December 2014

The Seattle Department of Transportation (SDOT) will reopen the West Emerson Overpass to traffic today, December 19, completing a challenging 11-week repair project.

This is the first major repair to the bridge since it first opened in 1959. In less than three months construction crews have successfully installed a new bridge girder, repaved the entire bridge deck, poured new sidewalks and curbs, installed new bridge expansion joints, and performed other repairs to the surrounding sidewalks and roads.

“We’re working to maintain and upgrade the city’s transportation infrastructure so that it meets the needs of a growing Seattle,” said Scott Kubly, SDOT director. “Repairing key throughways like the West Emerson Overpass will keep people and goods moving through Seattle for years to come.”

Some additional items of work that are weather dependent – like permanent road striping – will be scheduled once the weather improves next year; this work will not require another overpass closure, but travelers should expect some lane restrictions and traffic impacts.

By Katy Wilkens, MS, RD
Nutrition and fitness manager, Northwest Kidney Centers

Soups are great for cold winter days. But they can be stuffed full of salt, which none of us need. Just one cup of soup from a store-bought can has about 1,800 milligrams of sodium, shooting you past or at your whole day’s recommended sodium limit of 1,500 milligrams to 2,000 mg.
That much canned soup has only 120 calories, not enough to really fill you up. So after the soup, you will eat more food, and go beyond your sodium goal for the day, damaging your heart and kidneys.

Instead of soup in cans, try these homemade soups, which are more hearty and flavorful, while being low in sodium. You can freeze extra to save for a busy weeknight, saving yourself even more time, money and salt.
Squash, pumpkin, root vegetables and potatoes all make great winter soups, and they will keep you warm and full long after the salty stuff in the can has left you feeling hungry again.

Pumpkin soup

1 chopped onion
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 cup sliced mushrooms

2 tablespoons oil

2 cups water

By Gerardo Bolong
CONTRIBUTING WRITER

FEDERAL WAY - Early season gymnastics has proven to be favorable to Mount Rainier High School (Des Moines).
All around runner up Ava Welch led the Mount Rainier girls gymnastics team to its second meet win in two tries this season at the Todd Beamer gymnasium on Wed., Dec. 17.

Welch posted top meet scores on the vault (9.2) and the uneven parallel bars (7.9). Coupled with a 9.5 second place on the floor exercise and third spot on the balance beam at 8.3, the Ram athlete claimed second place on the all-around competition, scoring 34.9 points, which left her only two-tenths of a point behind Kourtney Belarde of North Thurston (35.1). Belarde captured the floor at 9.55 while Sam Sperbeck of Decatur built her third place AA score of 32.35 on her first place beam total of 9.1.
"Tonight, I was good on the vault and the floor. I was getting great height. Since last year, I've improved on the floor and bars. Now, I've added a lay out twist and giants to my routines, although I didn't use them tonight. I want to do well at district and go to state."

by Ed Shepherd
SPORTS CORRESPONDENT

Evergreen has started off it's Seamount season in wrestling with a couple losses, first, to Renton, and, now, to Highline, 72-9, but, that's not what, really, is at show here, as, the Wolverines possess some serious, potential, power on this team this season, going forward, even, after the big loss to the visiting Pirates Thursday.

Not just any potential either. girl potential. Or, in other words....
Girl power!

For wrestling, that's usually not the lead headline, girl wrestlers, but, on this White Center school team, it's, definitely, the lead, as, no boys on this year's team went to state last season. But, one girl, 110-pound, Cecilia Vu, did, make state, as, did one other girl, 100-pound Lisa Nguyen, almost make state for the Wolverines, losing at regionals last season.

"They, pretty much, beat every girl wrestler they faced," said Hip Nguyen (no relation to Lisa), the Wolverines wrestling coach.

Nguyen is 1-1 this season, having won a match and lost one at a recent girls tournament.

The Senior living center at 4611 35th SW that began as Merrill Gardens, then changed to Emeritus for a brief time has changed identities and ownership one more time to become Brookdale Senior Living. The company owns ten centers in the Greater Seattle area and more than 1,100 nationwide. It is the largest senior living company in the nation. The company also now owns the former Merrill Gardens/Emeritius location in the Admiral District on California Ave. SW.

