West Seattle, Washington
25 Wednesday
We have an informal policy that if anyone involved in or close to a situation surfaces in comments on a post about it, we will single out that comment to be sure you see it, rather than just leave it there to be discovered, or not. So, if you missed it below this post, the following comment came in very early this morning, signed Sharon Huling. (The residence-related remarks relate to a discussion in that original comment thread.)
My family and I are deeply saddened for our friends and former employees who will be losing their jobs when Gee West Seattle closes its doors. Our hearts go out to them.
I have lived in West Seattle for 27 years. My husband and kids were all raised here. We are listed in the phone book, though we have never lived on Sunset. We love WS and will continue to be a part of this community.
There have been many inaccurate and wrongful accusations recently in the news, in blogs and in the above quote from MD Johnson, Inc. With the Gee’s pointing the blame and threatening a lawsuit there really isn’t much that I can say except that the truth will come out in due time.
That’s according to the French newspaper Le Monde (4th paragraph from the bottom, “un petit restaurant de West Seattle”), as written up at Cornichon.org. (Of course, the Parisians got the name wrong, so perhaps the size lost something in the translation as well.)
While we were out getting “day after” pix of the fire scene @ 3809 Admiral, eagle-eyed WSB readers noted that the P-I is reporting Seattle Fire investigators blame the fire on “smoking materials.” 1st pic is the exterior damage, 2nd pic is the pile of burned-out stuff in the driveway. For those who have been through house fires, provided everyone got out OK (as was the case here), that’s one of the worst things afterward, regardless of who or what’s to blame — that charred mass that was your stuff, sitting for hours, days, maybe weeks, out in the driveway or the front yard.
Often, readers tell us WSB has helped them learn something they didn’t know about our community, what’s happening around WS, or the services available. We have to say, it’s been educational for us too. Only after 15 years in WS are we beginning to learn about the full scope of what’s out there. The West Seattle Community Safety Partnership is one of many groups that just weren’t on our radar, for whatever reason. But it should have been on ours, and allow us to be so bold as to say it should be on yours. Long ago, the WSCSP was known as the “anti-crime council” — but its scope goes beyond crime. 
As demonstrated at Tuesday night’s meeting, the group is there to gather and share information about how to pro-actively protect yourself and your family and improve your neighborhood. Its officers are volunteers, but the group is assisted by a regular allotment of time provided by the Seattle Neighborhood Group for one of its staffers, Lois Grammon-Simpson (SNGi photo of Lois at right), who lives in WS. The room all but gasped Tuesday night when Lois revealed that SNG might stop providing the group with her services, as has already happened for a similar group in Southeast Seattle. But it’s not too late to change the course …Read More
–P-I columnist Robert Jamieson looks at an incident in WS that left a man injured after a clash with an off-duty police officer.
–The Times says Holy Family on Roxbury is one of the first area Catholic churches to take on the Latin Mass that the Pope now says is OK again.
OK, so driving on them isn’t always a dream, but an engineering group says the WS bridges are among our area’s most amazing creations of the past half-century.
P-I ON PRODUCE: Eric’s produce stand by the Homestead is featured in this P-I article.
STATUE OF LIBERTY GROUP GETS TO START RECEIVING $: With days to go till the Tuesday unveiling and Thursday public meeting (7 pm @ the Bathhouse), Paul Carr announced in e-mail:
Seattle Statue of Liberty Committeeâ€â€Phase II is happy to report we finally have our sponsoring 501(c)(3) organization, Urban Sparks. Urban Sparks began here in Seattle when they saw the need for community groups to have a Fiscal Sponsor. They have sponsored several other local groups doing local parks projects.
We can now begin, in earnest, to complete the Alki Statue of Liberty Project by accepting donations. Our thanks particularly to Pam Kliment of the Seattle Parks Department, who suggested this organization to us recently.
Paul says they’ll have more information up on their sealady.org website later this week. Meantime, if anyone spots Lady Liberty making the big move before for Tuesday night — we would love to get another photo like this one.
Nine months after the 47th/Admiral crash that killed Tatsuo Nakata, the driver is a few weeks away from going to trial, according to this P-I update from a hearing today.
The new edition of The Stranger features the tale of a police chase that ended in High Point, after the pursued vehicle left a trail of treats.
As of minutes ago, Delridge is still blocked off between Holden and Thistle, more than five hours after a police car collided with a Volvo station wagon. The P-I has posted some details of what led to the crash. We watched the Volvo get towed from Delridge/Thistle at 9:15 (night-visionish photo below), but the wrecked police car was still in the street further north down Delridge. 10:30 UPDATE: Still closed. That’s our last in-person check for the night; if anyone discovers it open in the hours to come, please post that in the comments here.
