West Seattle, Washington
30 Wednesday
A WSB reader who works with Nicholas Francisco at Publicis on Queen Anne asked us to post that newly created clip — basically the video equivalent of the “MISSING” poster. It also mentions that the reward is now up to $10,000. No major new developments so far tonight; this TV story tonight says K-9 teams are now involved in the search near where his car was found in Federal Way. (If you’re just coming in on all this, our last report includes the backstory.)
Our visitor logs show a sizable number of people landing here as the result of web searches for information on the search, since our previous reports show fairly high in Google results, so we’re summarizing the latest. 
First – to recap – Nicholas Francisco is a SeaTac man who disappeared after leaving his Queen Anne job last Wednesday; he and his family attended Mars Hill-West Seattle until recently, so we’ve reported on the search (original post with the full-color search flyer is here) because of his WS ties. Last major development reported publicly was the discovery of his car at a Federal Way condo complex yesterday morning – here’s what’s come out since then: This site posted an “official update” from relatives/searchers last night; this KOMO report quotes authorities as saying the car was seen in different parking spots at the complex before they impounded it yesterday; the KIRO noon TV news report we just watched said authorities didn’t find any signs of “foul play” during their first search of the car and are deciding what to do next.
Five days into the search for Nicholas Francisco, the South King County man (and former West Seattle church member) who’s been missing since Wednesday (his photo’s at left; the full poster with other pix is in our post here), his car has been found at an apartment complex in Federal Way. Thanks to everybody who e-mailed to let us know. Details are on various citywide news sites including here; the searchers’ official website is here.
ADDED 6 PM: Thanks to Cami for sending this close-up photo from the Obama KeyArena rally:
From earlier:
That’s one more from Josh at KeyArena earlier, while Sen. Obama was speaking. If you squint at the stage on the lower right quadrant of the pic, you’ll see Rep. Adam Smith, Gov. Gregoire (in the reddish-pinkish top), and West Seattle’s Most Famous Politician (bringing that phrase back for old times’ sake) behind him. For those who asked if the speech was archived anywhere yet – just checked all four tv news sites, both dailies, plus Slog … not yet. Now, a photo from Olympia:
We told you last night that West Seattle’s state Sen. Joe McDermott was introducing a resolution today honoring Chris “JP Patches” Wedes on the 50th anniversary of the start of his classic local kids’ TV show. This pic sent by Sen. McDermott features him with Chris Wedes – sans the makeup – and the senator’s cousin Emmett Blake (“Patches Pals and West Seattleites both,” notes Sen. M). Also, he sent a link to the text of the resolution introduced today.
That photo’s just in from Josh (thank you!), who’s at the KeyArena rally (where scanner discussion says they have reached capacity and are trying to figure out how to securely close the doors because people are reportedly trying to break through them):
Equal time for last night’s Sen. Clinton publicity: Sen. Obama is touring a South Seattle business this morning and speaking at KeyArena early this afternoon – we spun by about an hour ago and noted a good-sized crowd on the west side of the Key – listening to the scanner, they have just opened the doors and it sounds like madness — just heard something about the line stretching to Fifth Avenue (east of Seattle Center). One quote from somebody on the scanner: “This is the longest line I have ever seen in my entire life.” Many citywide media outlets are promising to cover the speech live, including KIRO Radio and KING5.com, which promises to stream an Obama event shortly, and is streaming Sen. Clinton’s Tacoma town hall right now. (Info on tomorrow’s caucus is linked from the top right of this page; we’ll be adding to that info shortly.) TRAFFIC ALERT: We’re also hearing about traffic woes on East Marginal because of Sen. Obama’s visit to McKinstry, so that’s a good area to avoid till he’s moved on to the Key around noontime. 10:40 AM ADDENDUM: Back at the Key, latest radio chatter sounds like they’re expecting capacity and turnaways.
