West Seattle, Washington
12 Monday
Sign on Rick’s Barber Shop along Cali south of The Junction says “barber shop closed until further notice.” Voice-mail greeting says the same thing. Don’t know how long it’s been there; we just happened to be walking through the between-junctions (TweenJun? nah, let’s not go there) area for the first time in a while & saw it.
The Times says the victim is a student at SSCC; both the Times and P-I updates say the gunshots may have followed some kind of squabble over a ring. No particular description of who they’re looking for, just that a red minivan might have been involved.
CHARLESTOWN CAFE CORNER: Our Town West Seattle is inviting those concerned about the cafe site’s future to gather at 7 pm next Thursday (August 2) to get the newest information one week before the next city Design Review meeting on the proposed project.
BURNED-OUT EX-SCHUCK’S CORNER (below): Finally, finally, finally the demolition permit application is in, two months after the land-use permit was OKd for the 2-story commercial building planned there (this page about that project has a small sketch of what it might look like).
The weather looks relatively good, knock wood. This is the weekend that Alki is awash in art, Shakespeare in the Park holds court at Camp Long, and we WSers are “Stuffing the Bus” at the Farmers’ Market for WestSide Baby‘s biggest annual diaper drive, among many other things (including a few events outside WS that might interest you) — click ahead!Read More
We saw the fire call online for “assault with weapons” at 5626 Delridge; the P-I’s Big Blog has a few details (near the bottom of this post) — one man shot, taken to Harborview Medical Center. FRIDAY 9 AM UPDATE: P-I has a few more details; so does KIRO tv, with a pic.
From Creighton Space (one of the 75-plus sites featured on our Other Blogs In WS page): A poster near his home promises a reward for solving an arson, but where was the fire? (We’ll check with our police contacts in the morning if no one solves this sooner.)
Tomorrow’s the deadline to sign up your block for a night of crime-fighting, community-building, street-closing fun: 
Night Out 2007 is Tuesday, August 7, 6-10 pm. Find out how to sign up for it here. If you’re in the “Weed & Seed” grant area of South Delridge/downtown White Center, you might be able to get a small grant for supplies (not food); click here to e-mail the folks responsible for that. If you’re in the Beach Drive area, BDB has been working to organize a get-together there. If you’re in Fairmount Springs (northeast of Morgan Junction), their invite is online. Pigeon Point has a location posted too. Wherever you are in WS, if you have a Night Out get-together, take a pic that night, send it to us, we would love to post it in our follow-ups.
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Thanks to the reader who let us know that the heavy equipment has finally begun to arrive at the Lafayette Elementary playground project, a month after the ceremonial groundbreaking.
Our blogland-trolling picked up this tale. (Wonder where exactly he meant by the “Delridge projects.”)
According to Beach Drive Blog, the city’s landmarks board has a meeting tomorrow to talk about what’s going on with the Painted Lady, aka the Satterlee House, on Beach Drive. As we have reported in recent months (May 30, May 12, September) the house and its huge front lawn are for sale, and if they’re not sold together, the front lawn could become home to three other homes.
Hot on the heels of the successful reunion of Lucky and his owners (see the comments) … We gotta help bring this guy home. Bloggers, new parents, and all-around good people Paul & Steph are looking for their lost kitty Jake, who’s been in their family 11 years. They live on the upper east edge of Gatewood, near the 35th/Myrtle towers. If you’ve seen Jake, follow that link to contact them.
We’ve been waiting for one of the local papers to finally pick up on the Alki Statue of Liberty situation; 
today, the Times finally does, in a choppy article that doesn’t quite capture the heart of what’s happening now, but at least has pix of the new statue. (If you missed it, earlier this month we reported the latest twists and turns, after the July 11 pro-plaza group meeting and after the Alki Community Council meeting last Thursday). Two more Liberty notes: In this week’s WS Herald, Cindi Laws — best remembered for her time on the monorail board — has a lively letter-to-the-editor about the statue; also, we’re still waiting for the Carrs’ sealady.org website to go up (they said at the ACC meeting that it would be up last weekend).
