West Seattle, Washington
09 Monday
Just alluded to this on the original post from late last night: Eric Radovich from BlueStar, developers of Fauntleroy Place (plus the forthcoming Spring Hill), says the artwork we posted, given by a rep from his company to project neighbors who showed it at last night’s JuNO meeting, is NOT a new look for the future home of Whole Foods/Hancock Fabrics — he says it is for MASSING ONLY. That means showing the approximate size and space that will be taken up by the buildings, but not their colors, decks, setbacks, etc. — he says the drawing was done so that Whole Foods could see where its entries would be. Radovich says there is not a final, final rendering yet for what Fauntleroy Place will look like, past this one that’s on the BlueStar website now:
… but architects are “on the brink” of the next one, which he reiterates will follow what the Design Review Board stipulated in previous reviews. He requested that we take down our photo of the drawing; we are honoring that request, and we have his 24-hour phone number for comment on anything else that turns up in the future. We apologize on all fronts for the fire drill – once in a while, that’s what happens in newsgathering/reporting, in all media – you report something quickly, and it turns out there’s more to the story; we are committed at WSB to as close to a perfect accuracy rate as we can get, so we certainly can, and will, do better.
That photo was taken today by the same Westwood neighbor who sent us the one in this report, during the aftermath of the attacking-pit-bulls-shot-by-police incident on Feb. 26. (Original coverage here; victim update here; dog-owner update here.) He writes:
We’re still struggling with the loose dog problem here in the Westwood Village neighborhood where Rosie the chihuahua and her owner were attacked last month. I wanted to ask if you could post the attached photo of two dogs running loose in the middle of Trenton Street 1/4 block from busy 16th Ave SW, along with the Animal Control number. These dogs are constantly allowed to roam free in the neighborhood. They do not appear to be dangerous animals, but they share their unsanitary droppings with all the neighbors and dig in yards and garbage cans. Also, they will one day cause a major traffic accident on 16th Ave SW. They have matted fur and look neglected. I hope that neighbors will call Animal Control and report these dogs for their own safety. I called this morning, but it usually takes 3-5 calls for Animal Control to do anything. The automated number is 206-386-7387 press 7 to report a loose dog. That is the LAST choice on the menu that you have to wait through, sheesh!
Here’s a map of 16th/Trenton (about a half-mile east of where the original attack/shooting incident happened). We’re checking with the Seattle Animal Shelter this afternoon regarding further followup on that original case, and will ask about policy on something like this.
(Seafair Pirates in 2007 West Seattle Hi-Yu parade)
Time to mark more big days on your summer calendar. According to the Hi-Yu website: The Seafair Pirates’ Landing at Alki (2007 WSB coverage here) will be Saturday 7/5; the West Seattle Big Band’s Hi-Yu Concert in the Park at Hiawatha (2007 WSB coverage here) will be Tuesday 7/15; the Rotary Club Kids’ Parade and American Legion Grand Parade down California SW from the Admiral District to The Junction (2007 WSB coverage here) will be Saturday 7/19; the Miss West Seattle Hi-Yu Coronation will be Monday 7/21. (As we reported last month, the Summer Fest street festival in The Junction will happen Friday-Sunday 7/11-7/13.)
If you’re a nature geek like us … you might appreciate the thrill. Just back from talking with Judy Pickens along Fauntleroy Creek, and we got to see four of the new baby salmon (mentioned here last weekend) up close and personal. They all line up and swim bravely, relentlessly, in place against the current (something most of us can identify with from time to time). Sorry we didn’t have any photographic equipment in tow that could do it justice, but it’s a great sight to see. Judy says the little fish are just a few weeks old at this point. As mentioned in this update on Fauntleroy.net, a fish biologist will be doing an official survey soon.
Too much happening tonight for separate previews here, but it’s all laid out on the WSB Events page — from the third and final meeting on the Morgan Junction park design (see the newest design here), to the Madison Middle School PTSA helping parents understand what their kids’ techworld is all about, to the next planning meeting for West Seattle Relay for Life, and more; full list here (p.s. that page is updated multiple times daily with West Seattle events and gatherings stretching from today into the fall; let us know when you have something to add!).
From WSB contributing photojournalist Matt Durham: Dale Baker of West Seattle helps his friend launch a “Beetle Kite” from Lowman Beach Park Tuesday evening. A Beetle Kite is operated with two strings, so it can achieve precise maneuvers. (Prints of Matt’s WSB photos and his other work are available through his site, MattDurhamPhotography.com.)
