Posted Sun, Apr 22, 6:50 p.m.

Coolpapa, Politicians only listen when they think they might get un-elected. I'm not sure how many elections it will take before the educational "reformers" and their water carriers like David Brewster and the Seattle Times Editorial Board will listen too, so insurgent candidates will need to keep running and winning ...

Posted Thu, Apr 12, 8:27 a.m.

...though I do feel sort of 1984ish being able to rewrite my own poor editing history...

Posted Thu, Apr 12, 8:26 a.m.

Didn't realize this comment system made that so easy. Done.

Posted Wed, Apr 11, 3:18 p.m.

Ditto what Barney said - with the addition of a request to please point out where Ms. Westbrook has been less than 100% factual here or on her blog. I don't have any kids, but if I did I sure as heck wouldn't want them to learn LisaG's (and, for ...

Posted Thu, Mar 29, 4:35 p.m.

Shorter Roger - I am a self-appointed expert and know what's best for these people, who need to be cut out of the process if they dare disagree with me. Good luck with that. I'm sure glad you're out of government now.

Posted Sat, Mar 24, 11:59 a.m.

Most people in Seattle consider on-street parking in most of the neighborhoods proposed to be affected by this change to already be - putting it mildly - a fucking nightmare.

Posted Fri, Mar 23, 1:13 p.m.

Not if the developers are no longer required to and instead choose to push the parking impact of their new project onto the existing residents and businesses in that (or any of a dozen other) neighborhood(s).

Posted Wed, Mar 21, 3:38 p.m.

Crossrip often makes good (if overly repetitive) points on Sound Transit, but this particular conspiracy theory is pure tin foil hat stuff. Seriously.

Posted Sun, Feb 12, 10:50 a.m.

As venues of that size go, the Key Arena is a fine place to see concerts. The Tacoma Dome may draw bigger ones (despite being a vastly inferior venue to attend one in - and by vastly I mean VASTLY), and there are new facilities that compete with it (such ...

Posted Thu, Feb 9, 4:22 p.m.

Charles Dickens had Blue Light's number, bigtime.....

Posted Thu, Feb 9, 4:21 p.m.

Are there no prisons? Are there no workhouses?

Posted Thu, Feb 9, 12:19 p.m.

I suppose a right wing blowhard could also call it the "OMFG you're getting rid of debtor's prisons and workhouses Act", too.

Posted Wed, Jan 25, 8:25 a.m.

Ah, our resident right-wing troll calling someone a racist for pointing out obvious (and in Gingrich's case it's REALLY obvious) racism. Limbaugh 101. Humanity fail.

Posted Sat, Jan 21, 9:07 a.m.

I'm sorry, but if calling sleazy insider innuendo sleazy insider innuendo is a "personal attack" I plead guilty as charged. I'll say this though - the corporate education "reform" cabal sure knows how to take their marching orders. Ivan called it - Mr. Brewster has achieved Blethen-like depths, here. Shameful ...

Posted Tue, Dec 20, 1:57 p.m.

...and you'll have to forgive me if I don't think that the fact that Mr. Brewster tirelessly carries water for the Gates Foundation - which is big supporter of the so-called reform movement and just happens to be a major Crosscut funder - is exactly coincidental. As my old poli ...

Posted Tue, Dec 20, 1:54 p.m.

As far as I can tell, coolpapa just took Mr. Brewster apart piece by factual piece. Complaining that he did so anonymously doesn't exactly constitute a substantive rebuttal.

Posted Wed, Nov 30, 3:13 p.m.

Crossrip is a lot of things (somewhat longwinded and repetitive leap to mind), but an internet troll isn't one of them. The questions he asked you directly about your "proposal" are reasonable ones, and calling him names and refusing to respond to them doesn't do much for your credibility. At ...

Posted Sun, Nov 27, 10:09 p.m.

bkochis has his history about 100% wrong when he cites Ballard and West Seattle as "urban sprawl" - both of those neighborhoods were independent cities that were annexed to Seattle in the early 1900's. The "50's model of living" had less than nothing to do with it, and those communities ...

Posted Wed, Nov 2, 5:03 p.m.

If by "us" you mean the approximately 3% of Seattle residents who commute by bike, I'd say that's self-evident. If you're talking about everyone else, however....

Posted Wed, Nov 2, 1:42 p.m.

It's a rare day when I agree with BlueLight....

Posted Thu, Oct 27, 11:52 a.m.

"Yes, I know, there are poor people for whom $60 a year is a lot. But my guess is that there are far more people out there for whom $60 represents the last straw, the final cost that provokes carlessness or at least coming up with a plan to be ...

Posted Thu, Oct 27, 8:27 a.m.

You're flat wrong - the City had put nary a dime into Mercer Street for close to 50 years, and it sold the old Bay Freeway properties to Paul Allen with the explicit requirement that public benefits were to be provided and the properties were to be developed within a ...

Posted Wed, Oct 26, 1:48 p.m.

This whole discussion would be moot if the City Council hadn't squandered $75+ million in parking taxes and other Bridging the Gap funds on the Paul Allen's Mercer Street scheme.

Posted Thu, Oct 20, 12:03 p.m.

If Mr. Valdez thinks moving away from at-large elections will benefit his pro-developer density uber alles agenda, he's got another think coming.

Posted Tue, Oct 18, 12:47 p.m.

My congratulations to Mr. Vance for running the sleaziest and most mendacious political campaign I have ever seen - that's really quite an accomplishment.

Posted Thu, Oct 6, 2:46 p.m.

