June 2013

Press release from Hotel Ballard

Driving around the block looking for a parking space is now a thing of the past in Ballard with the opening of a new underground parking lot located beneath the Hotel, with more than 50 available spaces for the public, 24 hours a day. The entrance to the lot is behind the Hotel, on 20th Avenue, between Ballard Avenue and Leary Way, just around the corner from the Olympic Athletic Club.

“We were thrilled to be able to open the garage to the neighborhood. With all of the new restaurants and other businesses in the area, it can be challenging to find a parking space at times,” said Olympic Athletic Club, Hotel Ballard and Ballard Inn owner James Riggle. “We know that this lot offers people a chance to make their visit to Ballard that much more time-efficient and pleasant.”

An elevator takes you to the lobby of the hotel, with easy access to access to Ballard Avenue. Payment methods accepted include Visa, Mastercard, Discover and American Express and guests must pre-pay upon entering the lot.

Information from the King County Sheriff's Office:

*Please note, this press release is also available in Vietnamese, posted right after the English version.

Detectives are looking for victims of a Vietnamese con artist who has been posing as an employee of DSHS to gain the trust of her victims.

Detectives said that 39 year old Oanh Nguyen of White Center would contact her victims in the DSHS office in the 9600 block of 15 Ave SW. Nguyen would pose as a DSHS employee and approach Vietnamese-speaking clients and ask if they needed help completing forms.

During her contact with the clients, she would tell them she needed help depositing a check because she did not have a bank account. Nguyen would ask the client to deposit a check into their bank account and give her the cash.

At least six agreed to help Nguyen and deposited her checks, giving her cash from their accounts. In each of the cases, her checks later bounced because the accounts were closed.

The city of Burien has settled its lawsuit with the former developer of the Burien Town Square project. A new company will take over the three parcels that have not been developed.

Burien City Council members approved the settlement 6-0 on June 17 without any comment. Councilmember Joan McGilton was absent.

Under the settlement agreement, RECP/UP will sell the parcels back to Burien or Legacy Partners, the new developer chosen by the city. RECP/UP, includes the developer Urban Ventures Burien and a capital partner that jointly own the properties.

Burien will pay the repurchase price of $2.6 million plus $100,000 for planning and design expenses incurred by RECP/UP over the past year plus an additional $575,846.

It has been a long path to the settlement. Urban Ventures, now RECP/UP, completed the first phase of the Burien Town Square condominiums in 2009. The national economic downturn, especially as related to housing, deeply slowed the condo sales. Four years later, the condos are about 55 percent sold.

The undeveloped parcels are to the north of the condos and Burien City Hall/Burien Library.

press release
We all rely on the Internet, cell phones, email and other forms of modern communications; however these systems are vulnerable to disruption. Every year whole regions of the country find themselves in the dark. Tornadoes, earthquakes, fires, storms, ice and even the occasional cutting of fiber optic cables leave people without the means to communicate. In these cases, the one consistent service that doesn't fail and provides back-up for communities is Amateur Radio.

Sound Transit is conducting an open house June 26 at Parkside Elementary, 2104 S. 247th St., 5-7 p.m. to seek public comment on its evaluation of alternatives to extend Link light rail from SeaTac to the Kent/Des Moines and Federal Way areas.

The current work will support efforts to reach the Kent/Des Moines area in 2023 and go further when funding is available.

The agency expects to obtain a Record of Decision from the Federal Transit Administration (FTA) in 2016, with construction to Kent/Des Moines planned to begin in 2019.

During the last year, Sound Transit has evaluated alternatives between the Angle Lake light rail station at SeaTac’s South 200th Street, scheduled to open in 2016, and the Federal Way Transit Center, a distance of about 7.6 miles.

The meeting will give the public the opportunity to provide comments on analysis done to date and suggest options and issues to be studied further as planning work continues.

It was like a movie. A comedy, I think, now that I recall the decision to take the kids to Disneyland in the summer of 1955.

With school out, we had to think fast on keeping the kids busy. Riding for thousands of miles in a 1951 Chrysler sedan was not our first choice.

