White Center Now: The blog about White Center

The long-closed roller link has been rebranded as the Southgate Event Center (website here), with a weekend swap meet starting October 4th-5th.

Lots going on this week and three to remind you about for starters: The North Highline Fire District commissioners’ regular bimonthly meeting is 8 am tomorrow at district HQ; then at 8 Wednesday morning, it’s the special meeting with Seattle reps re: annexation issues, as announced at the last NHFD commissioners’ meeting. Thursday night, the White Center/South Delridge Community Safety Coalition meeting starts at 6 at St. James Place – tons of important info at these meetings every month, and free dinner too. See you there!

Here and elsewhere, lots of people spread the word about Cupcakes for Cora, a fundraiser this afternoon in West Seattle on behalf of a 4-year-old cancer patient with ties to the White Center community too. We just posted a report, with video of Cora, on partner site WSB; see it here.

While checking the Highland Park Action Committee website in advance of HPAC’s next meeting tomorrow night (they’re the West Seattle community group closest to White Center, and also leading the fight against the two closest proposed city-jail sites, but they are tackling other issues too) – we were reminded that the site has a great page from the 7/31 meeting about the White Center Cultural Center plans. That was a week before White Center Now was launched, and we unfortunately weren’t at that meeting, but photos and part of the presentation, including the site plans, can be found here.

Announced by U.S. Senator Patty Murray’s office (read the announcement here): $20 million in federal funds confirmed for the King County Housing Authority’s Park Lake II redevelopment project. Murray says the White House had tried to cut the HOPE VI funding that included this money. Here’s a financial breakdown of the nearly $200 million going into Greenbridge. UPDATE: Per comments, King County notes that this portion of Park Lake redevelopment is for a project separate from Greenbridge.

Thank you for starting and participating in lively discussions here on WCN, right from the start. Couple things we wanted to highlight this afternoon — First: Spirited discussions continue on threads that are now weeks old – so keep checking, if those are topics you’re interested in. In particular, our coverage of the last North Highline Fire District meeting is still drawing comments – including this one, just this morning, from “Concerned Firefighter.”

Second: Dick Thurnau from Friends of Hicks Lake just announced an event in comments on an “old” post. Before publishing it here to make sure everyone sees it, I wanted to note – if you’ve got something to announce – best thing to do is try one of these:
a) Send it to us and we’ll post: whitecenternow@gmail.com
b) Want to be a White Center Now contributor? This is a multi-contributor site – FullTilt, Ricardo, and I are the trio that launched it, but we’ve always hoped to have other participants. E-mail us at that same address, whitecenternow@gmail.com, and let us know what you’d like to write about, in general.

Now, the Hicks Lake event that Dick wants you to know about (also just added to the White Center Now Events Calendar):

Friends of Hicks Lake will sponsor and cooperate with KC Parks Evergreen Maintenance Dist for a cleanup day: On Saturday 9/27/2008 from 10:00 AM to 3:00 PM at Lakewood Park/ Hicks Lake.
Tools, gloves will be furnished — all we need is volunteers as there is a lot of work that needs to be accomplished. Students from Seattle Pacific University come annually.

This is an invite for all residents of North Highline to make a difference. Thank you in advance.
Dick Thurnau 206-244-4558

Click pic to play video

As you’ll see in the video, this show was even more for the eyes and the ears … and the whole body, really. Check No-Fi Soul Rebellion’s website here.

FullTilt himself hasn’t mentioned it yet so I will: Lots of writeups for the fact a hot group’s coming to the ice cream shop at 9 pm tonight – No-Fi Soul Rebellion. Here’s just one of the videos we found on YouTube; love the tie. We hope to drop in to get some of tonight’s event on-cam; check back here late tonight or tomorrow.

Dreaming of a future White Center Farmers’ Market is part of what the PARKing Day “park” is all about. Till 3 pm, you can see the “park” set up by White Center Community Development Association and Technology Access Foundation — with that banner, some greenery, fresh produce, and of course, technology — in the parking spaces by Full Tilt Ice Cream on 16th SW, west side of the street, a short ways south of Roxbury. Staffing the “park” when we stopped by a short time ago — WCCDA’s Sopha Danh and TAF’s Richard Brown:

TAF is also promoting its free TechStart classes – all listed on this handy white board at today’s “park”:

PARKing Day is happening nationwide – with people setting up temporary “parks” like this one to remind us that urban greenspace is vital to healthy, happy city living (among other things!).

Note, it’s from the Obama campaign site, so you might not want to help if you’re supporting another candidate, but it’s a request for volunteers to help sign up voters at sites including Roxbury Safeway. Check it out here. (It’s also posted on our partner site, West Seattle Blog.) Meantime, if you still need to register, the deadline is two weeks from Saturday, and you can start at this page on the King County website.

7 pm tonight, at St. Bernadette’s (map), the North Highline Unincorporated Area Council hopes you’ll join its members for a community meeting to discuss annexation, among other things.