Oh, and if you read interviews with Mr. Burns he has in fact made the point that the current prohibition on drugs is very much analogous to the failure of alcohol prohibition. Given the current right-wing climate in congress, he probably doesn't want to threaten public broadcasting any more than ...

Posted Thu, Oct 6, 11:50 a.m.

Oh, and just to pre-empt the likely outrage from my last sentence, I'll wager that I've lost more close friends to heroin than anyone who reads and/or posts at Crosscut - and I think that ought to be legalized, too.

Posted Thu, Oct 6, 11:46 a.m.

For someone who worked in politics in the 60's, TVD sure missed the boat on pot. Our last three presidents all smoked it for a reason - it's a lot of fun (for most people, at least). Legalize everything. Yesterday.

Posted Mon, Oct 3, 7:46 p.m.

Don't expect a warm welcome, Ben.

Posted Mon, Oct 3, 9:09 a.m.

Neighborhood activism and activists haven't changed - Mr. Valdez has (and not for the better).

Posted Sat, Oct 1, 9:56 a.m.

What Richard B said, and I would add that far more people are disenfranchised by barriers to voting and registration that Republicans (with the notable and noble exception of Mr. Reed) support than are by the mythical voters who were falsely registered that right-wingers love to complain about - but ...

Posted Fri, Sep 30, 5:20 p.m.

Mr. James was actually referring to and correcting another ignorant poster, but it's nice to know that they both were you (if that's the case, that is). Reed is one of the only Republicans I've ever voted for - a true class act.

Posted Wed, Sep 21, 12:27 p.m.

Who?

Posted Tue, Sep 13, 4:58 p.m.

No we should not lower the speed limit to 20 OR remove parking to appease what are, at most, about 3% of commuters. No way, no how.

Posted Tue, Sep 13, 3:24 p.m.

Name ONE high-density city in the US that is affordable.

Posted Tue, Sep 13, 12:03 p.m.

"Also, road diets have never reduced car capacity, and many don't have bike lanes. They simply move the left turners and right turners out of the gp lane, so the gp lane actually moves" I'll remember this horsepucky the next time I'm waiting through 4 light cycles to go eastbound ...

Posted Thu, Aug 25, 4:01 p.m.

...and yes, there is indeed still a major league upscale condo glut in Seattle. To assert otherwise makes me question your grasp on reality.

Posted Thu, Aug 25, 4 p.m.

Here's a fundamental rule of supply and demand as it applies to affordable housing - you tear down old apartment buildings that are currently affordable and those units become more scarce - so unless you're willing to wait 30+ years for those new upscale units that replaced them to become ...

Posted Thu, Aug 25, 1:28 p.m.

Matt, Actually, your simplistic view of supply and demand is wrong. Try getting past Econ 101. New upscale units DO NOT drop the prices of units at the bottom of the market - PERIOD.

Posted Tue, Aug 23, 3:51 p.m.

@3, I suspect he meant that you totally fell down on your due diligence in buying the property if you did so with the intent to live there and also put a business there when that particular use that was no longer permitted.

Posted Tue, Aug 23, 2:40 p.m.

Total puff piece that ignores the massive public tax cost to subsidize these jobs (a good portion of which were cannibalized from other Seattle neighborhoods).

Posted Tue, Aug 23, 11:46 a.m.

Oh yeah, and that "force of law" you so detest is called democracy.

Posted Tue, Aug 23, 11:24 a.m.

Or will we let pro-development flaks abrogate the agreements made through extensive and broad-based neighborhood planning efforts that are now incorporated in the Land Use Code?

Posted Fri, Aug 19, 12:29 p.m.

Agreed with BiffNotZeem. Like it or not, the DBT does let a driver avoid surface streets between Royal Brougham and Denny Way - which is a sizable chunk of Downtown that is a real P.I.T.A to navigate as it is....

Posted Thu, Aug 18, 10:07 a.m.

jmrolls, Sorry, but as much as I support a retrofit of the AWV I think that's pure wishful thinking. The only incumbent who got punished in the primary was McGinn, and that's because of his opposition to the tunnel. And those of us who support(ed) an elevated replacement and/or retrofit ...

Posted Wed, Aug 17, 5:10 p.m.

Take your meds, dude.

Posted Fri, Aug 12, 5:34 p.m.

Thanks to GaryP for illustrating perfectly why most people - good liberals included - think bike advocates are a bunch of insufferable, sanctimonious hectoring jerks.

Posted Thu, Jul 28, 12:40 p.m.

The notion that building new high density housing near a Roosevelt light rail station will somehow prevent sprawl is pure nonsense - the two housing markets are totally different, and the suburbs will grow at the pace they currently are whether or not another couple of hundred units are rammed ...

Posted Thu, Jul 21, 3:17 p.m.

Kinda makes you wonder who the "us" in the headline is. Not me or the people in my peer group, to be sure.

Posted Thu, Jul 21, 11:08 a.m.

Amen Mr. Miller. Shilling for developers does not a "neighborhood advocate" make. Quite the opposite, really. These New Urbanist gentrification advocates won't rest until every last member of the working class in Seattle has moved to Federal Way or further south....

Posted Tue, Jul 19, 6:42 p.m.

Baldly asserting that the state isn't going to replace SR99 with another limited access roadway is indeed delusional. Wish in one hand, you-know-what in the other....

Posted Tue, Jul 19, 5:15 p.m.

Oh, and alexjon's "absolute prediction" on what will occur if the tunnel is defeated is about as delusional as his repeated assertion that the so-called "ST5" scheme has the greatest popular support of any of the proposed AWV options. Dude, you need to get out of the Publicola echo chamber ...

Posted Tue, Jul 19, 3:56 p.m.

