West Seattle, Washington
01 Sunday
The controversy over West Seattle High School‘s impending switch from 4-period days to 6-period days is simmering on; the group behind this pro-4-period blog (with a comment thread where the fur’s been flying) sent this notice last night:
“Students for Democratic Process” are sponsoring: “March of the Wildcats” on Jan. 17 … 2:30-5 pm … WSHS students are marching from WSHS to Alaska Junction to protest the school district’s decision to switch WSHS from a 4-period day to a 6-period day. We invite all pro-4 students to join in! It’s our turn to roar!!
We have a follow-up question out to organizers, asking whether this Thursday protest is intended to be a march down the sidewalk, or the sort of street march for which a city permit might be required. 12:05 PM UPDATE: Just got this from one of the parents who will serve as a “monitor” during the march:
The students (and several adult monitors) will march from WSHS to the Alaska Junction, staying on the sidewalks and crossing with the lights. Once at the Junction, they will hold signs, pass out flyers, and cross four-ways at each “walk” sign.
I have applied for a permit in the event the number of students is high, and I have provided the police at the S.W. Precinct with a copy of our application and a map of the route.
In case you missed the spectacular sunbreaks while, oh, say, indoors watching The Game … above, we present a snippet of video from Beach Drive, as the sun held court over Vashon. Below, we dropped by the Pigeon Point Park environmental-restoration work party (video preview here) and while the Nature Consortium folks and their volunteers were just getting going, we found artist Aaron Voronoff already well into the process of making an ever-evolving sculpture out of trash and plant debris that work-party participants were collecting:
Voronoff’s creation was to be disposed of later, by the way. The Nature Consortium tells us that most of its work parties feature environmental entertainment like this, with artists, musicians, etc.
Winter hours are a little shorter (11 am-2 pm) but the fresh sheet’s pretty long:Read More
Back in August, we mentioned that this building and the house behind it at 3256 California were up for sale, and the Beauty Box salon had posted plans to close. Though this parcel is now right in the middle of the proposed “upzone” area, it looks like the buildings will be around a while – we stopped today to read the sign in the window, which says it’s the new home of West Seattle Natural Medicine, moving from 4141 California to open at this location Jan. 21 (a week from Monday). There’s more about the move on the clinic website.
One more reminder that friends of Angelia Paulsen, the Red Cup Espresso owner killed in a crash last Monday, are planning a candlelight vigil outside her shop in The Junction tonight – 7 pm, 4451 California (just north of Oregon; Ginomai has offered its parking lot on 42nd just south of Genesee if you have trouble finding parking). And anyone who wants to make memorial donations to help pay for her son Julian‘s education can do so at Viking Bank.
Also, a followup – it’s been exactly a week since a diver died after getting into trouble at Seacrest; his fiancee (who provided the photo shown at right) posted about him on WSB the next day. According to an online obituary, the diver, 33-year-old Josh Magee, was laid to rest yesterday in Reno, where he lived before moving to Seattle in 2000.
Stephanie just sent this photo (thank you!), saying “Didn’t see any Seahawks Spirit on your page. We have the Seahawks Spirit! :) And so do our kids Jordan and Jett.”
A few weeks after we reported on the appearance of that sign in the long-awaited Spring Hill restaurant space (ex-In Bloom) that we’ve been watching for more than a year on the north end of The Junction, we have just heard from Mark and Marjorie Fuller, owners of the restaurant-to-be — who want you to know they’re looking for a maitre d’:
Spring Hill restaurant will be opening in March, maybe April and for now, are looking to hire one good person for our Maitre d’ position. We were wondering if the West Seattle Blog would help by posting our craigslist ad.
Sure thing. Here’s the link; and here’s the text of that ad, which reveals a little more about Spring Hill:
SPRING HILL, Chef Mark Fuller’s contemporary/casual restaurant is seeking an experienced Maitre d’ to work evening dinner shifts.
This is a full-time position with good pay and many benefits.
We are looking for enthusiastic and professional people with a genuine feel for hospitality and attention to detail.
The restaurant will be located at 4437 California Ave SW in West Seattle and will open this Spring. This is a brand new 74-seat restaurant. Expect the food and wine menus to reflect the Pacific Northwest.
Please email a resume and brief cover letter to springhilljobs@gmail.com.
We have follow-up questions out to the Fullers to see if we can get a bit more info to share with you about what Spring Hill will be like.