Just out of the WSB inbox, from Cindy McComish:
West Seattle YMCA’s Dolphin Swim Team Wins BIG!
34 swimmers, ages 7-18, representing the West Seattle YMCA won the First Place trophy for mid-sized YMCAs in the Northwest Division Swim Championship last weekend, Friday March 7th through Sunday, March 9th. The West Seattle Dolphins traveled by chartered bus to compete in Gresham Oregon at the Mt. Hood Community College Aquatic Center. The swimmers are coached by Rod Rombauer, Jen Parker, and Sarah Heerhartz. This meet against swimmers from Idaho, Oregon, and Washington state precedes the National Meet being held in Ft. Lauderdale in April. The West Seattle YMCA Dolphins will be sending 5 qualified swimmers with high hopes for fast strong races.
Cheered on by families and friends, a partial list of our swimmers’ medal counts (those achieving first, second, and third place times) include: 6 by Amanda Thach, 5 by Melissa Oishi, 5 by Tommy Thach, 4 by Sarah Ameny, 4 by Maddy Morgan, 3 by Gabby Hanna, 2 by the relay team of Amanda Thach, Melissa Oishi, Maddy Morgan and Mariah Crocket, 1 by Jordy Hanna, 1 by Karen Woodworth, 1 by Lindsey Hage, 1 by Sean Tento, 1 by TJ McComish, and 1 by the relay team of Lindsey Hage, Karen Woodworth, Angela Gagliarda, and Elsa Luthi.
As an integral part of the aquatic programs at West Seattle YMCA our team sponsors for this year are Zatz Bagels, Charlestown Street Café, Renaissance Desserts, Morgan Street Builders, Millennium Kids Creative Center, Merrill Gardens of West Seattle, and Staithe Marine Services.
The West Seattle YMCA Dolphins Swim Team seeks to provide a quality competitive swimming experience to the youth of the Seattle area and is USS sanctioned. We serve over 80 youth swimmers from 17 schools. We value swimmers of all skill levels and abilities and work toward developing each swimmer’s potential. While many of our advanced swimmers compete at regional and national events, the majority of our swimmers are at the intermediate and beginning levels. For more information on our programs please contact coachrod@swyswimteam.com.
Our standard disclosure: the West Seattle Family YMCA is a WSB sponsor. By the way, you can find out more about the Dolphins at their website here.
Now the rest of the latest report highlights from the Southwest Precinct (which also included the vignette we posted earlier): We start with a suspected teenage drug dealer, spotted on local school grounds by a watchful school employee. 
He called police to say he saw what looked like 3 boys engaged in drug transactions right by West Seattle Elementary in High Point – atop the stairs connecting the campus with the nearby community center. With the detailed descriptions he provided, police stopped two suspects at 30th and Othello. While patting them down, an officer detected an odd crackling sound near one boy’s ankle; “that’s just cough drops,” the boy insisted — till the officer pulled out a cellophane cough-drop bag containing marijuana “packaged for sale.” The boy, 15, also had $120 in cash kept separately from a few dollars walking-around money (the police report notes it is typical dealer behavior both to separate cash that way and to keep the merchandise in an unusual spot like, your shoes/socks). He was arrested. Next: The case of the thirsty burglar(s), among other incidents:Read More
As announced at tonight’s Fauntleroy Community Association meeting, 
the next step in the future of the Fauntleroy Schoolhouse (photo left, from The Hall @ Fauntleroy‘s website) is a community gathering there March 26 to talk about the general progress of plans to purchase the site, and discuss its future. The Fauntleroy Community Services Association has to have everything together by July, and so far, we heard tonight, it’s all moving forward and they say they’ve done the necessary paperwork to show Seattle Public Schools they’re serious about acquiring the site. (We recapped some backstory last weekend – the district has now declared the schoolhouse as “surplus property” which means it’s ready to sell the site, as the school board votes this month to revise its policy on handling surplus sites.) Also part of the March 26 meeting — finding out from the public how much change would be acceptable for the site, and continuing to encourage citizen involvement in the process of determining its future. A community discussion held last year is recapped on this FCA webpage. It was also noted tonight that the Fauntleroy contingent has the purchase agreement from the old Colman School (where the Northwest African American Museum opened last weekend), for use as something of a template.
