April 2010

The one year old Delridge Produce Co-Op, formed to enable Delridge neighborhood residents to buy quality produce held an important meeting last week in which they chose to answer a fundamental question.

"How do you imagine DPC meeting our neighborhood's produce needs?"



The group came up with some clear and useful answers. A sort of roadmap of goals and desires.

1. Close to home, place to buy healthy produce

2. Accessible by means other than car

3. Resource for food security infrastructure

4. Pesticide-free and grown in clean fertilizer

5. Organic

6. Open to other neighborhoods' members

7. It should be a carefully-grown organization

8. Encourage local farmers

9. Fertilizer-safety education

10. Local fruit gleaning

11. Collaboration with local organizations / cooperation

12. Food preparation education / recipes

13. Affordability through bulk purchasing

14. Low overhead

15. DPC creating neighborhood gardening I.E. square foot gardening

16. EBT - accept food stamps

17. Nutrition education, parent-friendly meal planning

18. Seed-to-consumer planning


John Gallagher is a world class photographer whose work takes him many places and he was in Eastern Washington 2 1/2 years ago on a shoot when he spotted a dog. "I was out photographing on a trip and drove in on this deserted road near the Columbia River that not many people go back in on and she'd been dumped back in there. It was near Tri-Cities, the middle of August, 100 degrees and she had no food and no water," Gallagher said. His wife Joan Vermeulen continued, "John said he came to a fork in the road and took one and she came scrambling out of the bush."

He called her and she came running up. So he loaded her in the car and took her to a friend's home while he took care of the rest of his work. "He named her Lucy because of the way she moved, 'She just moves all loosey-goosey'," Gallagher said. Vermeulen said, "We had been talking about eventually getting a dog so John left me a message at my job, 'We've been talking about it and I know it's absolutely impractical but I found this dog and she has such a nice disposition so I'm just going find a place for her here' and I said, 'You know....just bring her home and we'll try it."

Holy Rosary School in West Seattle honored Safeway for their generous contributions with special presentations to store managers recently. Children from Holy Rosary presented Jefferson Square store manager Dave Dupuy with a certificate, thanking him for the generous contributions contributed with his help to the children at Holy Rosary. The same was presented to Amy Hill, manager at the Admiral Safeway.

At Holy Rosary School, Safeway eScrip directly supports the greatest needs. eScrip contributes to our operating budget which helps keep tuition affordable for all families, compensates our faculty and staff at a just and equitable salary, and continuously improves the learning opportunities for our students.

Bruce McPherson, Mike Cairns, and Bob Klein are the partners in the new West Seattle Produce Company located on the former Huling Brothers used car lot on the west side of the street at 4755 Fauntleroy Way S.W. Klein is the owner of The Corner Market in Pike Place Market, a Seattle institution. Klein approached Cairns, former owner of "The Best of Seattle Coupon Book" and got him involved.
The company will open May 1st with a soft opening on April 30th.

"We initially gave up on the Huling property because we were dealing with another agent who couldn't get a deal done. Then John Wunder of Associates West called me and said they would make one of the lots available to us, so we negotiated a contract," said Cairns.

The lot is 30,000 square feet and the company has big plans for it.

The Ballard High School softball team used timely hitting and stellar pitching and defense to grind out a 3-1 win against Newport April 19.

Newport scored first with a run in the top of the first inning. But, Ballard struck back in the bottom of the first when junior Bernie Cardon's single brought sophomore Amry Kimmerly home.

For the next three innings, it was a defensive battle with neither team getting on the board.

"It's one of those situations where you hope the bats wake up in time," coach Kyle Gray said.

The Beavers finally mounted their offensive attack in the bottom of the fifth inning.

Freshman Brittney Blokker was walked and senior Sophie-Overlock Pauley singled.

A missed throw by Newport advanced both runners, and junior Karissa Marshall brought them both home with a two-out single up the middle, giving Ballard a 3-1 lead.

Freshman pitcher Andrea Jewett preserved the win, getting out of a jam in the sixth inning with runners on first and third and retiring the first three batters in the seventh.

