White Center Now: The blog about White Center

We always find the cooking works much better when we’re caffeinated: Ricardo says Cafe Rozella will be open in the morning. And Salvadorean Bakery has a sign up saying they’ll be open 8 am-5 pm.

As posted on CL: White Center Jubilee Days needs “a new logo and an artist to create it.” Interested? gmc_tile@comcast.net; here’s the website from this past summer’s event.

If you are interested, we are covering tonight’s announcement of Seattle Public Schools closure/changes plans live at West Seattle Blog. Not far from White Center, it’s reported that Arbor Heights Elementary will be on the list (and one reader has said that in turn, another “program” may move into that building) – so there could be WC-vicinity effects. You can see our updates here.

We’ve also written about this on West Seattle Blog, but White Center businesses and others may also be interested in helping a school that’s about to move to WC — West Seattle Montessori. They’ve lost their longtime WS home because of a development project, and they’re renovating a building next to the King County Library’s White Center branch, in hopes they’ll be ready to move in during the winter break. First, they’ve got a fundraising auction coming up December 5th, and they’re looking for donations for the auction as well as some help for the move – here’s what Sandra Kutz-Russell told us:

As for the auction, we need anything and everything; we are grateful for each item we are given! We will have both a silent auction and live auction. Keep in mind that we are a little auction with big dreams! At other auctions I have attended, trips, condo weekends, behind the scenes tours, chef taught cooking classes, signed books, CDs and sports equipment are always top sellers. Dinners are popular and services too! Because our auction is so close to the many winter holidays, Hanukkah, Christmas, Kwanzaa and Eid Al-Adha related items would be well received. Anything handmade seems to sell very well!

We are a school in need of help, help with our auction, help with the move, help with new playground equipment and rubber playground surface. Heck, the fence alone cost $11,000! Can we ask for a donation of printing services or truck rentals and boxes? What about a moving company or even plants for the landscaping? We do need a tree moved! It is a Japanese cherry tree that was planted in memory of a 1st grader’s mother who passed away of cancer. That little girl started college this year!

I can be contacted by e-mail, or by calling the school at 206 935-0427 and leaving a message for anyone on the auction committee, Brenda, Renee and Sandra.

You can e-mail Sandra at: skutzrussell@yahoo.com

… 7 pm tonight, Highland Park Action Committee meeting, 11th/Holden. These are your neighbors and they have a lot going on – not just the fight against a city jail coming to this area – and could use your help. Fun bunch, too. Find out more in this West Seattle Blog Forum post; we’ll be at the meeting and will post to White Center Now and WSB.

Jim Diers and Barack Obama have a common link as successful community organizers. To check it out read the column by Danny Westneat in the Seattle Times this summer.  The link is: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/dannywestneat/2004456334_danny04.html

Here’s a portion from Westneat’s column:

Galluzzo trained college-grad Diers in how to organize a fractious community. They formed SESCO, the South End Seattle Community Organization. It was a powerhouse, one of the most successful neighborhood groups in city history. It killed the incinerator.

Diers went on to head Seattle’s Department of Neighborhoods and write a book on bottom-up organizing, called “Neighbor Power.”

Galluzzo stayed in Seattle for four years, then moved to Chicago. Not long after, he trained another raw college grad looking for a purpose, named Barack Obama.

After leaving the Department of Neighborhoods in 2002, Jim worked for a year as Interim Director of the Delridge Neighborhoods Development Association and for three years as Executive Director of the South Downtown Foundation.

Currently, Jim spends most of his time at the University of Washington, where he teaches courses in architecture and social work and supports community initiatives with faculty and students across all disciplines. Jim also speaks frequently in other cities as a faculty member for the Asset-Based Community Development Institute and as the author of Neighbor Power: Building Community the Seattle Way. Jim is also a denizen of White Center and Cafe Rozella.

(Thanks to Ron Richardson for the link to Danny Westneat’s column.)

You can read more about Al here and here’s the book about the battle, written by Bobby Kennedy’s son.

Signed:  Ron Richardson

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.

Click pic to play video

What he had to say was almost as intriguing as what he had to play; maybe that’s why the show listing called it “White Center Weird Fest.” That’s Calvin Johnson, Saturday night at Full Tilt Ice Cream.

Greenbridge and High Point are major developments in the West Seattle and White Center communities.  Each is well in progress and the results are already changing the faces of the respective communities.  Emotions often run high when discussing the planning and execution of these mega-projects.  So join in a discussion of Greenbridge and the future of White Center.

