Neighbors wonder what will become of bread sign atop factory

The Seattle Times

June 28, 2006 Wednesday
Fourth Edition

Kayla Webley
Seattle Times staff reporter

Its large, once glowing red letters no longer light up the neighborhood.

They haven’t for years.

But the Wonder Bread sign just south of downtown Seattle still looms high atop the now defunct factory where the soft white bread was made for many years. That may end soon.

The property where it sits is for sale, and who knows where the sign will land.

Residents of the neighborhood want to have a say in the sign’s future should it be forced to come down from the metal supports it has rested on for some 50 years.
Read more

Judge decides Gas Works concerts suit can go ahead

The Seattle Times

June 28, 2006 Wednesday
Fourth Edition

Kayla Webley
Seattle Times staff reporter

Opponents of moving a popular summer concert series to Gas Works Park won a small court victory Tuesday when a judge ruled that their lawsuit against the city of Seattle and the concert promoter can go forward.

Both sides said after the King County Superior Court ruling by Judge Dean Lum that they were waiting for the other side to act, leaving unanswered the question of whether the city can host the Summer Nights series at Gas Works in the summer of 2007.

“It’s all up in the air right now. We don’t know what the plaintiffs are going to do,” said parks spokeswoman Dewey Potter.

“The ball is in the city’s court,” said David Bricklin, attorney for the plaintiffs, Friends of Gas Works Park. That group claimed that its concerns over noise, parking and traffic were not heard when the city was deciding to move the series to Gas Works.

In past years the series has included 17 to 23 concerts per summer, with as many as 3,800 tickets sold per show.
Read more

UW professor gives work to Indonesia

The Seattle Times

June 27, 2006 Tuesday
Fourth Edition

He studied conflict in Southeast Asia - Retired researcher battling lung cancer

Kayla Webley
Seattle Times staff reporter

In decades of research on political conflict in Southeast Asia, University of Washington professor Dan Lev accumulated dozens of boxes filled with notes, documents and books.

Now seven years retired and battling lung cancer, he has decided to give his work to those he believes will benefit from it the most: young scholars in Indonesia.

Traditionally, when professors retire, they donate their collections to their university’s libraries. And while the UW libraries will keep some of his materials, Lev, in an unusual move, is sending the bulk of it to The Center for Study of Law and Policy, a nongovernmental organization in Jakarta. The center is made up of 25 to 30 young lawyers who do research primarily on reform issues in the nation.

Lev, 72, began his teaching career at the University of California, Berkeley, and came to the UW in the 1970s. He retired from the UW in 1999, after years as a political-science professor and researcher. He also established the political-science honors program.

His research, accumulating materials dating from the 1950s, has focused on politics, religion, judicial change and reform, ideology, professionals and historical change, he said.
Read more

Rabbit roundup set for fall

The Seattle Times

June 20, 2006 Tuesday
Fourth Edition

Woodland and Green Lake parks - Poor timing, high costs doomed initial effort

Kayla Webley
Seattle Times staff reporter

Feral rabbits continue to run amok in Woodland and Green Lake parks after a failed attempt to relocate them to a new home.

But now, the city of Seattle has a new partner to handle the relocation portion of the roundup and is scheduled to restart capturing the rabbits this fall.

Citing poor timing, poor communication and a lack of money, Seattle’s Parks Department halted the program about two weeks after it began in late February with the capture of just 48 of the long-eared critters.

“We could have done a lot of things better, but we are willing to keep going and try again,” said Barb DeCaro, resource-conservation coordinator for the Parks Department.

Although several hundred rabbits run wild in the parks, most were likely pets that owners abandoned.
Read more

Tolls proposed for 520 bridge, pass on I-90

The Seattle Times

June 20, 2006 Tuesday
Fourth Edition

Kayla Webley
Seattle Times staff reporter

The state Legislature will be asked to look at the possibility of installing tolls on some roadways in the state, including Snoqualmie Pass and the Highway 520 floating bridge, according to a study by the Washington State Transportation Commission.

The study estimates a $4 toll at the pass would raise $513 million for construction, plus $3.1 million for annual maintenance. Ordinarily, 27,000 vehicles cross the pass each day.

Money generated by a toll at the pass could help fund a proposed widening of Interstate 90 from Keechelus Dam to Easton, about 10 miles.

“If you want to get the work done up there, which most people agree needs to be done, tolls are worth examining,” said transportation commissioner Dick Ford, former head of the Port of Seattle.

