White Center Now: The blog about White Center

We broke the story last week that Sen. Patty Murray and others would be in White Center on October 6th for the Educare Learning Center (rendering above) groundbreaking as part of the White Center Early Learning Initiative. Now, we’re getting more details. Joan Tritchler at the Puget Sound Educational Service District has just sent more info about the event next Monday, including: “Senator Patty Murray, Bill Gates Sr, state legislators and county officials will celebrate with White Center community members and children from neighboring Head Start and child care centers in this milestone for the many agencies and public and private funders that worked so hard to make this exemplary early learning facility a reality.” White Center Heights Elementary principal Dave Darling also is scheduled to speak, and some of his kindergarteners are scheduled for a performance at the event, which starts at 10 am Monday at the International Plaza at WCH Elementary (“steps away” from the learning-center site).

When we stopped by the former Southgate Skate Center last Friday, we were told the sign declaring it the Southgate Event Center would be up within a few days – and indeed, it’s up now. Saturday’s the first White Center Swap Meet at the historic, newly rechristened venue on 17th SW. (Previous White Center Now coverage here and here.) WEDNESDAY AFTERNOON UPDATE: The rink’s sign was being painted over today – here’s a picture we caught early this afternoon:

We mentioned last week that the date is set for the fundraiser for the Steve Cox Memorial. Here’s the official announcement with details from Heidi at NHUAC:

Steve Cox Memorial Art Project Dinner & Auction

Please join us as we reach for our goal to have an artist create a memorial
for Steve Cox that will be installed at Steve Cox Memorial Park in White
Center.

“A fitting tribute to a man that made a difference“

The North Highline Unincorporated Area Council Invites You To A Benefit
Dinner & Auction For The
Steve Cox Memorial Art Project

November 14, 2008 – 6:00 p.m.

St. Bernadette’s Parish School Hall
on 128th and Ambaum Blvd. S.W.

Catering by: Galliano’s.

Oral & Silent Auction
Auctioneer: Deputy Roy Galusha

Tickets are a donation of $40.00 per seat and are tax deductible

To RSVP
Please send check or money order payable to: 4culture by November 3rd, 2008 to:
NHUAC P.O. Box 66900 Burien, WA 98166

4culture is the fiscal sponsor for NHUAC
Credit cards not accepted

To learn more about 4culture, visit www.4culture.org

For additional information please contact Barb Peters at 206-242-0934 or Heidi Johnson at _hjohnson@northhighlineuac.org

Here are some pics from the Zapotec Weaving exhibit and sale at Cafe Rozella going on today.   Drop by – great rugs.  Wonderful cause:  direct to producer sale!

Looking at Oaxacan rugs

The White Center Arts Alliance is moving forward with great plans for the White Center community.  Be a part of this wonderful organization.  The Arts Alliance is seeking new members.  If you are interested in participating come by Cafe Rozella on Monday, October 6th at 7 p.m.  Or contact Ricardo at guarnero@caferozella.com.   Join now!

Here’s another reminder from the county; Saturday’s your last chance to register, if you’re not registered already. But you can do it online right now.

This is also posted at our partner site West Seattle Blog; we don’t make a habit out of crossposting verbatim (instead, we will link back and forth occasionally when warranted), but this is urgent – White Center Food Bank serves both areas – so here’s the note we just got from WCFB executive director Rick Jump:

Our numbers are up (way up) and donations are down. We are currently experiencing critical shortages of food which will begin to impact services in the next week or two. Our inventories are shrinking fast and we need almost all types of non-perishable food. Canned fruits and vegetables, soups, tuna, cereal, dry variety foods such as Hamburger Helper, Rice-a-Roni and Mac & Cheese are especially needed at this time.

King County’s out with an update on the tree work at Steve Cox Park; read it here.

… which is very active in White Center. Read it here.

Click pic to play video

Just back from 8th SW north of SW 108th (map), where a car rolled into the front yard of a home whose residents just recently moved in (and narrowly avoided smashing into the house itself). The driver was taken away by ambulance, but witnesses told White Center Now that he walked out of the wrecked car – and reportedly told investigators he had slammed on the brakes to avoid hitting a dog in the road. In the video clip above, you see debris in the street – some sports equipment spilled out of the car – just north of the crash scene. The neighbors who talked with us say drivers speed, and crash, regularly on this street – it’s a long straightaway north from 108th, and on 108th itself, with downhill stretches where they say it’s easy to get up to 50 mph very quickly. They would like to see a stoplight or some other kind of traffic-calming measure on 8th SW. The scene is barely a block north of the 8th SW site of King County Public Health and White Center Food Bank, by the way. The residents whose house was hit weren’t commenting while we were there, but investigators made quick work of the scene – a tow truck was arriving as we were leaving, barely half an hour after we heard about the crash on the scanner. We also caught a little slice-of-life of what it’s like to clean up after a crash: first, a short video clip of an officer kicking debris out of the street; second, a photo of the tire the crashed car lost:

Click pic to play video

Click pic to play video

That short video clip shows a big run by Evergreen High School’s #5, senior Jared Brunell, in the second half of last night’s 16-6 victory over Tyee at Highline Memorial Stadium in Burien. That brings Evergreen to 1-3; next Friday, they play Mount Si.

