April 2011

Decanter Wines at 15830 1st Ave. South is a part wine bar and part wine store, featuring primarily Washington boutique wines, that just opened for business April 2. The grand opening comes next weekend, Friday and Saturday April 15 & 16.

Owned and operated by the Grim family the idea grew out of a love for wine and as a natural outgrowth of an online wine site they created.

Larry Grim said, "It’s hard to say where our interest in wine came from, could be our many trips to Eastern Washington to wine taste in the Yakima Valley. Maybe it was inherited from the Italian side of the family."

The Grims got into the wine business with some friends, 18 months ago by starting an online wine store called www.washingtonwinesonline.com. "We've had a lot of people that contacted us and said 'I really don't want to pay for shipping, is there some place we can pick it up?' so our partners opened a wine bar in La Conner so we decided to open one in this area," Larry said.

The Burien City Council on March 28 unanimously approved the following appointments to the Arts Commission:
Position 3, Shelli Park, self-employed artist, color/space designer, yoga instructor.
Position 4, Andrea H. Reay, production administrator, Seattle Opera.
Position 5, Robbie Howell, real estate broker, Windermere Co.
Position 6, Michael O'Neill, self-employed interior designer.
Position 7, Chloe Bjordahl, moderator for an online game, LEGO Group.
Position 8, Virginia Wright, online editor, Encore Media Group.
Terms for Positions 3, 4, 5, 7 and 8 are full terms that began on March 28, 2011, and end on March 31, 2015. The appointment to Position 6 is for an unexpired term that began on March 28, 2011, and ends on March 31, 2013.
The City Council on April 4 approved the following appointments to the Parks and Recreation Board:
Position 2, Cynthia Raufmann-Trewartha, real estate associate broker, Century 21 North Homes Realty.
Position 3, Annie Morton, Director of Education, Seward Park Audubon Center.
Position 4, Christopher Ndifon, Sr., land-use planner.
All appointments were to full terms that began on April 4 and end on March 31, 2015.

Click on photo for SLIDESHOW

The Muscular Dystrophy "Lock-Up" came to Angelina's in the Admiral Junction in West Seattle April 7. Local business and community leaders agree to be "arrested" around lunch hour for having a "big heart". This community-wide event raises funds. The restaurant was packed with local merchants who had raised money for "bail".

Five fire fighters volunteered to pick up the "jailbirds" at home or work, and a few MDA staffers also drove, including Liz Truong, Exective Director, MDA, and Susan Burdick with MDA. Offenders were punished by being picked up in new BMW's, provided by BMW of Seattle, also a sponsor at other area lock-ups.

Fire fighters included Bob Crawford, Scott Dau, Station 29, Tim O'Mahony, Station 32, Colby Cruz, and Chris Johnson, North Highline Fire Station. Firefighters also participate in the annual Fill-The-Boot campaign for MDA, where commuters drop money into their boots at intersections.

Residents and businesses along Ambaum Blvd S.W. between S.W. 112th and S.W. 156th St, can expect to be disrupted this week and next as noisy grinding and repair work continues. Work is being done at night to have the least impact on traffic and to complete the work quicker.

Grinding and pavement repair on Ambaum Blvd S.W., started April 5 at S.W. 112th St. and is working south, finishing at the intersection of 4th Ave. S.W. and S.W. 156th St.
The segment to S.W. 140th is expected to be completed by Friday, April 8. Grinding and repair will take place from S.W. 140th south to S.W. 156th St. the week of April 11. During the nighttime repair work, traffic is being channeled to one lane, and also detoured in some areas. No parking will be allowed on the street and driveway access may be temporarily affected during these times. Use of alternate routes is recommended.

A proposed 58 unit 4 story residential building, over retail space at 7100 Delridge Way is the subject of a public hearing on April 28 at the Senior Center in West Seattle. The project also includes three 2 story single family structures, a pedestrian bridge and parking for 77 vehicles.

The land use permit was filed in October of last year. The Department of Planning and Development has posted the meeting notice here but the body of the DPD post follows:

DESCRIPTION

The proposal is for a 4-story structure containing 58 residential units over 1,344 sq. ft. of retail space. Project includes three, 2-story single family structures and 88,800 cu. yds. of grading in an environmentally critical area. Project also includes pedestrian bridge between structures. Parking for 77 vehicles to be provided in two levels within the structure. Project includes review to place more than one house on a single family zoned lot with environmentally critical areas, and allow smaller than required lot sizes, per SMC 25.09.260.

