The totem pole stolen from Rotary Viewpoint Park on Dec. 1st and recovered near Salem, Oregon last month is back in West Seattle and members of the West Seattle Rotary Club paid it a visit on Tuesday. It's being stored at the Seattle Parks and Recreation facility on West Marginal Way, kept dry and waiting for restoration.

The pole was not apparently damaged during the theft. Bud Connaughton, Carpenter Crew Chief for Seattle Parks and Recreation was on hand and said, "I'm surprised they were able to lift it out of there without breaking the totem pole itself."

Rotary Club past president Josh Sutton said, "We're filing some reports with Parks and Rec. and we should have some answers in the next few weeks as to the E.T.A. (the restoration and reinstallation) is but we don't have anything right now. Parks doesn't have any money, we're trying to help secure some of that and we've got some information about restoring the pole. Parks owns the pole and we don't know anything about prosecution. That's really what we know. We just wanted to take a look today at our baby and she looks like she's in good shape."

Tom Wise, 3rd generation Rotarian and past Club President gave the pole a quick inspection and said, "I can see that the pole itself has a number of cracks in it for what it is, the pole is fine. All the painting on it needs to be rejuvenated so it looks sharp again. A couple of pins for the… bolt ons seem to have a little stress but they're all there… The bottom is in good shape…They don't have any real damage from when they unbolted it we just need to restore the condition so it will last for many years."

A request for a bid has gone out for the restoration to local art conservation and preservation firm Artech, located on 1st Avenue South. Artech can provide the necessary expertise for the process. Account Manager Denise Bisio said, "We just restored a totem for the King County Library system for their Redmond Branch, though it wasn't as old as the West Seattle totem pole." That bid came in between $15,000 and $20,000 Sutton said.

The restoration process is not necessarily a simple one. "We always try to follow the artists original intent when we do restorations", said Bisio, who explained that they will take one of two approaches. One involves an oil based treatment and the other uses a chemical treatment called 'Borate'. Each treatment will preserve the pole for 5 to 7 years before requiring another treatment.

The Rotary Club fully intends to make the restoration and reinstallation a community effort. "It's about securing funding, it's about restoring the pole, and it's about getting it ready to go back up," said Sutton. "Maybe it's spring, maybe it's early summer, but it's not in the next few weeks. And right now it's still actually evidence because nobody's been charged yet, so it's not going anywhere yet."

If you'd like to donate to help restore the totem pole you can go to www.westseattlerotary.org