First online report is from KOMO News – says one person’s been shot and is undergoing CPR. Deputies are searching the mall, according to the scanner. More as we get it. 4:31 PM UPDATE: We will post any major developments here when the info becomes clearer – but we will be tracking it more closely for now at partner site West Seattle Blog (here’s the post that’ll be updated) 4:53 PM UPDATE: Times says 2 victims, which is what we also heard on the scanner a few minutes ago. No word on conditions. 9 PM UPDATE: We know a lot more about the victims. A 16-year-old boy is dead, a 15-year-old boy in the hospital. No one under arrest yet. The WSB post linked earlier in this one has first-person stories from local people who were at the mall when it happened.

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.

In case you didn’t see it on channel 5 news tonight – they followed up on the King County budget story (reported here earlier) by coming to White Center for this report, which includes a couple soundbites from White Center Now‘s own FullTilt!

As reported on our partner site West Seattle Blog yesterday, the proposed Seattle jail site closest to White Center, on Myers Way South, is now off the list – but the Highland Park Way/Marginal Way site is still under consideration. Here’s the WSB report. Meantime, you can get the latest on the site search and next steps from the community group that’s been leading the campaign against a new city jail, the Highland Park Action Committee (whose coverage area includes what you might call the “West Seattle side of White Center”) – join them at 7 pm Monday, Highland Park Improvement Club, 11th/SW Holden (map). You can also read up on all the city documentation in what is now a regional search (Seattle has joined with north-end and eastside cities) at a new website: www.necmunicipaljail.org.

The announcement isn’t yet on the county website but we’ve posted it at partner site West Seattle Blog – County Council members are now proposing a plan they say would save ALL the storefronts and public-health centers, among other things. Read the full details here.

Apropos of nothing particularly local, Google has teamed up with Time Life to put classic Life photographs on line.    The archives are literally endless and include all the classics as well as many more obscure photos.  Here is a taste  of some of the photos that you will find in their archive.  The photos are from Google’s Time Life collection and are reprinted from the website:

Seattle

Browsing is free.

On December 2nd Big Brothers Big Sisters of Puget Sound are hosting Big Night Out, a fundraiser for the orginization taking place at area retailers, restaurants, bars, and bowling alleys. Full Tilt will be hosting an event that night for Big Brothers Big Sisters, but in the meantime they are looking for some local help.

Lamonte’ needs a big brother. If you can help, please contact Big Brothers Big Sisters of Puget Sound today at 877-700-BIGS or www.bbbsps.org.

“I want a Big Brother to hang out with, have fun, and learn how to play sports with.”

– 7 year old Lamonté

Lamonté is an outgoing, energetic 7 year old who lives in White Center with his mom. Because he does not have any siblings or a father figure in his life, Lamonté’s mom is looking to find a good role model for her son through Big Brothers Big Sisters of Puget Sound. Lamonté loves sports, and he says that he is looking forward to learning how to play sports and going to sports games with his Big Brother. Lamonté is also interested in animals, computers, art, and music. When he signed up to become a Little Brother, Lamonté said, “I want to see how it feels to have a Big Brother.” Lamonté’s mom says that she knows it’s hard for her son to grow up without a dad or siblings, and she wants someone in his life that he can look up in addition to her. If you have a few hours on the weekends to hang out, play catch, or go to the zoo with a local child like Lamonté, please contact Big Brothers Big Sisters of Puget Sound today at 877-700-BIGS or www.bbbsps.org.

Cafe Rozella is participating in the food drive for the White Center Food Bank.  Given current economic conditions, the food bank is experiencing a great demand for its services.  So next time you come by Cafe Rozella, pack some cans of food and drop them in the donation barrel at the cafe.  For your kind donation the cafe will give you a free pastry with your coffee order.  So do the right thing and get a nice reward.  Cafe Rozella is located at 9434 Delridge Way SW (phone 206.763.5805 – web:  www.caferozella.com).

Click pic to play video

(video of potato-unloading, added 2:28 pm – more to come)
The truck was a bit late so it happened more like noon than the originally predicted 11 am. Even two and a half tons of potatoes will go fast – so your help for the White Center Food Bank is still needed – online donations are great; make ’em here. ADDED 4:50 PM: 11th District Rep. Bob Hasegawa was a big part of making this happen, and he was there for the arrival – he talked with us and the regional TV crews who were there:

Dick Thurnau with Friends of Hicks Lake reports that graffiti vandals hit various structures, including the picnic shelter and restroom, at Lakewood Park (home of Hicks Lake) on Tuesday – one day after a paintover of previous vandalism. “Even over the student-painted murals,” says Dick, who says something has got to be done about this recurring problem.