White Center Now: The blog about White Center

(Also published on partner sites West Seattle Blog and The South Park News)

You’ve probably noticed, maybe even felt the effects of, the stagnant, murky air. It’s just led the Puget Sound Clean Air Agency to announce a Stage 1 burn ban for King County as of 2 pm today. Here’s how the agency explains that type of burn ban:

*No burning is allowed in fireplaces or uncertified wood stoves. Residents should rely instead on their home’s other, cleaner source of heat (such as their furnace or electric baseboard heaters) for a few days until air quality improves, the public health risk diminishes and the ban is cancelled. The only exception is if a wood stove is a home’s only adequate source of heat.

*No outdoor fires are allowed. This includes recreational fires such as bonfires, campfires, and the use of fire pits and chimineas.

*Burn ban violations are subject to a $1,000 penalty.

It is OK to use natural gas, propane, pellet and EPA-certified wood stoves or inserts during a Stage 1 burn ban.

More info? Go here. As for the weather – the long-range forecast doesn’t include rain any sooner than Friday night.

You don’t have to work for the federal government to be affected by its shutdown. King County Executive Dow Constantine and King County Councilmember Joe McDermott are coming to Greenbridge at noon tomorrow (Wednesday) to make that point; they’re planning a media event at the county Public Health clinic there, also including someone the announcement describes as “a client of Public Health services,” and plan “to detail specific pending impacts of the continuing federal government shutdown.”

The grand opening of Fitness With A Purpose, a new business in Greenbridge, is this Saturday. That’s according to an announcement published on a mailing list for nearby South Park. It’s at 9610 8th SW – you’ve probably seen the sign. They’re described as having all-new equipment and Zumba classes, among other things.

THURSDAY UPDATE: We’ve received more information about this:

WHAT: Grand opening of Fitness With a Purpose

WHEN: Saturday, September 14th, 1:00-9:00 p.m.

WHERE: Fitness With A Purpose, 9610 8th Ave. SW (corner of 8th and Roxbury)

DETAILS: New members will receive on full week free between Sept 14 and Oct 13. The 1,750 square-foot facility features an aerobics studio, personal training area and cardio equipment. Members can also take a wide selection of group exercise classes including step aerobics, Zumba, cardio strength, stretch and flex, core and more and TRX suspension strength training from experienced professional trainers.

About Fitness With a Purpose

Located on the corner of 8th and Roxbury near the Greenbridge community, Fitness With a Purpose offers an innovative and positive approach to living a healthy lifestyle. Additionally, Fitness With A Purpose offers a variety of inexpensive fitness groups for walking and running led by certified instructors. And to better meet the needs of the community, free women and girls-only classes will be held on Thursdays at 3 p.m. and Saturdays at 7 a.m.

Fitness with a purpose has a flexible schedule, opening its doors at 6 am Monday through Friday. The facility will be closed weekdays from 1-4:30 pm for personal training, but open after that until 9 p.m. Facility is also open Saturdays 7 a.m. to 3 p.m.

Plus, Greenbridge residents receive 25 percent off their monthly membership fee.

Announced today by the North Highline Unincorporated Area Council – a big topic at the next NHUAC meeting, in two weeks:

The North Highline Unincorporated Area Council is pleased to be hosting representatives from Public Health at the Thursday, September 5 meeting. Information will be presented regarding the outreach and enrollment campaign, “Coverage is Here King County”. This is a county wide effort to enroll 180,000 newly eligible King County residents in Medicaid and the Health Benefit Exchange (WashingtonHealthPlanFinder) once enrollment starts on October 1, 2013. Coverage begins January 1, 2013.

All are welcome to this important presentation.

When: Thursday, Sept 5, 7 pm
Where: North Highline Fire Station (1243 112th Street, SW)

7-9 pm next Friday night (March 22), “Silence Is Loud” at Dubsea Coffee will bring attention to a difficult topic – but one that is imperative we all discuss – suicide. Evergreen Campus student Vanisa Long‘s invitation to an open-microphone and art show is below, shared by Dubsea proprietor Sibelle Nguyen:

Join us for a night of art and performances to promote the awareness of suicide. I’m holding this event for my senior project in hopes of bringing the community together to learn more about this issue and introduce resources for those who are depressed or have thoughts of suicide. We have performances lined up, but there will be a signup sheet for those who wish to perform the night of. If you have artwork that relate to the topic, feel free to contact me if you’d like your work to be showcased. E-mail vanisalg@yahoo.com

Dubsea is at 9910 8th SW in Greenbridge. There’s also a Facebook event page for “Silence Is Loud” – find it here.

