May 2009

A severely intoxicated man with a history of domestic violence repeatedly threatened to kill his daughter and his wife after becoming angry, initially, over a pizza box left on a table. He came out swinging, shoving his daughter to the ground, where she hit her head. When offered the chance to tell his side of the story, the man declared that it was “burglary” for the girl to bring her friends to the home. When officers asked for clarification on why this was so, the man repeatedly asked, “Are you f*@&'n stupid?” He was booked into King County Jail for investigation of felony harassment and domestic violence assault.

Late Wednesday, a man spent time in a Ballard bar flirting with the girlfriends of other male patrons. Some blows were traded, and when the man was bounced from the establishment he said goodbye by slamming his fist through a front window.

On Friday, May 8 at approximately 10:55 p.m. officers responded to a call of a stabbing at Golden Gardens Park located in the 8400 block of Seaview Place Northwest.

The male victim and an acquaintance were in the northernmost lot of the park. Investigation indicates that the suspect approached the victim’s vehicle. The suspect jumped upon the victim’s vehicle, kicked it multiple times, shattered a window with a beer bottle, and sliced the victim’s arm with a pocket knife.

The suspect then punched the victim and drove away. The victim was treated at the scene for his injuries and taken to Swedish Hospital by ambulance. He was later released.

The suspect, who is known to the victim, remains at large.

A controversial 20-person homeless shelter will be moving into the vacant Calvary Lutheran Church building for one year starting May 30.

Members of Our Redeemer's Lutheran Church in Ballard voted May 7 to allow the shelter to move into the building at 7002 23rd Ave. N.W., according to a May 10 press release from Our Redeemer.

There will be a meeting at 7 p.m., May 20 at the Calvary Lutheran building to answer questions from the community.

According to the press release, the shelter will be open from 7 p.m. to 7 a.m. No one will be allowed to enter the shelter after 10 p.m., and residents are prohibited from being in the immediate neighborhood of the shelter during hours it is closed.

Our Redeemer announced the decision to move the shelter into Calvary Lutheran from West Seattle in February to decidedly mixed reactions.

Some concerned neighbors requested that SHARE run background checks on its residents. Our Redeemer brought that request to SHARE, but the organization refused.

According to the Seattle Police Department's Southwest Precinct, there have been no problems with the shelter during its time in West Seattle.

The Ballard High School boys soccer team made the playoffs with an offensive surge in the second half of the season. They kept that surge going against Issaquah in the first round of the playoffs, but it wasn't quite enough to get the win.

Issaquah, a team the Beavers had beaten 2-1 April 14, edged Ballard 3-2 May 9.

Issaquah scored first at the 12-minute mark, but Ballard's Greg Testa answered seven minutes later.

Issaquah scored twice in the second half to take a 3-1 lead.

Ballard's Kentaro Bowzewski nailed a penalty kick to narrow the gap, but Issaquah held on for the win.

The Beavers finished the regular season with a 7-5-2 record.

The Ballard High School girls lacrosse team earned a win in their final game of the season May 8. It was something the team hadn't done since its first game.

The Beavers beat winless Lake Sammamish 15-10 in their highest scoring match of the season.

Jayne Barnes lead Ballard with 5 goals. Maddie Soukup and Allison Jackson added three each. Kelsey Barta, Amanda Bryan, Katherine Linville and Krista Nelson had one apiece.

Goalie Hannah Breton, back after missing the last two games, had 12 saves.

In its debut season, Ballard finished with a 2-12 record.

Soukup lead the team in goals with 21 and Barnes was right behind her with 19.

Despite missing two games, Breton led the league in saves with 157.

Lake Washington jumped all over the Ballard High School softball team early May 8, scoring four runs in the first inning, and didn't let up, scoring in five of the six innings.

The Beavers couldn't match Lake Washington's offense, tallying five hits to their opponent's 14, and lost 12-2, extending their losing streak to a dozen games.

Elise LaRussa went one-for-three for Ballard with two RBIs, and Elisa Vatn went two-for-three with a run scored.

Pitcher Haley DeGarmo went the whole game and gave up 14 hits and 12 earned runs.

Ballard has a 1-15 overall record with two games remaining.

The team faces Woodinville at 4 p.m., May 11 at Lower Woodland. Woodinville handed Ballard its worst loss of the season 17-0 in their last meeting April 15.

A rough season for the Ballard High School girls tennis team ended May 8 with a 9-0 loss to Juanita.

Juanita shut Ballard down, and no Ballard player won a set.

The Beavers finished the season 0-11 and only won seven individual matches all year.

It seemed to prove a chore for spectators trying to keep their eye on the ball as it was swiftly kicked and head-butted on the Denny/Sealth Athletic Field Friday, May 8.

The audience witnessed the Chief Sealth's soccer team challenge the Secondary Bilingual Orientation Center, or SBOC team, in an exhibition called the Carne Asada Bowl, and yes, Mexican Mariachis and Mexican cuisine were featured.

The score was tied 4-4, but then SBOC scored the winning point in a shootout. Still, everyone seemed a winner at the cultural exhibition.

"I am the former principal of SBOC, a high school with immigrants and refugees who recently arrived to America," said Chief Sealth Principal John Boyd, who helped organize the game.

"Their team is called the Internationals with players from Iraq, Somalia, Ethiopia, and even a student from Mongolia. This is SBOC's only sports team."

The school is located in the "Old Hay" building, Queen Anne, but soon moves to the Meany (Middle School) building on Capitol Hill.

Roxhill Elementary School 4th graders and Explorer West Middle School students joined forces with Seattle Parks and Recreation Department May 8 to clear ivy choking native plants along the Seola Beach Drive Southwest greenbelt.

The greenbelt is parks department property. The department’s nature area crew is working with Cascade Land Conservancy in a program to clear 2,500 acres in 25 years in Seattle.

“We go into these areas and work with volunteers or on our own, replacing evasive plants with native plants citywide,” said Simon Hathaway, a member of the crew who helped supervise the students.

“All this urban forest has to be restored,” he said. “We need the help of kids, neighbors, corporations, one project at a time. A lot of ivy is creeping in and strangling the canopy of trees. This makes the trees too heavy and they can fall down in a storm. These madronas will brown out and die,” he added, pointing upward toward a few sorry-looking leaf-bare trees."

“Change was never one of your strong suits,” my former mother-in-law wrote to me by way of acknowledging my recent half-mile Ballard relocation. Her words have always inspired a reverse psychology response in me. Within minutes of her email I went to the basement and sorted another box from the past, exercising my newfound ability to embrace change by recycling my 30 year-old college notebooks.

It seems that ever since last fall my life has been nothing but change, from the loss of the Seattle PI from the doorstep to a different doorstep.

There’s an Indonesian expression that became of book title, “When the World Was Steady.” I have been trying to find a sense of steadiness beneath my bare feet on these new to me (splintery) floors.

I’ve worked to find my footing while realizing I traded perhaps the only Ballard house with a dry basement for a more traditional model with built-in stream.

I still dream of my old block, dreaming myself back into my old house, popping out to chat while still in my bathrobe. Then the garden here started to pop and change seemed wonderful.