December 2013

Number one prescription: “Walk!”

After a season full of holiday celebrations and the start of a new year, you may have vowed to “get back on that exercise program!” Do your New Year’s resolutions include goals like “lose weight” and “get in shape”? Do you wonder how to begin? A gym membership is great, but the answer may be much simpler than that: Walk More.

On Sunday, January 5, 2014, WABI Burien will help you start your year off right by offering a special Walk-n-Talk-with-a-Doc. Dr. Michael Schlitt, Neurosurgeon and Chief of Surgery at Highline Medical Center, will speak to WABI walkers about the health benefits of walking, and will then join us for our walk to continue the conversation on foot. As a frequent walker himself, Dr. Schlitt “walks his talk”. The Doctor and his staff feel that walking is a key to both spinal and general health.

(Burien, WA) The Burien office of Windermere Real Estate is pleased to welcome local resident Mike Fosberg as the newest member of its team, announced Branch Manager Matt Klewin today.

Fosberg has deep roots in the Burien community. He was raised in Burien, where he attended Gregory Heights Elementary, Sylvester Middle School, and Highline High School. He attended the University of Washington where he received a Bachelor’s Degree in Business, and later, a Master’s Degree in Educational Leadership. Fosberg has spent the last 24 years working in education, mainly in Principal positions in Highline Public Schools. He served as the Principal of Madrona Elementary in SeaTac, WA for 8 years, then as Principal of Highline High School in Burien, WA for 3 years, and as Principal of Marvista Elementary in Normandy Park, WA for 3 years. “Mike is very much a community guy—and he happens to have a keen eye for real estate. We think this is a great career choice for him, and we’re happy to have him on the Windermere Burien team,” Klewin said.

The Polar Bear swim every January 1 is a great way to wash away the complexities of 2013, and celebrate the unlimited potential that 2014 brings to our lives.

The West Seattle/White Center Polar Bear Club will be hosting the 2014 Polar Bear Swim on Wednesday, January 1, 2014. The 400 plus Polar Bear swimmers will all hold hands, in a long line on Alki Beach, and after a count down, will enter Puget Sound promptly at 10 am. We will meet at 9:45 am across from Dukes Restaurant. Holding hands makes it easier for everyone to enter the 46 degree water. Swimmers should bring water shoes, a towel, a change of clothes and enthusiasm and excitement for 2014.

See you all there.

Jim McNerney, CEO
The Boeing Company
100 North Riverside
Chicago, IL 60606

Dear Mr. McNerney:

The squeeze that you and Boeing are putting on your machinist workers’ pensions, pay scales and your stance on other labor issues regarding the assembling of the new 777X airliners is unseemly for several reasons.

First, consider your pay this year of $21.1 million, a 15 percent increase from the previous year, and much higher than your predecessors. That sum does not demonstrate a moral authority to require sacrifices from your workers at a time of rising Boeing sales and profits, dividend increases, cash hoard, and another notorious $10 billion stock buyback. I say notorious because stock buybacks per se do little for shareholder values and a lot for the enlarged stock options of top executives.

Former White Center Chamber of Commerce President Mark Ufkes is leader of the Polar Bear swim as he calls it, (though not many people actually swim) on January 1 at Alki Beach.

"The Polar Bear swim every January 1 is a great way to wash away the complexities of 2013, and celebrate the unlimited potential that 2014 brings to our lives," said Ufkes.

The West Seattle/White Center Polar Bear Club will be hosting the 2014 Polar Bear Swim on Wednesday, January 1, 2014. The 400 plus Polar Bear swimmers will all hold hands, in a long line on Alki Beach, and after a count down, will enter Puget Sound promptly at 10 am. We will meet at 9:45 am across from Dukes Restaurant. Holding hands makes it easier for everyone to enter the 46 degree water. Swimmers should bring water shoes, a towel, a change of clothes and enthusiasm and excitement for 2014.

If you have never done it...check out the video of the event from 2012. It's VERY brief, and by all accounts exhilarating...just in case you wanted to make this time, this coming Jan. 1, the year to do it.

The Metro C Line bus was impacted by an unknown object at 7:55 pm Thursday night as it was headed southbound on the Alaskan Way Viaduct/SR 99, according to reader Michael Minch. The object smashed into and "nearly broke through" Minch said. He said he doubted it was a bird strike. "There is a tear like hole about 2 inches long in the center of the impact. Too dark and foggy for birds I think," Minch said.

The incident happened, "about a mile north of the West Seattle Bridge." He said the driver was doing the speed limit. The riders switched busses at the first stop off the bridge.

The bus continued up into West Seattle, despite the damage and Minch said it will go in for service to have a new windshield put in. It was not expected to impact service, "the next bus was only 10 minutes behind us."
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By Gerardo Bolong

Kennedy Catholic graduate Tre Watson will play in the University of Washington defensive secondary and on special teams against Brigham Young in the Dec. 27th Kraft Fight for Hunger Bowl held in San Francisco.

By Cindi Rinehart

“I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in wood and I…
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.”

That is the last stanza of one of my favorite poems called “The Road Not Taken,” by Robert Frost. I can recite it in my sleep but little did I know how close the last line came to defining me. And here I am, by golly, ‘ages and ages hence,’ telling you the story of how, literally choosing the road less traveled, changed the entire course of my life.

I had a show in Columbus, Ohio on Warner Qube television. The show was called “Soap Scoop” and was a one hour talk show about soap operas. I loved the show but 2 years into it Warner Cable shut down the studios and I was soon living on blow up furniture, martini’s and Hamburger Helper. While looking for work, I would occasionally call my ex-producer/best friend, Pat in Seattle and whine about not being able to get a job.

The 2nd Design Review Board meeting for the proposal to construct a 102 unit apartment building at 3078 Avalon Way S.W. will take place at the West Seattle Senior Center 4217 S.W. Oregon Street on Jan. 16 at 8pm. The last meeting on the project was Nov. 21.

This proposal may be viewed at our Design Review Program website at www.seattle.gov/dpd/Planning/Design_Review_Program/Overview/.

The Land Use Information Bulletin (which you can sign up for here) detailing the opportunity for comment and the process can be found here.

This proposal too will have limited parking with only 77 stalls allotted for the 100 plus units in the building.

The trial of Lovett James Chambers aka Cidrick Mann is scheduled to get underway Jan. 6, 2014, according to court records almost 2 full years after the murder of Michael Travis Hood. According to the documents filed on Dec. 20 Chambers charge was changed from 1st degree murder to 2nd degree murder.

A pretrial hearing will be held in the case to be conducted in King County Superior Court.

The court documents said he will offer a self defense/PTSD defense and that his defenders will move to suppress evidence. Court documents list the defense attorneys as Ben Goldsmith and Lauren McLane of The Defender Association Division King County Dept. Of Public Defense.

Hood was shot, allegedly by Chambers, four times in the chest just outside the Feedback Lounge on Saturday, Jan. 21, 2012. His best friend Jamie Vause drove him to the senior rehab and residence Mt. St. Vincent believing it was a hospital.

Paramedics attempted to save his life but Hood died early on Sunday, Jan. 22.

If convicted, Chambers’ faces a minimum of 25 to 31.6 years in prison (with one count of first degree murder with a deadly weapon enhancement), according to prosecutors.