White Center Now: The blog about White Center

From the White Center Community Development Association website: Feet First is out with its White Center On Foot map – the links are in this WCCDA post.

Music! Bicycles! Facepainting! And White Center’s own Full Tilt Ice Cream. “Crank It Up” is happening at Cesar Chavez Park (7th and Cloverdale) till 6 pm – here’s an update from our partner site West Seattle Blog.

On Friday, coast to coast, the 9/11 anniversary was honored with a Day of Service/Day of Caring. As part of that, Microsoft workers volunteered on behalf of White Center Food Bank — helping at the food bank as well as working on a food drive at grocery stores in West Seattle and Burien. You can see a mini-photo album at the White Center Food Bank Facebook page (that’s the source of the photo you see atop this item).

Evergreen’s Alfred Johnson e-mailed to say:

The 2009 season starts for the Wolverines this Friday night against Mt Rainier High School (the Rams), 7:00 pm @ Highline Stadium and we want to get the community out to support and cheer the team on for our first game.

And he also sent word about a fundraiser tomorrow with Millennium Ford of Burien. Here’s the official flyer. He explains:

For each person who comes for a 5 min. test drive, Ford will donate $20 to Evergreen High School to use for the football team. There will be EHS players and Cheerleaders on hand to sign folks up for test drives. sell EHS Football Gear and Gold Cards and promote the fund raiser. Head Coach Lewis, his coaching staff and I will be there to help out and answer questions about the EHS Football Program.

Their website’s also up and running at ehswolverinefootball.com. Go Wolverines!

EARLY SATURDAY UPDATE: Final score, Mount Rainier 44, Evergreen 0. Get out to the fundraiser today! Next week they play Kennedy – 1:30 pm Saturday 9/19 at Highline.

From the Seattle mayoral debate that’s under way right now at the Cinerama downtown – The first audience question was regarding annexation of the remainder of North Highline. Joe Mallahan says he’s not sure that Seattle is the best option for that area, adding that some in the area have told him they want to wait and see “how Burien does” with the rest of North Highline. Mike McGinn says it’s up to the people in that area to decide. We had asked the campaigns via e-mail to answer this question and had only received McGinn’s response, which to elaborate on that point, was that he does not plan to aggressively pursue it – if citizens in that area ask for Seattle to annex them, he’d see how it goes, but he said he looks forward to working with them however things turn out. (When the video stream of the debate is done, we’ll link back to it here, assuming it’s archived, and we’ll look for the time code so you can see their answers for yourself.) UPDATE: The question was asked by WCCDA’s Virgil Domaoan, according to the WCCDA website, which also notes the time code at which you’ll see the answer is around 26:30 – video link’s here.

Reported this morning by seattletimes.com (WCN partner) – a settlement in the lawsuit over Deputy Steve Cox’s shooting death three years ago at the hands of a convicted criminal who was supposed to be under state supervision – more than $3 million. Read about it here.

5:30 to 7:30 pm Saturday (September 12), West Seattle Montessori School’s new White Center campus is inviting you to come visit. They’re promising hot dogs, other goodies, and free tours. They’re at 11215 15th SW (map).

The new pizza joint in downtown White Center, whose impending arrival was first reported here on WCN, is pushing back the planned opening date one week – they’re now projecting Friday, September 18th, according to word from co-owner Stefanie. P.S. As Bayou notes in comments, they’ve got a website started now at proletariatpizza.com.

First day of school. Some of what’s new for this school year is linked from the district home page.

First published in the Forums at partner site West Seattle Blog – but it’s happening this weekend in White Center:

Let’s “Fix” the Problem, a benefit for Feral Cat Assistance & Trapping (F.C.A.T.), raising funds to feed, spay, and neuter feral cats and help low-income cat lovers with needs like Advantage™ and teeth cleanings.

Saturday, September 12, 5:00 PM – close
Dong Khanh Café
9655 – 16th Avenue SW (White Center)

Admission $10 (sorry, can’t take cards) or $5 with a 20+lb. bag of cat or dog food, children are free with parents. All ages welcome until 11:00 PM, 21+ after that.

No-host full bar and food (special menu for the night, yes – vegetarian options) and music includes live performances by Stingshark, Paddle Wack, and 80s Invasion. Silent auction and prizes too!

Just a ½ block north, our friends at Full Tilt will offer a special “Meow Mix” ice cream on Saturday with chunks of cranberries, almonds, and dark chocolate. Proceeds benefit F.C.A.T., so be sure to visit them too – yum!

For more information on F.C.A.T., visit http://www.feraltrapping.com

Hope to see you there and thanks for being part of the solution.

(photo courtesy FBI, added Tuesday night)
Apparently almost no one but the bank staff (at Chase on SW 100th) knew, according to the reports just emerging today. Read about it – and see more photos – courtesy of our partners at the Seattle Times.

KING5 tells the story, surveillance video and all – see it here.