P.S. If you or someone you know has talked or thought about suicide – there is 24/7 help via the Crisis Clinic at 206-461-3222.

Tonight at Bison Creek Pizza in Burien, friends and family are gathering to raise money for Joshua Watler, a community organizer who has worked around the region but is now in his biggest fight yet – for his life, battling a second round of leukemia (ALL).

White Center’s Full Tilt, Company, Proletariat Pizza, and 3.14 Bakery are among those who have donated to the silent auction and raffle tonight, 5-10:30 pm at Bison Creek. (Here’s the Facebook event.)

If you haven’t met Joshua – here’s what event organizers write about him:

First diagnosed in 2009, Joshua has not only survived surgery to remove a tumor, intensive chemo, and years of maintenance chemo, but while he was doing all that the first time, he started a unique community union (OUR Washington) for regular people – often the most disenfranchised and ignored people in our society.

He then started a second nonprofit (WA Prosperity Center) to connect the members of his community union and the members of the larger community with available services. He did all this, again, while undergoing cancer treatment. Joshua achieved his first remission last spring. Unfortunately, just 6 months later, the leukemia returned. This time, his only option for survival is a bone marrow transplant. Joshua has been approved and found a match and the dates are set, but now he needs your help; we need to raise $10,000 in just a few weeks to cover his portion of the bone marrow transplant. After the transplant, Joshua will be disabled for several months (up to a year), and he will need further help with funds. Please help us keep Joshua alive, for his sake, for the sake of those of us who love him, and for the sake of the community he serves.

To find out more – go to tonight’s event! And check out these links – Joshua’s Trust Fund and Joshua’s public Facebook page.

If you are living with – or helping someone living with – Parkinson’s Disease, a local group is reaching out to you, and inviting you to its next meeting, which is convenient to the White Center area. From Dagmar Cronn:

The South Park Parkinson’s Disease Support Group meets the third Thursdays of each month at 10:00 am. We meet at Arrowhead Gardens, 9220 2nd Ave SW. Our participants are both those with Parkinson’s Disease as well as caregivers and care partners. The programming provides information specific to the disease, which manifests in different symptoms in different patients. The meetings also give the families a chance to talk about the challenges and successes in living with Parkinson’s.

We have a special program on Thursday, October 18. Dr. Susie Ro, a Movement Specialist at Swedish, will be our guest speaker. She will talk about the expansive list of medical support specialists that she and other Neurologists refer Parkinson’s Disease patients to for additional help in controlling and accommadating to symptoms. She will also talk about the differences in care she provides to Parkinson’s patients based on each patient’s personal disease symptoms and progression of the disease.

It’s White Center Art Walk night, 6-9 pm! One of the places you can stop for art and treats is Center Studio (9611 16th SW), whose proprietor Lonjina Verdugo sends word of what she has in store:

September Artist: Sarah Barrick at Center Studio

Please join us every 3rd Saturday of the month during Art Walk and enjoy what Center Studio has to offer. This month, Sarah Barrick’s photography based visual interpretations of the ratios and proportions found in the study of sacred geometry examine the perspective of the mandala principle where existence is described as ‘orderly chaos.’ She hopes that the beauty of her circular images give pause and create a space for the mind to wander, to wonder, and to appreciate what she sees as inseparable parts of a total vision of reality. www.sarahbarrick.com

We will be enjoying snacks and sips from 6-9 pm tonight with specials on classes if you sign-up while at the studio. Plus, if you have been wanting to try us out, we are offering our first Community Yoga night Sunday, 9/16, at 5:30. Cost is donation only. All are welcome!

Anybody else part of Art Walk tonight? Send info! whitecenternow@gmail.com

In downtown White Center till 6 pm, you are invited to come celebrate The Center Studio‘s grand opening (9611 16th SW).

Meet proprietor Lonjina Verdugo (above), admire RobRoy Chalmers‘ art (behind Lonjina in the photo), have a snack and/or sip, and if you are bringing kids – there’s a bouncy house out back!

See the class info at whitecenterstudio.com.

Announced today by the King County Sheriff’s Office:

In partnership with King County Emergency Medical Services, a division of Public Health – Seattle & King County, 53 Automated External Defibrillators (AEDs) are being distributed to 53 King County Sheriff’s Deputies. The deputies can be dispatched to a cardiac arrest call along with emergency medical responders.