Seattle to Los Angeles (remember, there was no freeway then!) is no small feat with four kids and their mother. Just imagine the number of things we had to take with every kid 13 or younger, down to age 4--all boys.

What was I thinking? Six blocks down the street, it had the makings of a tragi-comedy that sunny Saturday morning: We forgot to let the neighbors know we were leaving. We forgot to mention our lovable Cocker Spaniel Tiger, would need to be fed. We forgot to tell the paperboy to leave our daily paper in the box by the door. We forgot to tell the milkman to stop deliveries for two weeks.

By Shara Wallace
HIGHLINE TIMES

2 men hailed as heroes for saving kids from burning apartment
Two men are being hailed as heroes for saving two kids who had to jump from an 18-unit apartment building that was burning. No one was seriously hurt. As the fire spread at the Sea Fox Apartments, 2616 S. 224th Street, Alejandro Rodriguez ran onto his second floor balcony, and spotted two kids dangling from their dad's arms on the third floor. Rodriguez caught the kids on the second-floor balcony, then climbed down to ground level and caught them again.

Then his friend Waylon Uaki grabbed the kids and rushed them away from the fire. Fire officials said both kids are OK but one did suffer a foot injury.

The PacWest champion Dodgers team downed the West Seattle Orioles, 9-4, to open District 7 Major Little League Tournament of Champions action Friday.

West Seattle jumped out to an early lead with a run in the bottom of the second inning of the game played at the Normandy Park City Hall fields.

Paul Johnson singled to start it off, then came around on a wild pitch, a stolen base and a grounder to short by Ben Trigg.

The Dodgers team that draws from Burien and SeaTac answered with one in the top of the third as Trenton Brown doubled to left center and came around on a dropped third strike followed by a wild pitch.

Mark McLean then scored for PacWest in the top of the fourth, hitting a single and taking second on a wild pitch that led to two errant throws that brought him on in.

West Seattle jumped out front, 4-2, with two runs in the fourth with the help of base hits by Jackson Sullivan and Trigg sandwiched around a pair of PacWest errors.

But the Dodgers jumped out front again with three in the fifth.

Ballard has more breweries than you can shake a stick at (no matter how good you are at stick-shaking), but what it doesn't have is a distillery with a focus on special bounce liqueurs which is open for public tastings.

On Thursday, June 20, 4 p.m., that's about to change when Old Ballard Liquor Co. (4421 Shilshole Ave NW, on the East side of Ballard Bridge) opens up shop. Well, sort of.

The company has been pushing through a seemingly insurmountable amount of legal papers this past year, and though it's nearing the end, it still has to get formulas for the different liquors approved. So Thursday, which will just be a soft opening, will mostly be a chance for the curious person to drop in and chat with the talkative owner, Lexi aka (she jokes) "The Lexicon," for how many words she spews out of her mouth. Also, you can buy a cool t-shirt for $12.

Lexi said that she will probably not start selling for at least three weeks and at most six weeks out while she makes the final hurdles.

"The doors are open but we're still waiting for the last couple of papers until we sell some alcohol," she said.

Information from King County

Starting as early as Wednesday, June 19, crews will need to install additional steel sheet piles in order to complete soil stabilization work at the Barton Pump Station. As crews install the sheet piles, there will be a temporary closure of the north ferry entrance lane and toll booth on Thursday, June 20. The lane is expected to be re-opened by 3:30 p.m. but could extend into the evening commute.

King County will notify commuters and the community if the lane closure extends past 3:30 p.m. on Thursday, June 20. Work is expected to be complete by Friday, June 21.

During jet grouting activities, crews determined that soils in the southwest corner of the site were incompatible with the jet grout. Crews have already installed one set of necessary sheet piles and now must complete the work.

Installing the piles requires the use of a vibrating hammer, which is expected to increase levels of noise and vibration. In an effort to mitigate these impacts, a portion of the pile locations will be pre-drilled and filled with sand. The crew will be closely monitoring vibration levels to minimize disruption to the extent possible.