West Seattle, Washington
12 Friday
Thanks to JayDee for sending that view of a state ferry and cruise ship on Elliott Bay, photographed from the 4:40 pm Water Taxi run. A few hours later, we captured this view from High Point Pond:
Good birdwatching at the pond – besides the two Canada geese on the pond in the photo, down by the water’s edge we saw two baby ducks and their mom (photo didn’t come out, unfortunately) and abundant barn swallows.
Sounds like Eugene Morgan of West Seattle had an amazing life, even after surviving the USS Indianapolis attack in 1945. The P-I had several stories about him in recent years (this one from 10 years ago is particularly fascinating)- and now, it reports he has died at the age of 87. His memorial service is set for tomorrow, 1 pm, Bonney-Watson in Burien (scroll down this funeral-home page for the obit he wrote himself).
We’ve chronicled the community dreaming, planning, and working that led to this point – now the Gatewood Elementary play structure (chosen just a couple months ago) is up and just a few finishing touches remain till it will be ready for kids to use. Next one happens tomorrow morning – see the pile of wood chips at the right side of the picture? Starting at 9 am tomorrow, show up and you’ll likely be handed a shovel to use to dig in. Next week, a little more work remains to be done before the school district can give it a final inspection and then hopefully thumbs-up for the fence to come down.
Just added to the city webpage for upcoming Design Review Board meetings: 3420 SW Graham, aka the shopping/residential complex to be built at 35th/Graham. 6:30 pm August 14, location TBA. Project page here (13k sf of retail, 300 parking spaces, 220 residential units, in three 4-story buildings).
Luminarias like those will grace the field at West Seattle Stadium tonight, 10 pm, during the American Cancer Society-fundraising Relay for Life of West Seattle (WSB preview story here), which begins tonight with a 6 pm survivors’ lap, and continues all night, till noon tomorrow. Many other weekend highlights, including “Music Nights” resuming tonight at Cafe Rozella (with Children of the Revolution at 7 pm), a welcome-home party for surfing-injury survivor Addie Killam … 37 West Seattle events/activities ahead for tonight, tomorrow, and Sunday:Read More
Tomorrow at noon, the fireworks stands in unincorporated King County will open — including some that are literally just barely over the line from the Seattle city limits, where they’re banned. (The photo above shows one of the stands in White Center.) So it seems like a good time for a reminder about the rules: As spelled out on this King County page (which is also linked on our WSB West Seattle 4th of July page), you can buy them starting tomorrow but you can only use them between 9 am and midnight on the 4th, and only in the unincorporated area (or a few cities where they’re legal, listed further down this page; closest one is Normandy Park). If you want to check whether a certain address or place is in the unincorporated area, this page shows how to do that. And the only fireworks legal in those areas are the ones you buy at stands like the one shown above – the serious explosives sold at tribal stands are NOT legal off reservation land. And we should note, fire chiefs around King County would rather you just not set off fireworks at all, legal or not; last year there was one big fire and several small ones blamed on fireworks here in West Seattle. Last note – thanks to everyone who’s sending word of West Seattle 4th of July events; we have several more on our 4th of July page now, including the Avalon Glass Works sidewalk sale, a sale at Click! Design That Fits (WSB sponsor), and the C & P Coffee community barbecue/potluck – as well as the latest on the big fireworks displays visible from here, the West Seattle parades, and other assorted holiday-related info.
Our summary last night of the newly unveiled Alaskan Way Viaduct “scenarios” included that one — Scenario E — which envisions buildings beneath a new single-deck elevated structure (which in turn would have a green-space “lid”). In an odd coincidence, WSB contributing photojournalist Christopher Boffoli had just a few days earlier sent us this:
He found it in the municipal archives — some sort of prototype for a new West Seattle Bridge, proposed in the ’70s, with residential and business spaces built into the structure. The fabulous history book West Side Story discusses three high-level-bridge designs presented at a February 1972 public hearing, followed by years of squabbling over bridge-building (sound familiar?) until finally the 1978 freighter crash forced the issue — but we don’t know if this was one of the three, or just a fanciful scenario.
