White Center Now: The blog about White Center

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.)

The monthly public safety meeting will be held tonight (Thursday) at 6 p.m.  If you want to learn what is being done to make this community safer or have concerns regarding same, attend and make your voice heard.  I for one would like to see more action to rid the White Center business district of creeps like these, drinking malt liquor on the side of a grocery store, happy as pigs in sh*t.

Chronic alcoholics and other miscreants

White Center-based WestSide Baby sends word of a car-seat safety day coming up this Wednesday at IKEA in Renton. Even if that’s too far for you to go – before we get to the announcement of that event — here’s something you might be able to help with, right here in White Center at WestSide Baby HQ, today or tomorrow:

Special offer from WestSide Baby: Bring us your recalled or outdated (6 years or older) carseats by Tuesday afternoon and we will take them to the recycle event so that 90% of the parts can be reused instead of going into the landfills. This recycling can only happen in partnership with a facility in Portland so this offer only happens twice a year.

Volunteers also welcome! If you are interested in helping with the event to support recycling of carseats, please contact us at sarah@westsidebaby.org by Tuesday afternoon. We’d love extra hands to dismantle the seats.

Now, the official event announcement for Wednesday.

State Farm Child Safety Day at Safe and Sound (& Green)

A partnership preventing unintentional injuries through education and access: In King County car crashes continue to be the number 1 killer of children under 18. Though many families now understand the importance of car seats they are often confused about correct installation and the best “seat choice” for their child. State Farm is committed to helping keep kids safe and are sponsoring this event. In addition to the inspections, the South King County Child Passenger Safety Coalition will be collecting used car seats for either re-distribution into the community or recycling them back into usable materials. About 97% of the car seats materials can be made into new products. It takes time and effort but the Coalition feels that keeping these seats from the landfills is an important investment. Following are the details.

Where: Ikea in Renton (601 SW 41st St., Renton, WA 98057)
When: Wednesday, April 29th, 2009 from 9 am to 1 pm

Here’s a look at what’s happening at this fantastic event!

FREE Car Seat Inspections by State Farm and Safe Kids King County – South Car seats inspected for correct installation and proper fit. Donations gladly accepted. Last car taken at 12pm.

Car Seat Donation Event by PASS-IT Program Do you have a car seat you no longer need? Bring it here so it can be assessed for redistribution to families in need. Useable car seats are inspected by a certified passenger safety technician and then re-equipped with the necessary registration material, manual and other information to maximize potential for correct use.

Car Seat RECYCLING by Safe Kids King County – South Unusable car seats will be collected and sent to a facility where 90% of the materials will be recycled. Keep these items out of our landfills!

Children’s Basics Donations Event – Your donations of diapers, child safety equipment and other basics will be collected and distributed through West Side Baby and Pregnancy Aid of King County.

Custom Fit Helmet Sale by Safe Kids King County & Bell-Anderson Insurance Wearer of helmet must be present for custom fit. Bike style helmets will be available for sale for only $7.

Join us in helping families in our community to be safe and environmentally responsible!

He has longtime ties to the area – and tomorrow night, he’s scheduled to be back in White Center for a guest appearance at the White Center/South Delridge Community Safety Partnership meeting, 6 pm, St. James Place – here’s the formal announcement of the meeting featuring Prosecuting Attorney Dan Satterberg:

The White Center-South Delridge Community Safety Meeting
Thursday, April 23rd, 6-8 pm,
St. James Place, 9421 18th Avenue SW

Guest:
Dan Satterberg, King County Prosecuting Attorney

Topics:
* Elections & Vote on By-laws
* Summer Activities!
And if you are interested in helping pursue AIA (Alcohol Impact Area), please contact me and we’ll see how to best link you up with the effort. Thanks so much.

And: If you have a specific concern, you may email or call me and let me know before the meeting and I will pass on the information to SPD or KCSO or the appropriate city/county department. With advanced notice, law enforcement officers are able to find out more information about specific incidents and concerns and share that information at the meeting. Everyone is welcome to bring up concerns at the meeting, but if we know the concerns a head of time, we may be able to find out more information for the community. Thanks!

