White Center Now: The blog about White Center

FIRST REPORT: We’ve been at the 34th District Democrats‘ meeting all night covering their long-running endorsement meeting (4 1/2 hours so far). Still to come – whether they will endorse the North Highline South Annexation vote. We’ll publish results here as soon as that vote’s done. 11:36 PM UPDATE: Speaking in favor of the annexation proposal, King County Council Chair Dow Constantine says he believes Burien will do a good job handling the extra area. Sharon Maeda is now speaking against it, saying she disagrees that Burien will be able to handle it. 11:42 PM UPDATE: A majority of those who are still here – 66 out of 70 voters – have voted to endorse the annexation proposal. However, there’s a challenge to whether there’s enough of a quorum here for that to count (it’s less than half the number of people who were here earlier in the evening). Update – They do have a quorum, so the 34th District Democrats officially endorse the annexation proposal.

From the White Center Food Bank‘s Facebook page (you can “become a fan” here):

We are currently facing critical shortages of canned fruits & vegetables as well as dry goods such as Hamburger Helper, Rice-a-Roni, Mac & Cheese. Any donations would be greatly appreciated.

So many marathons these days, it’s refreshing to see a “microthon,” which is what’s planned right before the White Center Jubilee Days parade on July 18th – not a 26 mile, not a 13 mile, not a 5K, but a … 1K! Get your entry form here.

While out and about covering 4th of July activities on Saturday, we stopped by the Southwest Seattle Historical Society membership picnic at the Log House Museum in West Seattle, and got a reminder about the White Center History Tour – first mentioned here on June 13, and now less than three weeks away – July 25, 10:30 am-noon. An hour and half during which you’ll get decades of knowledge! See you there.

(Three Tree Point fireworks from July 2008 – one place you CAN see over-water fireworks tomorrow night)
We have reported it repeatedly on partner site West Seattle Blog, and it’s been all over a variety of other media sources too, since it was announced three months ago, but we hear some people still may not have gotten the message, so we’ll say it again: NO ELLIOTT BAY FIREWORKS THIS YEAR. Ivar’s discontinued its longrunning tradition. None next year too unless somebody else takes it over. But plenty of other places – including Three Tree Point.

North Highline Unincorporated Area Council‘s Greg Duff sends word of the next meeting – not early in the month as usual, nor at the usual location, but full of important info and chances to get your questions answered:

The July meeting of the North Highline Unincorporated Area Council will be held Thursday July 16 at St. Bernadette’s at the corner of 128th and Ambaum. The time of the meeting is 6:00pm to 7:30pm. This meeting will be an open house intended to inform the public of some pertinent issues. In attendance will be:
The City of Burien
Burien Fire Dept
Burien Police Dept
Emergency Radio Program
King County Code Enforcement
North Highline Fire Dept
White Center Food Bank
Information on the History of Des Moines Drive
and others unnamed at this time.

This is an important meeting for those having questions about the upcoming annexation vote. Ballots for the vote will be arriving in homes around the first week in August.

Any questions can be directed to Greg Duff, President of the NHUAC at 206-235-8966

Just got this word from Linda Holmes at McLendon Hardware:

McLendon Hardware’s White Center location will be hosting a free water conservation clinic on Saturday August 1st from 10:00-12:00. Learn how to easily and inexpensively conserve water and save over $150 per year on your water bill. Scheduled to attend the event will be Seattle Public Utilities, Saving Water Partnership, plumbing vendors, and others who will be helping McLendon’s spread the word on water conservation.

That’s a brand-new flyer for the White Center Community Development Association luau coming up August 29th, 4-8 pm at White Center Heights Park. Island food (an imu-roasted pig!) and entertainment are promised, as money is raised for WCCDA (with an auction, too). Lots more info on the WCCDA site – just go here.

2:48 PM UPDATE: City Light’s Mike Eagan says the outage is over. Checking on a cause.

ORIGINAL 12:57 PM REPORT: Here’s the news release we just received (12:55 pm):

Power went out for approximately 3,671 City Light customers
in Burien, SeaTac and unincorporated King County at 12:36 p.m. today.

