White Center Now: The blog about White Center

Just published on White Center for the Arts’ Facebook page – who/what you’ll see during next Saturday’s Art Walk, 5-9 pm October 17th: At Salvadorean Bakery, photography by Raina Anderson; at Cafe Rozella, paintings by Robert Houk, Jr.; at Proletariat Pizza, mixed media by Amanda Helmick; at D’Zul, tattoo and airbrush urban art; at Full Tilt Ice Cream, Onion Carillo and Jodi Luna Robinson; at Big Al Brewing all month, photography by Julio Castro.

Two notes re: King County government – First, Monday is the next “furlough day,” so most offices will be closed. More details here about what’s open and what’s not. Second, Wednesday is when King County Elections plans to mail ballots for the November 3rd election – so voting will start as soon as the end of the week. Election info is online now.

Ken Gollesrud sent this invite:

Everyone is invited to this bilingual free event with refreshments. Los Flacos will be joined by two dancers performing traditional Latin American Dances. Los Flacos does a great job of explaining the music and dances as they perform.

Evento del Mes de la Herencia Hispana: Con Los Flacos! / Hispanic Heritage Month Event: Performed by Los Flacos! at the South Park Branch
Date: Saturday, October 10, 2009
Time: 3:00 pm – 4:00 pm PDT

From Kristina:

Hope For Robin Car Wash Fundraiser!

October 10th & 11th, 11am – 3pm at Vision Collision in Burien
(801 SW 154th Street)

We will also have baked goodies, coffee, tea, and cocoa available for a donation. Please come out and support our worthy cause and get your rig washed. If you have any questions or would like to volunteer to wash cars, please contact Kristina Todd at mctodd1976@yahoo.com.

Here is Robin’s story – hope to see everyone this weekend at Vision Collision:

Robin Hoof has been a teacher and swim coach with the Highline School District for 20 years. At Evergreen High School she is a French teacher, and a swim coach for the boys and girls teams at Highline High School.

In April 2007, she was diagnosed with breast cancer. After undergoing chemo and a mastectomy she was considered in remission. In early 2009 she noticed a lump in her neck and was diagnosed for the second time in February. She again underwent chemo and then in the Spring she took her students to Europe. When she got back from that trip, she noticed she had a rather bad cough. Then in August she was admitted to Swedish Hospital where she continued chemo treatments, but her health was rapidly declining. Due to her compromised immune system, the doctors gave her the last chemo treatment on September 18th and told her and her mother, “any day now.” That day has come and gone.

Alternative forms of treatment are being explored by her family, as those closest to her refuse to give up. Robin’s words to her mother at Swedish were, “I’m not going to let this get me mom.” She’sin the fight of her life, and willing to beat this disease.

A Facebook page has been created in her honor titled simply, “Hope for Robin”. It is dedicated to giving updates as they come in as well as any and all charity functions for her. The charities include:

A local AVON rep giving 30% of TOTAL sales to her cause. A site has been built for the specific purpose. It’s a live site and tracks the sales thus far. Our total sales goal is $5,000. Visit:

http://mfogerty.avonrepresentative.com/online_event/view.php?rep_spnsr_evnt_id=8631

Shop and help!

Car washes to be held at different times through out the year by the Driscoll family at Vision Collision.

And the big Kahuna …a charity climb in her honor to the summit of Rainier Summer ’10.

Many have rallied around Robin by way of well wishes, donations, and offerings of volunteer work for her. But it’s not enough. More people are needed. Her medical bills are through the roof already, and as a person who’s touched as many people as she has, don’t we owe it to her? Isn’t it our job to give back. And giving Robin hope, is the best gift any human being can give to another.

Because ONE person can make a difference! Be a part of the Army of HOPE!

Like most school districts, Highline has no classes today – it’s an “in-service” day for teachers.

White Center for the Arts has announced it’s set the date for its next Third Saturday Art Walk – October 17, 5-9 pm, more details to come. WCFTA is on Twitter, too – @WCFTA.

Chris Stevens Surf Monkeys

Rock Cafe Rozella

Saturday October 10th

7pm-10pm

Admission is FREE

Via the White Center CDA site, we discover a donation drive is under way for Samoan tsunami victims, with an event October 24th at Evergreen High School, 9 am-1 pm, sponsored by World Vision. They’re collecting items for relief operations, as listed in the flyer you see above – you can find out more about how to help even sooner, at worldvision.org.

Eliza e-mailed to say she’s organizing a music-instrument-donation drive for White Center Heights Elementary – her mom works there and, as Eliza puts it, the school “just got a really amazing music teacher” but has more students interested in taking the music class than they have instruments. Eliza explains, “The school doesn’t have the budget to buy new instruments and the parents can’t afford to rent them or buy them for the kids.” So, she says, “If you have any old/used/formerly loved instruments you could donate that would be so much appreciated!! I will pick them up, I will come to you, I would just like to get these kids a chance to learn a skill they might otherwise miss out on. Please feel free to email me at egjunkerman@yahoo.com or give me a call, 206.818.7376.”