Equipped deputies who arrive first to the scene of a cardiac arrest will start resuscitation and deliver the first defibrillator shocks. Once emergency medical responders arrive on the scene, they will take over resuscitation duties.

“Training and equipping Sheriff Deputies with external defibrillators is a great service for all residents in King County and will definitely save lives. Rapid defibrillation can literally snatch the life from the jaws of death,” said Dr. Mickey Eisenberg, the Medical Director for King County Emergency Medical Services.

15 deputies have already been trained and are equipped with AEDs. The remainder of the AEDs will be assigned over the next few months as deputies receive the training. “This is a voluntary initiative and all deputies receiving an AED have expressed their interest in participating in this life-saving program,” said King County Sheriff’s Captain Bryan Howard, who is the Emergency Services Coordinator for the Sheriff’s Office.

Public Health provided the funding for approximately 49 of the AEDs. The EMS levy funding is available for special projects related to training for King County and region-wide municipal workforce and providing AEDs for King County facilities and vehicles.

“Seattle and King County already have the best survival chances for cardiac arrest in the country, thanks to Medic One and CPR/AED training for our residents,” said King County Councilmember Kathy Lambert, who chairs the Security Oversight Committee and advocates for AEDs. “Our Sheriff’s deputies often arrive first at the scene of an emergency, and they are already trained to save lives. These AEDs are important tools to have available in the field so we can get help quickly to where it is needed. Recent placement of AEDs in the King County Courthouse already has saved at least one life, and now we can expand this capability throughout the community.”

New twist in the medical-marijuana situation – Governor Gregoire just announced she’s asked the federal government to reclassify marijuana so that it could be prescribed for medical treatment and made available at pharmacies. Read her announcement on our partner site West Seattle Blog.

Story and photo by Deanie Schwarz
Reporting for White Center Now

Another White Center medical-marijuana patient collective will be opening next weekend – Saturday, September 24 – at 9640 16th SW. Northwest Cannabis Market (NCM), a private cooperative of patient-farmers and collective gardens, will be the third medical marijuana venue in White Center.

Managed by Michael Keysor, the NCM cooperative formed in April of this year with plans to operate as a weekend-only patient-farmer market in Everett, according to Keysor. That city, however, took action to put the brakes on medical marijuana. NCM began a search for a new “market” location outside of Snohomish County that was more “friendly to patients” and to “provide safe, secure access” to their medicine.

He said rent costs were prohibitive in Seattle, but the White Center space next door to Uncle Mike’s BBQ provided the square footage needed (3,900 sq. ft.) for the cannabis patient/farmers and patient/medible providers to set up tables, farmers-market-style. A testing area for patient members to sample the varieties of cannabis offered by the farmers will also be incorporated into the “market.” However, Keysor said that this is not like the lounge/socializing model which G.A.M.E. Collective (one-half block south at 98th/16th) operates with. He anticipates members/patients will be in and out of the market within 20 to 30 minutes.

The hours will be limited to Saturday and Sunday only, from 11:00 AM to 5:00 PM, with uniformed, armed, security on site through a private security firm. Keysor thought it was possible that the hours will be shortened during the winter months, but also that they hoped to eventually be open three days a week at some point. The members must provide proof of their tamper-proof medical-marijuana patient cards at the door, along with ID. Non-member patients with paperwork will be able to become members at the door. According to Keysor, this collective is only the second one in the country to use the “farmers market” collective model. The first, he said, is the Cannabis Farmers Market, which runs periodically in Tacoma and Seattle. Based on that group’s market, Keysor believes NCM will have 100+ patients over the weekend at about 10 patients per hour, but currently there are only eight or nine vendors committed for the opening. He anticipated there could be up to 25, however, as the collective network has about 600 members currently.

Keysor told WCN at the end of last week that he had not yet met with any members of the King County Sheriff’s Office and assumed that they would come to him, but that perhaps he would stop by the Storefront Office to introduce himself. Keysor also thought his business would be good for the neighborhood, particularly the food and restaurant establishments. However, he didn’t want to have his photo published; the picture atop this story is the storefront where he plans to open.

Five days till the big “Shop Fresh” event around White Center – here’s the official announcement:

The White Center Community Development Association is leading the effort to organize the first White Center Business District Summer Shop Fresh Event in the White Center Business District on Saturday, August 20th from 5-7pm.