On one of those days when you can see forever – not a cloud in the sky – we welcome a new WSB sponsor: A North Admiral view home that’s up for sale. Here’s what its owners want you to know: “Two longtime West Seattle residents and avid West Seattle Blog readers are selling their North Admiral View Home and think advertising to WS Blog readers would be a great way to spread the word. Are you looking, or know someone looking for view property in Seattle? This home is well-priced and located on a quiet, secluded section of Walnut Avenue. It boasts a wonderful city/bay view, two decks, lots of natural light, an open layout and more. It’s move-in ready with new paint and carpets. There’s potential to expand in a neighborhood of million-dollar-plus homes. Enjoy bird and weather watching, walk to Metropolitan Market, the library, Admiral Theater, restaurants, bus, water taxi, beach and Hiawatha Playfield. Take a look and call listing agent Mitch Forrey (his number’s on that website, or e-mail him here) for more information.” The home’s address is also on its website, along with word of an open house at 1 pm this Sunday. WSB thanks the home-sellers for their support, along with all our other sponsors, listed here along with information on how to join them.
As mentioned in our preceding post, this community event is happening right now — prayers and hopes for a safe summer. We stopped by toward the start of it for the clip you see above. If you are not stuck in, oh, say, an office outside West Seattle, it is a spectacular day and High Point Pond Park (30th/Juneau; map) is in an amazingly panoramic spot. “Food, games, music, and fun” are promised too.
Thanks to Christopher Bell for sending the link — the case wasn’t on our radar: The P-I reports a man was found guilty yesterday in the deadly shooting of 14-year-old David Chhin, who was shot in August 2003 while riding his bike at 35th/Juneau. (Coincidentally, just five blocks west of there, at High Point Pond Park at 11 this morning, the community is gathering for a Youth Blessing Ceremony, in hopes this summer will be a peaceful one.)
New listing — $1.5 million, with the notation: “Please drive by, seeing is believing.”
It’s drawn the most support at West Seattle public meetings about what will replace the “central waterfront” section of The Viaduct, which the state vows to take down 2012 no matter what — but the possible option shown above, a retrofit, is one of three options now totally out of the running, according to a state/city/county briefing this afternoon, presented by these three government representatives (left to right, Bob Powers from the city, Ron Paananen from the state, and Ron Posthuma from the county/Metro).
We liveblogged the briefing in detail here; the briefing materials are now available online here; but if you want a summary of what this all boils down to, and a quick look at the renderings for each of the 8 “scenarios” (plus what didn’t make the cut), here goes:Read More
That two-minute video shows you the most emotional moments — out of MANY emotional moments — at tonight’s city-organized public forum about the two West Seattle sites that are among the “final four” possible city-jail locations. Highland Park Elementary teacher Laura Drake truly brought down the house; we were at a table with Highland Park Action Committee leaders and members, and some were dabbing at tears after Drake finished. Concern, as well as raw emotion, also centered around the process, the meeting’s format, the lack of background information about how the city whittled down its original list of sites, and much more – here’s our full report (finalized in the early am):Read More
The jail forum (much more to come) was tonight’s biggest event but not tonight’s only event. At Youngstown Arts Center, area Democrats gathered to help West Seattle’s three state legislators kick off their re-election campaigns: left to right, it’s State Sen. Joe McDermott, State. Reps. Sharon Nelson and Eileen Cody.
And on the other end of Delridge, at Cafe Rozella, that’s Branden Born and Alon Bassok from the University of Washington, who will be there for the next few Thursday nights to chat with anyone and everyone about how the Delridge and White Center areas could be even more livable, framed in the issues central to the King County Food and Fitness Initiative. (6:30 pm next Thursday, join ’em there!)
The jail meeting has wrapped up aside from “individual conversations” for which city reps have stayed, and Highland Park residents among others are busily engaging them in those conversations. The meeting got very emotional at times, particularly in the last 15 minutes or so during which the city reps were supposed to be addressing the concerns raised by small groups – but meeting attendees became very frustrated with the lack of specifics. Bottom line is that the city held this to gather public comment and notes that the final decision is still about a year away – a key point on the timeline will be a consultant study due next month that supposedly will show whether the city is on the right track in pursuing a low-rise option, or should perhaps pursue a high-rise option, which could send the whole thing back to the drawing board. Also ahead – the County Council is reportedly going to talk Monday about the proposal to extend its jail agreement with the cities. More to come.