We’ve been watching for this link since seeing it on the late news last night. Now it’s online — videotaped fight at Alki, and worried neighbors.
Story and video clip here. Meantime, this story says suspect Alfred Layton Jr. made a court appearance today, bail set at $250,000. King County Jail Lookup says he is still in jail; state court cases search says he has a record, three criminal “non-traffic” cases in 1999, one “civil harassment” case in 2001.
Noteworthy tidbit in this P-I article about inspectors checking area bridges after the Minneapolis collapse: The Admiral Way bridge is one of five in the city with special electronic detectors that monitor it for signs of trouble. (Side note for historic-photo geeks like us, the city archives have lots of shots of its 1949-50 construction, such as this and this.)
Just got home from Seafair Free Friday etc. (more on that later) and thanks to MargL out there in WSBland, didn’t even have to surf the news sites to find out the guy accused of kidnapping and attacking an Arbor Heights woman is now under arrest, caught in Cle Elum, where the victim was found yesterday. P-I article here. 8 PM UPDATE: This story says the suspect’s name is Alfred Layton (although the same story misspells the victim’s name, so take that into consideration). 10:55 PM UPDATE: According to the online King County Jail Inmate Lookup, Layton was booked into the county jail at 9:40 tonight for investigation of kidnapping and burglary.
That’s according to this story (video clip included), including an interview with the husband of the victim, now identified as Terry Leffard. Still no additional info from other coverage or Seattle Police of exactly who the kidnapper/attacker is, except that he is described as a transient living in a van. One clarification — with verified address info (9800 block of 33rd SW), we know the area where this happened is Arbor Heights, not Westwood as we mentioned earlier.
The name of the diver who died at Seacrest last Monday is now public: Wayne Hernandez, who was 43. The article does not mention a hometown but public databases for King County list only one person of that name/age, from Redmond.
WSB reader/commenter (and blogger) Chas Redmond writes to tell us flyers have just gone around announcing the imminent demise of the 35th SW crosswalk at Kenyon (photo), hot on the heels of the Java Bean crosswalk removal….
Chas elaborates on this better than we could, so we’re quoting verbatim from his e-mail:
SDOT appears to be on a crosswalk-removing rampage – again claiming that “safety is our highest priority” and that un-signalized but marked crosswalks do not meet Federal standards based in part on a 2002 Federal Highway Administration study. So, the latest victim is the marked crosswalk at Kenyon and 35th Avenue SW. Oh, SDOT also says that “it is also important to note that, according to Washington state law, a legal pedestrian crossing exists at every intersection regardless of whether or not a crosswalk is marked. Thus pedestrians will continue to have a legal right to cross at this intersection.”
What they don’t state is that they are removing more and more of the visible signs of pedestrians, giving drivers even more incentive to ignore pedestrians. Irrespective of whether or not un-signalized crosswalks are safer or not, marked crosswalks remind motorists that there other users of the roadway or intersection and removing them is one more notch on the belt of automotive traffic at the expense of pedestrian traffic. Responses can be made by calling SDOT’s comment line at 206-615-1608 or e-mailing “walkandbike@seattle.gov.”
But be it known that the flyer states emphatically “SDOT will be removing the crosswalk at 35th Avenue SW and SW Kenyon Street.”
West Seattle bicyclists, you tell us: Is the fact that “sharrows” weren’t included in the Cali repaving truly the outrage this Slog post infers it is, or should be?
The P-i has finally picked up on the one we reported here yesterday, with a story looking at whether the two recent shootings might be related.
The Alki Art Fair, of course, is now just hours away … you can’t miss the signs all over WS …
Then in a couple weeks, there’s a second Art Fair in West Seattle — this one on August 11th at C & P Coffee south of The Junction. It’s their first one ever, and they’re looking for more participants; e-mail the C & P folks to find out more.
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.
Less than a week after we told you about the deal that ended the fight over the clump of townhomes going up (one nearly complete building, shown below) at the SW foot of Gatewood Hill, the situation gets ink in this week’s Stranger (one correction, the church wasn’t demolished; the property had belonged to Gatewood Baptist Church across the street and was sold along with it, but the developers re-sold the church to Seattle International; also the arrival of equipment wasn’t the first word of the development — we posted here 3 months earlier when the permit applications were filed). P.S.: You can expect work to start any second now on the final disputed row of townhomes (permit just issued); the selling agents have just planted a big sign plugging the “Seattle Townhome Team“; and developer Dan Duffus is on the panel for a city-organized “Forum on Housing Affordability” this Friday.
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