(image removed at request of developer — see forthcoming post higher atop the page for new information, will be linked here when posted)
Update on the following – Eric Radovich from BlueStar explained the origin of the artwork that led to this post – he says it’s for massing, not colors or design – separate post to come atop the page.
One of the headlines from tonight’s Junction Neighborhood Organization (JuNO) meeting — Brian and Katie Tucker, JuNO members living adjacent to the Fauntleroy Place (aka “the Whole Foods project”) site, received and shared this new rendering from developers BlueStar, who don’t even have it on their own website, which still shows this one (FP changed architects a few months ago):
The Tuckers were told the latest plan is for these to be apartments, not condos, and that they will have fancy interior touches and rent for higher than the current WS average. More first thing in the am from the JuNO meeting, where a city rep talked more about the upcoming Junction parking review, and also from the Fauntleroy Community Association meeting, where the other half of the team is getting the latest on the Fauntleroy Schoolhouse, among other things.
Just back from reviewing reports at the Southwest Precinct – the big roundup writeup must wait till we’re back from the major community meetings happening in the next few hours (as previewed here last night), but thought we’d mention this one quickly — Of all the shoplifting incidents that police handled in the past few days, this one stood out: Saturday night, 7 pm, a man was seen heading out of QFC @ Westwood Village with a cart full of “unpaid-for” merchandise, consisting of the following, according to a witness: Several large containers of Tide laundry soap, several six-packs of Heineken beer, and “numerous single cans of 211 beer.” He is described only as white and driving a 1990s Honda or Toyota, and got away before he was caught.
As you can tell from the photo, a lovely afternoon to visit Westcrest Park in southeastern West Seattle (home to the only WS off-leash area; here’s a map) — the occasion, a chance for Parks Department and Police Department to review citizen concerns about public-safety issues. Officer Brian Ballew from the Southwest Precinct Community Police Team was there, as were three Parks employees — Carol Baker, Steve Langley, and Cheryl Fraser. They say that Westcrest safety concerns are definitely high on their radar, thanks to ciizen concerns, particularly “inappropriate behavior” at the “comfort station” as well as the poisoning concern involved in the “Mo” case, though there have been no similar reports since that one. They also urge community members to continue to keep close watch, even to organize citizen walkthroughs if they’re so inclined (if you’re interested in talking more with them about that, their e-mail addresses are linked to their names above). Also a key group to get involved with if you are a Westcrest user, since these folks already are closely involved with taking care of the park, is the Westcrest Off-Leash Area group; find its Yahoo! e-mail group here, and park steward Steve McElhenney is reachable through the group, which we wrote about last year.
We reported briefly yesterday (morning update here; afternoon update here) about the start of proceedings before the city Hearing Examiner over what the owner of the “Satterlee House”/”Painted Lady” at 4866 Beach Drive will be allowed to build on the huge front lawn shown above. Testimony continues Thursday morning on the 40th floor of the Municipal Tower downtown; before too much time passed, we wanted to post a more complete wrapup of what we saw and heard while covering the proceedings yesterday:Read More
Every weekend, when we publish the “fresh sheet” for the West Seattle Farmers’ Market, we note in passing that its more unconventional offerings include goat meat. Anybody buying it, you wonder? Unequivocally, yes – here’s here’s an anecdote from the relatively new blog for Earth Ministry, posted by its West Seattle-based executive director.
Just out of the inbox, from JBC (who has since further elaborated in the comments section that this is happening DAILY):
I wonder if anyone else is bothered by these trucks in the alleys between the businesses on California and the residences on 44th or 42nd. I live in a condo and our whole alley is lined with condo buildings, and we get these trucks banging and clanging through our alley before 7 AM, our usual rising time. I’ve been working with David George of the Noise Abatement Office of the City of Seattle and I do have to credit him with making huge improvements for us. When we first moved into our condo 4.5 years ago, the trucks were coming at 4:30 AM!! Now they hold off, much of the time, till after 7 but still sometimes come at 6:30. I know they wouldn’t dare show up before 8 AM at our old residence at 51st and Edmunds so why is this residential area any different? Most of the businesses don’t open before 10 so they can’t really justify on the basis of trying to get out of the way before the area gets congested.
Any other readers bothered by this and interested in banding together to . . . not sure what, but bring pressure to bear in some way?