We’re at the Machinists’ Union Lodge in South Park for the first of two city-organized public forums on the two proposed West Seattle sites in the running for a possible city misdemeanor jail. The Highland Park Action Committee has a big presence here, of course – that’s HPAC’s Dina Johnson above, in the lodge hall with one of the signs group members have brought (cameraphone photo, sorry it’s not clearer). We’re NOT currently planning to liveblog the meeting – but if you are interested in occasional updates, follow us on Twitter, where we probably will post a few updates (twitter.com, and sign up to follow westseattleblog) if the wireless signal holds – a little spotty so far. The actual meeting doesn’t start till 6:30 – right now folks are milling about chatting; some citywide media crews are here. The agenda will include a “brief background presentation” at 6:40, small-group sessions to gather public comments and report back to the full group; at 8:40, it’s “city responses to issues raised,” closing comments at 8:55, meeting scheduled to end at 9 pm. (If you missed this one, the second city-organized public forum is July 26 at South Seattle Community College, 9 am, and HPAC will meet again 7 pm July 21.) 7:39 PM UPDATE: Highland Park Elementary teacher Laura Drake brought down the house with a speech full of fury and heartfelt emotion – some people are actually crying – we have it on video and will post it as soon as we get home when this is over; we can guarantee you’ll see part of it on the 11 pm news (though tv self-limits to about 20 seconds – we’ll show you the whole 2 to 3 minutes).
We took that photo in The Junction this morning, then checked to see what the signs were for — a little sealing work tonight, we were told, no big deal. Well, now the city has issued an advisory because the work’s been pushed back, so if you’re planning on Junction nightlife late tomorrow night, you should be forewarned – read on:Read More
We’re still working on our summary of the briefing we liveblogged earlier – where state/city/county reps presented the 8 “scenarios” now under consideration to replace the “central waterfront” section of the Alaskan Way Viaduct – but in the meantime, we wanted to let you know the meeting materials including artist renderings have just been posted online; find them here (look for Scenario A through Scenario H).
Update on our post from this morning … here’s what we saw as we just passed through 35th/Morgan headed southbound on our way home from the Viaduct briefing downtown (liveblog notes here; summary still in the works, along with images of the options – if WSDOT doesn’t put them online soon, we’ll take pix of the printouts we have).
As we wrap up at the Viaduct briefing downtown (check out our live-blog notes in previous post; full summary later), here are two West Seattle items just in from the city Parks Department – more money for Morgan Junction’s park, which had been described at the last public meeting as in need of more $ for the favored design, plus a delay in construction of the Hiawatha Playfield improvements:Read More
(3:13 pm note, the briefing is now over – all notes below – we will write into a summary later.)
We’re downtown, 24th floor of the Wells Fargo Building (view above is from the briefing room), headquarters of the Alaskan Way Viaduct and Seawall Replacement Program, for the briefing on the Alaskan Way Viaduct progress so far – will post notes here as it goes. NOTES: 8 possible scenarios identified so far … A-C surface, D-E above ground solutions, F-H are below ground “SR 99 components.” No longer any 6 lane replacements in the solutions they are considering. All are 4-lane, either elevated or below-ground. Retrofit is “one of the solutions we are not considering any further.” Scenario A highlights: this solution is a 4-lane surface street on surface Alaskan Way, combined with a lot of improvements to downtown, I-5, increased transit … Ron Paananen was laying out the previous … Bob Powers: these are systems approaches … government leaders directed us to go back and look at those … that’s why Ron said six lanes no longer being considered … we have assembled the building blocks, these are the system approaches to the solutions … Paananen: We think we’ve learned all we need to know about 6-lane solutions through previous efforts … the 2 we boiled it down to a little over a year ago, couldn’t advance any further .. looking at the problem differently … looking at it in a way we don’t NEED A FULL CAPACITY SOLUTION … because of improvements on streets, transit … Powers: A is “low capital solution” … looking at trying to add a transit lane from Olive to 520 northbound on 5 … changes in HOV lanes southbound … (We note, the Scenario A map takes into account a Delridge Rapid Ride bus route as well as the other one already on the drawing board) … Powers: 2 lanes in each direction along the waterfront on Alaskan Way, with signalized intersections up to the Battery Street Tunnel going northbound, you’d go through tunnel, there would be signalized intersections north of there … “intent is to reconnect the grid system E-W north of the Battery St Tunnel” … NOTE: This will be long so we are breaking it off to its own page. Click the post headline and keep refreshing if you want to follow the notes.Read More
That’s Captain Joe Kessler and Sgt. Jeff Durden of the Southwest Precinct receiving the first batched of printed-out thank-you/get-well messages for Officer Jason McKissack, from the message-sending campaign organized by the West Seattle Crime Prevention Council. If you haven’t sent yours yet, today’s the last day – this is wrapping up at the end of the night. Go here to send a message and to see some of the ones already sent. (Officer McKissack, by the way, is doing OK and continuing to recover at home.)
Just happened to find this via Google Blogsearch: Thursday night dance parties with a cardboard “dance floor” on the sand.
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