April 2007

Thanks to the hard work of the auction committee, the generosity of donors and the generosity of attendees, the West Seattle Parent, Teacher, Student Association announced net auction earnings of $32,000, a 30 percent increase in earnings over last year.

Over $5,000 was raised for the West Seattle High School Fund-and-Item category.

With the gift of $1,500 from the West Seattle High School Foundation, the Parent Teacher Student Association will be able to buy a high-speed, networked printer for the school library.

In the April 18, 2007 issue of the West Seattle Herald, in the article "Teen mysteries probed in high school workshop," Sue Quigley was incorrectly identified for her role at West Seattle High School. She is a guidance counselor.

After his car was locked inside a South Seattle Community College parking lot after hours, a man thought he might be able to get it out by driving quickly over a nearby grassy area. To his dismay, the grass was saturated with rain, and his car got stuck in the mud. A tow truck had to come pull the vehicle loose.

Savvy citizens noticed suspicious noises and activity in their Harbor Avenue condo parking garage early Sunday morning and called 911. Officers arrived with a K9 unit, blocked the exit routes, and caught two suspects who tried to flee to the roof.

It was New Year's Eve, 1936. Just a few months earlier the New York Yankees won their ninth World Series, Franklin Delano Roosevelt won his second presidential election, and gas prices stood at 20 cents a gallon. And somewhere in the town of Little Falls, Minn., a 28-year-old lumberyard worker named Phil Bellefuielle met his future wife for the first time.

"Her blue eyes looked into my eyes and I just fell for her. It was love at first sight," said Phil "Mr. B" Bellefuielle, as he recalled the square dance where he met Alean, a 25-year-old ammunitions-factory worker.

That night, they shared a few dances and exchanged mailing addresses. Nothing happened for several months until, randomly, they both wrote and received letters from each other just days apart.

In today's world of constant and instantaneous communication, an exchange like this might not seem noteworthy. But for Mr. B, it was a sign.

"I had no idea she was going to write to me, and she had no idea that I was going to write to her," he said. "When our letters crossed, that pretty much sealed it."

They were married four months later.

Across the street from McLendon's hardware in White Center is Marty's Barber Shop.

Marty has been cutting hair here since 1958 and is still going strong.

We apparently did not make it clear in our editorial, "Sound Transit looms," April 11. We are not now, nor have we ever been opposed to light rail transit. We are opposed only to the political inertia that seems to doom Ballard to a future of no real mass transit, of slow, crowded buses and of highways that are clogged by the millions of new residents predicted to be coming to the region in the next few decades.

What this newspaper wants is political leadership now!

Choosing an option for the Viaduct that permanently removes freeway capacity will increase congestion on I-5. This will likely have a negative influence on the economy, endanger public safety and further restrict freedom of movement.

A long-time battle between the Seattle Parks and Recreation Department and a group of Loyal Heights residents has ended with some vindication for the community members.

Mistakes were made and opportunities were lost during the public involvement process for the Loyal Heights Playfield Improvement Project, a city audit found. The news was a huge relief for Jim Anderson, president of the Loyal Heights Community Council, the group that fought to make modifications to the project for more than two years.

"Who could ask for anything more?" Anderson said.

Developers of the Silver Cloud Inn will need to do more to prove the proposed hotel would be used by the industrial community before the city will approve land use permits.

The six-story, 175-room hotel with ground-floor retail is planned for along Shilshole Avenue Northwest in the Ballard Interbay Northend Manufacturing and Industrial Center, one of two industry-preservation areas in Seattle.

Hotels are permitted on industrial land as long as the developers can demonstrate it will primarily serve users in that area.

The collapse of public support for the monorail in November 2005 created a mass transit void in West Seattle and Ballard that is likely to continue for years.

Sound Transit is currently building a 19-mile-long light rail system from the University District south to Sea-Tac Airport. The three-county agency already built a light rail line connecting the Tacoma Dome to downtown Tacoma.

Next fall, Sound Transit will put before voters a 40-mile light rail expansion proposal that would take about 20 years to complete.