November 2009

AUBURN - Evergreen fought hard before bowing out of the 2009 West Central III/Southwest Washington District IV bi-district volleyball tournament on Saturday, November 7, on the hardwood courts of Auburn Mountainview High School.

Despite some super efforts, the Wolverines lost two consecutive matches to end one of their best seasons in recent years.

Late in the afternoon, Evergreen opened with a 3-1 loss to Timberline. Game scores were 25-22, 22-25, 16-25 and 15-25. Game featured the Wolverines’ ability to hit and block effectively from the front row on the way to leads of 14-11 and 15-12 before the Blazers fired back with their big hitters for a 17-15 margin.

Trailing 21-18, Evergreen battled back from adversity using dynamic digs from the back row and a service ace from junior libero Linda Ba en route to five consecutive points and a 23-21 edge. Timberline gained side out, but Lorraine Toilolo’s attempted kill forced a Blazer return to go out. Ratelina Sianutu put away the winning point for the Wolverines.

Todd Beamer's rousing run through the gauntlet of Class 4A girls soccer teams finally reached its end on Saturday, November 14, at Federal Way Memorial Stadium.

After surviving a shoot out that went deep against Stadium at district and emerging with a shoot out, first-round 1-0 win at top-ranked Jackson, the No. 12 Titans fell 1-0 in the quarterfinal round against the crisply controlled passing attack of defending Class 4A champion and seventh-ranked Skyline.

With the Spartans attacking quickly, senior Anna Morgan sent an excellent cross pass into the penalty box to midfielder Coral Anderson, who knocked a 15-yard header inside the far post in the third minute of play for a 1-0 lead.

"They snuck one by us," Beamer head coach Joel Lindbergh said. "We put a lot of pressure on them. It just wasn't our day. Skyline's possessions involved a lot of booting the ball from the back. We could have tried to get more possessions in the midfield."

Skyline began the game by pouring passes into the Titan end of the field, but the Titan defenders held off any further scoring.

AUBURN - True tenacity was on display in a Friday, November 6, loser-out match of the 2009 West Central District III/Southwest IV bi-district volleyball tournament.

Two endangered species squared off at the Mountainview High School auxiliary gym until the John F. Kennedy Catholic Lancers had eliminated the Highline Pirates, 23-25, 25-16, 25-21 and 25-23.

“We just played hard and pumped each other up,” an exhilarated Lauren Zilke declared. “We had to pick up our energy after each point.”

All-out warfare typified the struggle of teams on the edge of elimination from the tournament.

Closely-contested play chronicled the first game with 13 ties occurring before Highline broke through for two consecutive points and a 21-19 lead.

From that point, the teams exchanged point for point in a tense finish. Lynette Owusu eventually pounded home the winning point for the Pirates, ending a thrilling skirmish. Owusu was joined by Silia Ngauamo against Lancer players Lauren Zilke and Jenny Neudorfer as prominent figures on the front row while the Pirates used strong defense.

A Link light rail train derailed on Monday Nov. 16th near the maintenance yard in Seattle, distrupting trains heading to the Mount Baker, Beacon Hill and SODO stations.
The train came off the tracks on the elevated train platform approximately 3:30 p.m. Only the driver was on board and no one was hurt.
Trains are now running normally. According to Sound Transit media officer Geoff Patrick, "It was removed from the track last night and service was back to normal at 5 a.m. today."

A Link light rail train derailed on Monday Nov. 16th near the maintenance yard in Seattle, distrupting trains heading to the Mount Baker, Beacon Hill and SODO stations.
The train came off the tracks on the elevated train platform approximately 3:30 p.m. Only the driver was on board and no one was hurt.
Trains are now running normally. According to Sound Transit media officer Geoff Patrick, "It was removed from the track last night and service was back to normal at 5 a.m. today."

For over a month now a young blacktailed deer has been living very near the Des Moines Yacht Club. The deer is a male, just growing some antlers and while it is timid, it is apparently being given food and water by people concerned for the animal's health.

We received this letter from Des Moines resident Linda Morris and her daughter:

"My thought is that maybe you may know of resources that I do not know of that can expedite getting him out of an area he does not belong. Enclosed in this email is the contact emails for wildlife resources. I have only heard from one of these resources over a week ago. However the little deer is still housed at the Des Moines Yacht Club where the boats are parked at the address of 22737 Marine View Drive South in Des Moines. I am concerned the deer could get poisoned by fuel or the like antifreeze or possibly killed by a gun by someone stupid.

My daughter and I took pictures... The deer is there today (Friday, November 13) -we saw it grazing on the weeds or small grassy tuffs.

By Time Burgess, Seattle City Council

Ed. Note: This piece originally appeared in the Nov. 16 edition of "City View," Tim Burgess' newsletter.

The Seattle City Council has completed the heavy lifting on next year's city budget, including millions of dollars in cuts, additions and restorations from the mayor’s proposal. Our final vote is at 2 p.m. on Nov. 23.

The four main funding sources for the city government are property tax collected by King County, retail sales tax collected by Washington state, the city Business and Occupation Tax, and the Real Estate Excise Tax collected by the county.

The council will approve $907 million in general fund expenditures. As you can see in the downloadable graph to the right, public safety takes by far the largest chunk of our tax dollars.

Here are some of the most significant decisions of the council and my personal assessment of how we did.

Back in August, the council sent the mayor a letter reiterating our top priorities: public safety, human services and housing.

The mayor’s proposed budget and our council decisions strongly reflect these priorities.

Where's the oldest house in our neighborhood?

The Greenwood-Phinney Historical Society would like the answer to that question and invites neighborhood residents to help find it.

There are houses built before 1906 in the neighborhood. There may even be a few houses that were built before 1900.

Any residents who would like to summit a house for the title of oldest in Greenwood and Phinney should take a photograph of it and photocopy documents identifying the construction date of the house.

The winning entry will be determined by oldest construction or building permit date.

The winner will receive a copy of "Seattle's Greenwood-Phinney Neighborhood" signed by author Ted Pedersen and breakfast for two at Mae's Phinney Ridge Café.

Houses must be within the Phinney-Greenwood neighborhood, between 50th to 105th streets and Aurora to Eighth Avenue Northwest. But, contest entrants need not live within the neighborhood as the house does not need to belong to the person who enters it.

More than one entry per person is acceptable. Entries should include the name and contact information of the entrant.

About 4,000 homes and businesses lost power in Burien and unincorporated King County about 12:40 p.m. today.

A repair crew was immediately dispatched to identify the problem and make repairs. An estimate for when power might be restored was not immediately available.

The general boundaries of the outage were SW 95th Street on the north, SW 131st Street on the south, Glendale Way S on the east, and Seola Beach Drive SW on the west.

The two roommates apparently have different body temperatures...and temperaments. One was too hot, so he turned down the thermostat. The other got angry and repeatedly punched and kicked the victim, who ended up with bruises on the back of his head, cheek, back, and buttocks. The suspect is 89. The victim is 94.

A man struggled with his wife and earned a trip to King County Jail for investigation of domestic violence assault. It seems he had suspected his wife of infidelity and managed to get hold of her cell phone to check her text messages. When the messages confirmed his suspicions, he began dialing he wife's relatives to inform them of her activities.

At California and Oregon, a man allegedly stepped into the street (outside of a crosswalk) and snapped off the antenna of a car that passed by and failed to stop for him.

Running a random license plate check in North Admiral, an officer discovered that a passing driver was not only driving with a suspended license but also had $4,500 worth of warrants for contempt of court and for a previous instance of driving without a license. He was given a ride to King County Jail.