Jewett finished with five strikeouts and four hits in seven innings.

Drivers may encounter congestion on the West Seattle Bridge on Thursday, April 22, while a film crew works from noon to 3 p.m. and again from 11 p.m. to 1 a.m.

The filming on the WS Bridge is for a TV mini-series filming in town.

There will be “rolling slowdowns” on the bridge from First Avenue South to Southwest Avalon Way in both the eastbound and westbound directions.

Filming is also scheduled Thursday for the Alaskan Way Viaduct from East Marginal Way South to the Western Avenue off-ramp, from 8 p.m. to 10 p.m. The filming will affect only northbound traffic on the viaduct.

ArtsWest Playhouse and Gallery announces a new gallery exhibition (dis)connect: a response to popular culture on display from June 1 through June 26. A collaborated effort from the members of ArtsWest Artist Associates (AWAA), (dis)connect is an artistic response to the Seattle Art Museum’s concurrent exhibitions, “Andy Warhol Media Works: love fear pleasure lust pain glamour death” and “Kurt”. The aforementioned SAM exhibits explore pop culture and the societal fascination with all things ephemeral, from beauty and youth to celebrity status through main stream artists.

Two areas formerly zoned for industrial uses in downtown Ballard will be opened to new commercial development, but a stretch along the north side of Market Street will remained closed to residential development, after an April 19 Seattle City Council vote.

The council voted 8-0 to approve the planned rezone of Subarea 2, the south side of Market Street between 26th Avenue Northwest and 30th Avenue Northwest, from General Industrial to Industrial Commercial and Subarea 3, both sides of Leary Avenue between 15th Avenue Northwest and 20th Avenue Northwest, from General Industrial and Industrial Buffer to Industrial Commercial.

An Industrial Commercial zone allows for a mix of industrial uses and office and retail space.

As part of the vote, all projects built in Subarea 2 and Subarea 3 will be subject to the city's design review process.

Instead of converting it to Industrial Commercial or Neighborhood Commercial, the council decided to leave Subarea 1, the north side of Market Street from 25th Avenue Northwest to 30th Avenue Northwest, as an Industrial Buffer zone.

The 2010 Ballard Jazz Festival starts April 21 and features 18 artists over five days at venues ranging from the Sunset Tavern to the Nordic Heritage Museum.

Started in 2003 to highlight the thriving neighborhood of old town Ballard and Seattle's world-class jazz musicians, the Ballard Jazz Festival has grown into an internationally recognized festival.

The 2010 edition has five events: Wednesday's Brotherhood of the Drum, Thursday's Guitar Summit, Friday's Ballard Jazz Walk, Saturday's Mainstage Concert and Sunday's Swedish Pancake Jazz Brunch.

The 2010 Ballard Jazz Festival features Claudio Roditi, Jobvino Santos Neto, Hadley Caliman, John Moulder and more.

For much more information on the 2010 Ballard Jazz Festival, including tickets and schedules, visit www.ballardjazzfestival.com.

The state's 60-day legislative session ended April 13 after an extra 30-day session to work on the budget. Six days later, the state delegation from the 36th District – Rep. Reuven Carlyle, Rep. Mary Lou Dickerson and Sen. Jeanne Kohl-Welles – held a town hall to discuss the budget and how its legislation fared.

The mood from the delegation surrounding the budget was grim, and none of the three seemed pleased with the budget cuts and revenue increases that were settled on. Though, Dickerson tried to lighten the mood, doing her best Bruce Springsteen impression before moving on the the issues at hand.

Kohl-Welles said she is not happy with the size of the reductions in essential services, art and higher eduction. In order to preserve as much funding in those areas as possible, the legislature had to raise revenue, she said.

Cuts to the budget still overshadow new revenue sources. For every $1 raised in new revenue, $4.40 was cut from the budget, Dickerson said.

Dickerson said nobody likes voting for tax increases, and there weren't a lot of good taxes they voted for this session.