June 2010

Wouldn’t it be simpler to live in a little rural village with all your extended family surrounding you? But even with all your family closer to you, it might be frustrating for everyone to know your business and not be able to have any secrets. On the plus side, everyone in the community would have been born there and raised with much the same values and taught the same tasks. Cultivating the soil, planting, reaping the harvest, baking the bread and making clothes for the family would be commonplace.

Now fast forward to the 21st century. Television and the internet bring the world to your screen. War, famine, earthquakes, hurricanes and tidal waves become known to you personally. News of murder, drug dealing, and robberies are reported to you hourly. What a complex situation for any one mind to contemplate.

When Gov. Gregoire stepped into the ring with Mayor McGinn June 3 to spar over tunnels costs, the smart money was already on the guv. Her many previous bouts gave her the advantage and she slugged away at the new mayor while hardly breaking a sweat.

When she showed up for the fight, she already had the backing of the big money in downtown Seattle. Mayor McGinn, in office only half a year, may have underestimated the punch the diminutive governor packed.

McGinn's best shot was his objection to who would pay for cost overruns on the tunnel to replace the Alaska Way Viaduct. The city, already strapped for cash, was at risk, McGinn said, because of the clause in legislation that bound Seattle taxpayers for overruns.

Gov. Gregoire was all swagger and bluster at the meeting knowing she had both the backing of the legislature, the Seattle City Council and facing a rookie politician. She told the mayor that if he didn't like the Frank Chopp-inspired clause to take it up with the legislature.

June has seemed like one long farewell party for Jay Sasnett Jr., retiring after 41 years in teaching, but all that he’s really leaving is his classroom at Salmon Bay Middle School. He’s not leaving his neighborhood or giving up any of his many, many outdoor interests.

Sasnett, always known to students and parents as just Jay, has claimed to be on the verge of retiring as a Seattle middle school teacher for years. Last fall, his claims seemed more valid, prompting a Facebook page devoted to the question, “Will Jay really retire?” (Savvy students asked to see the official paperwork).

Then Jay booked Sunset Hill Community Club for the first of a series of retirement parties, and everyone started paying attention.

Here’s the thing, the word retiring in conjunction with Jay Sasnett is an oxymoron, no matter what context. Sasnett is the least “retiring” person in Ballard, if not the state of Washington.

He wears spandex biking shorts at an age that horrifies his middle school students, and he speaks his mind on all subjects, especially on the joys of bicycling, ham radio, map-making, skiing, current events and Krispy Kreme donuts.

This is the ninth in a series of articles on longtime Fauntleroy resident Morey Skaret, who has been plying the waters of Puget Sound—in one kind of craft or another—for more than eight decades. Today’s installment continues Morey’s exploits as a young tugboat operator, a job he got upon returning to Seattle after six months of living ‘on the bum’—that is, as a voluntary vagabond to take the financial load off his West Seattle family during the Great Depression.

From an early age, Morey Skaret seemed destined for a life on the water. “A guy named Elmer Harmon and I went to grade school together and went to West Seattle high school together,” Morey recalls. “They had a manual training shop; Mr Welsh was the head of it. And he says, ‘I hear you guys live by the water, and you made rowboats.’ And we said, ‘Yeah, we made two rowboats.’ He says, ‘How about making a sailboat, in the shop here—an eighteen-footer?’

Groundspeak is breaking out the birthday candles to celebrate the 10th anniversary of geocaching, an outdoor treasure-hunting activity using GPS devices.

The event, Groundspeak’s Lost & Found, is a street carnival-style celebration free and open to the public. It takes place July 4 in Fremont, home to Groundspeak, and features family-friendly summer activities, from a dunk tank to a neighborhood scavenger hunt to geocaching courses of varying levels.

Beginners can visit the Introduction to Geocaching exhibit to learn how this high-tech activity can inspire outdoor play, and serious geocachers can dive right into the action with one of 10 expert geocaches, one for each of the 10 years of geocaching history.

Guests can bring their own GPS device or borrow one onsite for the full geocaching experience.

The Discover Fremont Scavenger Hunt is available for everyone to practice navigational skills through the Fremont neighborhood. Lost & Found team members will be stationed at iconic locations to hand out souvenir puzzle pieces to treasure hunters as they find each site. When participants complete their puzzle, they can exchange it for a limited edition Trackable.

Even his name is poetic. West Seattle's Tito Titus read selections of his poetry and storytelling at the recent monthly C&P Coffee POETRYBRIDGE. He was featured in the first half, then nine additional poets read during the second half's open mic. They included Kathleen Baginski, Kerry Cox, Judy Pigott, and Dobbie Norris. Mr. Norris will be the featured poet at the next event, July 28.

POETRYBRIDGE creators Walter Maenhout and Leopoldo Seguel continue the event every forth Wednesday of each month.

C&P Coffee
5612 California Avenue Southwest
(206) 933-3125

Hands Across The Sand saw 167 people line up on Alki Beach and join hands in a peaceful protest of offshore drilling. The event, international in scope took place at Alki and in 41 other nations, 71 cities outside the United States, and 24 events in the Seattle Area. It was sponsored by Moveon.org and the national Hands Across The Sand organization formed in Florida in 2009. See our previous coverage for more details.

Local organizers Rick Harlan and Stacia Jenkins gathered the participants near the statue of liberty on Alki, gave them all instructions and a loose schedule and then led them to the beach. Parents, and kids, all took part in holding hands, some shouting "Clean Energy" and "No More Drilling." Almost symbolically a large ship passed by in Puget Sound during the event.

The fourth meeting for the development of 20 acres of new open space at the West Seattle Reservoir Park at Westcrest was held on Saturday 26 at the Southwest Community Center on at 2801 Thistle Street S.W. The Seattle Parks Department and Site Workshop presented the final design schematic and talked about the features, amenities, artwork and potential uses for the new space.

We've attached two downloadable images of the park design. One low rez at 150 ppi, the other high rez at 300 ppi which is a 7 megabyte image. When you open them they will appear to be quite large. You will need to scroll around to see the features and read the text.
There is also a high resolution aerial photo of the site which is also a large file.
Community ideas and direction were incorporated into the schematic design.

The West Seattle Reservoir is located at 9000 8th Ave SW. This park project is being funded to the tune of $20 million by the Parks and Green Spaces Levy approved by Seattle voters in November 2008. The West Seattle Reservoir will contain 30 million gallons of drinking water.

27,000 participants signed up to run 13.5 miles from Interurban Avenue in Tukwilla to Downtown Seattle. The proceeds from the even go to support the American Cancer Society. The race started at 7 in the morning as wave after wave of contestants took off for Seattle. 12 stages were set up with live rock bands, one stage for approximately every mile.

More than 30 quilts were on display June 26 at Bridgepark Retirement Residence at 3204 Southwest Morgan Street. The quilts were all made by the Piecemakers (with a couple of exceptions) who have been meeting and quilting in West Seattle for more than 20 years.

One of the quilters, Linda Tepe said, "Many of them are hand quilted. There's applique, there's piece, there are tradtional and contemporary patterns and one I made from a kit from the 1950's." The group have been meeting at Bridgepark for the last year.

They are raffling away a quilt with the benefits going to Fauntleroy YMCA.