So now what do we do about it?

The Stranger and The Sierra Club promised that if you voted against Roads and Rails / Proposition 1, you would only be voting against expanding roads. They promised that the political class could look beyond the failure of R&R and see that a new coalition existed - a coalition which wanted to see a light rail only solution. They promised that a vote against Prop 1 was only the first step in a great expansion of light rail for the region. They promised the best of both worlds.

So, Proposition 1 / Roads & Rails failed. And then there was silence. The Stranger & The Sierra Club got all the greens, all the transit supporters and all the progressives in the city up in a frenzy, they voted against Prop 1, and then everyone went to sleep, quietly awaiting what the good liberal folks of The Stranger & The Sierra Club promised. Light rail was coming, it was only a matter of time.

Well, what lesson did the political class actually learn? No more light rail.. more buses! That's what...

Crosscut Seattle : Beyond Prop 1: A new consensus is emerging

A group headed by Norm Rice and John Stanton is gathering allies for a more rational and practical approach to the region's transit needs... a new consensus is emerging about a post-Prop 1 agenda.

It centers on moving aside turf-oriented, self-serving agencies such as Sound Transit and transferring power to a more objective, more responsive regional body... It would not stop light rail construction in place, but it would limit construction to a line running from Seattle-Tacoma International Airport to either Convention Place, Husky Stadium, or Northgate.

Future funding would be focused more greatly on express bus, bus rapid transit, and normal bus service; dedicated transit lanes; HOV lanes; tolling; and selective repair and expansion of long neglected local roads and lifeline highways. Citywide trolleys definitely would not be part of the scheme.

No roads! No rails! Buses for all!

You can read about whether or not Ted Van Dyk (anti-rail author of the Crosscut article) is tilting the facts in articles at both The Slog and Northwest Progressive as well as arguements that what Stanton & Rice want to do is already blocked by some in the Legislature. But what isn't addressed is the fact that CW is now tilted against light rail, and The Sierra Club and (less importantly) The Stranger don't seem to feel they had anything to do with it.

The block of interest groups which killed 50 miles of light rail promised that they could get it back, and now the elder key-holders of Washington State seem poised to bring you buses instead.

I hate you, Sierra Club & The Stranger.

Goldy's got the full scoop on Dean Logan's resignation. Here's Dean's Letter, and Ron Sims' Response.

It'll be interesting to see how King Counties transition to vote-by-mail will take shape now. If it ever does.

"Don't cry because it is over. Smile because it happened."
--unknown

Dear Sonics: It's been a good forty years. We've stuck stuck together through good times and bad. Through two mascots. Even when you officially dropped the Super part of the the team name and just became the Sonics. We've loved you, really, and wish you didn't have to go. But since you do, we're throwing you a going-away party on Thursday May 11th, at noon at City Hall. Your fans and friends will be there to toast you and send you off in style. Thanks for the memories. They make us smile.

Seattle Sonics Going-Away party

Date: Thursday May 11th, noon-1PM
Location: City Hall Plaza (off 4th avenue)

Community leaders and concerned citizens will gather to wish the Sonics well in whatever future city they decide to call home and make clear to the City of Seattle and other elected officials that we have more pressing needs than bailing out the Sonics by spending $200 million to remodel Key Arena.

Washington State has a law that limits the amount of money a school district can raise through property taxes. The Seattle School District has already hit this lid, but the Seattle Teachers Unions is considering Running a city wide initiative to raise more money anyway.

What the teachers hope to do is avoid the law by raising the money through the city and then having the city transfer the money to the school district.

At this point, it sounds like the politicians seem a little skeptical, but it will be interesting to see what happens.

This morning a man nearly died in front of me, on a busy Seattle sidewalk, and most people just kept on walking.

He was homeless. Or did you guess that already?

I moved to Seattle from New York City, supposedly the most hard-hearted and merciless place on earth. Seattle, on the other hand, is made out to be the land of good intentions and nice Scandinavian smiles. The reputations are bullshit & backward.

New Yorkers aren't hard-hearted, they're efficient & loyal. If you block traffic because you're lost, they're going to yell at you. If you block up the middle of the sidewalk because you are a slow moving tourist, you'll get bumped and hollered at. If you talk shit about Brooklyn, you'll get shit back. If you go to a Yankee game on with anything but Yankee paraphenilia, you'll get an ass-kickin.