Four weeks till Election Day, but voting starts a lot sooner, and if you want to be part of this election but aren’t registered yet, Monday is the deadline to do it by mail — this King County page has all the info you need on getting registered.

That’s a photo from “Psycho Beach Party,” in its first weekend at Burien Little Theatre. The folks at BLT e-mailed WCN to say that since part of North Highline is becoming part of Burien, they thought it a good idea to start expanding their horizons. So here’s their invitation to you to come see what their website calls “‘Gidget’ meets ‘The Three Faces of Eve’ …” Find out more here; there are shows tonight and tomorrow afternoon ($7 matinee!), and the run continues weekends through November 1st.

Thanks to Evergreen’s Alfred Johnson for the update:

It’s Homecoming Time!

This Saturday, 1:30pm @ Highline Stadium, Evergreen High School celebrates Homecoming 2009 with the Homecoming Football game against the Mt. Si Wildcats.

All Alumni and friends of Evergreen High School are encouraged to come on out to support the team and meet up with old friends and make new ones.

EHS Booster club members will be around to serve Hot Chocolate and man the Alumni Registry; there will be EHS paraphernalia available for sale also.

The team’s coming off a win over Tyee last week. Good luck, EHS!

From Sgt. John Urquhart at King County Sheriff’s Office:

A 41 year-old woman shot her 55 year-old boyfriend at least twice with a handgun last night (October 1st). He was taken to Harborview Hospital with non life- threatening injuries.

The incident occurred about 10:30 PM in the 800 block of SW 117th in unincorporated King County, just to the north of Burien.

The pair live with the man’s brother and the woman’s 15 year-old son, both of whom were home at the time of the shooting.

The son called 9-1-1 and everyone except the suspect made their way out of the house as deputies arrived.

The woman refused to come out of the house or communicate with deputies. Eventually the Sheriff’s Office SWAT Team entered the residence and took the woman into custody just before 2:00 AM. No one was injured.

The suspect was booked into the King County Jail for Investigation of Assault 1st Degree. A small caliber handgun was recovered inside the house.

Seattle Magazine just published a little article about neighborhood-news websites. While we are always honored to see our bigger site West Seattle Blog mentioned, we were pleasantly surprised to see White Center Now included! There were no interviews conducted for this story, totally the writer’s observations, so we didn’t know this was coming till we saw a link go by a few minutes ago via Twitter. Here’s the page mentioning WCN. (Our “best of” list would include a few more, but we’re also glad to see the magazine mention quirky Blogging Georgetown and longtime Tacoma staple Exit 133.) Thanks to the growing number of people who are reading this site and even more importantly, sending us information to share.

Just in:

PRUDENTIAL GLOBAL VOLUNTEER DAY! FOOD DRIVE

Prudential West Seattle is conducting a food drive for the West Seattle and White Center Food Banks. Food and Cash contributions may be made at the West Seattle office at 4700 42nd Avenue, Suite 600, or through your Prudential Agent. Look for our collection teams on October 3rd from 10am to 2pm at all three of the local Safeway Stores [Roxbury, Jefferson Square, Admiral], the Morgan Street Thriftway and Albertsons in White Center! Please call us at 206-932-4500 if you have questions or would like a donation pick-up! YOUR DONATIONS WILL BE GREATLY APPRECIATED!

The King County Council‘s budget committee has just begun its first public meeting specifically to talk about next year’s budget, and one of those who will testify is Sheriff Sue Rahr. According to her spokesperson Sgt. John Urquhart, her talking points will include a contention that County Executive Kurt Triplett‘s budget proposal is not as rosy for her department as it sounds – she says it will cut patrol power in areas like White Center and Boulevard Park by as much as 75 percent. You can watch the testimony live right now through the Council’s online player. (Along with Rahr, King County Prosecuting Attorney Dan Satterberg and other criminal-justice leaders are presenting.) UPDATE: “The budget, as presented, is not what it seems. It does not shield public safety,” Sheriff Rahr has told the council in opening remarks that she described as “short and sweet.” She says the budget, for example, overcompensates for the Burien annexation of south North Highline and would leave her with one deputy per shift in White Center. ADDED 1:12 PM: Sgt. Urquhart has provided the full text of Sheriff Rahr’s remarks to the committee:

The budget, as presented, isn’t what it seems.

It does not “prioritize” public safety.

It does not “shield criminal justice”.

It does not only cut “criminal justice by 1%”.

The Sheriff’s Office unincorporated budget alone will be cut by almost 6%.

A $3.5 million dollar cut is attributed to the Burien annexation. The appropriate reduction due to workload for the annexed area is only seven deputies. However this budget proposes cutting an additional 27 deputies due to the annexation.

From which unincorporated neighborhoods should those additional 27 deputies be cut?

