July 2008

SummerFest soundchecks

By Marc Calhoun

I always like wandering the West Seattle street fair; watching people as I try to resist the street vendors offering their wares. It is also interesting to see all the booths that offer drawings for free vacations, free windows, free body fat tests, and so on. But I always walk fast by them, for to get any of this free stuff you usually have to sign a contract full of fine print and, if you're not careful, you'll end up owning timeshare property in Pahrump, Nevada.

I then passed the Boeing Employees Credit Union booth.

With all this talk of recession and the reality of gas prices at a level even an oil sheik might resist, we wondered how West Seattle's annual big party would turn out. By all estimates and reports, it was a roaring success.

The planning and the execution were first rate if you go by the comments people made at the West Seattle Herald booth, where people puzzled over a history quiz and bought 14 months of subscription for 12 months cost.

Warning: Lithium ion batteries used in such devices as laptop computers are extremely dangerous. They can explode and produce a jet of flame without warning. I know from personal experience. These batteries should be replaced with safer alternative batteries as nickel metal hydride batteries. Lithium ion batteries are fire bombs waiting to go off.

Jack Zektzer

West Seattle.

After a long wait (about 15 years, isn't it?), construction has begun on the new Statue of Liberty plaza. Hoo-ray!

Many thanks to Paul and Libby Carr along with their many dedicated volunteers for getting this project implemented.

As the King County Council and King County Metro Transit are once again proposing fare increases in 2008, the need to adjust the boundary lines between peak hours zones is still warranted.

For some 20-plus years Metro has unfairly charged residents of the south end bus areas for two zone peak hour rates while residents of the north end, riding a farther distance, are only charged with a one zone peak hour fare.

With the upcoming second bus fare increase legislation in 2008, said legislation should address the unbalance in peak hours zoning areas and correct the traveled d

people there

I would like to respond to the editorial about Metro Transit ("Metro Transit needs overhaul") published the week of July 7, 2008.

There are almost 400,000 people - Metro's daily ridership - who would disagree with the statement in the editorial that most buses do not "go the way people need to go." In recent years, Metro Transit has not had problems attracting new riders. Last year we carried a record 110 million riders, and so far this year Metro ridership is already up 6 percent over last year for January through May.

In response to Jerry Dodson's misconception of Ercolini Park (July 9).

Having grown up in West Seattle and living just 2 blocks from what is now Ercolini park, I can say

Mr. Dodson's review of the park is far from fair or realistic.

As children, we would try and play in the large field that abutted Southwest Alaska Street, but were often chased off. When you're a kid, you would just chalk it up to a cranky old man. In retrospect, I'm sure Mr.

It's Sunday morning at 9 a.m. and Mark Driscoll is positioned center stage at Mars Hill Church in Ballard. Dressed in torn jeans and an untucked black shirt, the 36-year-old stands comfortably holding the Bible in one hand while actively illustrating his words with the other.

The parishioners at Mars Hill are no more traditional than their pastor.

At 8 a.m. on July 7, the number 56 bus to downtown Seattle leaves the corner of 61st Avenue Southwest and Alki Avenue, the first stop of its route, with 14 passengers on board. By the third stop, that number has doubled. By the time the bus has reached the intersection of California Avenue and Admiral Way, there are 50 passengers on board.

Beside a pile of torn asphalt, water bubbles up muddy, pooling in fresh dirt.

The guy running the excavator, the green backhoe, "hooked" a water line while demolishing the old pedestal for the Alki Statue of Liberty last Tuesday.