Just for the record, here are the results of the latest Elway poll (3/2011) "All were asked which option they'd prefer if they were to vote: • 38 percent favored a new or repaired viaduct; • 35 percent favored a tunnel; • 21 percent favored new and improved surface streets; ...

Posted Tue, Jul 19, 3:18 p.m.

thematch, Name a poll where that option hasn't been clobbered by a far greater margin than the tunnel or a rebuild. You can't, because there isn't one. It has been polled frequently (though never put to a vote, because its supporters know it would be crushed by the public if ...

Posted Tue, Jul 19, 3:05 p.m.

Alexjon, On what planet has ST5 EVER enjoyed the greatest popular support? Its polling numbers have ALWAYS been well below those for the tunnel - and they'll plummet further when more folks realize that this particular scheme also eliminates two downtown ramps from I-5.

Posted Tue, Jul 19, 2:38 p.m.

The EIS also says that people taking the tunnel will spend 19 minutes less each way getting through Downtown Seattle. 40 minutes a day isn't chickenfeed to the third of Seattle's population that lives west of SR99 (and for whom the world doesn't revolve around the grandiose waterfront visions of ...

Posted Mon, Jul 18, 3:14 p.m.

Boy, that's a regular grassroots groundswell! Or not.

Posted Mon, Jul 18, 11:45 a.m.

This is pretty much the same old developer wishlist that the City has been trying to ram down the throats of neighborhood residents since before the neighborhood planning process began. Same old wine, new bottle.

Posted Fri, Jun 17, 9:23 a.m.

My hat is off to the well-informed and incredibly dedicated posters here who have just pantsed David Brewster on his own playground. I know that running for office is a real pain - especially when you are taking on the establishment that Mr. Brewster and the rest of corporate Seattle ...

Posted Fri, Jun 10, 9:54 a.m.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAA! Classic New Urbanist "we know better than you rabble" claptrap. People like Mr. Valdez prove jerks like Bill O'Reilly right when they call liberals elitists. How depressing.

Posted Thu, Jun 9, 4:49 p.m.

Oops - de Place. I can spell, really....

Posted Thu, Jun 9, 4:49 p.m.

Eric DuPlace clearly has confused the world that is with the one that he desperately wants to see - and I have yet to see a New Urbanist that doesn't do this, or that doesn't shoot the messenger who points out facts that density advocates find inconvenient.

Posted Sun, Jun 5, 8:31 p.m.

But do they have the expensive machine that goes "bing"?

Posted Wed, Jun 1, 5:51 p.m.

I was in Philly for the first time a couple of months ago, and was quite impressed by my ability to get a great hamburger or meatball sandwich from 2 or 3 vendors per block for less than $3. Portland envy? As it stands now, there are more taco trucks ...

Posted Wed, Jun 1, 2:43 p.m.

Retrofit supporters knew the fix was in when WSDOT changed the criteria for a retrofit of the AWV from being able to survive a likely earthquake to being usable after a 500-year event. Sort of a difference, that.

Posted Fri, May 27, 8 p.m.

Mr. Hays knows damn well what GaryP meant - that this is the widest tunnel of its type ever dug. He also knows damn well that it is using technology that is largely experimental. I will leave it to others to analyze his motives in willfully misreading comments that are ...

Posted Tue, May 17, 12:45 p.m.

Just to be fair, I don't think McGinn's performance even begins to approach the legal standard required for a recall in Washington State. Y'all are just going to have to wait until the next time he's on the ballot to express your displeasure.

Posted Tue, May 17, 11:56 a.m.

McGinn's ratings are in the toilet, and the only thing most "Seattlers" are more tired of than him are Portland voters who don't even know how to spell "Seattleites" telling us how we should run our city.

Posted Tue, May 17, 9:30 a.m.

"If"??????????????????????

Posted Tue, Apr 19, 12:06 p.m.

Craigslist (and the resulting loss of ad revenue) had a whole lot more to do with the decline of the bricks-and-mortar newspaper than any alleged "partisan" reporting did.

Posted Tue, Apr 19, 10:53 a.m.

The ageist phenomena Mr. Marshall describes occurs in EVERY occupational field in America - you're the one who decided to beat an irrelevant partisan drum with it. Right-wing newspapers are also declining in circulation due to the rise of the internet, so your "analysis" of Mr. Marshall's situation really doesn't ...

Posted Tue, Apr 19, 10:40 a.m.

BlueLight- At the risk of violating the terms of use here, your post really exemplifies why the teabag wing of the Republican party comes across to most normal human beings as a bunch of sociopathic Ayn Rand-worshipping scumbags.

Posted Thu, Apr 7, 12:40 a.m.

Why is Cameron so xenophobic that he has managed to totally miss the point of this article and exemplify it at the same time?

Posted Mon, Apr 4, 7:01 p.m.

Neither do Portland voters.

Posted Mon, Apr 4, 6:35 p.m.

The value of the land Allen offered to "donate" for the proposed Seattle Commons represented less than 10% of the cost of the project. The Mercer Street project now under construction (which, by the way, was done pretty much entirely to appease Allen's demands after he had purchased the old ...

Posted Thu, Mar 31, 3:55 p.m.

The only "hazards" on those streets are the ones in Wells' mind (which, for that matter, is the only place where anyone is still considering a cut-and-cover tunnel). Those midtown entrances ensure much faster and more reliable bus transit to West Seattle - and a whole lot of urban liberal ...

Posted Sun, Mar 27, 12:24 p.m.

Cameron and BlueLight ought to give up eating apples and pretty much any other Washington-grown produce if they want to put their anti-undocumented worker jihad money where their mouths are.