But New Yorkers are civic minded. If you get mugged, they'll help you up. If you ask for directions, they'll tell you not just how to get there, but the fastest (and cheapest) way to do it. New Yorkers pay high income taxes, shush obnoxious people on the train or bus, and routineley fund large campaigns for the public good (Central Park, the Subway, etc...).

BOMBSHELL. Views from atop a 50% larger viaduct would suck. The horror! Washingtonians abandon support for "Big Ugly" viaduct in droves- and into Greg Nickels' warm tunnel-o-love embrace...is that how it's supposed to go?

I can't believe people are actually listening to these arguments, but just for kicks lets take the tyranny of the views debate one step further:

SLOG writer Erica C. Barnett points out that panoramas would be visible from most vehicles, including cars...about four inches shorter than the existing barricade.

WHOOPIDEEDO. This is not the issue, and if I hear one more person debating the merits of views gained or lost where one is supposed to be driving I am going to erupt in one large vomitous mass. Keep your eyes on the road Seattle, and eyes on the prize, whether or not you support the viaduct v2, if you try and tell me views from the top are an issue I'll point out immediately you are an fool undeserving a drivers license.

You probably noticed-- savvy follower of politics that you are-- that we had an election a couple of months ago. You probably also noticed that there were a lot of random positions up for election, including Port Commissioners.

It's probably less likely that you have much of an idea of who the Port Commission candidates were, much less what the Port of Seattle actually does. We tried to help you out a little bit around here, and the BetterDonkey position went like this: the Port is a big fat entity that spends a lot of money, $60 million of it yours-- and that it's about time we all started paying attention.

Well. Speaking of paying attention, the State audited the Port of Seattle, and found that the port can't account for $504,258 in inappropriate spending, and is at high risk of abuse in key departments.

Highlights, courtesy of the Seattle P-I:

With I-912 thankfully buried, Washington can now go on to strengthen our infrastructure and solving some of our terrible traffic problems.

One of the biggest problems the state faces is replacing 'ye ole Viaduct. The Alaskan Way bastard child. That ugly scar across our city landscape. My daily commute with impending doom... that is, if the big one hits between 9-10am or 5-6pm Monday-Friday. (Note to the Big One. I'll be taking next Thursday off).

Mayor Nickels has let everyone know what he favors - building a tunnel. And, to be honest, that sort of long-term 100 year vision for our waterfront and our city is probably the biggest reason I voted for Nickels.

The gas tax will fund nearly 2/3rds (or $2 billion dollars) of the cost of building a tunnel. Now, $1 billion dollars isn't easy to come up with. However, if you've been reading the papers or listening to KUOW like I have, you'd probably think all of that money was going to have to be raised by the residents of Seattle.

You can imagine my surprise today when I read this side bar in the Seattle Times:

I already heard about it quite a bit at last night's monthly BetterDonkey Happy Hour (thanks to everyone that joined in!) but I thought it should be posted here as well.

Our own amy and annemariem wrote a killer letter to the editor to the Seattle PI last week in response to the putrid article they published - "Don't Know vs. Don't Care". And, low and behold, the old PI published it!

Enjoy!

Seattle PI - It's quite easy to get educated -- and involved

We read "Don't Know vs. Don't Care" with dismay (Sept. 19). The article implied that people under 40 don't care about local politics and are disengaged from the process. We know for a fact that this attitude does not hold true for us or for many of our friends and peers.

As members of Better Donkey, a community of 20- and 30-somethings who deeply value the responsibility of and right to participate in government, we find many reasons to disagree with the contention that local politics is inaccessible or boring. In the first place, Washington's no-excuse absentee ballot policy allows us to vote on our own time -- in the privacy of our own homes, or while discussing the candidates with friends. Learning about candidates and issues just isn't hard. All the resources are there -- from voter's pamphlets to newspaper endorsements

Alright. So the last few years in Seattle we've had the tightest, saddest little budgets ever. Every year the Mayor would announce his budget and all the neighborhood people, all the human services people, all the public safety people would get into their little huddles and when the City Council had their hearing on budget priorities, BOOM the whole thing would blow up. If you weren't in Council chambers two hours before the meeting started to get your name on the list of speakers, you were totally screwed.

