. First, WS radio host/author/blogger John Moe revealed he wrote a lot of “Conservatize Me” there. Now Maritime History Network blogger (and journalist/author) Joe Follansbee is planning a reading/signing there in a few weeks for his new book about the Wawona. (Personally, if we had to choose an out-of-the-house spot to write that surefire bestseller someday, we like the view at Alki Tully’s …)
West Seattle Blogger Spouse reports street sweepers working Cali Ave much of the day, apparently tackling the sand from Snowpocalypse ’07. Glad to hear it, having recently been caught in clouds of dust kicked up by hill-climbing buses traveling over the street-side sandpiles!
If we can have NoMo and SOA, why not JuNo — north of The Junction? Anyway, an e-mail tip alerted us to empty storefronts we hadn’t previously noted. Emerald City Locksmith is gone, but window postings promise they’ll unlock a new location on Harbor Ave in March; Fringe salon is just plain gone, with FOR LEASE signs outside the space (which has had other names), as well as a land-use alert (townhouses, of course) dating back to last August.
One day after the Tempest in a Pizza Box, the P-I’s got another story that appears ripped from the pages of West Seattle Blog (but with a few new details, such as, who’s trying to buy, and build on, that big front yard).
Tonight, thanks to helpful Cindi from MorganJunction.org, we have actual police info about last week’s incident that kept some WSers awake thanks to chopper involvement. A lieutenant from the Southwest Precinct sent her this explanation of (a) the crime and (b) why one inquiring caller couldn’t find anything out:
The call was a burglary with two suspects in the 6900 blk of 37th Ave SW. We were able to catch one of the burglars using the helecopter and K9.
Sometimes we do not staff the precinct clerk due to staffing shortages. A lot of the time, the daytime clerk may not be aware of incidents that occur at night unless it makes the news.
We could always do better in putting out info. We are currently trying to get the IT folks to allow us administrative access to revamp our precinct website in order to put out better info to the public.
If you managed to escape the slick commute early this am, you’re lucky — some of the streets on our end of WS looked almost as iced-over as during the height of the winterfest we “enjoyed” earlier this month. We mention this as an excuse to look ahead; the weather experts say tomorrow could be a rerun. (We need a better ice scraper.)
We appreciate Robert Jamieson’s P-I columns sometimes, but clearly he doesn’t know the paradigm is that us blogger types are supposed to run around commenting on the paper, not the other way around. Searching for a column idea in a slow news week, he lands today on our Pagliacci delivery-limits discussion. (Nice the company responded to him but not to us.) Anyway, the same guy who defended Mars Hill’s misogynist main man just a wink of time ago is now defending Pagliacci. Sorry, the “seven-minute rule” doesn’t wash (seven minutes to get from The Junction to any place south of Cali & Morgan? in a horse-drawn cart?). We personally don’t think we’re aced out for economics (our own humble shack is a lone island of affordability among a slew of expensive view homes), just non-business sense (what’s the BS about a “cold, soggy pie,” when other outlets further north can get a hot one to us just fine?) — Mr. Columnist implies that the classism claim is the only complaint here and chides us for it, yet this was included in only TWO comments out of more than 50 on the two posts where we’ve had this discussion (#1 here, #2 here). But at least Pagliacci, in his column, has removed any hope they’ll be delivering to us south WS’ers. Welcome, Garlic Jim’s!
The folks behind the Four Aims Center, at the site of the ex-Cat’s Eye Cafe just north of Lincoln Park, just sent word their grand-opening party is now set for Feb. 11.
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