WestSide Baby, which is headquartered in White Center and helps families here as well as West Seattle and environs, just put out an urgent call for newborn-size diapers – those shelves are bare! WestSide Baby collects diapers at its headquarters (10032 15th SW) as well as several other West Seattle locations and even one in Burien; full list is here.

Tall Latte at Half-Price – Rush Hour Special 6:00 a.m. to 7:30 a.m.\

Weary commuters, we know what a grind it is to get in your car and join the mad rush to that beloved job. So Cafe Rozella wants to make your commute a little easier. Pull up to Cafe Rozella, jump out of your car and get a tall latte for half the usual price! Just come in before 7:30 am and say, “I want my commuter special!” While supplies last.
—————-
Keep up on current affairs and latest White Center developments at the WC blog: whitecenternow.com

—————-
Freebie 2.0 download of the day. If you are like me, as you work at your computer, either on the web or while writing, you run into stuff that you want to save for later or merely want to have around for later use (like a software key, an address or a phone number). If you use gmail, you could email it to yourself but that has its limits. Well there is a tremendous freeware download called Evernote that allows you to record, save, copy and generally memorialize anything on your PC and best of all it syncs with all your computers so if you save something on your laptop while surfing at Cafe Rozella it will be in your Evernote clipboard in your home desktop. The download can be found at: Evernote download.

——————————–
News and Views:

Get to know potential President Sarah Palin

——————
Upcoming Events

That shelf of quirky collectibles (if you’re over 40 like me, the lunchboxes may strike a note of nostalgia!) graces the office of Mount View Elementary‘s new principal Mark Demick, who says they’re just items he’s picked up “along the way.” And what a way it’s been, bringing him from his first teaching job in the farming community of Delano, California — where parent/teacher conferences were sometimes held at vineyard worksites – to this new role in White Center. Read on to find out more about him, why he’s excited about the job, and what he hopes to do: Read the rest of this entry »

(update: here’s a link to a map of all Friday’s PARKing Day “Parks” citywide)
Perhaps you’ve heard of PARKing Day – a relatively new annual event in which volunteers in cities nationwide transform parking spaces into parks, to spotlight the importance of urban open space. This year’s edition is coming up on Friday, and there’s going to be a PARKing Day “park” in a prominent White Center spot – here’s the official announcement:

Seattle Parks Foundation is partnering with The Trust for Public Land and Feet First to turn Seattle’s parking spaces into parks on September 19th as part of PARK(ing) Day, a fun and visible event started by Re-Bar in San Francisco to bring attention to the need for more green space in urban areas.

Technology Access Foundation and The White Center Community Development Association will be transforming the parking spaces in front of Full Tilt Ice Cream into a classroom. We are hoping to provide awareness to the community about the work that we do. Everyone is invited to come out and show support to the community.

National Parking Day
Friday, September 19
10:00 am – 3:00 pm

In front of:
Full Tilt Ice Cream
9629 16th Ave SW

Come out and meet your community neighbors!
For More info call – 206-722-2369×102

From partner site WSB: A child-care job opening specifically targeting White Center as well as West Seattle. Check it out here.

King County’s out with a new report today about growth, and is using the occasion to reiterate that it needs unincorporated areas such as White Center need to be annexed to cities. Here’s the official news release: Read the rest of this entry »

White Center Now was invited to check out the start of the Burien City Council meeting tonight, to be on hand for a special presentation – on behalf of a program that may be setting a national precedent. Twenty Highline Public Schools teachers are getting financial help for rental housing in Burien, but they don’t have to teach in Burien – and in fact, five of the first 12 chosen for the program are teaching in the White Center/North Highline area, according to Jenn Ramirez Robson from the office of Burien City Manager Mike Martin; Ramirez Robson explains, “To our knowledge we have not been able to find a similar program anywhere in the United States. Many states offer mortgage assistance but I have yet to find anything that relates to grants or subsidies toward rental housing.”. Several of those teachers are in the front row of the group shot we caught candidly above; speakers included State House Speaker Frank Chopp (the state played a role in this too) and Highline Public Schools Superintendent John Welch, who ceremonially accepted the quarter-million dollar grant from Burien Mayor Joan McGilton tonight. Welch explained how the grant is helping with teacher recruiting in the areas where the district needs help the most (he introduces the teachers during this section of his speech, too):

Click pic to play video

34th District State Rep. Eileen Cody was there for the occasion too, along with 33rd District Rep. Dave Upthegrove, mentioned when Chopp alluded to the money’s origins in the long and difficult Lora Lake Apartments saga:

Click pic to play video

Here are a few more details about the program, from a City of Burien document: Read the rest of this entry »

Most of the Metro bus service changes announced by County Executive Ron Sims today don’t have a major direct impact on White Center – but there is one WC-specific change: a late-night trip is cut from Route 23. See all the changes (which take effect next Saturday), listed here.

Figured we would start one of these the first time someone wrote us asking for help in finding a lost pet, or finding the owner of a “found” pet – and our first such e-mail just came in, so the page is launched. See it here (and check out the missing-kitty photo); check the page any time from the list atop the left sidebar; and if you have lost or found a pet in the White Center area, e-mail us information (and a photo if available) to whitecenternow@gmail.com.