… Please spread the word to your neighbors!

Dinner will be provided. Please call Karen at 767-0760 if childcare or interpretation is needed.

Satterberg had been scheduled to appear earlier this year but had to cancel at the last minute because of a family emergency, nonetheless promising to reschedule, so this is the fulfillment of that promise.

Just published at partner site West Seattle Blog but definitely of interest to White Center (and Top Hat) too – helicopter drills at the Joint Training Facility on Myers Way tomorrow may draw attention; read about it here.

The Seattle Times is reporting that the road clearing during December’s snow storms was driven by political decisions rather than the clearing of critical arterials.

In previous storms, plow drivers had discretion over how best to clear their assigned routes, said plow driver Chris Stuker. City drivers would traverse main routes in tandem, allowing main roads to be cleared and plows to clear feeder streets as they were able to, Stuker and three other drivers said.

But that system was replaced by top-down decision-making that resulted in trucks being pulled from major streets for special assignments and to help less-experienced drivers, most of them working in the south end of the city, according to two drivers who asked to remain anonymous out of a concern for their jobs.

Yesterday was St. Patrick’s Day, so the chronic alcoholics, that live on the streets, felt emboldened.  Two drunks wondered down 16th Ave. SW, malt liquor in hand (no bags).  Clearly having imbibed a good deal already, one of the pair starts screaming at the top of his lungs.  Concerned that a fight was about to break out between these two drunks, I called 911 and explained that there were two intoxicated men, drinking malt liquor and being belligerent.  The dispatcher asked for description and said he would “call it in.”

My friend and I waited outside of the cafe and placed wagers on whether SPD would respond at all and if so would it be within the hour.  “These calls are just one step above noise complaints on their radar,” he said.  One of the drunks finished his liquor and flung the 20 oz can like a baseball.  The other one continued to nurse his beer.  Finally, about a half hour later a Seattle Police Department patrol car shows up with two officers.  Not bothering to get out of the car they pull up to the individual with the can of malt liquor in his hand.   “Toss it out,” they direct, although he had already started draining the can as he saw the patrol car approach.  He flings his can to the ground.  “Now move along,” says the officer.  The drunks get up and start heading south towards Roxbury.

My friend approaches the patrol car and indicates he wants to talk to them.  The police officers look bothered.  He tells them that the other fellow had just tossed his can on top of the roof of building.  “So?”  came the reply from the officer, who had by now exited the car.  “Well, we have lots of problems with these chronic drunks and we are concerned that nothing is being done to rid the area of them.”

“Look buddy, it’s not my issue.  I can cite him for public intoxication, but that’s just a small fine.”  We do not mention that he could have checked their ids and checked for outstanding warrants.

“But they are just going to get another round of malt liquor and continue to blight the area.”

The officer hems and haws and says, “they’re gone ok.  Buddy, we gotta go.”

And as the two drunks cross Roxbury into unincorporated King County, the officer looks over and says, “look, they’re the County’s problem now.”  And with those parting words, the officer gets in his squad car and drives away.

ORIGINAL WEDNESDAY REPORT: In the latest bulletin from the King County Public Health Department:

*Taqueria EL Rincon #1 located at 11066 16th Ave SW, Seattle* was closed by a Public Health food inspector on March 3, 2009 at 12:40 pm due to wastewater draining to the ground. The establishment will be reopened when all issues have been resolved

THURSDAY UPDATE: It’s open again, according to the KCPH website.

6 pm tonight, it’s the first White Center/South Delridge Community Safety Coalition meeting of the year, St. James Place, 9421 18th SW (map). Previous White Center Now coverage of this group’s meetings is archived here.

Seattle city road crews have been busy re-striping bridges and roads where snow and sand wore away the lane markings during Snowstorm ’08 — and the latest update indicates that their priority list includes 1st SW from Cloverdale to Olson Place, between White Center and Highway 509 (the stretch shown above in Google Street View).

Just in case you were wondering. Here are the rules – unincorporated King County, 6 pm New Year’s Eve to 1 am New Year’s Day.