So Team WSB set out a couple hours ago with the following intention: Drop by the Magnolia open house on “coexisting with coyotes and other wildlife” just long enough to get info to bring back to report here, then move on to the Sen. Clinton rally at the Pier 30 Event Center. No, not that we are officially endorsing anyone here, but it seemed like history to us, and we would check out the Sen. Obama KeyArena rally tomorrow morning too if not for a conflict with a meeting we have to cover. Anyway, we’ve got the coyote scoop – it wasn’t just an open house after all, there was a rather engaging/informative presentation and we will write that up for tomorrow morning – but no candidate. For all the fuss about Hillary lukewarmness (as compared to Obama-mania) — it was a ZOO down there for MILES around. People were walking all the way from the ferry dock to the north, and from the WS Bridge to the south. (Tow trucks were starting to target those who dared to park in no-parking zones.) And the people we saw from our vantage point in the Alaskan Way traffic jam weren’t just the “old Democrats” ridiculed by The Stranger and others as the alleged Hillary base, but plenty of young adults, and young families with kids in tow. We shot some vid from the car:
Meantime as expected, she’s running late; we’re watching for the promised webcast of the speech, hasn’t started last we heard. (And as we typed that, we heard scanner traffic indicating she hasn’t landed yet and is expected to start speaking around 9:30. Oh, plus the PD is launching a major parking-enforcement effort because “parking is so bad that some people have parked on the railroad tracks.”) 9:05 PM ADDENDUM: Scanner now says the Hillary venue is full and “they’re turning people away.” 9:30 PM UPDATE: If you’re interested, looks like the rally’s under way. Live on KING5.com.
From the WSB inbox — yet another event happening this very busy Saturday, but even if you can’t lend a hand, perhaps you can help with the materials they need?Read More
With the Saturday caucuses suddenly in the national spotlight, Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama are both coming to Seattle in the next few days. Her appearance is scheduled for tomorrow night at Terminal 30, the cruise-ship facility on the south edge of the downtown waterfront, not that far from the WS bridge. His appearance is set for Friday, location TBA 11 am @ KeyArena. No word of last-minute GOP candidate visits, so far. More caucus info in previous WSB coverage here.
You may recall, the city ended the furor over the Discovery Park coyote’s fate the other day by promising a meeting to educate people on co-existing with coyotes (and other urban wildlife). They moved quickly to set a date, time, and place, and even though it’s not in West Seattle, we thought you’d be interested (we plan to cover it, given how much wildlife we’re blessed with in WS, and the questions everyone seems to have so frequently about the appropriate way to deal with it):
Living with Wildlife: Open House – Thursday, Feb. 7, 6:30-8:30 p.m.
In light of the recent developments at Discovery Park regarding coyote encounters with humans, several state and local agencies have joined together to bring you helpful information designed to reduce conflicts with urban wildlife.
Partners at the Open House include:
· Seattle Parks and Recreation
· Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife
· Progressive Animal Welfare Society (PAWS)
· Woodland Park Zoo
· Seattle Animal ShelterThese agencies will be able to:
v answer questions about coyotes, including addressing your concerns
v discuss how to peacefully co-exist with many types of urban wildlife
v instruct you on how to humanely provide care for feral cats
v show you how to make your back yard a wildlife friendly environment
v and much moreLight snacks will be provided. Please join us!
Catharine Blaine K-8, 2550 34th Ave. W
That’s in Magnolia; here’s a map.
Two things, actually. First is that we actually got a coyote PICTURE for the first time after all these coyote reports. Thanks to JF for sending the photo taken this week of his neighborhood’s “resident coyote.” Second thing, the Discovery Park coyote just got a reprieve. According to this article, instead of trapping/killing the coyote, authorities will work on educating the public to co-exist with wildlife.
You see their boats in WS waters, their choppers in the WS sky, now see their first vodcast.
This is unfolding in Magnolia but we suspect (given the comment tangent here) that many people in West Seattle are watching this — we certainly are — given the fact our peninsula is similar to theirs — large parks, greenbelts, wildlife including coyotes. No military housing here, though. Anyway, thought you might want to know there’s been a new development – no trapping OR shooting the controversial coyote for at least a week.
Just east of West Seattle, the South Park Bridge is scheduled to be closed most of the weekend, as of a little more than an hour ago, continuing till 5 pm tomorrow.
Just in from the county: The South Park Bridge is closing 7 am Saturday–5 pm Sunday for sidewalk repairs. (Though it’s not in WS, we know it’s a popular route to and from some points south of downtown — Costco, anyone? — so we’re mentioning it here.)
REMINDER THAT SUMMER WILL REALLY BE HERE EVENTUALLY: The Big Blog says two Blue Angels will “buzz” the city between 3 and 4 pm today. (If you have been reading WSB at least 5 months, you know we have what one WSB’er charitably described as a “strange obsession” with the Angels.)
