July 2010

The West Seattle Herald has received a press release regarding the incident we reported first here. on July 3. We managed to get multiple photos of the incident and alerted government and other media about it.

Here is the company statement:
At approximately 7:42 p.m. Saturday, July 3, finished cement was discharged as a result of the affected silo being overfilled. The management team has worked throughout the weekend to develop a plan to prevent future events. The company notified the Puget Sound Clean Air Agency July 4 and has contacted affected neighbors to offer clean up assistance.

Seattle Parks and Recreation Acting Superintendent Christopher Williams named two future Ballard parks July 6.

This park, located at Holman Road Northwest and 13th Avenue Northwest, will be called Crown Hill Park.

The park will include ballfield renovations, walkways, entries, open space, areas for play, seating, and plantings. It is located on property recently purchased from the Seattle Public Schools.

Parks originally worked on developing the property into a park through the 2000 Pro Parks Levy, but the project was put on hold in 2006 after Seattle Public Schools declared the Crown Hill School and adjacent land a surplus and put it up for sale.

The City of Seattle purchased the property in March 2009 for $5.4 million. The project is now getting underway again.

This 1.71-acre acquisition fulfills one of Crown Hill’s longstanding community goals in its neighborhood plan. The 2008 Parks and Green Spaces Levy development funding of $1.2 million will contribute to completing the design and construction of the park.

The Board of Directors of the Han Woo-Ri Festival is thrilled to announce “The Han Woo Ri Classic” golf tournament at the Twin Lakes Golf and Country Club in Federal Way on the afternoon of Thursday, September 16, 2010 to benefit next year’s Han Woo-Ri Festival.

The tournament will not only be a chance to play golf with friends, but will also culminate in a fully catered dinner, with both silent and live auctions to spice up the evening.

Tickets for the tournament will be $100, which includes golf carts, dinner and service charges, a savings of $25 if purchased before September 10, 2010. After that date, tickets will be $125.

Auction and Dinner-only tickets will also be available for $35 per person.

Funds raised from the tournament will help finance the 2011 Han Woo-Ri Festival, the Northwest’s largest Korean-American festival, featuring performance, exhibits, activities, food and more.

The 10th annual Ballard High School Golf Classic fundraiser is less than a month away, and the event's organizers need community support now more than ever.

Durnig the last nine years, the money raised by annual golf tournament and fundraising event has translated into more $600,000 for Ballard High School's athletic teams and music programs.

That money has provided a new sound system and banners for the gym, a scoreboard for the new field, uniforms and equipment for teams, a full-time certified athletic trainer and many other items – all things that have benefitted not just student athletes and musicians, but the entire school community, according to a Golf Classic press release.

The goal is to attract more than 280 golfers to the Golf Club at Newcastle Aug 3. This is 18-hole, double shotgun-start golf, with a dinner and live auction sponsored by Victor Salvino (Class of 51) the night before.

Participants in the tournament have a chance to win $100,000 ($50,000 to the winner and $50,000 to Ballard High School) in the putting contest or one of four new cars in the hole-in-one competition.

Thousands of zombies swarmed the streets of Fremont July 3 looking for victims, brains and a Guinness World Record.

The second-annual Red, White & Dead zombie walk was an attempt to reclaim the zombie walk record from England, who stole it after last summer's event. Seattle had 3,894 zombies last July, but England edged the city out with 4,026.

Zombie families, zombie dogs, zombie clowns and much more shuffled their way through the Center of the Universe, followed by the occasional zombie hunter.

Zombie-walker Becca Boehm said she and her family participated in the event to show their patriotism.

"It started off as the death of the financial system," said Chris Hammersley, who was dressed as zombie Uncle Sam. "And, you know, Uncle Sam – Fourth of July – zombies. It works."

Red, White & Dead was officially produced by Fremont Outdoor Movies. Stay tuned to see if the Fremont zombie apocalypse was overwhelming enough to reclaim the crown.

UPDATE: Fremont Outdoor Movies counted 4,920 zombies total at Red, White and Dead. So far, 4,233 have been verified, enough to take back the Guinness World Record from England.

The Ballard Rotary Club presented its second annual Dave Maloney Teacher of the Year Award to Ballard High School’s Tami Reese.