It doesn’t seem to be online yet but if you go out and get an early copy of the Seattle Times Sunday edition, columnist Danny Westneat has written up the results of an long conversation he had with your editor here after he called us up a couple days ago and said he wanted to talk to us about WSB. It’s mostly accurate and we very much appreciate the Times’ interest in writing about what we’re doing as a hyperlocal news website (which would be impossible to run without your help, support, tips, photos, etc.). However, there is one incorrect and, we feel, unnecessarily inflammatory aspect of what he wrote that we want to go on the record about, even before much of anybody else even sees his column.Read More
Registration is already under way for this year’s West Seattle Association of Pee Wee Baseball league, which is for 5-10 year-olds, both genders. WSAPWB president Doug Groesbeck kindly took some time to talk with WSB so we’d be able to tell you more:Read More
We are starting the weekend with the traditional WSB welcome for a new sponsor – this time, everyone say hi to Alex Garcia and his fellow agents at Keller Williams Realty Seattle Metro West in The Junction. They are part of the growing trend of real-estate bloggers; their ad on the right sidebar links to the KW team’s new blog, currently featuring everything from information on the open houses that its agents are hosting tomorrow, to a recap of Keller Williams’ participation in Thursday’s West Seattle Art Walk. Thanks to KW and our other sponsors for supporting WSB; they’re all featured on the Advertise page, along with information for other local businesses interested in joining them.
NEW PAGE LISTING ALL WEST SEATTLE SCHOOLS: Thanks to the WSBers who suggested, in e-mail and forums, one comprehensive list of all West Seattle schools would be helpful during this intense choosing-a-school time of year. Here’s version 1.0 (and you can find it any time from the “schools” tab atop WSB pages). Despite our best efforts, we suspect there’s a likelihood we missed someone; if so, please let us know! We’ll meld the school-tour/open house info onto this page over the weekend, too (for now it’s on the Events page).
UPDATES ON CRIME WATCH AND PETS PAGES: On the Crime Watch page, you’ll find a reader report with an Admiral-area alert, as well as the latest Southwest Precinct Public Safety Newsletter. On the Pets page, we have added a “found pet” you might want to know about.
LAST CALL FOR NOMINATIONS, AND A REMINDER TO JOIN US NEXT FRIDAY NIGHT: Tomorrow’s the deadline to suggest someone for the first-ever quarterly West Seattle Community Recognition Awards (read more here); winners will be celebrated at an informal gathering to which you’re invited, 7 pm Friday 1/18 at Capers in The Junction – come by and say hi!
Have you ever been to Pigeon Point Park? The trail we walked in the video clip above is just a small part of this hidden treasure next to Cooper Elementary School in northeast West Seattle. Tomorrow, it’s one of the places on the WS “east side” that will get special attention during Green Delridge Day — plenty of time for you to participate before settling in for the Seahawks game. The Pigeon Point Park event is the first-ever work party there for the Nature Consortium, whose restoration-project staffers Mark Tomkiewicz and Elizabeth McDonald gave us a mini-tour (much of which we videotaped):Read More
So declares Seattle Public Schools parent/activist Melissa Westbrook in a brand-new update on the saveseattleschools.blogspot.com blog, following up beyond the School Board’s Denny/Sealth work session two days ago (WSB coverage here). Westbrook posted a thorough account of that meeting (find it here) and then attended a meeting today of the BEX III (the bond measure that included the Denny/Sealth money) Oversight Committee. That committee meeting is detailed in her new post (and e-mailed to School Board members and district leadership), including what she says were discrepancies between the Denny/Sealth presentation made to that committee today and the one made to school-board members on Wednesday, and what she describes as a bottom-line revelation that under current district plans, Sealth will eventually be the “only non-renovated high school in the district.” Anyway, her update seems like a must-read for those closely following the Denny/Sealth project controversy. Until more meeting dates are set, the major “next step” here is letting the school board know what you think should happen; their contact info is here.
Here’s the latest from the state ferry system – a 2-boat schedule for weekdays on Fauntleroy-Vashon-Southworth, for at least a month, 
starting Monday. This is because of repair needs discovered during the ongoing ferry inspections. In this followup from the Kitsap Sun, one commuter from that side of the Sound calls it a “horrible schedule.” This could affect even those who don’t use ferries, since it’s likely to mean longer lines along Fauntleroy in service gaps during the evening commute. ADDED 9:25 PM: Metro says this situation may affect some West Seattle bus routes too.
Remember last year’s crosswalk cancellations, such as the one in Luna Park and the one at 35th and Kenyon? Seems a new one, with signal, is on the way to Fauntleroy Way (which also lost one last year, at Rose) – the new one will be at Dawson (map above) From Kevin (thank you!):
After hearing about the city deciding to remove a number of crosswalks in West Seattle over the past year or so, I thought you might want to hear about one actually being put in.