Posted Tue, Mar 15, 10:59 p.m.

Well said, Spike. And I'll echo Ivan - I agreed with Cameron AND Carlson on this one.

Posted Thu, Feb 24, 12:59 p.m.

Crazy.

Posted Wed, Feb 23, 11:30 p.m.

Oops, looks like Sirkulat's CRAZY is showing.

Posted Wed, Feb 16, 11:15 p.m.

That 2000 class action suit didn't seem to result in significantly higher numbers. Couldn't find figures for Chicago, but NYC's website had the following information... Estimates of undercount for New York City, based on early Census Bureau work and released by the now defunct Census Monitoring Board, at one point ...

Posted Wed, Feb 16, 5:32 p.m.

...and you might ask yourself why the Sun-Times contacted the Carsey Institute for their analysis - could it be that they are regarded as experts in the field (as opposed to say, you or me?)

Posted Wed, Feb 16, 5:29 p.m.

Fair enough, but the numbers rang true enough to the local paper of record. If the Census Bureau adjusts that figure back up by 200,000 I'll certainly apologize. I'm not holding my breath.

Posted Wed, Feb 16, 4:04 p.m.

Actually, I trust the Census Bureau - along with the local demographers cited in the story who thought that their results rang true.

Posted Wed, Feb 16, 3:34 p.m.

How did I know when I first read this piece that Mhays was going to try and put some wishful New Urbanist spin on this? The Chicago Sun Times doesn't know what they're talking about with regard to Chicago's population, and you're the expert. Um, right.

Posted Thu, Jan 27, 1:10 p.m.

What GaryP said.

Posted Thu, Jan 27, 11:09 a.m.

...and you also used to be able to float into Seafair on an inflatable raft with all the beer you could carry!

Posted Wed, Jan 26, 9:50 p.m.

Wilbur, Oh please, none of those countries are debating the fundamental structure (and benefits!) of their social democracies - and right-of-center there means something entirely different than you are trying to imply it does.

Posted Fri, Jan 21, 11:59 a.m.

When I've had Doner in Europe (London, Amsterdam, Berlin, Venice), it was made with chicken, and wasn't nearly as good - and I looked everywhere for a place that actually used lamb or beef to no avail.

Posted Sun, Jan 9, 11:32 p.m.

...and just to put a finer point on your attempt to backpedal from the supply-side affordable housing approach you have repeatedly been a cheerleader for, the construction of new high-density upper end housing doesn't just "not lower" prices at the bottom end of the market - it RAISES them.

Posted Sun, Jan 9, 11:28 p.m.

Mhays - Exaggeration doesn't help your case - I just went on CL and saw dozens of 1-bedroom apartment in SF for less than $1500 (granted - they're small and not in the most desirable neighborhoods, but still). On the other hand I bet you're a big supporter of extending ...

Posted Sun, Jan 9, 10:24 a.m.

I can't speak to Philadelphia, but advocates for lower-income and working class people are no happier with the gentrification of older housing and construction of upscale new housing in Chicago and Brooklyn than they are in Seattle. The notion that simply increasing the supply of upscale housing lowers the price ...

Posted Thu, Dec 30, 8:58 a.m.

I agree with your post 95%. Keynes was right, and Greenspan was and is wrong, wrong, wrong. But while I share your concerns about the way Sound Transit is being financed, I am not as gloomy about the long-term prospect of the NW economy being catastrophically affected by that - ...

Posted Wed, Dec 29, 10:38 p.m.

I predict that Cameron, BlueLight, and all of the other right-wingers who post on this blog will keep saying the same tired things over and over (and over and over and over and over).

Posted Mon, Dec 27, 6:58 p.m.

...or to put it another way, I disagree with your macroeconomic analysis of a microeconomic problem - and yes, the usual pro-density argument that a rising economic tide (ie - more high end housing) will lift all boats (ie - increase the amount of housing affordable to those at the ...

Posted Mon, Dec 27, 6:48 p.m.

Old units don't get any cheaper after a whole lot of them are gone and the remaining ones are increasingly hard to come by. Your reading comprehension isn't so hot either.

Posted Mon, Dec 27, 4:16 p.m.

Name one non-rust belt city where New Urbanist trickle down theory works. Portland? There's a reason that Clark County is the fastest growing place in Washington - and you won't hear working class people there talking about how great the gentrification of the Pearl District (or anywhere else in the ...

Posted Mon, Dec 27, 2:48 p.m.

Moreover, if the people Mhays derides as "NIMBY'S" had had their way in Seattle, there would likely be at least a couple of thousand (if not more) unsubsidized rental units on the market that would actually be affordable to the lower middle and working class people who need them.

Posted Mon, Dec 27, 2:40 p.m.

And by the way, you know how they get new units that are actually affordable in new high-density housing developments in Vancouver BC? They REQUIRE them - which something that would never be permitted in the so-called "free" housing market Mhays and other developer apologists for US capitalism worship at ...

Posted Mon, Dec 27, 2:34 p.m.

Your definition of "affordability" in Seattle has nothing to do with what renters in the real world think is affordable - the average working stiff would consider "affordable" a unit that rents for $600-700 per month, but the City is pushing units that rent for $1000 and up (based on ...

Posted Mon, Dec 27, 12:40 p.m.

..or in Chicago, Los Angeles, New Orleans, Minneapolis.....

Posted Mon, Dec 27, 12:36 p.m.

I have a suggestion for New Urbanists who think that density equals greater affordability - go try and get a mortgage on an In-City house (or condo) that costs tens of thousands of dollars (at least) more than a comparable one further out, and then tell your mortgage broker that ...

