June 2020

UPDATE June 8

The Seattle Department of Transportation (SDOT) has made an addendum to their original Request for Qualifications (RFQ) for replacement for the now damaged West Seattle Bridge. In the original RFQ the primary requirement was for companies applying to have ten years of bridge building experience. This requirement seemed to express an explicit bias for a bridge as the favored choice to cross the river, leaving other options unmentioned. Bob Ortblad, retired Civil Engineer whose concept for an immersed tube tunnel under the river has seen a substantial groundswell of support since it was first published in Westside Seattle, persisted in his efforts to get the tunnel and the potential for including light rail into the RFQ. SDOT on Monday said they were making the addendum to include just that.

It now reads:

REQUEST FOR PROPOSALS

Consultant Contract

The West Seattle Chamber stands in solidarity with our Black and Brown neighbors. The recent police violence against Black Americans is only the latest in America’s shameful history of racism and oppression. We will no longer continue to avert our eyes and cover our ears as you cry out for change. We hear you. We march with you. We support you.

Dear members of theater and the greater community:

We are compelled by recent events to join other theater organizations around the nation in addressing what cannot be unseen.

The devaluation and degradation of black artists and lives is not a recent event. It is a persistent and systemic injustice. Recent events are an unambiguous reminder that black Americans and people of color have been marginalized by far too many of our institutions, in the past and the present.

The world of theater, and our greater society, remains affected by slavery and Jim Crow. These failures to treat all humans fairly must be recognized. We must take responsibility. We alone are capable of taking actions now and into the future to realize meaningful change. We must act as individuals and as a group. Theater can, and must, lead the way out of this darkness.

By Jean Godden

Even in these days of social distancing, I plan on celebrating -- maybe solo -- on June 15. That's the 161st anniversary of my favorite war, the often forgotten Pig War.

On that June day in 1859, Lyman Cutler, a U. S. settler on San Juan Island, discovered a pig rooting in his potato patch. It wasn't the first time that Hudson Bay's livestock had strayed into Cutler's garden. This time the outraged Cutler got out his gun and shot the pig. Later that same day he apologized to Charles Griffin, manager of the company's farm, offering to pay $10, an amount Cutler thought right.

information from the City of Seattle

Retired Civil Engineer Bob Ortblad's idea for a tunnel under the Duwamish instead of a bridge has changed the conversation about replacing the damaged high rise West Seattle Bridge. 

Multiple questions about feasibility, cost, timing and more emerged and Ortblad reports getting a growing body of support from engineers, and people interested in the issue.

Now he is holding a series of virtual meetings via Zoom to explain the idea and answer questions from the public.

"I've been expanding the presentation as more questions have come up that needed answers so the concept has grown," explained Ortblad.