January 2014

EDITORS NOTE: Carol L. Williams and her grandson are lucky to be alive. In the power outage that occurred in West Seattle overnight Jan. 11 she and her grandson could have very easily passed away were it not for her own persistence and the quick action of the Seattle Fire Department. She shared her story with the West Seattle Herald in a letter:

I want to thank the Seattle Fire Department for saving my life and that of my grandson today. We lost power here in West Seattle last night during the raging storm and kept the fire in the fireplace going all night long. Late this morning my smoke alarm started going off.

It is a battery operated combination Fire/Carbon Monoxide detector. My grandson had added wood and thought that had caused it. There was a small amount of smoke but nothing in excess. I opened a couple of windows but the alarm was persistent. It simply kept chirping and since its the kind that talks to you it was saying "Fire, Fire. Get out". I thought OK the batteries are low and it wont shut up. I changed the batteries and it still kept it up then the Carbon Monoxide detector in the basement was going off and its electric...

UPDATE 9:30 a.m.
The power was slowly being restored to the Gatewood neighborhood of West Seattle as City Light crews worked on several areas. The outage was down to 726 or so by 9:30 a.m. Several trees fell, one crushing a fence and car and blocking the road in the 6300 block of S.W. 40th north of Morgan Street S.W.

Another fell in an alley near 46th and Hill and a smaller tree fell near 39th and Monroe partially blocking the road.

Crews near Henderson and Delridge worked on a power pole to get it working properly and others had hooked up emergency generators at the Barton and Murray Basin pump stations to keep them from overflowing. By 9:30 the power at both had been restored. There was a small overflow King County said and Lowman Beach has been closed. Testing is underway. Both pump stations are getting updated backup power systems as part of upgrades now in progress.

The weather was expected to remain unsettled through the day and evening. NOAA weather said: "Today Showers and possibly a thunderstorm. High near 50. Breezy, with a southwest wind around 29 mph, with gusts as high as 38 mph. Chance of precipitation is 100%.

By Tim Clinton
SPORTS EDITOR

Even the officials wound up undermanned in this game.

One of the three left in an ambulance with chest pains with 4:27 to play in the second quarter of Friday's girls basketball game between Tyee and Evergreen in the Totems' home gymnasium, and Tyee started off the game short-handed with only five players suited up.

The Totems still built up big leads on Evergreen of White Center, then had to hang on as the Wolverines battled back against four and then only three Tyee players.

Tyee had a 39-30 advantage when Keyara Brooks fouled out with 3:02 remaining in the game, and the lead was whittled to 45-40 before Khalya Guy fouled out with 20 seconds left.

Marleisha Cox of Evergreen then scored on her own putback to make it 45-42 with 10 seconds remaining.
Cox went to the foul line with four seconds left and missed both shots, then her team got the ball back on an out of bounds play with two ticks of the clock remaining.

Stephanie Herrera of the Wolverines then missed a three-point shot as time expired to preserve a 45-42 win for the Totems.

SDOT is deploying a paving crew next week, weather permitting on Sylvan Way Southwest in West Seattle.

On Tuesday, Jan. 14, the crew will make a pavement spot repair in the 2300 block of Sylvan Way Southwest, from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. One lane will remain open and traffic flaggers will assist alternating directions of traffic through the construction zone.

Black Zia Cantina and owner Cloud Duran are holding a raffle fundraiser Friday, Jan. 10 to help Burien Actors Theatre recover from the Dec. 10 fire at the theater.

From 6 to 10 p.m., buy a raffle ticket to be entered into a drawing from a wide range of unique wares donated by local businesses like Phoenix Tea, Paws in the Park, Howard & Marge, The Dollhouse Cottage, Burien Bikram Yoga, The Barber Shop, Black Zia Cantina and more. Tickets are just $5, and all proceeds go to Burien Actors Theatre.

The event is also the perfect excuse to try out Black Zia Cantina’s delectable New Mexican dishes, or play a game of pool. Black Zia is located at 15212 Sixth Ave. S.W., Burien, and the phone number is 206-420-3869.