Posted Mon, Dec 27, 10:31 a.m.

Classic New Urbanism - refuse to acknowledge the world as it is instead of how you would prefer it to be, and then shoot the messenger if/when they dare to point out how the real world works. The notion that high-density urban liveability in any way is "affordable" is pure ...

Posted Fri, Oct 15, 8:40 a.m.

There is a reason there was strong and near-unanimous opposition to the design of this project by the City-University Community Advisory Committee (including most of the University's own representatives) - it is grotesquely out of scale and context with neighboring Denny Hall (one of the single most historic buildings in ...

Posted Tue, Oct 12, 11:38 a.m.

Karen evidently missed the part of the proposal that would extend meter hours to 8PM.

Posted Fri, Oct 8, 6:01 p.m.

There can be no better proof of what a bunch of self-righteous humorless prigs most (though certainly not all) bicycle advocates are than the responses posted here. Thanks for making Dean Locke's point for him....

Posted Fri, Oct 1, 2:44 p.m.

One can pretty much always count on self-styled "New Urbanists" to respond to a factual analysis of the way things are (as opposed to the way they would like things to be) by accusing the person who points out these inconvenient facts of loving sprawl, hating the environment, etc. etc. ...

Posted Thu, Sep 30, 9:25 a.m.

Amen! And the typical Seattle uber-green self-styled "progressives" who dominate the local blogosphere squeal almost as loud when they are called out on their elitism as teabaggers do when people point out their racism.

Posted Fri, Aug 13, 10:49 a.m.

Gary, That's all great (really!), but most people don't have the luxury of doing as you do. PS - my $50 bike is a quite excellent Peugeot 10-speed that is in sound riding condition (or is after the $50 tune up I referenced). To go back to the original article ...

Posted Thu, Aug 12, 2:46 p.m.

Blue Light - I think you misread my comment, which basically agreed with your point (Mr. Ladner's piece had cited the helmet law as an obstacle to use of public bikes, and eliminating it for them was his suggestion, not mine) joolian, I don't ride to work because Seattle is ...

Posted Thu, Aug 12, 11:41 a.m.

More wishful thinking from bike advocates - according to the figures I found online the bicycle portion of commute trips increased 12% between 1996 and 2006 - from 3.3% to 3.7%. Vancouver doesn't have as many hills as Seattle, but it shares our lousy weather, and to blithely state that ...

Posted Tue, Aug 10, 12:55 p.m.

Sorry, Mhays, but while the projects are certainly dissimilar, anyone who so casually dismisses the comparison strikes me as rather self-serving and disingenuous.

Posted Mon, Aug 9, 2:01 p.m.

I'm curious as to how the size of the commercial entity in question affects their eligibility (ie - is DPD really correct in stating that this only applies to 10 tenants?). At this point, since DPD pretty much has taken the position that little if anything has any environmental impact, ...

Posted Thu, Aug 5, 1:34 p.m.

I, for one, remember the good work Brian Derdowski did on the County Council, and think woofer got it all wrong with regard to how the Sammamish Plateau got screwed. Thanks, Brian!

Posted Tue, Aug 3, 1:52 p.m.

Mallanan = "Outstanding" Muni League = "Joke"

Posted Fri, Jul 30, 5:04 p.m.

Overturning the will of the voters after the M's vote pretty much made Tim Eyman. And don't kid yourself, lots of people are still pissed off about it (and to cite one politician who was wounded by it, Phil Talmadge will never win high office again)

Posted Wed, Jul 28, 4:32 p.m.

It isn't just dbreneman's need for a downtown bypass - it's also for the tens of thousands of Seattle residents who live west of SR99, or need to get to points west of SR99. We've spent 10+ years debating what to do about the AWV, and while I've been staunchly ...

Posted Wed, Jul 28, 3:49 p.m.

I'm no McGinn fan, but this piece is a joke, and does just about every bad thing it accuses McGinn of doing.

Posted Fri, Jul 23, 2:53 p.m.

Shrill much, Richard?

Posted Wed, Jul 21, 1:44 p.m.

...and by the way, the fact that health care reform will force individuals to buy insurance from a private carrier (vs. a government run program, single payer or otherwise) was also a serious bone of contention among lots of progressive/left-wing types, not just conservatives.

Posted Wed, Jul 21, 1:11 p.m.

I'm not particularly a McKenna fan, but comparing him to Ellen Craswell is just way off base - he's much closer to the center than Craswell was (like him or not, that's just a simple fact). To say otherwise is just about on par with calling a corporate Democrat such ...

Posted Thu, Jun 24, 2:15 p.m.

This would probably work out about as well as deregulating the airlines did.

Posted Fri, May 28, 11:02 a.m.

The fact that we both purchased Key Tower (which former Paul Schell was ridiculed for suggesting during his tenure) and built a brand new shiny City Hall does indeed speak volumes about Seattle - in the same way that tearing down the Kingdome and replacing it with two stadiums across ...

Posted Wed, May 12, 10:55 a.m.

The only reason Mercer is "fully funded" (which even phase 1 isn't, let alone phase 2) is that the City has systematically and deliberately misallocated ALL of the discretionary resources it has available to it for what is essentially a beautification project. Obscene is too polite a word for it.

Posted Tue, Apr 20, 10:27 a.m.

oops - "for someone to point that out"

Posted Tue, Apr 20, 10:26 a.m.

Or maybe Phil Fuji couldn't handle the fact that amateur hour was going to apparently last four years - he was talking about leaving almost from the moment he took the job. Serious misread on what occurred there, Mr. Brewster. The fact that Burgess was trying to create a campaign ...