As a P.E. teacher, Reese has led the district in the implementation of the new health and P.E. curriculum and classroom-based assessments, according to the Ballard Rotary. She is a department chair, an active member of the Instructional Council, a member of the Equity and Learning Team and the varsity volleyball coach.

Reese is well-respected by students, colleagues and administration as a dedicated educator who is also a Ballard High School alumnus, according to the Ballard Rotary.

“[Reese is] an incredible educator," Ballard High School Principal Phil Brockman said in a Ballard Rotary press release. "She has the commitment, drive and energy that makes all of us better educators. Reese leads by example, relates very well to her students and is highly respected by the entire Ballard High School community.”

A group of Ballard businesses and maritime and trade associations calling themselves the Ballard Businesses Appellants has taken another step to halt the completion of the Missing Link, the uncompleted section of the Burke-Gilman Trail that stretches from 11th Avenue Northwest to the Ballard Locks.

On July 3, the Ballard Business Appellants filed an appeal in the Division 1 Court of Appeals challenging the city's State Environmental Policy Act (SEPA) review of the Missing Link, the completion of which, they claim, will cause unsafe conditions for bicycle riders and have dire consequences for the businesses along Shilshole Avenue Northwest.

The Ballard Business Appellants filed their first appeal of the Missing Link in December 2008 over the Seattle Department of Transportation's determination of nonsignificance on the environmental impacts of constructing the trail. The city's Hearing Examiner ruled in favor of the Department of Transportation in June 2009.

Sam is a four year old pure bred Tibetan Terrier and originally came from Minnesota from a breeder there.
He lives with Rian Kjolso and Elisabeth Root who moved to West Seattle only three weeks ago from Capitol Hill.

"He's a great dog to cuddle with, he loves to cuddle and sleep with you," said Kjolso. But he does like to sniff out and open the garbage. "We have to keep it up high so he doesn't get into it."

Sam is not shy about his food choices. He loves donuts. "He ate a box of donuts a couple weeks ago," Kjolso said and seems to prefer those from Top Pot but according to Kjolso his first preference is for rawhide bones. "Sam does not eat all the junk food that Rian said," Root corrected, " His most favorite food is actually carrots. Which I think is quite charming."

Sam enjoys and organizes his toys. "He's got a special Cheetah stuffed animal, he's got a special duck, and he's got a flea, a thing shaped like a bug." He keeps them all in a basket and he goes and digs each one out. "If you say go get your cheetah he knows the difference and can go to get it."

by Katie Joy

Life with the Grotelueschen family never stops moving. Keeping up with two young children, 5-year-old Payton and 2-year-old Noah, is a full time job, not to mention Topher, the family’s energetic black lab.

Add getting to pre-school on time, keeping up with careers and the occasional needed date night with just the parents and accessible child care becomes a pressing issue for many families.

In 2009, the median rate for child care centers in King County totaled $1,235 a month, according to the Washington State Child Care Resource and Referral Network.

In the northwest, au pairs are catching on as an alternate form of child care, often more affordable and convenient than the high rates and hassle of day care centers or even local nannies.

The Grotelueschen family’s first au pair, Anne-Maria Liisanantti, arrived in Seattle on July 10, 2009. After spending the year living with the family, assisting with child care responsibilities and absorbing life in Seattle, Liisanantti will return to Finland on July 7.

Around 3 a.m. Monday, officers found a car parked in the middle of the 7500 block of 26th SW. Alongside it was a man standing over a woman lying face down in the street. The man was ordered to the ground and placed into handcuffs. But he was released when their stories matched up: The woman (highly intoxicated) became sick as they drove home. She asked the man to pull over and upon opening the door she fell out onto the street and split her eyebrow open on the pavement.
In the 6000 block of 37th, a woman placed a bag on the porch as she was getting ready to leave for the airport. Twenty minutes later, it was gone. And in the 3800 block of 44th SW, a woman confronted a man she saw taking a package from her porch. He returned the item and drove off with a male companion in a cream-colored four-door sedan.

Three men were arrested and booked for investigation of burglary after they were found occupying a home for sale in the Highland Park neighborhood.

Just after midnight Wednesday, three black males in a gray Toyota Corolla confronted a man walking down Delridge, demanded his cell phone, and then drove away “erratically.”