The company, headquartered in Brentwood, Tennessee acquired Emeritus in February at a cost of $1.4 billion in stock, with the full transaction valued at $2.8 billion. Emeritus bought the 37 Merrill Gardens communities that were for sale in August of 2013. There are still Merrill Gardens communities and the company still exists.

Brookdale merged with Emeritus in July of 2014 to form The New Brookdale.

Emeritus as a company was dissolved in the merger.

A new boy has come to town and, like Santa, he wears a fiery red coat: a male red panda named Yukiko (yu-key-ko), Woodland Park Zoo’s newest arrival.

The 9-year-old panda arrived under the Red Panda Species Survival Plan conservation breeding program from Red River Zoo in Fargo, N.D. As part of Woodland Park Zoo’s preventive care program, the zoo’s veterinary team performed a full physical examination including weight, blood work and radiographs.

“We are pleased overall with his weight and blood work and he appears to be in good shape,” said Dr. Darin Collins, director of Woodland Park Zoo’s Animal Health Programs. “We found some moderate dental disease that required us to extract one tooth. He will need to spend some time on antibiotics and other medications before completing his quarantine period, which is standard procedure for all new animals.”

Today Mayor Ed Murray and Seattle Police Chief Kathleen O’Toole outlined the department’s new pilot project on body-worn cameras, as well as unveiled the new uniforms officers will be wearing as they police Seattle streets.

“Body cameras have been a long-time coming and they are finally here,” said Murray. “This tool will improve community policing and support accountability for our officers. Above all, they will make our neighborhoods safer.”

“Body cameras will be a game changer, a progressive means to improve public safety, police accountability, transparency, and trust with the community,” said Seattle Councilmember Bruce Harrell, chair of the Public Safety, Civil Rights and Technology Committee.

The department’s East Precinct will train 12 officers in the use of the body cameras. Field deployments will begin next week. The department will use the trials to decide between two technologies, as well as refine data retention and public disclosure processes.

By Ed Shepherd
SPORTS CORRESPONDENT

Seattle Christian Schools' Warriors boys basketball team ran by the visiting Tyee Totems, who tried to play tough to start but were overpowered more and more as the game wore on -- getting handed a 58-34 loss Monday.

The SCS Warriors moved to 2-2 on the season, all non-league games, while the Totems went to 1-4.
The Warriors show promise this season, for many reasons, including the fact they only lost a tough, 59-55, score to Cedar Park Christian (3-1), to start its Cascade season, a very tough league, traditionally, with state-power, Kings, in it. And, anyway, CPC is not playing in 1A, like the Warriors do. Cedar Park Christian plays in 2A, with much larger enrollment.

"Much larger" because of what Warriors head coach Shawn De Yager said.
"We play in 1A, but should be 2B because of our enrollment," said De Yager. "We opt up to 1A, which is good for all sports at our school."

In response to rising crime rates in North Seattle, Whittier Heights Involved Neighbors met last week to discuss the details of forming their very own paid security patrol.

Almost 50 residents from the Whittier Heights neighborhood met at the Ballard Church to find out how the new security patrol will be operated.

The patrol will be comprised of off-duty Seattle Police officers working in shifts amounting to four-hours. They will patrol an area from Northwest 65th street to Northwest 85th Street to 15th Avenue Northwest to 8th Avenue Northwest. The patrollers are hired through a security company, Seattle Security, which is an agency that works closely with SPD officers. On patrols, SPD officers are off-duty, yet will wear a uniform. Weather permitting, officers will walk or bike the parameters of the neighborhood, or drive their personal vehicles. Officers are authorized to arrest individuals breaking the law.

By Peggy Sturdivant

On the way to arrange for a story interview that I thought would be uplifting for the holidays I crossed paths with a man in a red hat on a different path. Hudson stopped to put some belongings in the back of an old pick-up truck and then we both found ourselves waiting for the owner of the Spirit Gas Station at 24th and Market.

Overhearing the name Ballard News-Tribune this man in the hat with tassels wanted to know if I’d written about him some four years earlier. “You’re in the paper,” he said someone told him, after the incident at the Jack-in-the-Box on Leary Way. Not me, I told him explaining that the crime reports are generally taken straight from Seattle Police reports.

I needed breakfast and coffee but this man’s account of his version of what the Ballard News-Tribune, June 16, 2010 Police Blotter headlined as “Woman, dog, threatened at knifepoint” was riveting, and it was a breakfast story.