West Seattle, Washington
26 Saturday
-No ballot dropoff today; just tomorrow and Tuesday, 7 am-8 pm, High Point Community Center and assorted non-WS locations.
-Times editorial: Yes on replacement-a-duct.
-Small online vote with seven options: Surface/transit wins.
-If seven options aren’t enough, how about a “tube”?
-A non-local blog calling itself Designing Public Consensus takes a look at all this.
Our endless online search for West Seattle-related people, places, and things just led us to 2People, thanks to a post at WorldChanging mentioning that 2People was founded by “West Seattle transplant Phil Mitchell.” So what makes it more than yet another enviro-info site? As far as we can tell from our first tour around 2People, it not only challenges you to take action — small steps will do — to help fight the climate crisis, it also points you to WHAT you can do — like something we weren’t previously aware of: Easily and cheaply buying “clean electric power” via City Light. You can sign up here right now, for just a few bucks a month. (And if you join 2People, please add us to your network — we’re signed up as, what else, West Seattle Blog.) P.S. Need motivation? Read this.
-Tough choice but decided to go to the Alki cat adopt-a-thon instead of the SW library grand opening (one-day-only event vs. many chances from now on to see the books’ beautiful new digs). Did not emerge with a new cat. Old cats greatly relieved.
-Looks like Casa Feliz is back from the dead after 2 months away. Tried calling to ask what happened, nobody answered. All info welcome.
-Eagle-eyed reader notes the cameras on light poles by the new Admiral/Olga traffic signal (photo below). Will they be traffic webcams, or “run the light and you’re busted” cams? We’ll see if we can find out.
-Another dropoff day at High Point CC, 11 am-3 pm only. Looks like 100K of our citymates already have voted; so much for the boycott idea.
-Uh-oh, start tracking your home’s value on Zillow to see if it really does start dropping like a rock because of the whateverduct dithering. (And if it does, this guy has no sympathy.)
-Thinking of supporting the replacement-a-duct? Take a close look at construction closure projections first.
-Who knows what we’ll really eventually wind up with? Could even be the rebuild remix.
The church blog is asking for MH members from all over the city to help prep for the Easter opening on 35th SW by coming to a work party on St. Patrick’s Day. Picking up from a comment below — perhaps their labors will be best utilized praying for parking spaces.
Reader asked what’s up with all the helicopters … looks like a frantic rescue under way at a construction site. LATE NIGHT UPDATE: The man buried in the trench didn’t make it.
First we saw a warning posted on one Admiral Junction store’s door this morning; then we got e-mail from another shop … so this is new and could get ugly. 
See the sign at left? At least a dozen are now planted all around the parking lots on three sides of Admiral Safeway. And the fine print, “monitored by employees of Diamond Parking 24 hours a day,” is no idle threat. As neighboring businesses are warning their customers, those DP employees are writing tickets. The photo below shows one in action on the south side of Safeway (bad news for families from Lafayette Elementary across the street). The parking situation in Admiral has been tough for a while; right or wrong, this won’t make it any easier.
Yes, we’re that close to spring. But the West Seattle events roundup for this weekend feels like spring already. Check it out!Read More
Looks like Mars Hill is finally fully moving into its “real” WS home (ex-Doxa) on Easter.
-USA Today tries to relate the viaduct vote to the rest of America by describing it as “a landmark visible in the opening credits of … ‘Grey’s Anatomy’.”
-The P-I finds people to expound on the vote’s pointlessness, says voters are misinformed anyway, and finally issues its official editorial position: same as ours.
-The Times looks at post-viaduct land values, notes $600 million of work can be done without a consensus, hauls out a pro-replacement-a-duct columnist, and gives the pro-retrofit side some space.
-Once again today, you can drop your ballot off @ High Point CC, 7 am-8 pm. (Same hours Monday & Tuesday, but it’s 11 am-3 pm Saturday, and no dropoff Sunday.)
