March 2011

"Photos In & Around Alki"

West Seattle reporter/photographer Steve Shay has been invited to show his photographs by Alki Arts Gallery owners Diane Venti and husband Tom Wyrick. The event is this Friday night, March 25, 7pm-10pm.

Alki Arts Gallery is at next to Cactus Restaurant, at 2820 Alki Ave SW. (206) 432-9936
  
*Wine and cheese and dessert reception.
*Music by Brooke Trisler. He's awesome!

A photojournalist for 30 years, Steve Shay continues his family's legacy. He was raised in the darkroom assisting his father, Art Shay, a well-known Time and Life Magazine photographer with work in the collections of the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, DC, Chicago’s Museum of Contemporary Art, the Art Institute of Chicago.

Steve Shay's work has appeared in the Chicago Sun-Times, Chicago Tribune, and the New York Times. An Alki resident, Steve is best known for his West Seattle Herald reporting where he has been anchored for three and a half years.

Please stop by. Some of the work will continue to hang until the end of March.

The Salmon Bay Playground Renovation group is hosting an open house tonight to present the final concept, and answer questions.

The Open House will run from 6 p.m. until 8:30 p.m. in the Salmon Bay School's cafeteria where they'll serve pizza, courtesy of Snoose Junction.

Project manager Robin Lofstrom encourages community members and their children to attend to ensure that the design expresses the needs and dreams of the entire community, not just parents and staff at Salmon Bay.

Lacrosse:

The Ballard High School boys lacrosse team was outmatched by Garfield last night, losing 6 to 17 at Lower Woodland. In the beginning of the first quarter Ballard held a 2 to 1 lead over the metro division preseason-poll favorite Garfield. The first quarter seemed promising for the Beavers, gaining a 2 to 1 lead but Garfield, the metro division preseason-poll favorite, dialed in their offense and scored nine unanswered points to get ahead with an eight point lead at half time.

Ballard’s Scott Brownlee scored two goals and Ray McCormick, Brian Gemme, Thomas Christensen, and Jacob Marks each scored one goal. Ballard goalie Nick Onstad-Hawes had eleven saves.

Highlights: Justin Guity, G, 4 goals, Cedric Rhodes, G, 3 goals, 4 assists, 4 ground balls, Andy Boelter, G, 2 goals, 7 ground balls, Jackson Lannin, G, 2 goals, 1 assist, 7 ground balls, Danny Strick, G, 14 saves, Jacob Marks, B, 2 goals, 1 assist, Scott Brownlee, B, 2 goals, John Degarmo, B, 4 ground balls, Nick Onstad-Hawes, B, 11 saves

The boys lacrosse team plays again this evening against Highline at 8 p.m. at Moshier Park.

Softball:

Wikipedia founder Jimbo Wales, considered one of the most influential people in the world, is currently reviewing the Wikipedia page "Murder of Meredith Kercher" as West Seattle-raised Amanda Knox supporters have been for months challenging Wales on details of the trial explained on that page. At this time there is no "Amanda Knox" Wikipedia page. The "Murder of Meredith Kercher" page has at times been ranked the 60th most read page out of 18 million.

A group who believe Knox and her boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito, convicted of murdering Knox's college roommate, Ms. Kercher, are innocent, and that Rudy Guede, also convicted, was the lone killer, complained to Wales that the Wiki page contains evidence and witnesses since dropped in the course of the trial and other distorted and untrue details.

UPDATE: March 26 interview with Joseph Bishop-

Joseph Bishop, a New Haven, Conn. supporter of Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito's innocence, said he was one of those involved with the main effort behind attempts to, in his view, make the Wikipedia page more accurate.

The Southwest Precinct community room was packed full on March 22 as over 30 blockwatch captains gathered to learn about CPTED (crime prevention through environmental design) and hear from West Seattle’s interim crime prevention coordinator Mark Solomon.

Crime Prevention Team Officer Jonathan Kiehn from the Southwest Precinct gave a presentation on applying CPTED principles to residential house design and landscaping choices, all steps that can make a house a less attractive target to burglars.

“You are kind of playing with their (criminals) mind, and that’s what we want to do,” Officer Kiehn said of CPTED, which employs design choices that affect criminals’ behavior and may reduce crime.

