March 2008

It has been obvious over the past years that the amount of coverage given to our local high schools sports teams has not just declined, but become non-existent. I was disappointed to see the March 5, 2008 paper and no mention of the West Seattle High School Boys Basketball team participating in the 3A State Tournament or that both Girls and Boys teams from Seattle Lutheran High School had played in the State B Tournament in Spokane.

The Herald used to be the place to read about how our local high school sports teams were doing.

I would like to extend my heartfelt appreciation to the community of West Seattle, and in particular to the wonderful clients of West Seattle Veterinary Hospital. For the past eight years, I have had the privilege of caring for many of your canine and feline family members. In the process I have met some truly remarkable people and pets, and formed some friendships that I know will survive for many years to come. The support I have felt from the community and from the clientele here has been tremendous.

I was very saddened to see that Tim St. Clair has passed on. Over the years, we discussed a number of stories involving my department's work, and Tim always approached the issues with an open mind and a strong sense of fairness for all parties. He also had a great sense of humor. I'll miss working with him.

Alan Justad

Department of Planning

and Development

City of Seattle

Thank you for providing a great resource for those of us who love West Seattle!

Thank you, too, for the gift of Tim St. Clair, whose prolific dispatches I will sorely miss. There wasn't an issue where I didn't read through the paper and marvel at his ability to produce the quantity and quality of stories he produced every week. I'd always wonder how the heck he could do that so consistently. Truly a rare breed. The Saint indeed. May your newsroom be always buoyed by his intrepid spirit.

Susan Kelleher

Five-hundred thirty apartments starting at $900 a month for a studio are considered "affordable?" "Not everyone owns a car?" "Compliment without cannibalizing?"

All over West Seattle, one and two story buildings are being replaced by four to six stories. One thousand square feet of living space are replaced by 6,000 (as happened on my block of 50th Avenue Southwest). These enormous projects are robbing West Seattle of the human scale that made it special, friendly and comfortable.

The term "urban village" is a very sad one to me anymore. I live next to a project of building 30 three-story near-mansions, as I call them, supposedly townhouses to be sold for over $300,000 apiece. They're on Southwest Holden Street near the intersection with Delridge Way Southwest.

Before this project started, there were woods there, with plenty of diverse wildlife, including a screech owl I'd seen. A short time after it began, the wildlife and woods were gone, as well as much of the sloping land. I'd walked through that dense woods one summer, and the ground was unstable.

A Seattle P-I article dated Feb. 13, stated the Memorial Stadium is in the way of the Seattle Center redesign; so let's hear the rest of the story.

The problem is very clear, as the stadium should not have been part of the Century 21 planning to begin with. The Century 21 plan regarding the War Memorial was faulted right from the start. A better plan would be to retain the stadium and implement the other design features.

The Alki Homestead Restaurant owners, Tom Lin and Patrick Henley, have put the business back on the market two years after purchasing it.

"Restaurants aren't really our forte," said Henley. "We are better at other things. It's time for us to move on."

Lin and Henley said they wanted to assuage any fears the beloved 58-year-old restaurant might drastically change under new ownership. That was a worry among some in the community when the two took it over in 2006.

"We really (have been) stewards for this place and we want it to stay the same," said Henley.

Housing advocates are celebrating the approval of legislation passed by the Washington Legislature that strengthens protections for tenants displaced by apartment-to-condominium conversions.

The Senate passed the legislation on March 6 and was later approved by the House on March 8.

The new law will increase the ability of local jurisdictions to help low-income renters with the costs of moving.

Tyler Simpson convinced his parents and older brother to compost their food scraps into the yard waste at home. Now, he's working on restaurant owners, persuading them to switch from plastic to compostable take-out containers.

"In one million years, it'll still be there," Tyler says.

His mother, Jean Hamilton, prompts him. "The Styrofoam, you mean?"

"It doesn't seem right," he says.