Anyone else hear him being booed?

"We're going condo. You have to move. Here's $500."

$500 or even $1000 doesn't begin to cover the cost of moving these days unless a family decides to sell everything and live in their car.

Even people who work and make median income struggle for months after a move because of the expenses incurred.

The mayor's pre-Obama speech was actually better than I expected. Governor Gregoire and Congressman Smith also spoke with poise.

I thought at least one of them would flounder, but they were all great.

It seems that many times they play politics to make the Mayor look bad when they're equally at fault. I'll bet there is more to the story.

I agree that the current compensation for renters forced to move is inadequate. I myself was forced to move out of an apartment that I loved when the building converted. Worse still, the manager promised me the funds in time to help pay for the moving truck and other related costs, but failed to deliver - causing me some real problems.

It took my another month and a half to actually receive the check. I hope the new legistation has a provision for developers to provide the funds within a reasonable time frame.

That being said, it's likely that this law is being created too late, as the era of mass condo conversions may be nearing an end. Some are even converting back to apartments.

No, he was not booed because he was not Obama - the "boo" went on for more than a few minutes.

I believe Adam Kline (Dem party member) and Governor Gregoire were all introduced about the same time, one ofter the other, and neither of them were booed.

I definitely took the "booing of the Mayor" as a direct comment that around half the people in the room did not like him or his policies. That means that a lot of people who like Obama do not like Mayor Nickels.

Yes, his main points were applauded, but (first): most of them were ones we had heard before and were not particularly controversial ("I got US cities to agree to Kyoto protocol green standards, etc., etc.). And (second) my impression was that the people who booed had made their point and didn't need to keep booing.

I mean, think about it, a democratic Mayor got booed at one of the most energized public democratic party events in recent memory . . .

It seems nobody has clued in to the fact that Seattle is likely to now have a renter majority.

The 2000 census had Seattle's population very close to 50-50 in terms of renters and homeowners, with homeowners having a very slight majority (like about 55% to 45%).

It will be very interesting to see if the politics shift once the 2010 census confirms that Seattle has an equal balance or very probably a slight majority of renters over homeowners.

At some point politicians are going to have to deal with the voters who rent, and not just the voters who own their home (condo, townhouse, whatever).

And yes, this freezing of these funds seems to make no logical sense - there's no problem with Seattle providing these funds now while we all wait to see whatever happens to the thing in Olympia . . .

. . . unless of course the logic is that the Mayor (with the property-owner-developer-landlord lobby's help) is willing to pro-actively stamp out any gain - even a little one - that would in anyway empower or protect renters. This seems the most likely explanation.

I find it by turns hilarious and deeply disturbing that the Rental Housing Association of Puget Sound supports rent hikes and condo conversions as a path to affordable housing - as if they were "advocates of renters." They are among the people who say such ridiculous things as "renters don't pay property taxes," etc. Just search the Times and P-I sites for articles where the RHA is quoted.