February 2014

King County Executive Dow Constantine will deliver the State of the County address in White Center on Monday Feb. 10 at White Center Elementary School. It will mark the first time the address has been given in one of the county's unincorporated areas.

Constantine will frame the policy agenda for his second term, including plans for confronting two of the generational challenges of our time.

His office advises internet users to bookmark the State of the County website for infographics on the day of the address. Soon after the event, video, audio, the speech text, and policy papers will be posted.

The Twitter hashtag for the event is #KCSOTC.

This special meeting of the Metropolitan King County Council will take place on:

Monday, February 10
10:00 a.m.
White Center Heights Elementary School
10015 6th Ave. SW, Seattle
(Street Parking is limited)

The eagle sculpture at Eagle Landing Park has been stolen. We are hoping for tips leading to the recovery of the sculpture. Anyone with information about the theft should call 206-296-3311.

Below is background on the sculpture. Thanks for your help.

Michael Lafreniere, Director
Burien Parks and Recreation

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Eagle Carving Dedicated to City Park

Eagle Landing Park in Burien has been the home to many eagles over the years. Now a new eagle has taken permanent residence in the park. This eagle however is a carving and the City’s latest addition to an extensive collection of public art.

Galen Willis, a Burien resident and artist, recently donated a hand-carved wooden sculpture of an eagle he carved from Western Red Cedar (Thuja plicata) an evergreen coniferous tree in the Cypress family and is native to western North America. It is the Provincial tree of British Columbia, and has extensive applications for the indigenous First Nations of the Pacific Northwest.

Broadstone West Seattle, a 135 unit, eight story mixed use building planned for 4745 40th Ave. S.W. got the go ahead from Seattle's Department of Planning and Development pending a design review. The project, designed by Encore Architects will also contain 16 live work units, 115 below grade parking spaces and have 1000 square feet of commercial space.

Here's an excerpt from the DPD page on the Broadstone.

PROJECT DESCRIPTION
The applicant proposes to design and construct a residential building with 135 dwelling units, 16 live/work units, 1,000 square feet of commercial space and 115 below grade parking spaces. The existing building will be demolished.

By David Rosen

How do you top winning the Superbowl? For the Seattle Seahawks on Feb. 5, as it has been for some time, it came down to celebrating with a whole lot of 12's, the now world famous 12th Man but in unprecedented numbers, who came to share the absolutely over the top joy of realizing that long held goal.

Estimated to be in excess of 700,000 people challenged every mode of human transportation to line the streets of a parade route from Denny Way downtown, along 4th Ave. and finally down to Century Link Field.

People climbed trees, stood atop street signs, and waited, (the parade start was delayed by an hour) in very low temperatures to see their returning gridiron heroes. They didn't disappoint. The full parade moved slowly enough that most people had a chance to see the Lombardi Trophy held aloft, or if they missed that they saw "Beast Mode" Marshawn Lynch on the front of the vehicle transporting the SeaGals Cheer squad as Lynch threw his now trademark Skittles into the crowd.

Photographer David Rosen was there to capture the event and wrote:

By Peggy Sturdivant

“Where are your children?” I asked my friends, nominally known as parents in the packed elementary school auditorium. Joshua and Emily McNichols shaded their eyes against the stage lights and pointed toward the front.

“All the kids are up by the stage in a big heap.” As though hypnotized, almost oblivious to hunger, and the heat of small massed bodies, most of the younger grade schoolers had their eyes fixed on the stage for all 60 performances of the 4th Annual West Woodland’s “Got Talent Night.”

Other than the West Woodland staff members, who would perform their own scene-stealing number, I may have been the only non-family member in the standing room only crowd. Then again, perhaps there were others in Ballard also inexplicably called to attend by the words Lego Expo and Talent Show. The additional Art Gallery was pure bonus after I had already rearranged my schedule.

By Eric Mathison

Burien lawmakers received their first look on Feb. 3 of conceptual plans for a senior housing site and small apartments with some retail on the undeveloped parcels north of Burien Town Square.