Well, the Mayor just announced his budget yesterday, and it is a completely different universe. Because there is money in it!! Thanks to people doing things like having jobs and shopping and buying houses and stuff (who are these people who can buy houses in this city? Seriously), the General Fund got some kind of huge windfall and now the Mayor's got money to burn.

Mayor Nickels withdraws his support for the monorail

Fifth vote on the monorail will happen this November

The Seattle Times reports:

Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels withdrew his support for the financially troubled monorail yesterday, refusing street-use permits and calling for a fifth public vote on the project in November.

The ballot measure would ask voters whether they want to kill plans, three years in the making, for a 14-mile line to connect Ballard, Seattle Center, downtown and West Seattle.

"This is perhaps the most disappointing day for me since I became mayor nearly four years ago," Nickels said at a news conference. "... Put simply, the monorail does not have enough money to pay for the project."

The mayor's turnabout marks the biggest setback yet for a project that began as a grass-roots movement for a functional transit system that rises above traffic. By this summer, though, the public rebelled against a finance plan that would have required at least 50 years of taxes totaling $11.4 billion to pay for a $2.1 billion line.

Is this the end of the monorail? How do you feel about it? Which way will you vote? Why?

This November's off-cycle election is turning out to be the most important election in the last 20 years for residents of Seattle. The monorail and the gas-tax will effect your everyday life much more than George W. Bush ever could.

Yay voting!!! Okay. So I have my Seattle voter's pamphlet right here next to me, and about six hundred browswer windows open full of candidate endorsements and other info. Let's go through this stuff together. I'm not going to tell you what to think, but I might make some recommendations based on the tons of resources that we can use to figure this stuff out. This might take a while, but it will totally be worth it. Ready???

King County Executive
I hate to start with a flat-out recommendation here, but I'm going to. Vote Ron Sims. I am not always a big fan of his, but you gotta think strategy here. David Irons, the Republican candidate, is going to be tough as fuck to beat. Someone with no name recognition and no political experience is going to be able to win in November. Plus, even if you think the Republican candidate seems like sort of a reasonable person, remember that all of the people he hires to help him make policy are going to be conservative too... and they might not be nearly as reasonable as their boss.

Oh can it get any better?

James C. Garrett, a fringe candidate for mayor of Seattle, argued at an administrative hearing yesterday that his name should appear on the primary-election ballot despite a felony conviction for assaulting then-Mayor Paul Schell with a bullhorn four years ago.

At yesterday's hearing, Garrett, 59, offered a rambling challenge to the authority of the U.S. government and said he suffered from "post-traumatic slavery syndrome."

Garrett said he was still challenging the validity of his felony conviction in federal court and claimed he never received notice that he could not register to vote again after being released from prison.

Garrett, also known as Omari-Tahir Garrett, was sentenced in 2002 to 21 months in prison for the assault on Schell. As a convicted felon, his voting rights were revoked.

I love Seattle politics. (You have to admit, "beat em with votes, not bullhorns" would be a pretty catchy campaign battle cry.)

And in related news, the guy who threw the dud grenade at Bush is on the fast track for the Republicans' Presidential nomination in 2008.

A First Hand Account of a Seattle Monorail Hearing

ObviousDiversion.com piped in last week with a first hand account of the Monorail Hearing held in Central Seattle on Wednesday, July 6th.

I went to the monorail hearing tonight in central Seattle at the Securities building on 4th Avenue and sat through about three and a half hours of people’s three minutes at a microphone.

When I got there, I pulled out an index card and wrote ‘Pro’, ‘Con’ and ‘Crackpot’ on it with the intention of seeing how many people showed up for each category. I don’t mean that final category to be anything insulting, but never having attended one of these things I just sort of figured some strange people would come out of the woodwork. (If you’ve seen Seattle public access, then you know exactly what I’m talking about.)

Then something amazing happened: about thirty minutes in, I crossed out crackpot and created a ‘can’t tell’ category because, quite simply, I saw no crackpots. I just saw people who needed to talk and argue and figure out what to do next...

Read ObviousDiversion.com's whole account here or view the hearing yourself through this link provided by elevated.org, the Seattle Monorail Project's site.

Susan Paynter put her finger on the reason the thought of this mayor's inevitable re-election has me drinking myself to sleep:

Greg Nickels... is too busy looking expansively up and out to really recognize and encourage grass-roots growth....