PROCESS

Over the last several years, as various construction projects stalled for lack of funds or legal wrangling the sites they began in became eyesores or worse, public nuisances. Rather than leave these sites and other vacant and underused sites in limbo the Seattle City Council unanimously adopted legislation to enliven them.

The new legislation creates a pilot program to allow property owners to temporarily locate active uses, like retail sales kiosks, mobile food vending carts, or art installations, on sites of stalled construction projects.

Also allowed are temporary conversions of vacant and underused lots into short-term parking, provided the sidewalk-facing sides of the lot are activated with creative uses that will attract and increase pedestrian activity. Art, mobile food vending, retail kiosks, tree nurseries, or community gardens all satisfy the activation requirement.

Mayor Mike McGinn and representatives from several City Departments were all ears yesterday evening during a Town Hall meeting at Ballard High School.

The Ballard community came out in decent numbers and were not shy to tell the mayor what was on their minds.

This was one of many Q&A sessions the city is organizing around Seattle.

"We're doing this because we have a commitment to directly answer your questions," Mayor McGinn said. "We live in an unprecedented challenging time. We're looking to get twofers and threefers with our money. We're facing really hard choices and we need you. We need to hear your voices to help us make these decisions."

Despite the grim outlook of a tight budget, McGinn quoting President Obama, said Seattle has the potential to out-innovate, out-educate, and out-build other cities to win the future.

With little over 60 minutes of question time, the Ballard community asked questions on a variety of topics including cuts to library funding and hours, homelessness, developers "cheating" their way through the design review system, solar power, urban loneliness, pot holes and of course, transportation.

Starting on Saturday, April 9th, Seattle Department of Transportation paving crews will make roadway repairs around railroad tracks in Ballard this weekend.

The tracks are near the Burke Gilman Trail at N.W. 41st Street and 6th Avenue N.W.

The crews plan to work from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Saturday and possibly the same time on Sunday. They will finish repairs on Monday, April 11.

The Burke Gillman Trail will remain open.

On Friday, Comcast is bringing C-SPAN’s Digital Bus to Ballard to honor middle school student Leo Pfeifer, who is a second prize winner in StudentCam 2011.

StudentCam is an annual documentary competition that encourages students to create short films about political and public policy matters.
This year’s theme was “Washington, DC, Through My Lens” and asked middle and high school students to address issues directly impacting their communities. 
 
Pfeifer's video titled “Homelessness: An American Crisis” deals with the homelessness issue on a local as well as national level.
Pfeifer, a student at Salmon Bay Middle School, is one of 75 StudentCam winners after 1,069 entries submitted by 1, 481 students from across the country.
As a second place winner, Pfeifer will be awarded $1,500.

The Digital Bus is on a national tour and will stop at Salmon Bay Middle School on Friday morning where Pfeifer will be honored during a school wide assembly at 9:30 a.m.

Students will have the opportunity to tour the Digital Bus and learn about C-SPAN’s public affairs programming.

Press Release:
The Kiwanis Club of West Seattle collected more than 7,000 pounds of food plus over $965.00 in cash donations for the West Seattle Food Bank on Saturday April 2nd at West Seattle grocery stores, including Metropolitan Market, PCC, Jefferson Square QFC, Safeway and Morgan Street Thriftway. Special thanks goes out to all the members of the community who generously donated to support this worthy cause.
 
The food drive was held as part of Kiwanis ONE Day, a global volunteer action day uniting the entire Kiwanis family, including Kiwanis, Circle K, Key Club, Builder’s Club, Aktion Club, K-Kids and Kiwanis Junior.  On this day, local volunteers joined nearly 600,000 volunteers around the world in devoting a few hours to hands-on volunteer service.  Kiwanis expects that Kiwanis ONE Day contributed nearly one million service hours around the world in just one day.  Kiwanis ONE Day was designated by Kiwanis International in order to unite all youth and adult members from different parts of the Kiwanis family together in service.