January 2011

Photographer Kurt Howard captured these images of Kennedy's 41-36 victory over Highline on January 20.

SLIDESHOW: CLICK ON THE PHOTO TO PLAY SLIDESHOW.

Jackie Lansing dutifully managed the business interests of her mentor, real estate agent Al Benton, for 57 years at her small metal desk in the front of the brick-faced office on 16th Avenue S.W. in White Center. There is no computer. Instead, there is an electric typewriter about 40 years old. On the desk is a ledger book of a type long since abandoned in most offices, but here filled up with the fine penmanship of this lovely white haired lady.

Around her, hundreds of businesses have come and gone, thousands of lives have played out. The community has been transformed into a true international melting pot since the 1960's when it was still a predominantly blue collar town that is now home to peoples who brought with them the cultures of the world and dozens of languages.

Jackie first worked here in 1954, seven years after Mr. Benton returned from military service to begin a realty career that would span seven decades. Mr. Benton died in August at age 99.

Crews were busy on 35th Ave. s.w. on Jan. 26 repairing the many potholes that have appeared in streets and arterials, largely due to the actions of the weather that last couple of months.

The city of Seattle has just announced a pothole map that shows you the status of pothole repairs. You can find it here.
You can report a pothole here.

The crews can do between 5 to 8 tons of asphalt fill/pothole repair per day, according to the SDOT crew the West Seattle Herald spoke to on the job.

They were working from Genessee along 35th up and down to s.w. Barton street, adding asphalt from a truck and then using a compacting tool to flatten it.

Further information from the Seattle Police Department Blotter was released this evening:

On January 26th at approximately 12:36 p.m. officers responded to 911 calls of an armed robbery on the street in the 3000 block of California Avenue SW. Preliminary investigation indicates that two 17-year-old male suspects approached the 17-year-old male victim at the bus stop. Suspect #1 displayed a black handgun to the victim and the suspects demanded the victim’s wallet and cell phone. The suspects also went through the victim’s pockets and stole a pack of cigarettes from him.

Officers quickly arrived on scene and located both suspects at 44th Avenue SW and SW Lander Street. Suspect #1 was observed tossing an item onto the street, which turned out to be the gun (later determined to be a pellet gun). Both suspects were taken into custody without incident and were positively identified by the victim.

Both suspects were subsequently booked into the Youth Service Center for Investigation of Robbery.

This remains an active and on-going investigation.

Original Herald coverage:

The Ballard News-Tribune and Robinson Newspapers have updated the online commenting system for BallardNewsTribune.com to a system called DISQUS.

As of August 10, 2010, the service had over 13 million registered users and 500 thousand communities.

This same commenting system is now part of our sister sites WestSeattleHerald.com and HighlineTimes.com.

At the bottom of almost every story on the site you will find a place to login and add your comments.

Here's a bit more about what Disqus is and how it works.

Realtime comment system

Comments become more like live discussions with realtime posting and updating. By offering a faster, more intuitive experience, Disqus is everyone's favorite way to comment.

Social integration

It is fully integrated with Facebook, Twitter, and more. You can login, comment, and share using social services that you already use and love. Your Facebook or Twitter ID works on the Herald site too. But you don't have to be logged in to comment. Just supply a valid email address.

The Community Box

Almost a year in the process "Company held their soft opening Wednesday, Jan. 26. The Grand Opening was Thursday, Jan. 27 and continues through the 30th.

Owned by Jesse Lovell the restaurant-bar is located at 9608 16th SW in White Center.

According to one employee, the grand opening was "b*lls to the walls busy."

The bar manager is Aaron Garland. "Mac at (Mac's) Triangle Pub has been helping us out," Garland said. "He has been supportive. We don't want to compete with anybody. We just want to share business. I go there and have lunch, may have a couple of beers and watch the football game.

"I grew up with Jesse on Capitol Hill," Garland added. "We both live near here. Jesse and his step-dad built everything," he said of the restaurant's interior.

"I'm really excited about this bar," said bartender Cleo Petra. "I own a home in this neighborhood and lived here for over 10 years. I have seen it starting to change. I'm friends with all the guys at Full Tilt ice cream."

"Now if only Zippy's (Giant Burgers) moved to this block we'd be all set," said a customer.

Two Egyptian tortoises walked their way into the public spotlight this week at Woodland Park Zoo. Hatched at the end of December, the quarter-sized tortoises can now be seen in the Day Exhibit. The species is now extinct in Egypt and faces global extinction unless more action is taken to protect the species.

This tiny desert-living tortoise is facing intense pressures in the wild. Habitat destruction and human encroachment have devastated the Egyptian tortoise’s native habitat, and the illegal international pet trade has nearly depleted wild populations. Only small populations of the species remain in Libya.

More than 40 Egyptian tortoises have hatched at the zoo since the first hatching in 2004. The breeding program helps maintain genetic diversity and is part of the zoo’s commitment to the conservation of this species. The zoo has supported the Egyptian Tortoise Conservation Program since 2001.

State Rep. Mary Lou Dickerson introduced legislation yesterday that would allow adults 21 and over to legally use cannabis and could generate $400 million of new revenue for the state by regulating the production, distribution and sale of marijuana in Washington.

Currently, only certain medical patients are allowed to posses medical marijuana. The medical marijuana law, Chapter 69.51A RCW, allows people with proper authorization from a doctor to grow up to 15 plants at their home and posses 24 ounces of dry marijuana at a time. It is also legal to dedicate a certain person to grow and provide for the marijuana for them or obtain it at a licensed dispensary.

Ballard has two medical marijuana dispensaries, the Ballard Herbal Collective and the Seattle Cannabis Co-op.

Dickerson's House Bill 1550 would legalize the use of cannabis for adults age 21 and over and create a framework to sell cannabis through state liquor stores, with commercial growers applying for a license through the Liquor Control Board.

In 2010, Dickerson submitted a similar bill, HB 2401, which went nowhere. Dickerson said her proposal improves on the previous bill.

Burien Animal Care & Control has opened its new adoption center at 13622 1st Ave S. in Burien. The new location provides space for housing cats and kittens in individual and communal spaces, as well as a small medical and treatment area for routine care and surgical sterilization of all pets adopted. A small retail space will also allow for the sale of gently used and new pet products with all proceeds benefiting the animals being housed at the center.
Burien Animal Care & Control will continue to subcontract with local boarding facilities to shelter stray and adoptable dogs. All pets available for adoption can be viewed online at PetFinder.com. Search for "Burien Animal Care & Control".

The adoption center is open Monday, Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., and Saturdays, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. The center is closed Tuesdays and Sundays. Residents can apply for city licenses for their pets at the new location.

Nearly 25 blockwatch captains and West Seattleites gathered at the Southwest Precinct on Jan. 25 to celebrate the 30 year career of Southwest Precinct Crime Prevention Coordinator Benjamin Kinlow who is set to retire on March 15 (Herald story on Kinlow can be found here) and discuss the latest in blockwatch news.

Deborah Greer and Karen Berge, co-organizers of Blockwatch Captains’ Network, delved into the Seattle Times archives to document the pioneering history of block watches in Seattle – a history Kinlow has been involved with since the early 1970s.

Kinlow explained that he started out his career as a community organizer in 1972, and then started working in crime prevention for the Seattle Police Department in 1974.

In 1974, Kinlow said he and the other crime prevention coordinators started a pilot program of setting up block watches in the safer neighborhoods of Seattle, including a few in West Seattle along with Capitol Hill and Ballard.

“We got our program down and started tackling the high crime neighborhoods for the next ten years,” Kinlow said.