Along with a number of neighbors at the bus stop, who have been calling and writing Seattle Department of Transportation, my wife and I seem to have convinced the powers that be that crossing Fauntleroy Way between SW Edmunds St and SW Findlay St really is like playing a giant game of Frogger.
We’ve been talking with various people at SDOT for the past six months or so and just before Christmas got some good news. SDOT conducted a new traffic study and found that the intersection at Fauntleroy Way SW and SW Dawson St not only warrants a marked crosswalk but a signalized one as well. From our conversations it seems it will be similar to the signalized crosswalk next to Fairmount Elementary School.
I think it will be a wonderful thing for the neighborhood. It might even slow drivers down a little on the “Fauntleroy Freeway”.
The text of SDOT’s email is below.
Dear Mr. ____,
I have some good news for you and your wife. We did a new traffic study and a pedestrian signal is warranted. It is at our 2008 new signal list and we will start design soon. Thank you again for your time to write us, and you have a wonderful holiday season.You have a nice day!
Valerie Lee
Senior Civil Engineer
Seattle Department of Transportation
Signal Operation Division
Five beautiful photos from WSB contributing photojournalist Christopher Boffoli, capturing the rare sighting of the sun. First – driftwood and surf along Beach Drive:
A freighter heads north, with the snowy Olympics peeking through the clouds in the distance:
Heathers in bloom on Beach Drive:
A cormorant keeping watch atop a piling:
And the troubled (but lovely, we think) steel-electric ferry Quinault, one of the 80-year-old ferries that the state is ready to scrap because of their hull problems:
Forecast suggests this may be the last we see of the sun till sometime Sunday.
That’s Therese Diekhans and John Wray in “The Retreat from Moscow,” in its first weekend at ArtsWest (photo courtesy Rachel Jackson); other weekend highlights include tonight’s free Seattle Symphony concert at West Seattle High School, The Translucents playing their first West Seattle gig in more than a year (Easy Street After Hours tonight), Green Delridge Day tomorrow including your chance to join in the start of a new restoration project at Pigeon Point — in all, 27 events ahead:Read More
Something went awry at WSB server HQ, and the site was inaccessible to the world (along with a bunch of other sites) for most of the past hour. Still waiting for official word from the hosting company on what the problem was and whether they’re sure it’s been fixed, but do know, we would never deliberately take it down in the middle of the day – maintenance and experimentation are what the “wee hours” are for! Anyway, our apologies. Now back to the news, info, discussion, etc.
This just out of the inbox, from Teresa (thank you!):
Was at the Westwood Starbucks this morning and there apparently is a man that is approaching women and actually trying to touch them inappropriately. One of the employees of Starbucks was calling the police as I was leaving. He apparently approached a grounds worker while I was getting my coffee. PERV!
No word so far if anyone was caught.
Just a reminder that the memorial service for Angelia Paulsen, the owner of Red Cup Espresso in The Junction who was killed in an I-5 crash earlier this week, is this morning: 11 am, St. Stephen the Martyr Church in Renton (church website here), and friends plan a candlelight vigil outside the shop (on the west side of California, north of Oregon) tomorrow night at 7. ADDED FRIDAY AFTERNOON: Dan Jacobs from West Seattle Christian Church and Ginomai arts center says vigil attendees are welcome to park in the Ginomai lot, on the west side of 42nd just south of Genesee.
The Kitsap Sun says Washington State Ferries‘ first major onboard advertiser, JanSport, will be on various ferry runs today, including Fauntleroy-Vashon-Southworth in “late morning,” giving backpacks away.
First headline from tonight’s Southwest Design Review Board meeting on Spring Hill, the mixed-use building proposed for 5020 California and adjoining parcels: This was a textbook case of why it’s vital to participate in public meetings if you really want to affect the outcome — dozens of concerned neighbors showed up, many of them spoke up, and board members took their key concerns to heart in telling the architects and developers to try a “fresh start” and come back for a second “early design guidance” meeting. Biggest concern – the fact that the 3 early design alternatives (above; larger images are shown later in this report) presented by architect David Hewitt for this 65-plus-foot-high building all put its tallest, most imposing side against the alley that borders a line of single-family homes along 42nd. Board members want the architects to come up with alternatives incorporating a less abrupt the transition from this building to those homes. FULL REPORT AHEAD, ADDED 2 AM:Read More
That’s watercolor artist Chris Kopet, one of four artists (with Nancy Bogni, Graham Fracha, and Inge Roberts) who have just opened “Fragmented Moments” at ArtsWest, where their reception happened during tonight’s Art Walk. You can see their work during regular gallery hours through February 9th. Below, paintings by Sarah Browning, whose work you can see at C and P Coffee all month long:
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