The lesson was broken down into four interrelated techniques people can employ to help safeguard their home, including natural surveillance, territorial reinforcement, natural access control and maintenance.

Natural Surveillance

Officer Kiehn said natural surveillance boils down to making criminals feel like they are being watched, whether they actually are or not.

“People are less likely to commit a crime if they are being watched,” he said.

By Michael McDonald, UW News Lab

With the first game of the 2011 spring sports season behind them, Ballard High School’s baseball and softball teams are harboring playoff hopes.

Last year the baseball team had an up-and-down season that ended just short of the playoffs. At one point during the season, Ballard even beat two of the top ten ranked teams in the 4A division, Newport and Redmond. Head coach John Lamm knows that those two teams will be tough competition again this season.

“Redmond and Newport are the teams to beat this year,” said Lamm. “Redmond has a couple of players [Dylan Davis and Michael Conforto] who will get drafted.”

The Beavers will be returning a top player of their own, in starting pitcher Danny Thompson, who will play baseball at Princeton next season, but the team is young this season.

“We have five or six seniors, but they’re mostly pitchers,” said Lamm. “We’ll probably be running five sophomores on the field as starters.”

King County Executive Dow Constantine invited the public to a West Seattle re-election fundraiser supporting Seattle City Councilmember and Transportation Committee Chair Tom Rasmussen Tuesday, March 22. The event took place in the evening at Puget Ridge Co-Housing, 7020 18th SW, a few blocks west of the South Seattle Community College.

King County Councilmember Joe McDermott appeared to lend his support. McDermott, Constantine, and Rasmussen are all West Seattle residents. Rasmussen is running for a third term in Position 5 and is so far unopposed. Candidates have until mid-june to file.

RASMUSSEN SPOKE

"Before I chaired the Transportation Committee I chaired the Housing, Human Services, Health Committee and that was where my initial passion for running for City Council came from," Rasmussen told attendees. "I really wanted to continue to work for seniors and people with disabilities and was able to work on those issues for four years strengthening our funding for housing for (them.)

Westside School, which moved to new quarters for this school year is moving ahead with expansion plans to be carried out this coming July. They include moving some existing 'cottages' (portable buildings) from their previous location next to Explorer West where they shared space until this year.

Head of the school Jo Ann Yockey showed the West Seattle Herald the layout of what will be put in place this summer. They include an early childhood care center and others, all fitted with plumbing and wiring. They will be dismantled into their component parts, placed on a truck and moved the week of July 5, "in the middle of the night" to the south part of the E.C. Hughes property that Westside now occupies.

Two of them will be used for pre-kindergarten classes (they currently have 1 and 1/2).

Faculty parking will move to the north lot (though the playground will remain) and this will require the planting of a low hedge by code. Visitor parking will remain in the south lot.

Adding grade levels
Westside will be adding grade levels too as they expand over time to include middle school grades.

Ghost Light Theatricals will finish its "Ch-Ch-Changes" season next month with The Clouds, A Reality Play, the second co-winner of last year's Battle of the Bards.

Inspired by The Clouds by Aristophanes and adapted by Alexis Holzer, The Clouds, A Reality Play is a fresh, comedic look at upper class  society and our unwillingness to take responsibility for our extravagant lifestyles.

Thanks to the boom in reality TV we have witnessed the outrageous, extravagant and dramatic lives of housewives from Malibu to Massachusetts. In this new comedy, aging reality star Stephanie Stophanes is deep in debt, in the midst of a messy divorce, and facing cancellation. Stephanie seeks the help of the screwball Socrates and his School for Life Skills in hopes of once again being relevant. With backstabbing agents, rude crew members, and TV show parodies, The Clouds, A Reality Play shines a comedic light on the underbelly of reality TV shows, and the "stars" that make them. 


The play premiers on April 15th and will run for two weeks with a final performance on May 1st.

Service on the West Seattle Water Taxi is cancelled this afternoon because the Rachel Marie is undergoing repairs. Service will not resume before next Monday, March 28. Passengers should watch for service updates later in the week and over the weekend via the Water Taxi website and subscriber alerts.