The senior site would contain 111 units on Parcel 4, just north of the Burien Library/City hall building. Developers emphasized the senior site would not be a nursing facility.

The apartment site with 227 units would be on Parcel 5, directly north of the current Town square condominiums.

A representative for the company developing the two parcels in cooperation with Legacy Partners said the two adjoining complexes would “bring seniors and young professionals together.”

The company has experience developing both senior and multi-use projects including the Merrill Gardens senior facility in West Seattle.

The project’s architect said the two facilities would be designed with a mid-20th Century theme that blends in with downtown Burien. “But we are not creating Disneyland,” he added.

The senior housing would also contain an outdoor amphitheater available for public use, developers told council members.

Do you love sharing nature with others? Are you interested in learning more about the flora and fauna of Seattle’s many public green spaces and parks? If so, you are the perfect candidate for the Seattle Volunteer Naturalist program. Volunteer Naturalists participate in 10 weeks of training and commit to providing 12 programs a year at Environmental Learning Centers and in parklands near schools throughout Seattle.

Seattle Parks and Recreation’s Volunteer Naturalists provide hands-on learning opportunities for school groups and nature programs for families and adults at Discovery Stations, destination locations throughout parks that present visitors with a theme and natural objects that help them discover their backyard parks. For example, volunteers would have a spotting scope at Bald Eagle nest locations and at Green Lake Park so visitors could follow the nesting cycle of Bald Eagles or Pied Billed Grebes. Another is a station at Me Kwa Mooks Beach or Discovery Park Beach with shells and information about intertidal creatures. One could be a Forest Station to introduce people to the many plants, mammals and birds that make the forested parklands home.

The King County Housing Authority will resume issuing Section 8 vouchers to families on its general waiting list. The waiting list has been frozen for the past 11 months as a result of sequestration, the automatic budget cuts to all federal programs that went into effect March 1, 2013.

The move to unfreeze the list is due to the FY 2014 Consolidated Appropriations Act, in which funding levels to the Section 8 Housing Choice Voucher program were restored to approximately 99 percent of housing authorities’ eligible funding.

“After nearly a year on hold, families on our waiting list can finally breathe a sigh of relief,” said Stephen Norman, executive director of KCHA. “For that we are deeply grateful to Sen. Patty Murray, who successfully negotiated to reverse last year’s devastating sequester cuts to the Section 8 program.”

By Gerardo Bolong

Cedar Park Christian (Bothell) flew away with the rebounds against the Seattle Christian girls basketball team on Fri., January 31, in a 50-35 Nisqually 1A League verdict over SC in SeaTac.

After the battling Warriors had narrowed a 28-17 deficit to 30-26 with 3:20 remaining in the third quarter behind the big time play of Madelyn Weber, Mariah May and Aly Kaler, the ran afoul of the Eagle rebounding dominance and fast breaks to trail 38-26 going into the third quarter.

Seattle Christian never got close than 10 points the rest of the way while yielding the control of the glass completely to the visitors.

After staying reasonably close in rebounds (19-13) in the first half, the wounded Warriors completely lost the rebound battle in the second half as the energetic Eagles ripped off a total of 41 game rebounds while nearly doubling their advantage on the offensibe boards at 20-11. Seattle Christian's game field goal percentage was just more than 29 percent each half, as well.

Century Link Field is already set to be full and Safeco Field will be opened to hold the overflow, when the Seahawks parade travels through downtown on Wed. It's going to affect traffic, metro bus service, work, school attendance, and any other kind of business as usual as the World Champions are honored by the City of Seattle. Our news partner Q13 Fox News is reporting that 500,000 people are expected in the biggest celebration in the city's history.

"Gov. Jay Inslee proclaimed a “Moment of Loudness” for 30 seconds to begin at 12:12 p.m. Wednesday.

In Inslee’s proclamation, he urged “the 12th Man to celebrate this momentous Super Bowl win and congratulate the team and themselves by making as much noise as possible for 30 seconds.”

“There is no fan base that deserves this more. Nobody has worked harder in supporting their team with more passion and love and spirit than ours,” Seahawks head coach Pete Carroll said early Monday.