Beacon Hill Blog news partner KOMO reports that police are searching for a man who exposed himself to a teenage girl and her sister at the Beacon Ave. S. and S. Willow bus stop Saturday night.
The man was described as a white man in his 20s, with shaved or short hair, wearing a grey sweater and jeans.
If you have information on the suspect, please contact the police.
The Seattle Department of Transportation advises that the westbound lanes of the Spokane Street Viaduct will be closed just west of I-5 for three nights, August 16-18. During these closures, southbound traffic exiting I-5 will be detoured to the S. Forest St. exit. Northbound traffic and westbound traffic from Columbian Way on Beacon Hill will be detoured to surface streets at 6th Ave. S. Drivers on southbound Highway 99 will still be able to access West Seattle as usual.
On August 15, the right lane of the westbound Spokane Street Viaduct will be closed overnight. The I-5 westbound ramps will remain open.
For more information, see the project website.
The proposal to move the Youth Services Center (including juvenile court and detention facilities) into Beacon Hill’s PacMed building is now off the table. King County officials have determined that none of the six proposals for replacement of the Alder Youth Services Center—including the PacMed proposal—meet the county’s affordability criteria.
According to County Administrative Officer Caroline Whalen, one of the primary goals of the process was that “the [Youth Services Center] project should be, to the extent possible, cost-neutral to King County or at least minimize the financial contribution required to be made by King County.” None of the submitted proposals were found to meet this criteria, so the county is ending the current procurement process and considering its next steps.
See further reporting from the Beacon Hill Blog‘s news partners:
Neighbor Christine reports:
“Just returned from a walk around Jefferson Park where the big cricket competition has been going on since Sunday on the new sports field. Talking with some spectators, this is a big competition with teams from Samoa, Hawaii, Utah and Washington. On Saturday starting at 8am there will be some pagentry as each team does a song/dance and then some other festivities and the playoffs.
“The field is ringed with merchants and food vendors—and some great music. The players are attired in sarongs. The game is hard to understand for some of us.”
The Samoan Cricket League folks are at Jefferson Park throughout the summer, but we didn’t know that there was a special event this week. We hope to find out more for the blog, but in the meantime, we wanted to let you know that something interesting is happening at the Park.
Seattle Parks and Recreation is hosting a follow-up public meeting to discuss the design of a skatedot (a skateboard facility) at Benefit Playground. The meeting is a follow-up from input received in the August 11 design meeting, and will take place on September 1 from 6 – 7 p.m. at the park picnic shelter. Benefit Playground is located on South Beacon Hill at 9320 38th Ave S.
According to Parks and Recreation:
A skatedot is a skateboard feature within an existing park that can range in size from 1,500 to 10,000 square feet. It is considered a neighborhood facility that can accommodate up to 13 users at a time. This skatedot is expected to be located within the existing sport court area of the park. For more information on Seattle Skatepark planning, please visit the skatepark website.
Craig Thompson sent the following notice:
“A neighbor asked me to send this message out reminding people that there’s an informal meeting of concerned neighbors at Dr. Jose Rizal Park tonight at 6 PM to discuss the proposed move of the Juvenile Justice Center to the PacMed building.
“We’ll meet in the amphitheatre. You can also barbecue at the park….”
Curtis Bonney adds: “There’s no agenda, just a discussion.”
Mark your calendar for Saturday, August 27 at 9 a.m., when the Jun Hong Kung Fu and Sports Association hosts the Second Annual Beacon Avenue Health Walk. The event, a three mile round-trip walk, is a benefit for Japan earthquake relief.
The walk will begin at Jun Hong Kung Fu (4878 Beacon Ave. S.), and then take the Beacon Avenue walking path south to Van Asselt Community Center (2820 S. Myrtle St.) for a water stop, and back to Jun Hong Kung Fu. The total distance is approximately three miles, and the event should finish at noon.
Teams are welcome. Registration is $10 for adults (t-shirt included) and $5 for kids. Deadline to register is August 25. For more information, call 206-793-1825.
Here is a map showing the route of the walk:
View Beacon Hill Health Walk route in a larger map
Beacon B.I.K.E.S. is hosting a neighborhood bicycle ride this Saturday along portions of the future Beacon Hill Greenway. The ride will be a safe, slow-paced 5-mile loop (see the route in the map below) with few hills, suitable for riders of all ages, and will feature destinations such as Jefferson Park, local businesses, and two community farms (Alley Cat Acres and the future site of the Beacon Food Forest).
The ride will start at 2 p.m. at The Station coffee house, 2533 16th Ave. S. and finish at 4 p.m. at the Beacon Hill Library, 2821 Beacon Ave. S.
Questions? Email Dylan at dylan@beaconwalksbikes.org.
(Thanks to Christine Cole for the news!)
View spokespeople beacon ride in a larger map
Ballard-based retailer Little Orange Room has introduced a line of neighborhood t-shirts for children. The Beacon Hill shirt features the Korean pagoda from Daejeon Park in North Beacon Hill, and says “b is for beacon hill.”
The shirts are available in children’s sizes, onesies through kids’ size 10, for $22 each. To find out more, visit the Little Orange Room website.
The survey is part of an SDOT study of performance-based parking pricing strategies. In performance-based pricing, parking rates are adjusted depending on a set of data-driven characteristics. For example, rates could change by time of day or location, or seasonally. The expected result of the variable rates is to increase parking availability, and decrease the time drivers spend circling the block in search of a parking spot. This not only decreases the pollution caused by this practice, but also eliminates a fair amount of traffic. (This 2007 New York Times op-ed suggests that drivers searching for curb parking are about 30 percent of the traffic in central business districts.)