Just in from Seattle City Light – a news release saying what they’re doing, and what you should be doing, to be prepared – read on: Read the rest of this entry »

From King County, more important words of warning – about your roof. And be sure any storm drains around your house are cleared, too – until this all melts away and we are back to “normal,” there’s still a chance of trouble.

Just started falling. Info updates re: roads etc. as we get them, as it intensifies. Got pix/info? Leave comments and/or send to the White Center Now team at whitecenternow@gmail.com – thanks!

One more reminder – last White Center/South Delridge Community Safety Coalition meeting of the year is coming up this Thursday night, different location – 6 pm, Boys and Girls Club, 9800 8th SW (map). (Find previous White Center Now coverage of this group’s meetings is archived here.)

The P-I analyzed driver-attack reports on Metro routes and came up with a “top 10” list that includes Route 120, which runs through White Center (here’s the map). Even one attack is too many, of course, but do take note that the number of attacks that landed Route 120 on this list is … 6 per year.

You have to hand it to Bush & Company, they were spot on when they proclaimed that the free market would most assuredly take care of such problems as affordable housing.  Who could have known, a mere three years ago, with housing prices skyrocketing and rents pricing out most renters, that a social revolution was brewing.  Social reformers and liberals cried out for government aid to build low income housing.  Who knew that the mind behind Bush had a smashing plan for bringing down the cost of housing across the board and across the nation?  Genius, pure genius!   Drive the economy into the ditch and pretty soon you are picking up quarter-million dollar homes for $100K in Florida and California.  Here in Seattle, rents have dropped dramatically and landlords are offering incentives to get their units occupied.  Problem is no one has the money to snatch the cheap real estate.  Ah, the magic of the free market at work.

What, you may well ask, does this have to do with the Greenbridge development?   Greenbridge is more than a housing project, it is a master plan for the community.  Greenbridge, and High Point, were developed with certain assumptions in mind.

The project, launched in 2001 with a grant from the federal Hope VI program — the same program that has contributed to the redevelopment of High Point and Holly Park — is supposed to include 1,025 living units. That’s a lot more housing than Park Lake held, but a lot less of it will be subsidized for the poor. The mix is supposed to include 300 rent-subsidized units, 353 workforce rental units, and 372 homes for sale at market rates. This represents a net loss of 269 rent-subsidized units. Instead of maintaining a large pocket of low-income housing in White Center, the county decided to disperse.

As well, the project was developed before the economy hit the squids and before the current real estate meltdown.  Hence, the criticism that some of the economic assumptions underlying the project were wrong.

The King County Housing Authority built the first part of Greenbridge at the height of the real estate boom, when prices for everything were sky-high. The sale of lots for market-rate housing was supposed to reimburse the county some of the cost. By the time the housing authority offered its first relatively small group of market-rate lots for sale, the market had plunged. Only one developer bid on the land, at a price way lower than expected. Having bought high, the county felt it couldn’t afford to sell low. It retracted its request for proposals. For now, the single-family portion of Greenbridge is on hold until the market picks up.

As well, some readers of this blog have expressed concern that the early learning center is a lot of wasted money, destined more for monuments than for education.   Needless to say, Greenbridge and its constituent parts have no shortage of critics.  This is so, despite the very involved political process used to  formulate its goals.  Unlike private developments, the development Greenbridge required input from a great many constituent groups.  As well, the philosophy behind Greenbridge incorporates the revolution in urban planning that did away with such government-manufactured ghettos such as Chicago’s infamous Cabrini Green towers.  When all is said and done, Greenbridge is supposed to be a place that is safe, pleasant and attractive.  And it will be organically connected to the larger White Center Community.

More to come, but feel free to jump in with your observations and comments.    (As always, be civil, or your comment will be deleted.)  In the interim, here are some pictures taken on November 23^rd, showing the current progress.

Usually the White Center/South Delridge Community Safety Coalition meets toward the end of the month, but not this time – we’ve just received a reminder that the next meeting, last one of the year, will be on December 11th, different location too — SW Boys and Girls Club, 9800 8th SW (map), 6-8 pm.