The purpose of this event is to raise the awareness of fresh, healthy foods now available in six produce markets and three Halal stores in White Center’s business district. “Exploring Summer Shop Fresh by foot in White Center’s walkable, pedestrian-friendly business district, will allow visitors to purchase healthy fruits and vegetables while learning about unique culinary traditions of our community neighbors,” said Aileen Balahadia, Executive Director of the White Center Community Development Association. The White Center CDA is a catalyst for a healthy community and new prosperity in White Center – creating a better place to visit, shop, and live.

As White Center shoppers enter participating Summer Shop Fresh stores, they will check in at a “Healthy Foods Here” table where attendees will participate in an activity relating to healthy food and fitness. Afterward, they will be gifted a “Spend $6, Get $3 Off” coupon. For every $3 dollars of money spent on a purchase, White Center residents will be able to use this coupon to buy additional food. The coupon is only valid for purchase on August 20 and at participating stores. The more stores the residents visit, the more coupons they will be gifted.

Healthy food cooking demonstrations will also be provided at one of the markets. There are nine food stores participating in the event: Lee’s Produce, West Seattle Halal Market, White Center Market, White Center Mini Market Halal and Deli, White Center International Deli and Halal Store, Phnom Khiev, Samway Market, Hung Long Asian Market and New Golden Village Market.

The White Center CDA thanks co-sponsor Healthy Foods Here project which supports small, local businesses selling fresh fruits and vegetables become certified in the Federal Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC) and Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), also known as food stamps. Stores that accept SNAP and WIC increase access to healthy foods for low-income residents. For more information about the Healthy Foods Here project, please visit the official website at www.healthyfoodshere.com.

1:16 PM: According to the King County Public Health Department, the medical-marijuana GAME Lounge in downtown White Center is open again, with the qualifier “allowed to remain open to sell food and beverage items that are exempt from permit.”

6:13 PM UPDATE: WCN contributor Deanie Schwarz talked with GAME Lounge owner Brionne Corbray, who disputes what the county was asking for:

Just in from King County Public Health:

The Game Lounge located at 9803 16th Ave SW, Seattle, 98106 was closed by a Public Health food inspector on July 6, 2011 at 1:50 pm for operating without a valid food business permit. The establishment will be reopened once it’s confirmed that the person in charge of the establishment has completed the steps to get a valid permit per the instructions online at
www.kingcounty.gov/healthservices/health/ehs/foodsafety/FoodBusiness

From the Public Health Department’s e-mail bulletin:

*Asian Bubble Tea* located at *9835 16th Ave. SW, Seattle, WA 98106* was closed by a Public Health food inspector on Wednesday, May 11, 2011 at 12:30 pm for operating without a valid permit.

You can check its status by going here.

The proliferation of medical-marijuana enterprises is on the agenda at the North Highline Unincorporated Area Council tomorrow (Thursday) night. King County Councilmember Joe McDermott will discuss it while speaking to the council, according to NHUAC councilmember Barbara Dobkin.

This comes while new medical-marijuana businesses continue to open in the unincorporated area, even as the push toward state regulation is mired in political disagreement. Just a few days ago, WCN contributor Deanie Schwarz found another one that has just opened:

She reports: Cannabis Oasis, located at 11109 1st Ave. So., opened for business more than two weeks ago in the Top Hat area as a nonprofit medical marijuana dispensary. This is the third known medical cannabis related operation that has just opened or will soon open in the area, along with Herban Legends and Green Piece, both located on 16th Ave. in the central White Center business district. (In neighboring West Seattle, at least two medical-marijuana enterprises are currently in operation and actively marketing themselves, while there are reportedly others that are keeping a low profile; a third that plans to operate openly is coming to 35th/Roxbury.)

State legislators are hoping to get a new bill approved during their current special session, to make up for what was lost when Governor Gregoire vetoed parts of the bill both houses had approved during the regular session. A key player in this is our area’s senior State Rep. Eileen Cody, since she chairs the health committee in the State House. We caught up with her in West Seattle last weekend to ask about the issue:

As for local authorities, we had spoken with them extensively while the now-gutted bill was still going through the State Legislature. They all had hoped for a consistent state law – but barring that, local control might be needed and that’s exactly what King County Prosecutor Dan Satterberg has told Seattle Weekly – particularly considering one side effect of the governor’s action is apparently that one rule regarding providing marijuana to patients is about to get a lot tougher, and wasn’t originally intended to work out that way. That, according to our partners at the Seattle Times, leaves the current operators in fear of raids once the new law takes effect in July – unless changes are made before the Legislature’s special session runs out. Again, this is on the agenda for NHUAC tomorrow night – 7 pm, North Highline Fire District</strong> HQ (full agenda here).