The cause of the outage is currently unknown, but City Light crews are
heading to the area to investigate. An estimated time of restoration is
unknown at this time.

The area affected is bordered on the north by So. 96th St., on the
south by S.W. 175th St, between 24th Ave. S.W. and 33rd Ave S.W.

This afternoon at 1:30 Today, the King County Council Budget Committee will take up spending issues including $80,000 proposed to keep Evergreen Pool open two months beyond what at one point was going to be its shutdown date – today. County Council Chair Dow Constantine‘s office says the final vote won’t be till July 13, but that the pool will stay open at least till then. As for what would happen beyond the two-month extension – nothing’s been determined yet.

Pat Thompson from YES Foundation of White Center sends a reminder about the sports camps that start today:

Morning session is 9 – Noon
Afternoon session 1 – 4pm
at Evergreen High School fields, courts and gyms. We are offering football, basketball, soccer, tennis and volleyball.

For athletes, would-be athletes and kids whose parents are looking for things for them to do: Ages 6 -14
The cost is $20, scholarships available.

Here’s the official flyer with full details.

Published at seattlepi.com: The man arrested for stabbing Scatt the cat has pleaded guilty.

If you’re in unincorporated King County, personal fireworks will be on sale starting at noon today. We noticed a few stands-in-the-making in White Center on Friday, including the one above at 100th/16th. But even though you can start buying them today, setting them off is only legal 9 am-midnight on the 4th (next Saturday) – and remember they are banned in neighboring cities Burien and Seattle. Here are all the King County rules.

VIADUCT: This is a good day to not leave home, period. The biggest reason: The Alaskan Way Viaduct is closed most of the day for the Rock N Roll Seattle Marathon. 4 am to 4 pm — the hours may wind up varying somewhat, but that’s the original warning, both directions.

WESTWOOD VILLAGE: One way to avoid leaving the area is to enjoy activities like today’s Westwood Village Street Fair, just north of White Center. We’ll be there representing West Seattle Blog and White Center Now with “live” reporting including photos and video. Free food, music, entertainment, giveaways and more are set to happen at the shopping center 11 am-7 pm; find a schedule here.

CHRISTMAS … IN JUNE: We missed this when it happened a few days ago but are glad to happen onto word of it now: The YES Foundation of White Center visited two schools on the last day of classes to send kids home with gifts to help them enjoy summer, and even raffled off 8 bikes. More info here; photos here.

As reported here after last month’s White Center/South Delridge Community Safety Coalition meeting, one of the group’s facilitators, Kathy Kaminski, is leaving her job to go back to school. So a goodbye for Kathy was a big part of Thursday night’s meeting. She got a cake, going-away present and a card; she told us she came to the job 6 years ago as an AmeriCorps volunteer and was only supposed to stay for a few months, but she fell in love with Seattle and managed to stay. Now, though, she’s leaving to head to Chicago to get a master’s degree in Public Administration. She told us she grew up in that area and her family’s all still there, but she intends to move back here after graduation. She told the group, “Thanks for all your hard work. It was a great opportunity – I’ve learned so much from you guys. I’m excited to move on and sad to leave, but I leave the neighborhood knowing it’s in good hands.”

Speaking of which – here’s the crime roundup: King County Sheriff’s Deputy Jeff Hancock says the past month’s been unusually quiet in the White Center area – no car thefts, and only one reported vehicle prowl. The major incidents otherwise involved two fights in the 16th SW nightclub/bar zone and a robbery attempt at an ATM; Deputy Hancock says all three cases resulted in arrests, with witnesses’ information helping in the robbery attempt, as several passersby saw what happened and provided tips.

Southwest Precinct Community Police Team Officer Adonis Topacio attended on behalf of the Seattle side of the line; he said car thefts and car prowls remain high. Meeting participants asked him to check on what was described as a recurring situation in the courtyard right there at St. James Place – late-night gatherings with dozens of teenagers making noise.

