White Center Now: The blog about White Center

As the city’s Neighborhood Service Center coordinator for Delridge, Ron Angeles, put it in his e-mail - “here’s a great community activity to start the New Year.”

The White Center Community Development Association and Trusted Advocates will host the 2008 Community Summit this Saturday, November 8th at Mount View Elementary School.  The event starts at 8:00 am and ends at 3:00 p.m.  Please come and offer your input on the future of your community.   Mount View is located at 10811 12th Avenue SW.

This year’s community summit will gather families, government agencies and local community-based/non-profit organizations in a fun family-friendly environment.  Live cultural performances, ethnic foods, door prizes and children’s activities are just a taste of what the summit has to offer!

Come learn about the issues affecting your community and how you can be involved in a positive way.  There will be info booths and workshops on health, education, jobs, housing, annexation, immigration and more.  Translation services will be provided in Cambodian, Vietnamese, Spanish, Tigrinya, Somali, Amharic, Samoan, Arabic and English (other languages upon request).  Childcare will be provided.

For more info:  Ebony Davis: (206) 694-1082 ext.  168 - ebony@wccda.org or Ian Dapiaoen:  (206) 694-1082 ext. 175 or ian@wccda.org.

This house is located at the intersection of Delridge and 16th Avenue SW.  The house burnt down in December of 2007.   Sometime thereafter, some vagrants started using the basement as their home and so the owner boarded up the windows.  Word is that the house was to be torn down and a mixed use residential-commercial project was to take its place.   Nothing good has happened since.

As you can see from the attached pictures the place is a complete nuisance.  No steps have been taken to mitigate the damage caused by the fire and the subsequent abandonment.  The grass and weeds are overgrown.  The charred appliances and furniture are still lying outside where they were dumped by the fire department.  And the place is conspicuous to just about everyone visiting the White Center commercial area.  Clearly, the owner does not care what kind of a nuisance this creates for the community.  Anybody got some ideas on how to get this negligent owner to clean up his mess?

Somebody making a mess, someplace they shouldn’t? Action taken by King County Councilmembers today might help. Read on for the full details: Read the rest of this entry »

Ok, this is a heavily Democratic neighborhood but there seem to be some Rossi supporters in White Center land?  I am inviting comments on who would be better for White Center, Dino Rossi or Christine Gregoire?  Obviously, we have issues of housing, jobs, health care, affordability, crime, education, sustainability, greenspace etc… And I will gladly share my views.  Forum’s open.  Speak your mind.

Longfellow Creek, which stretches almost all the way to White Center, has some amazing natural areas along the way - and the volunteer forest steward for Delridge Natural Area, Mike Arizona, asked us to invite White Center Now readers to join him in restoration work tomorrow. We posted a story with photos and video on our partner site WSB; you can see it here (including information on where to goand how to help, tomorrow).

From Highline Public Schools - more proof that saving energy isn’t just about the environment: Read the rest of this entry »

(update: here’s a link to a map of all Friday’s PARKing Day “Parks” citywide)
Perhaps you’ve heard of PARKing Day - a relatively new annual event in which volunteers in cities nationwide transform parking spaces into parks, to spotlight the importance of urban open space. This year’s edition is coming up on Friday, and there’s going to be a PARKing Day “park” in a prominent White Center spot - here’s the official announcement:

Seattle Parks Foundation is partnering with The Trust for Public Land and Feet First to turn Seattle’s parking spaces into parks on September 19th as part of PARK(ing) Day, a fun and visible event started by Re-Bar in San Francisco to bring attention to the need for more green space in urban areas.

Technology Access Foundation and The White Center Community Development Association will be transforming the parking spaces in front of Full Tilt Ice Cream into a classroom. We are hoping to provide awareness to the community about the work that we do. Everyone is invited to come out and show support to the community.

National Parking Day
Friday, September 19
10:00 am - 3:00 pm

In front of:
Full Tilt Ice Cream
9629 16th Ave SW

Come out and meet your community neighbors!
For More info call - 206-722-2369×102

Just added to the White Center Now events calendar: King County’s Solid Waste Division is presenting a “recycling event” at Evergreen High School on September 13th, and the list of what they’ll accept that day is so long, it just might help you with a fall cleanup: Read the rest of this entry »