Brother can you spare $700,000,000,000????

The Conversation Cafe had a very productive discussion regarding the proposed Wall Street Bailout.  In the course of discussing the financial crisis that is animating the proposal to write out a Treasury check for $700 billion to Henry Paulson, someone brought to the group’s attention the recent book, “The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism” by Naomi Klein.  Klein posits that crises are manufactured in order to push through unpalatable economic and political measures.  You can read her post regarding the current crisis here

1. Reinstatement of the provisions of Glass-Steagall, which forbade speculation
2. Re-regulation of the finance, insurance, and real estate industries
3. Accountability on the part of those who took the companies down:
a) resignations of management
b) givebacks of executive compensation packages
c) limitations on executive compensation
d) admission by CEO’s of what went wrong and how, prior to any government bailout
4. Demands for transparencey
a) with respect to analyzing the transactions which took the companies down
b) with respect to Treasury’s dealings with the companies pre and post-bailout
5. An equity position for the taxpayers
a) some form of ownership of assets
6. Some credible formula for evaluating the price of the assets that the government is buying.
7. A sunset clause on the legislation
8. Full public disclosure by members of Congress of assets held, with possible conflicts put in blind trust.
9. A ban on political campaign contributions from officers of corporations receiving bailouts
10. A requirement that 2008 cycle candidates return political contributions to officers and representatives of corporations receiving bailouts.

Join us next Saturday at 2 p.m. as we continue the conversation.

La Vida Nueva – Zapotec women’s weaving collective visits Seattle

(Café Rozella: 9434 Delridge Way SW  206.763.5805 www.caferozella.com

)

If you haven’t been there before – that’s Hicks Lake, right in the middle of Lakewood Park (map). Dozens of people spent much of today volunteering during the annual Hicks Lake cleanup, like 17 first-year students from Seattle Pacific University:

Among other things, they picked up trash and cleared away invasive plants like blackberries, and fallen tree limbs – over a dump-truckload worth, according to Dick Thurnau from Friends of Hicks Lake. Restoration work is under way both along the lake and in the nearby “bioswale” area that feeds it. They weren’t the only students on hand – Ann Magyar brought some of her students from New Start High School, who repaired damage to murals:

We got Dick Thurnau to stop down for a photo too; his note also thanks King County Parks’ Sam Whitman for providing gloves and tools:

Dick is a longtime advocate for the lake, and knows its history and challenges inside and out, as well as having many personal stories to tell. In his wrapup note about today’s cleanup, Dick provided some of the information we incorporated above, and added, “We asked the students what improvements they thought were needed in Lakewood Park /Hicks Lake; the #1 answer, clean lake water. They also suggested doors on the ladies’-restroom stalls, and complained of no paper towels to dry their hands. Several years ago at a Friends of Hicks Lake free annual BBQ, 50 letters were written by people attending and were sent to our King County Executive. One twelve-year-old girl wrote about the same problems dirty water no doors on the restroom stalls and no running water. A beautiful lady who is a champion Disc Golfer winning many tournaments has attended our meetings and she posted notices and informed the president of the Disc Golf Club; there were many golfers playing the course but only this lady was present for our cleanup day. Several remarks were made that stated the park looked in far better condition then in the past years. Thank you, Sam, for your efforts. There is a lot more work that needs to be accomplished, if we could just get the community’s attention.” The county has several projects in the works that should help improve water quality – we’ll be reporting on them indepth next week; one involves water sampling that could trace pollution back to the businesses from which it originates. The old dock you see in the top photo is scheduled for demolition next month, too.

Click pic to play video

We got that video inside the old Southgate Skate Center in White Center around noontime Friday, where crews are working hard to get it ready for the debut of the White Center Swap Meet next Saturday-Sunday. They had planned to put up almost 100 stalls this weekend, but do note that staffer Mandel Medina told us sellers will need to bring their own tables. The stalls will be movable, workers say, to configure the fully renovated space (including restroom upgrades!) for other events. Swap Meet hours for starters are 1-7 pm Saturdays (starting 10/4), 10 am-4 pm Sundays (starting 10/5).

Click To Play

That’s Sword and Magic Helmet, opening last night at Full Tilt for Bird Show of North America. More music at Full Tilt tonight; The Shadow People are scheduled.