Or at least, look closely … seems there’s a fake cop on the loose in WS, last seen on Fauntleroy, not far from Fairmount Park.
One of the many reasons not to like voting by mail: You gotta lick two envelopes. Even if you’re just dropping off your ballots, as we did this morning @ High Point Community Center. (Helpful signs out front and inside will point you directly to where a tableful of vigilant folks is guarding the ballot-collection box. ALMOST like voting in person.) Anyway, be sure to put your ballot in the “security envelope”; then sign and date the right spot on the OUTER envelope, before sealing the once-enveloped ballot inside. Here’s how we both voted:
More than three months after the paving project in The Junction wrapped up, bet you forgot the city promised more work on Cali, all the way north to Admiral (plus a stretch of Admiral itself). Well, at least WE forgot till we just got an e-mail alert from a city list we’d also forgotten we signed up for. Says work will resume March 19, starting between Genesee and Spokane. Click ahead for the complete text of the city alert:Read More
6-8 pm tonight, with a free treat when you’re done! Thanks to Divina as always for sending the lineup (after the jump):Read More
-Today’s your first opportunity to drop off your ballot in West Seattle (High Point Community Center).
–Dave Fox’s take on the whole mess is almost funny.
–The Weekly reviews the viaduct’s twisted history.
-Is Councilprez Nick really just mad at Hizzoner over viaduct-vs-tunnel, or is this really worth getting wadded up about?
-If you want to take a good close-up look at the viaduct before the voting deadline, Sunday morning’s your chance.
As mentioned about halfway through the plentiful comments on this post three weeks ago, a big Delridge apartment building is going condo. (Odd little blip on the city website about the complex “failing” an “inspection” this week, related to all this.) The Weekly features the project in this story (by photo, not by name) and links it to a company whose website simply notes “West Seattle, coming soon.”
No surprise that Pagliacci’s WS delivery expansion inspired another mention today by that P-I guy. Unlike last time, though, no shout-out to us bloggy types, good, bad, or otherwise.
If you use Delridge to get onto the WS Bridge, one of your neighbors has a request for you … they say it much better than we could (especially since that’s not our route), so here’s the whole e-mail, after the “jump”:Read More
For what it’s worth … WS only got one shout-out in the text of the State o’ the City speech (read it and watch it here), just delivered by West Seattle’s Most Famous Politician. Even in the section that mentions tons o’construction in various neighborhoods … no mention.
Two days after e-mailing the guys at Pagliacci, we just got this reply:
Thank you for inquiring about our delivery area. We have indeed
expanded our delivery service area in an effort to reach more of our
customers. Our new border to the south is Holden Street and to the
east is 27th.Thank you,
Jeff Woodruff
Director of Operations
Pagliacci Pizza
–Official WS Herald editorial position: Yes on replacement-a-duct.
–Bruce Ramsey says we should just be happy we GET TO vote!
-What life supposedly would be like during construction.
-No Tunnel Alliance plots a “We (Heart) the Viaduct” rally for Election Eve.
–Another tunnel opponent writes the Herald, dubbing Hizzoner “Gridlock Greg.”
-As for Hizzoner himself, he’s talking cops today, not the t-word.
… about the Never-Ending Popularity Poll. Today’s the last day to vote. We’re guaranteed to lose; USS Mariner probably gets as many people per minute as we get all day. But if not for some fine folks out there, we wouldn’t have made it to the Final Four as the last neighborhood blog standing … so thanks!
Just got details on the restaurant in the works for the ex-Neilsen Flowers space at the north edge of The Junction. Its proprietor says it’s been a long slog to get some necessary city approvals (note permit just issued, six months after application!), but they’re finally making progress. It’ll be a 21-and-up restaurant and bar, called “Shadowland” (a change from the original plan, and a reference to a biography of West Seattle’s troubled movie legend Frances Farmer). They’re hoping to be open by summer.
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