Posted Fri, Mar 26, 12:45 p.m.

Of whose state, Wells?

Posted Tue, Mar 23, 1:13 p.m.

sdstarr, Regardless of what you think about the appeal at hand, McKenna stands for election statewide, too, and while he represents the Governor that is not the be all and end all of his position (for that matter, he also represents the Legislature - what if they were disagree with ...

Posted Thu, Mar 4, 2:39 p.m.

I rarely agree with dbreneman, but this time I sure do. As "modest proposals" go, I think eating Irish babies is vastly more practical...

Posted Mon, Mar 1, 12:28 p.m.

...and Trevor was 100% on point.

Posted Thu, Feb 25, 10:36 a.m.

Seattle, home of "basics to the back" governance.

Posted Tue, Feb 23, 11:33 p.m.

I agree with most of your post, Richard, except that all of the design options to replace 520 are supposed to be rail-compatible, so perhaps we actually will see light rail on the new bridge after the line across I-90 is completed and the rest of the initial regional north-south ...

Posted Thu, Feb 18, 11:57 p.m.

...and this was also promulgated by the same person who pushed a proposal to ban all beach fires which he backed away from in the face of massive public opposition, and who also committed an ethics violation when he finagled a special permit to hold his own wedding in a ...

Posted Thu, Feb 18, 11:44 p.m.

ack, "...than this nanny state guff."

Posted Thu, Feb 18, 11:43 p.m.

bkochis, The City's response speaks for itself - there are much better fights to pick and things to use political capital on that this nanny state guff.

Posted Thu, Feb 18, 5:30 p.m.

Um, it will make Seattle look even more ridiculous and insular to the rest of the region and state than we already do?

Posted Fri, Feb 12, 9:39 a.m.

This is the same Tim Burgess who also supported instituting a 4-foot rule at strip clubs that voters crushed. Yeah, right, real "law and order" Seattle values there. Panhandlers have a right to ask you for money, and you have a right to say no. Aggressive panhandling is already illegal, ...

Posted Thu, Feb 11, 1:55 p.m.

...and just to get back on point - requiring supermajority votes for taxes, unconstitutional. Demanding that a 50 + 1 vote on an initiative be able to impose supermajority votes in perpetuity - idiotic.

Posted Thu, Feb 11, 1:51 p.m.

...and please learn to spell "hypocrite."

Posted Thu, Feb 11, 1:46 p.m.

...running up long-term deficits by cutting taxes and starting illegal wars? Hypocrisy.

Posted Thu, Feb 11, 8:53 a.m.

...or to put a finer point on it, if someone thinks taxes should be raised as a matter of policy and then pays them without complaint, that's not hypocrisy. Your construct is simply absurd. When a "family values" anti-gay Republican is caught canoodling with another man in a bathroom stall, ...

Posted Thu, Feb 11, 8:48 a.m.

Actually, the logical inverse of Zemke's statement is a little thing called Keynesian economics, which I would suggest that you Google. And while you're at it, you might try looking up "hypocrisy" in a dictionary, because your definition is sorely lacking. Indeed, it is the very definition of a "strawman" ...

Posted Thu, Feb 11, 8:44 a.m.

Here's my take - if you live in White Center and own your house and would love to sell to a developer, by all means vote to be incorporated by Seattle. If you rent, or own but would like to remain in your house, vote Burien. What lower income community ...

Posted Wed, Feb 10, 10:40 p.m.

Um, Cameron, what part of that isn't basically a near-verbatim reiteration of what every supply-side Republican has spouted as gospel since the era of the Robber Barons? I suppose there used to be sensible Republicans (Dan Evans types, or even GW Bush the Elder) who realized that there were times ...

Posted Wed, Feb 10, 4:53 p.m.

Um, Cameron, which one of the frequent Republican/Eyman arguments that Zemke quoted 100% accurately was a "strawman" example? You know, like one saying that if you don't voluntarily send money to Olympia you're a hypocrite?

Posted Wed, Feb 10, 10:30 a.m.

Cameron, If 50% + 1 is good enough to pass a de-facto constitutional amendment, it's sure as hell good enough to pass a tax increase. As others have pointed out, Eyman's 2/3 requirement passed with bare majorities, and wouldn't have prevailed under the (unconstitutional) standard it sought to oppose. But ...

Posted Tue, Jan 12, 7:57 p.m.

Yup, retrofit. Probably still gotta do the seawall, though.

Posted Fri, Jan 8, 12:29 p.m.

At last count, 67% of Seattle residents commute by car (and 56% of them are in single-occupant vehicles). Bikes? A whopping 2.5%. You could triple that figure and it would still be negligible.

Posted Thu, Jan 7, 10:35 p.m.

While I tend to prefer older architecture, I also appreciate the historic and cultural value of architecture from other periods. But with due respect to Mr. Hays, his responses evoke Upton Sinclair's theorem that "It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his ...

Posted Thu, Jan 7, 2:28 p.m.

Funny, that's exactly what people said when the preservation movement preserved Seattle's "crappy" Pike Place Market and Pioneer Square.

Posted Thu, Dec 31, 2:50 p.m.

Wells, if you're from West Seattle (or, indeed anywhere west of SR 99), Ms. Moon's perspective on "reducing traffic" is a bunch of wishful thinking BS.

Posted Wed, Dec 30, 1:38 p.m.

Oh, so Susan Hutchison has decided that she's a Republican after all?

Posted Mon, Dec 28, 11:59 p.m.