WANT TO HELP THE WHITE CENTER FOOD BANK? We published this earlier today at partner site West Seattle Blog – the WCFB (which is news there too since it serves people in West Seattle as well as WC) is asking for artists to decorate chairs to be auctioned off at the annual Harvest Dinner and Auction coming up in October. Full details here.

HELP WHITE CENTER FOR THE ARTS, TOO! Last night we reported on White Center for the Arts‘ ongoing efforts to buy the Southgate ex-rink building; tonight, they’re inviting you to their next “Third Saturday” arts event – this time at Big Al Brewing, 7-19 pm Sept. 19. WCFTA’s Shelli Park says, “Come enjoy Art, Music, Food, Beverage, and Prizes; a rockin’ Saturday night, and help WCFTA reach its funding goal.” Here’s the flyer.

Thanks very much to the reader who spotted real-estate signs up today at the former Southgate Skate Center, briefly turned Southgate Event Center, and crews clearing various stuff out of the building. White Center for the Arts has been looking into taking over the building (it had artist studios in the easternmost section, which has a 16th SW entry) – its website currently says, in an undated entry:

Our mission to secure the Skate Building, at 9639 16th Ave SW, for the community of White Center may be successful. WCFTA is partnering with the WCCDA to retain the building for community use. Though we have officially moved out of the building this is hopefully only a detour.

We sent an inquiry to WCFTA chair Shelli Park, who replied before we could even finish writing this item:

Yes, the WC Community Development Association, in partnership with White Center for the Arts, is in negotiations with the current owners of the skate building. It has been a slow and painful process. A waiting game. The White Center community needs to preserve this historic building for community purposes! White Center for the Arts, which would manage the programming aspects of the building if the deal is successful, is currently looking for arts- and/or culture-based organizations and artists who are interested in renting space in the building as part of the development stage of the project.

Contact info for Shelli and WCFTA is at their website, whitecenterforthearts.org. Meantime, a Burien-based Coldwell Banker real-estate rep was on site today with the cleanup crews, and yet another firm — Cornerstone Investment Properties — is listed on the “AVAILABLE” signs now posted on the building. It went through foreclosure earlier this year, and went up for auction in June (here’s the “notice of trustee’s sale” that is archived in online county records); rink owners tried a swap meet last fall and had hoped to make a go of it as “Southgate Event Center.” The skating-rink business closed in 2005 and had a long history, as detailed at HistoryLink.org.

The state’s new program of keeping most liquor stores open on holidays continues this Monday – the White Center store is open 11 am-7 pm.

More from last night’s North Highline Unincorporated Area Council monthly meeting, this time a followup on the rally earlier this week at Evergreen Pool (on the eve of its indefinite shutdown, which began Tuesday):

NHUAC president Greg Duff outlined the latest developments, including a recap of Monday’s rally, but with a new wrinkle – he says the county told WhiteWater Aquatics, which hopes to take over the pool and reopen it, that it needs $100,000 in reserves to make sure labor/utilities/other costs can be paid until it has a “positive cash flow.” Duff described WhiteWater’s bid as a unique situation, adding, “How can a nonprofit come up with $100,000?” He quoted WW’s Ed Marrs as summarizing, “It’s down to money … $100,000.” WhiteWater has filed LLC paperwork with the state but there still appears to be no chance the pool would reopen any sooner than January 1st, even if WW’s attempt is successful. There was some question of why the pool didn’t wind up in the annexation area; during the meeting, in his update on post-vote annexation matters (more on that later), Burien City Manager Mike Martin said his city would rather build a new pool than try to keep up a dated facility like Evergreen (one of many regionally built with “Forward Thrust” money more than three decades ago).

One note from the early going at the North Highline Unincorporated Area Council meeting (which is still under way as of this writing at 8:25 pm):

–There’s a county-sponsored recycling event at Evergreen High School Saturday, Sept. 13, 9 am-3 pm. See the details here.

Reminder that the North Highline Unincorporated Area Council meets tonight — first meeting since North Highline South annexation to Burien passed, first meeting since Evergreen Pool closed, and other hot topics on the agenda too – see it here. (Also follow the link on the NHUAC name in this story to see updates on their website – lots of topically updated news including items by president Greg Duff and WhiteWater Aquatics’ Ed Marrs following up on the Evergreen Pool rally earlier this week.) Tonight’s meeting is at 7 pm, North Highline Fire District HQ.

King County certified the final results of the August 18 election today, and here’s how the annexation measure ended up:

FOR ANNEXATION 1380 55.56%
AGAINST ANNEXATION 1104 44.44%

39.5% of voters in the area turned in their ballots. The election, Evergreen Pool, and more are bound to be part of the discussion tomorrow night at the next meeting of the North Highline Unincorporated Area Council, 7 pm, North Highline Fire District HQ. And the next meeting of the Burien City Council – for those who will soon be Burien residents without even moving – is Monday, Sept. 14.

Just noticed it while adding links to our previous story about the Evergreen Pool rally; see the North Highline Fire District’s updated website here.