A nearby five-mile project to rebuild I-90 through an avalanche-prone corridor along Keechelus Lake would be funded by $388 million in gasoline taxes.
Read more

Komen run a chance to celebrate survival

The Seattle Times

June 16, 2006 Friday
Fourth Edition

Cancer survivor set for 8th race - About 15,000 people expected Saturday

Kayla Webley
Seattle Times staff reporter

On her 36th birthday in 1998, Kathy Kearney received something she hadn’t expected: breast cancer.

Now, eight years later, she will join about 15,000 participants both breast-cancer survivors and their supporters in Saturday’s 13th annual Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure.

But this won’t be Kearney’s first race.

She has been the first breast-cancer survivor to cross the finish line for the past seven years. If she wins again this year, it will bring her that much closer to her goal of winning 10 in a row.

“I have learned if I can overcome breast cancer, I can overcome almost anything,” Kearney said. More than 100 racing events associated with the Race for the Cure are held in communities nationwide, with about 1 million people expected to participate this year. Most of the money raised goes toward breast-health education, screening and treatment projects in the community.
Read more

Boy shoots at pit bull to help girl in attack

The Seattle Times

June 9, 2006 Friday
Fourth Edition

West Seattle - Teen gets in van to escape dog

Kayla Webley
Seattle Times staff reporter

A 13-year-old girl who was attacked by a pit bull in West Seattle on Wednesday was able to get to the safety of a van after a neighborhood boy used his pellet gun to distract the dog.

Even after the girl got in the van, the dog kept circling it until police arrived.

The girl, who was visiting a home in the 3000 block of Southwest 106th Street, suffered minor injuries in the attack, which lasted several minutes, according to police. They didn’t release her name.

Police don’t know what provoked the attack.

Tyler Toycen, a 13-year-old neighbor, shot his pellet gun at the dog to compel it to release its grip on the girl, said the boy’s mother, Karin.
Read more

Putting Mercer Island club on map

The Seattle Times

June 3, 2006 Saturday
Fourth Edition

Youth group - ‘07 groundbreaking planned for state-of-art building

Kayla Webley
Seattle Times Eastside bureau

At 91 years old, the Mercer Island’s Boys and Girls Club’s current site shows its age.

There are cracks in the walls and electrical tape holding wiring together in the building where kids run, learn and play after school.

Club director Todd Bale jokes that the walls in the adjacent bus barn now used for storage aren’t made of wood anymore they are just “termites holding hands.”

“Love and duct tape is all that holds us together that’s kind of our joke,” Bale said.

The aging facility, the former East Seattle School, is why the club is campaigning hard for a new building. It already has a new site on the Mercer Island High School campus and has raised $8 million, half of its fundraising goal.
Read more

Students engineer flights of fancy

The Seattle Times

May 27, 2006 Saturday
Fourth Edition

Bothell school uses kites to help science, social studies make sense

Kayla Webley
Seattle Times Eastside bureau

Eight-year-old Shelby Pegel was disappointed. Her camo-patterned shirt was in the wash so she couldn’t wear it to school. Her friend also forgot to bring the camo-patterned pants that would have completed the outfit.

The second-grader’s camouflage outfit would have matched her green butterfly kite perfectly, she said. “I wanted to make my kite the best,” she said.

Dozens of colorful kites filled the sky at Lockwood Elementary School in Bothell on Friday, part of a new partnership between the school and the Drachen Foundation, an organization dedicated to increasing knowledge about kites.

Each grade integrated kite-making into science and social-studies units, giving students a hands-on learning experience.

First-graders made bug kites, second-graders crafted butterflies, third-graders created Japanese fish, fourth-graders salmon kites, fifth-graders made box kites and sixth-graders designed tetrahedral kites.
Read more

Downtown "renaissance" under way

The Seattle Times

May 24, 2006 Wednesday
Fourth Edition

Kayla Webley
Seattle Times Eastside bureau

When City Manager Rich Conrad looked around Mercer Island’s downtown not long ago, he had to admit it was bleak.

Businesses were failing: Only banks, dry cleaners and parking lots dotted the streetscape. There was no nightlife, few restaurants and hardly any people strolling the streets.

Now halfway through a downtown redevelopment, the changes are dramatic.

New apartment and condo buildings are opening, with shops, banks, real-estate offices and restaurants renting space on the ground level. Two mixed-used projects are already completed, and with four more to come, the developments will add more than 80,000 square feet of retail space, 24 condos and more than 700 new apartments.

“We are on the front end of a renaissance,” Conrad said.
Read more