You raise some good points there, R. I think the official current toll estimates for the latest iteration of the tunnel were that it could be expected to bring in $400 million (but probably not double that, in my view) In 2002 WSDOT did a toll study for the tunnel ...

Posted Mon, Dec 28, 11:39 a.m.

R in Beacon Hill - SR 99 is a 6-lane limited access mini-freeway all the way from the Battery Street Tunnel to north of Green Lake - without a single stop light or at-grade intersection (and the section south of Spokane Street has very few lights and/or intersections). I would ...

Posted Fri, Dec 4, 8:55 a.m.

Crunican is the very embodiment of the phrase "what does it take to get fired around here?" and McGinn would be a fool to retain her. In regard to the comparison with Dow Constantine, I did not vote for McGinn, but the negative comparison is way off base - Constantine ...

Posted Wed, Oct 14, 4:10 p.m.

Evanovich, Yup, and it makes someone who was already a cipher look like an unprincipled weasel.

Posted Fri, Oct 9, 11:19 a.m.

...and the idea of spending $290 million on Mercer Street beautification in a way that makes traffic markedly worse and without a public vote is certainly a good example of the latter...

Posted Fri, Oct 9, 11:18 a.m.

The Seattle Commons - regardless of what you think about its merits or lack thereof - was not an example of the "Seattle Process" - it was killed by two public votes (granted, Commons supporters did their best to avoid those votes, which would have been an excellent example of ...

Posted Thu, Oct 8, 11:55 a.m.

Actually, that was $90 million to put a park lid over the existing Mercer/Valley couplet. Not exactly a "fix" - which Commons skeptics pointed out at the time - and the current $290 million estimate for cosmetic improvements to the corridor doesn't make any more sense.

Posted Wed, Oct 7, 8:56 a.m.

Sean, in addition to being your usual churlish self, you've gotten a major fact about the proposed Seattle Commons wrong - Paul Allen proposed to donate about $20 million worth of land toward a $400 million project. Guess who got to pick up the rest of the tab? And guess ...

Posted Fri, Sep 25, 12:17 p.m.

Sean, If by "could afford" you meant that the growing $500,000,000 backlog of deferred maintenance in roads, parks, and utilities (and mind you - that 1/2 billion is in EACH of those categories - and just within the City of Seattle) is A-OK by you, then yes indeedy, we sure ...

Posted Tue, Sep 22, 11:09 a.m.

Oh, and to get back to the headline for the story - Crunican is pretty much silent on how "Mercer West" is actually going to be funded. Color me shocked.

Posted Tue, Sep 22, 10:37 a.m.

Geez, given that the City has desperately tried to avoid discussing the costs of Phase 2 of this boondoggle over the last few years in order to try and lowball the overall project cost, it is beyond ironic that Postman shrieks with horror when people rightly point out that the ...

Posted Mon, Sep 21, 4 p.m.

Um, getting rid of the connection that Broad Street provides to the south end of Seattle Center is going to make Denny much, much worse than it is now. There's a reason none of the City traffic studies included scenarios for event peak traffic - the two one-way couplets now ...

Posted Fri, Sep 18, 6:29 p.m.

Not true, Sierra Girl. The FACT that Seattle actively wooed Russell was well documented in local media - http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2009295085_apwarussellinvestments.html It is ironic that your anti-Berger agenda led you to shortcuts to prove your vision of how things work in a 2 paragraph comment, though.

Posted Thu, Aug 20, 11:48 a.m.

Ask Vancouver BC about all of the hidden costs of hosting the Olympics. We avoided 10 years of hassle and 20+ years of debt, and I personally don't regret either of those things one iota. And are you seriously implying that the Olympics had anything to do with the Nisqually ...

Posted Tue, Aug 11, 11:31 p.m.

Mhays, In RE your 8:40 post - I'm not trying to be nasty (really!), but I think it is quite telling about your worldview that you cite "office growth" and then apparently conflate that with all regional job growth to defend your opinion about who is and who isn't overbuilding. ...

Posted Tue, Aug 11, 7:08 p.m.

...but just to prove I'm not a total gloomy Gus there is one definite improvement I can cite - you can finally get a real taco in Seattle now.

Posted Tue, Aug 11, 6:56 p.m.

1962 was before my time, but I would venture to say that from the working-class and/or bohemian standpoint Seattle peaked in about 1992. In 40 years, Googie architecture from the late 1950's/early 1960's and the other old buildings we are currently in such a rush to demolish (oops - you ...

Posted Tue, Aug 11, 2:33 p.m.

Mhays, I've heard lots of candidates (for example Jessie Israel) and websites (such as HugeAss Developer) cite the alleged "fact" that Seattle's population is going to double as a rationale for the need to abrogate the neighborhood plans and upzone, upzone, upzone!!!!! Household size has indeed fallen - mostly because ...

Posted Tue, Aug 11, 2:30 p.m.

Madison Ave - churlish punk since Crosscut founded.

Posted Tue, Jul 28, 10:57 p.m.

$81.60 is a bargain for any new guitar that makes you happy and that you like to play, let along to restore an instrument that your family already owns and is much cherished to that standard. And, heck, a restored Silvertone with the problems you describe is still worth ten ...

Posted Tue, Jul 28, 1:20 a.m.

...and Mr. Sperry, I'm somewhat shocked that you would try and lump Councilmember Licata in with Conlin and the majority of the Council that have been helping Mayor Nickels give the keys to our City away to the development community.

Posted Tue, Jul 28, 1:03 a.m.

robgharrisonAIA. So the owner-occupancy requirement won't be enforced unless someone complains? I actually agree with that analysis, but I think that it is a non-response that actually vitiates the larger argument and points out just how dishonest DPD are in pushing this initiative. And please, this measure has very little ...