… witness Miss Seafair Erin Waid, a West Seattleite who reigned over Hi-Yu last year, caught on camera tonight by the P-I’s new Big Blog, out for burgers — at Interbay Red Mill! — with the rest of the Seafair court. (Erin’s Seafair reign runs till just before Saturday night’s Torchlight Parade, when for the first time the new Miss Seafair will be crowned pre-parade instead of at a separate evening event; contenders include West Seattle’s Michelle Edwards.)ÂÂ
Last weekend we drove past Me-Kwa-Mooks and saw a space roped off on the street in front, marked RESERVED FOR UDALL BUS TOUR. We were in something of a rush to start with; then we got sidetracked by something and completely forgot to look up what it was all about. Then this just appeared at the P-I site. How cool of them to side-trip to WS to help remove The Evil That Is Ivy.
The city proposes expanding incentives for “affordable housing” in “urban village” areas, of which we have a few (including The [Alaska] Junction and Morgan Junction). However, some are voicing skepticism till they’ve read the fine print, including (according to this P-I article) WS-based City Councilmember Tom Rasmussen. EVENING UPDATE: A reader points out the Seattle Displacement Coalition is upset about this; click ahead to read parts of its own press release:Read More
We’ve tried Shoofly Pie Company twice since it opened — shoofly itself was both sweet and tangy and we’ll leave it to the Eastern natives to tell us if that’s the way it’s supposed to be — but we can give unqualified rave reviews for the cherry pie: Not too tart, not too sweet, not goopy. We wrote to Shoofly proprietor Kimmy Hsieh Tomlinson to ask if she’s got anything to say to customers and would-be customers in WSB-land, about how it’s going and future plans; you can click ahead to read what she wrote back:Read More
Alongside the bus stop on 35th, just south of Avalon, the Legends sign is down, the new Redline sign is up.
No, JuNO is not another one of those condo names. It’s the Junction Neighborhood Association, a new group of, and for, people who live in and around The Junction. If that includes you, you’re invited to its first meeting, next Thursday (August 2), 6:30 pm at the Senior Center. The special guest will be Seattle Police Southwest Precinct crime-prevention coordinator Benjamin Kinlow. You can find out more about JuNO and its upcoming meeting by clicking here to download the official meeting flier (which includes the e-mail address for JuNO organizers, and a reference map for the area JuNO is focusing on).
Tonight’s sunset, from Alki, where the sand runs out on the eastern edge. How much might global warming/climate change/whatever-ya-wanna-callit alter our WS shorelines? The National Wildlife Federation is out with a new report attempting to answer that, while examining potential effects on other shoreline habitats around our region. Channel 7 tv news came out to Alki to do its summary of the NWF report and even traveled south of the point to cast a suspicious eye on the pilings-propped Harbor West complex, but we can’t find that clip online, yet. You can read the entire NWF document for yourself, however (and note the WS photo on page 13, taken by WSB reader/chasBlog blogger Charles Redmond). Bottom line? Maybe a 2-foot rise around here, so it sounds like Beach Drive waterfront houses are safe, for a century or so, at least.
Tribal canoes on the region-wide Paddle to Lummi 2007 are stopping over at Alki. Read more about the journey here; if you can’t get down to the beach, check out some of the photos kindly sent to us by WSB reader Margelyn:
A commenter broke the news beneath the I-5 post below … we got it confirmed by King County and WSDOT: 
The Water Taxi is getting new technology (Automatic Identification System equipment) which enables the Coast Guard to certify it to nearly double its passenger capacity to 250. This is being done in time for Freeway Fright ’07 next month, but will last beyond that. As King County Councilmember Dow Constantine‘s office points out, the increased capacity will be good for other peak traffic times and heavy ridership situations, such as the the day last year when a deadly accident blocked The Bridge. During the August 10-29 construction period ONLY, an extra WT trip will be offered, at 6:10 am, and two extra shuttle vans will be added to the WT Shuttle routes during “peak hours.” For those of you who like to know where the $ is coming from, the county says the state is picking up the $20K-plus that’s involved here. SIDE NOTE: If you didn’t see our detailed report last Friday afternoon about a proposal to create a new Water Taxi terminal at Pier 1/2 adjacent to Jack Block Park, read it here.
He’s dropping by the weekly “Drinking Liberally” get-together (not in WS) tonight, according to HA.
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