After the seven deputies are cut from the new annexation area, there will only be 38 left to serve all of White Center, Skyway, South Park, Boulevard Park, and Vashon Island. From that small pool I should cut 27 deputies, a 75% cut in police protection to the highest crime neighborhoods in King County? That’s would leave enough to maintain one deputy per shift to cover all of White Center and Boulevard Park, one deputy in Skyway, no deputies on Vashon island, and no storefront deputies.

If that’s not acceptable, which neighborhood in north and east King County should pay for this annexation with a reduction in their police service?

For the record, we were already forced to cut 86 positions in the last year and half, most of those deputy positions. This will put us up to 113 cuts in less than two years.

Enough about the cuts…let’s talk about what appear to be adds to my budget.

The budget proposal transfers 34 civilian security screeners from the Facilities Management Division to the Sheriff’s Office, along with $2.1 million to pay for them.

This transfer includes no money for supervision of these 34 screeners. They will be supervised by the two court security sergeants who already supervise 30 marshals and court deputies. This proposed budget would have the same two sergeants supervising 64 people in thirteen different locations. These are employees who provide a critical service for the safety of everyone entering a courthouse in King County.

In addition, this budget provides no monies to train the screeners, insufficient overtime funds, and over $100,000 in negative contras.

This $2.1 million “increase” to our budget masks the real cuts to public safety and makes it appear that the Sheriff’s Office isn’t being cut as much as it really is.

Bottom line, I will not take the screeners into the Sheriff’s Office and accept responsibility for a service that cannot be operated safely.

In summary, this budget cuts the Sheriff’s Office for unincorporated King County by $4.1 million, or nearly 6%. This is unsafe and it’s unacceptable, especially in light of several recent surveys that show overwhelmingly that public safety is the number one priority for the citizens of King County.”

A news release we received from the county this morning – important information regarding keeping construction sites from becoming a problem during the rainy season – if you’re involved with construction, read on: Read the rest of this entry »

King County Executive Kurt Triplett – who will be succeeded immediately after the November election results are certified, by the winner of the Dow Constantine-Susan Hutchison race – has released his proposed budget. It still calls for mothballing county parks in unincorporated urban areas, which means the section of White Center not affected by the annexation vote, since Burien has said it will keep the annexation-area parks open. Here’s the full announcement from Triplett’s office; here’s the county council’s hearing plan:

Council to host four public hearings on 2010 King County Budget
in Bellevue, Kent, Renton and Seattle

Public input vital to budget process

The Metropolitan King County Council will host four public hearings to take comment on the 2010 Executive Proposed Budget.

Led by Councilmember Larry Gossett, chair of the 2010 Budget and Fiscal Management Committee, the four public hearings will be held:

· Wednesday, October 7 – Bellevue City Council Chambers, 450 110th Ave. NE, Bellevue

· Tuesday, October 13 – Maleng Regional Justice Center, Courtroom 3F, 401 4th Avenue North, Kent

· Thursday, October 22 – Redmond City Council Chambers, 15670 NE 85th Street, Redmond

· Thursday, October 29 – King County Council Chambers, 516 Third Avenue, Room 1200, Seattle

All meetings begin at 7:00 p.m. Day-after coverage of the public hearings will be available both online and on King County TV, seen on Comcast and Broadstripe Cable Channel 22. You can also sign up to follow the deliberations through the Council’s 2010 Budget Blog and Twitter.

Follow the Council’s deliberations through Twitter and our 2010 Budget Blog by visiting the King County Council Budget Web site at:
www.kingcounty.gov/council/budget.aspx

For those who missed it, KUOW today broadcast an interview with, King County Executive, Susan Hutchison.  You can find the interview at KUOW Weekday.  In a prior post I had made the following observation which sparked a fair amount of discussion:

Ms. Hutchison has never held public office.  She has never had to struggle with the political realities of governing a complex political entity whose ambits include not only roads and sewers but social services, neighborhoods and law enforcement.  It is difficult to see how her experience on the board of the Seattle Symphony prepared her, in the slightest way, for such a weighty role.

If anyone had any doubt about Ms. Hutchison’s lack of specificity on issues, policies or even advisors, it is worth a listen (available on podcast).  Pressed by the moderator to name a single advisor who she consults, or who she would bring to her administration, she flatly resisted naming anyone, except to say bus drivers.  Her conclusion was “trust me” they will be great people.  I have nothing against bus drivers, but maybe she could have named a couple of the guys that she intends to bring to the Hutchison administration that will “bring people together.”  I’m sorry but calling Hutchison a “lightweight” does not begin to describe the chasm that is her lack of qualification to hold such an important post.  Listen for yourself.

Betsy wanted to get the word out about this item she found: A Girl Scout-type brown ribbon with 2 pins (awards?) attached, in the parking lot at the Westwood Village QFC. Sound like something you’re looking for? E-mail her at bjkbjh@yahoo.com.