In addition to the two Alki Ave projects we’ve been telling you about, we just happened onto rod work that’s got flaggers in action on Beach Drive too, just south of Lowman Beach. Along Alki, the heavy equipment for this week’s paving work was just getting into gear in the 1700 block, and just a few blocks past the end of the paving zone at Bonair, the 53rd SW Pump Project crews have flaggers too – with equipment like this taking up one full lane:
Unless the weather changes the city’s plan, the Alki Ave paving work announced last week (full details here) from the 1700 block to Bonair is scheduled to start this morning.
In effect till noon. Southwest wind 25-35, could see some gusts up to 45.
PARKING: One of the city Transportation Department managers who briefed WSB for the first report on impending Junction parking changes will be at the Junction Neighborhood Organization (JuNO) meeting Tuesday night. 6:30 pm, Ginomai (SW corner of 42nd/Genesee).
DENNY/SEALTH AFTERMATH: That’s just one of the items on the agenda as the Westwood Neighborhood Council meets 7 pm Tuesday, Southwest Library.
FAUNTLEROY SCHOOLHOUSE’S FUTURE: The Fauntleroy Community Association will discuss the latest — one night before the School Board gets its first look at “surplus properties” policy changes — 7 pm, in the schoolhouse boardroom.
ADMIRAL SAFEWAY REDEVELOPMENT: We mentioned here that Safeway has contacted the Admiral Neighborhood Association; members will talk about it during their meeting tomorrow night, 7 pm, Admiral Congregational UCC.
Just in from WSB contributing photojournalist Christopher Boffoli, after he checked out a motor-vehicle-accident callout in The Junction. Christopher says he saw one woman getting treated by paramedics, but no major damage to her car.
A group of WSB Forum members who’ve been getting together F2F have just hatched a great plot to do a good deed while having a good time — and this Sunday, they’re making it rapid reality. Here’s their official announcement, including a way you can help ahead of time:
Handbags for Hunger
Silent Auction
Sunday, March 16, 2008
2:30 pm to 4 pm ….Beveridge Place Pub
6451 California Ave. SW (Morgan Junction; map here)Members of the West Seattle Blog Forums got together to create a fundraising social for the West Seattle Food Bank… and another local charity, the Seattle Dress for Success program.
What began as a few local members cleaning out their oversupply of quality handbags and donating them to charity as an excuse for a good party has attracted local attention and we are getting donations we didn’t expect; some of them top-end designer handbags.
All donated handbags will be up for sale at the auction… some of them will simply be for sale for $5… some of them will be up for bid with a $5 minimum and $25 maximum.
We will also be collecting non-perishable food items and cash/checks for the West Seattle Food Bank. Every donation will be matched through the current $1 million dollar Feinstein Foundation donation challenge (read more about it here). This will be a great opportunity to make your dollars count and help out one of our more important local resources.
What began as a problem; what to do with handbags that didn’t sell, has created another opportunity for donations. We will be donating any bags that don’t sell to the Seattle Dress for Success program and will also collect donations of quality used women’s business attire and cash/checks for their program. They especially need plus size clean and ready to wear clothing.
We expect participation from local representatives from both organizations and will have information on both organizations for those who would like to know more.
So if you are 21 or older (Beveridge Place is a pub), this is a great chance to drop by, have some fun, drink a little beer, drop off some of what you just cleaned out of the closet, do some good, find a great handbag at a really reasonable price and get to meet some of the more infamous West Seattle Blog Forum members. We will be wearing nametags with our sign-in names so you can identify us.
We are accepting donations of all types of quality bags; we hope to have something to offer those males who are brave enough to attend. If you would consider selling it at a consignment shop; we want it. You can show up at 2 pm when the pub opens to drop off donations, or contact JoB to arrange drop-off prior to the event. All unclaimed bags will be donated to Dress for Success.
You can e-mail JoB at joanne (at) brayden.org; you can also join the chat about this event, and a multitude of other topics, in the WSB Open Discussion Forum.
Quick check-in with Charlestown Cafe owner Larry Mellum, five weeks after the fire that shut down his restaurant: Still waiting for word from the landlord whether they’ll proceed with costly repairs required by the city; hoping for word within a few days.
West Seattle-based producer Mike Gaston says you’ll see WS scenery in this new video for Minus the Bear (a Seattle band whose official website is here).
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