WEST SEATTLEITE GUEST-SLOGS STARTING TODAY: Jeff from Soundproof Suite 1850 (which is linked from our newly improved Other Blogs in WS page) has begun his week of Slogging, thanks to the right he procured in The Stranger‘s fundraising auction; we believe this is his first post.
VEDDER VIDEO: What’s described as the first solo music video done by West Seattle rock luminary Eddie Vedder premiered today on VH1 (tv and web; watch it here.)
Last month we received a couple e-mails from people asking if we’d heard a rumor that the popular NORAD Tracks Santa website wasn’t going to be running this year. We couldn’t find the site at the time and wondered if those rumors might be true. Glad to report that we checked back and … they were false … you can find the preview site for NORAD Tracks Santa here.We always love following the web tracking every year … reminds us of the pre-pre-Internet days of our childhood, when radio announcers would check in with NORAD to see where Santa had turned up on radar.
On the eve of the Seattle Streetcar‘s debut (wah, we’re envious): We thought the singer’s name sounded familiar when we read this P-I Big Blog post about a “Ride the S.L.U.T.” song to go with the famous T-shirts. Indeed — the song’s creator, Ken Cofield, was in the WSB West Seattle Weekend Lineup just this past weekend, because he played C and P Coffee Company last Saturday night. If you were there, you can say you knew him when. (His trolley song is a one-song CD, with availability explained at his website.)
Thanks to LyndaB for forwarding this reminder of an important Seattle Police Department meeting Tuesday night that’s not happening in West Seattle but involves a plan that definitely will affect us. Here’s the full text of the city announcement:
The Chief’s quarterly City Wide Advisory Council meeting is scheduled for Tuesday, December 11th from 6:30 – 8:00 p.m. at the Seattle Vocational Institute (SVI) in room #509 (5th floor). SVI is located at 2120 S. Jackson and we have permission to park, at no cost, in the lot directly behind the building.
Meeting Topic:
The entire meeting will focus on the new Neighborhood Policing Staffing Plan that will begin to be implemented in January 2008. Deputy Chief Clark Kimerer will present the plan and answer any questions. This plan affects anyone who lives or works within the City of Seattle. If you know community members who are interested in this plan please bring them to the meeting.“The Neighborhood Policing Staffing Plan is the most significant change to how we police our city in more than 30 years. It will not only expand our patrol force, it is a faster, stronger and smarter approach to protecting our neighborhoods: faster response time regardless of the time of day, day of the week, or season of the year; stronger police presence when responding; and smarter use of patrol resources to focus on persistent problems that can affect quality of life in the city. The plan puts officers where they’re needed when they’re needed.”
Thanks to everybody who let us know about this – there’s been trouble the past couple hours in the vicinity of the West Seattle Bridge ramp to I-5 north – avoid it if you can – we’re checking on the status. 4:05 PM UPDATE: The ramp is still reported closed. Here is a link to the status updates at Traffic.com. 5:35 PM STATUS CHECK: All online sources still show this situation continuing; besides the Traffic.com link above, here’s the 710 AM radio “incidents” page. 7:40 PM STATUS CHECK: Not over yet. Click the comment link on this post to read, among other comments, more on exactly what and who one WSB reader saw while passing by. Meantime, here’s the image for the city traffic cam showing the area (refresh this page for the latest grab).
In our almost-2-years of publishing WSB, we’ve seen neighborhood blogs come and go around the city. One of the few still going strong, after almost as long, is Capitol Hill Seattle. We admire its editors Justin and Kristin for so many things, such as the inescapable fact they are wittier, hipper, younger, and cuter than us, and for their enthusiastic crosstown support of WSB. Tonight, we congratulate them on the arrival of their first child, written up pre-birth in this P-I article about a tongue-in-cheek naming contest. This afternoon — yes, at a Capitol Hill hospital — the Capitol Hill Seattleites welcomed their son Bowie (details in the comments on this CHS post). We wish them great luck and joy in the grand rollercoaster adventure that is parenting.
If you’ve been following this controversy just over the Seattle border in White Center involving wetlands, development, and more – this city press release says there’s a deal.
If you are heading home from downtown or heading toward South Seattle, this could affect you: South Spokane Street/East Marginal Way is blocked by a truck that’s flipped onto the train tracks. This is under the bridge, so if you’re not taking surface streets, you should be OK.
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