By Christy Wolyniak

Ballard author, Ingrid Ricks, has been an unstoppable force since the release of her memoir, Hippie Boy - a coming-of-age story of a girl grappling with abuse, crippling poverty, love, and religious misuse.

Hippie Boy sets the stage for a young Ricks up until the age of sixteen, who travels as a tool-selling vagabond with her father in a desperate attempt to escape a dysfunctional home environment with a controlling stepfather and devout Mormon mother.

Ricks’ story was a long time in coming to fruition. Afraid to hurt her family by exposing painful memories, Ricks endured the rubble from her past.

Upon being diagnosed with a rare degenerative eye disease in 2004 known as Retinitis Pigmentosa, her doctor recognized that Ricks was suppressing serious issues from her childhood and said to her, “If you don’t think that carrying this inside of you is impacting your physical health, you’re crazy.”

Ricks hastened to write as her vision was now threatened. Her daughters, Hannah, 11 and Sydney, 15, were also part of her inspiration in documenting this book.

From the Highline School District:
Exciting progress is happening in Highline Public Schools, and our student population is growing for the first time in over a decade. This growth presents some challenges, and we need your input on a solution.

We are now out of classroom space in our elementary schools and have no room for growth. Starting next year, the state is offering additional funding to lower class size for grades K-3. If we are unable to create classroom space, we may have to turn down as much as $2.2 million in state funding.

We also have a number of schools that are 50 to 90 years old and in need of major repairs or replacement. As the buildings age, repairs and maintenance are becoming more and more expensive, draining money away from the classroom. Aging infrastructure prevents us from installing current technology.

We are projected to gain 2,100 additional students in the next 8 to 10 years. That's equivalent to about 4 elementary schools or one middle school and one high school!

We are working on a solution and want to get your feedback.

A Lake Burien neighborhood organization and individual petitioners have filed an appeal challenging the Washington State Department of Ecology’s (DOE) approval and the City’s adoption of the Shoreline Master Program Update. The Growth Management Hearings Board will hold a hearing on the appeal in May 2014.

Under the state Shoreline Management Act, each city and county with shorelines must adopt a Shoreline Master Program (SMP) and regular updates. Work on Burien’s update began in May 2008 and has been through numerous meetings and hearings before the Planning Commission and City Council. A citizens group, the Burien Shoreline Working Group, in 2012 proposed changes to the draft shoreline master program where DOE and the City could not agree. The proposed modifications were vital in allowing DOE and the City to resolve areas of disagreement. Ultimately an amended version was approved by both the City and DOE in 2013.

information from SDOT

Seattle is working to make bike riding a comfortable part of daily life for people of all ages and abilities. Toward this end the Seattle Department of Transportation (SDOT) is constructing neighborhood greenways, protected bike lanes and multi-use trails; installing signs to guide people to their destinations; and putting in bike detectors at traffic signals. By creating comfortable places to ride bikes and connections to parks, schools and business districts, we hope more people will discover the practicality and joy of bicycling.

The next step is to monitor our progress. SDOT recently added seven new bike counters (four of which also count pedestrians) to neighborhood greenways and multi-use trails. The counters are helping us create a ridership baseline in 2014 that can be used to assess future years and help us reach our goal of quadrupling ridership by 2030. Unlike the two existing bike counters on the Fremont and West Seattle bridges, the bike counters do not have electronic display totems. But that doesn’t make them any less valuable.

Today, the Seattle Department of Transportation reported that they will be installing seven new bike counters in order to count ridership and find out how to better serve those riders.

The effort is part of broader action to make streets and trails safer and also includes constructing neighborhood greenways, protected bike lanes and multi-use trails; installing signs to guide people to their destinations; and putting in bike detectors at traffic signals.

“By creating comfortable places to ride bikes and connections to parks, schools and business districts, we hope more people will discover the practicality and joy of bicycling,” stated SDOT in the announcement.

The counters are different than the ones on the Fremont bridge in that they do not have electronic display totems, but SDOT says they are still “valuable” and will serve their purpose of counting riders and pedestrians.

"The counters consist of two small tube sensors stretching across the street, which are attached to a small metal counting box made by Eco-Counter. The tubes only count people riding bikes. They are very accurate and designed to be used on greenways"