Seattle really sparks on those occasions when communities pull together to make things better in small ways.... Ways in which government is too darned clumsy to do more than offer an assist...

The idea has been ignored if not trampled as the current administration keeps its eye on the high-bouncing ball of big deal-making.

Yep. Pretty much. I'm the last person to say no to more transportation choices, more density, more smart growth, more economic strength. But but but!!! Mayor Nickels is doing all of this at the expense of neighborhood autonomy (ignoring major parts of the South Lake Union Neighborhood Plan in favor of Paul Allen's biotech plan), at the expense of culture (stay tuned for some knee-knocking updates on what's going to happen to your favorite music venues if Sir Gregory has his way), at the expense of 'hoods that are vital to the character and strength of the city (checked out Broadway lately?).

I am very please and excited to announce that Music for America has picked Seattle as one of three cities to focus their initial grassroots efforts.

What this means is more local MFA shows in the area, help from MFA on local issues, a new burst of energy in the local political scene, and a new Seattle blog. That’s right, MFA has just started a blog for the Seattle community (http://www.musicforamerica.org/washington).

Okay guys, you got me. I'm a member of the Seattle Pedestrian Advisory Board, or as us members call it, the Ped Board. Oooh say it. Ped Board. You sound like you're on the inside now, and that will so get you laid. In an alley. Surrounded by rats.

Anyway. So what's the deal, right? What are these crazy boards and commissions, and why would I want to take several hours out of every month to be on one? Let's get cozy and I'll give you the scoop.

Way back in the summer of 2002, I felt a calling. A calling to serve. A calling to-- okay, look. I had a shitty job, I didn't know enough people in town, and I needed to feel like I was doing something. You know? Having a fun happy hour crowd just wasn't doing it for me anymore. Then I got lucky... I happened to see an ad in the paper for Get Engaged, I applied, and I got in. I had to pick from a list of boards and commissions to be on, and it was hard at first to narrow things down, but then I realized... I have no car, love transit, and get hella pissed (hella!) when drivers don't give me my city and state law given right-of-way at crosswalks. Ped Board it was.

It's been three years now and honestly, I feel like I'm just getting this whole board member thing figured out. It's kind of intimidating because even though I'm awesome at walking (next time we hang out, I'll show you), there are a lot of people on the board who are awesome at being city planners or neighborhood organizers or whatever. They know their shit. It's the same way on a lot of other boards-- and on some boards there are also a lot of people who are awesome at being older than you and at being crotchety and maybe even at being unable to respect the viewpoints of someone who isn't just like them.

Want things to change in your neighborhood, but you're not sure how to make it happen? Join the Capitol Hill Community Council! (Unless, of course, you don't live on the Hill. In which case, move right along.)

The Capitol Hill Community Council is looking for board members for the 2005-06 year. There are 4 positions: president, vice-president, secretary and treasurer.

This is a great way to get involved in our community, meet your neighbors and create change. Please help us provide information to the community for another year by getting involved now. The minimum time commitment is about 8 hours per month, which includes 1 to 2 meetings.

We currently have nominees for Vice-President and Treasurer. We still need candidates for President and Secretary.

If you are interested in any position, have a nominee suggestions, want more information or have recruitment ideas please contact me at the email address below. We will be presenting nominations at our Thursday, May 12 meeting.

Hi. Wanna hear a story? Good. I thought so. So, once upon a time-- actually once upon a couple of months ago-- I got you all excited about the Seattle City Council race. Really excited. Remember? You had your pants off. I saw you. Ever since then you've been wait wait waiting for me to tell you more!!! I know. But see, I've been waiting too. For something good. Some crazy mud-slinging, a scandal, something that would really show you how fun all this stuff is.

So I found some stupid crap. Does that count? See, okay. Let's review. Dwight Pelz, Paige Miller, and Casey Corr are all running for Richard Conlin's council seat. Conlin is Mr. Transportation, and really, so is our man Dwight. Casey I still haven't figured out. Anyway, so Little Miss Miller has the money and the corporate support, but she's a port commissioner and-- you wouldn't vote for a port commissioner, would you? You'd vote for a friendly green transportation type. So Paige decided she'd be a friendly green transportation type, too. What a smartie.