Posted Mon, Jul 27, 12:39 p.m.

Pookie - given DPD's record, I think one would have to be incredibly naive to believe that the owner-occupied requirement will be enforceable (let alone enforced) over the long term. Do you really think DPD will require structures to be demolished or rescind occupancy permits two, five, ten, or twenty ...

Posted Fri, Jun 26, 12:37 a.m.

I've been a light rail skeptic on occasion (and still think they should have gone to Southcenter!), but tend to agree with mhays and R on this one. Apples and oranges. Going forward, ST could encounter serious obstacles or experience great success, but I don't think that Phoenix's experience is ...

Posted Wed, Jun 24, 10:32 p.m.

mhays, I would take that argument more seriously if DPD and DON hadn't been making concerted annual efforts to abrogate all of the aforementioned promises from the moment the ink dried on them.

Posted Tue, Jun 23, 11:40 p.m.

...oh, and for the newcomers who think single-family neighborhoods should just suck up the City's plans to de facto duplex their communities up, you might want to consider that when the City of Seattle adopted a very ambitious plan to capture a disproportionate share of the region's grown way back ...

Posted Tue, Jun 23, 11:33 p.m.

Wheezer, And along with NYC, traditional dense cities are places where lots of people love to visit but would never want to live. Density is not a moral value.

Posted Sun, Jun 21, 1:41 a.m.

Oh, and Olaf - just to prove my dyed-in-the-wool liberal credentials, here's a funny true story. Back in the early 1970's when my family lived in Montlake (so long ago that the combined effects of the Boeing Bust and the impending eminent domain threat posed by the RH Thompson freeway ...

Posted Sat, Jun 20, 8:56 p.m.

By Kieth's rationale, I suppose we shouldn't have renovated the Jose Rizal Bridge or finish the impending work on the 45th Street Viaduct or the 15th Ave NE trestles, either. As a Seattle resident, I feel a lot better served by a Mayor (and Council) that focuses on necessary maintenance ...

Posted Sat, Jun 20, 12:36 p.m.

Wow, Olaf, I could hardly have done a better job proving my point. Thanks!

Posted Sat, Jun 20, 12:26 p.m.

kieth, Spending the $200 million (at least!) earmarked for what are largely cosmetic improvements to Mercer Street has very little citywide utility or value compared to the benefits that would accrue from unfunded and necessary maintenance projects such as the replacement of the Magnolia and 16th Avenue South bridges, the ...

Posted Wed, Jun 17, 7:43 p.m.

As I recall, way back in 1996 or 1997, WSDOT changed the criteria for any Viaduct proposal from surviving a 500-year seismic event to being usable after a 2500-year one. A much cheaper retrofit of the Viaduct that would keep it in service for the construction period and likely keep ...

Posted Wed, Jun 17, 8:40 a.m.

Mhays - for once I agree with you completely:)

Posted Wed, Jun 17, 8:39 a.m.

Agreed on the poll - without having an elevated replacement or retrofit as possibilities the purported 40% support for tearing the AWV down without replacing it is statistically meaningless at best. Even with that, it still also falls short of the 42.65% who supported replacing the AWV with a new ...

Posted Tue, Jun 16, 11:44 p.m.

...oh yeah, and violent. I forgot violent.

Posted Tue, Jun 16, 11:41 p.m.

...ack, "...is A City that is more expensive...."

Posted Tue, Jun 16, 11:40 p.m.

If your idea of "better than it was 8 years ago" is City that is more expensive, congested and noticeably harsh and punitive toward those who fall on the lower side of the income ladder (or, indeed, anyone who isn't Paul Allen), I suppose Greg Nickels is indeed your man. ...

Posted Fri, Jun 12, 9:51 p.m.

As a longtime uber-liberal Democrat I've got a thing you're never allowed to say in Seattle that Knute overlooked: I own a gun. Try it sometime if you want to hear pins drop.

Posted Fri, Jan 16, 5:32 p.m.

...another thought on the bottom line - $200 million (which the City also doesn't have) for a Mercer Street beautification project which will make traffic demonstrably worse doesn't pass the straight face cost/benefit test, either. (and as a historical aside - it was Councilmember Jan Drago who actually said for ...

Posted Fri, Jan 16, 2:11 p.m.

Um Sean, when Councilmember Licata was discussing the "bottom line", I suspect he meant the inconvenient fact that there is a shortfall of over $1 billion dollars for the tunnel. Moving forward (and spending oodles of money) with an option for which there isn't adequate funding is neither good governance ...

Posted Mon, Dec 22, 3:36 p.m.

The irony of a paid Vulcan flack calling out Kent K. for factual errors in the same post where he flatly states that the $230 million (up $30 million in just the last month!) to reconfigure Mercer Street will "Fix the Mercer Mess" is almost too rich. Um, if by ...

Posted Sun, Dec 21, 3:22 p.m.

Heck, the Stranger thinks West and North Seattle are suburbs.

Posted Sun, Dec 14, 1:25 p.m.

I-5 is already a parking lot, and adding a toll lane to Burien so the residents of the western 1/3 of Seattle have the privilege of getting to their homes and businesses is neither practical or equitable. Try again.

Posted Thu, Dec 4, 2:27 a.m.

I would say no. http://www.uncf.org/aboutus/faqs.asp The UNCF has explicitly chosen to minimize the historic term without expunging it, and that seems like a reasonable guideline for jurisdictions that are grappling with this. Can we spend a little more time getting the Stars and Bars taken down from state capitols and ...