Also discussed, the abandoned, fire-damaged home in the 9000 block of 17th SW and the adjoining lot with a vacant garage. The house was described as “trash everywhere.” A formal complaint’s been filed with the city. An informal group of concerned citizens will get together between coalition meetings to find out more about what they can do and what the city can do to deal with a situation like this.

One more note: Lisa Quinn from Feet First! came to the meeting, gathering information for a White Center walking map:

She got plenty of help from meeting participants who broke into groups to make lists of landmarks, staircases, public art, and other features. (Speaking of walking in White Center – remember the Southwest Seattle Historical Society‘s upcoming History Tour of White Center, July 25 – here’s our original report.)

Evergreen High School football director Alfred Johnson sends word of a fun fundraiser this Saturday night:

The coaches and players of the Evergreen High School Football team would like to thank you and the White Center/Boulevard Park Communities for coming out to support the team last football season.

With a new coaching staff and a young team, it really means a lot to the young men to know that the community is interested and encouraging the team to be better students and have a successful season.

This weekend, the EHS Football Team will be hosting a Pasta Dinner Fundraiser, Sat, June 27th, 2009, 7:00pm Start @ the Southwest Boys & Girls Club. This is the first major fundraiser of our new season; the young men of the EHS Football team will be there as food servers and host. The team is attempting to raise enough funds and solicit sponsorships to purchase new uniforms, provide partial funding of the “pay to play” requirement being passed down to the Highline School District and to build the Football Booster funds in order to tend to the needs of EHS football during the upcoming season and beyond.

There will be special guest speakers who be speaking through out the evening (Greg Lewis, former UW football player & Derek Sparks, former WSU football player among many) and the EHS football players will perform their game day “Hakka” as part of the evenings entertainment. Special thanks to Joe Salle of Bernie & Boys Market in White Center for providing the Pasta dinner and the Southwest Boys & Girls Club for letting us use their facilities. …

I think it will be a great time for all and that the EHS Football players will do all that they can to make the evening a success.

It’s a busy primary election ballot on August 18th, but few have more at stake than those who will cast ballots on whether to let their section of North Highline be annexed by Burien. If you’re still making up your mind on North Highline South Annexation Area Proposition 1, note that the city of Burien has scheduled two more “open house” format meetings to for annexation information – July 14 and 29; more details on the city’s website. Remember that this is a by-mail-only election (countywide); ballots will be mailed July 29, according to the King County Elections website, where you can find full details on everything else you’ll be voting on..

(WCN photo from March)
It’s a followup to the BOOM Youth Summit three months ago – a chance to propose a project, and get funding for it. The deadline’s just been extended – find the details, plus a link to the application, here. (You can see some of what was actually created at the summit itself by checking out this link on the White Center Community Development Association site.)

That’s who headlined the music slate in downtown White Center on Saturday night as Full Tilt Ice Cream celebrated its first birthday. The band name’s a little profane so here’s a direct link to their site (where you’ll also find better video – we were a little too close to the guitar, so it drowned out the vocals). And we’ve got the results of the “buy one and we donate one” (hmm, BODO?) ice-cream tally for the day: 165 cones, 60 pints sold. For each cone, Full Tilt plans to give a coupon to the White Center Food Bank for distribution to its clients; for each pint, they’ll deliver the equivalent in ice cream to WCFB for direct distribution. (Of course you can give to WCFB online any time — just go here.)

As of noon, Full Tilt Ice Cream is open for the day and into the night, since there are two bands tonight (starting at 9). This is the day FT is celebrating its first birthday, so if you buy a cone/pint, the equivalent will be donated to the White Center Food Bank. And tonight’s a great night to be on 16th SW, as White Center for the Arts has its monthly event, 5-10 pm in the old skating rink. The group had been trying to buy the building — Justin at Full Tilt tells us a deal couldn’t be worked out by the time the building was scheduled to be auctioned, so the auction went forward last week, but, he says, nobody bid, so that may keep the door open for a nonprofit purchase – at a better price than what was being offered. We’ll keep following the story.