Comments on Who's Buying Your City Council Members?

It's not just the money they give - it's them arranging for others to give money to the candidates.

Which you can't tell.

I don't really care what their names are. I think this info could be conveyed much more quickly if you bolded the organization and the council member they are donating to.

One correction - you write that Arena Sports wants the City to "give it exclusive use of a large hangar at Magnusson Park that is currently used by several smaller nonprofit groups."

First, the large hangar actually stands empty and unusable, and has for awhile. Arena would invest millions to fix it up and make it usable, and pay millions more in rent so that 300,000 adults and kids can keep playing safe, year-round sports. "give?" - not so much. Second, the groups that used to use the hanger included lots of moneymaking ventures that are doing just fine elsewhere - like this weekend's big NW Crafts show (at the exhibition center), an exclusive private school's fundraiser (now on the school's campus) and the roller derby that has successfully located a bunch of bouts at another Magnuson Park building.

Doesn't have much to do with the idea of registering lobbyists (we should), but it's always nice to have the facts straight anyway.

As I was reading down the list, I was wondering where Vulcan was. Wow. And both Bruce Harrell and Tim Burgess are on the land-use committee.

What a surprise!!

Dan McGrady works for Vulcan. Or at least he used to.

What, no email addresses!?!

For several years, right until he was hired to lobby the City Council on behalf of Paul Allen's Vulcan Corp., Dan McGrady worked in the Seattle City Council offices as "Chief of Staff" for councilwoman Jan Drago, she who never ever votes against taxpayer subsidy of Vulcan projects. How's that for coincidence?

ECB -- I'm really curious about the utility of these sign-in sheets you refer to (and have referred to in prior posts).

What's the protocol on these?

I have visited council members dozens of times over the past ten years and I've signed in maybe twice. I'm not a paid lobbyist, but it makes me wonder what use the sheets are.

I feel the better question is... who bought the Stranger and the accompanying Slog, since both now represent corporate interests? My guess is that the WTO riots scared some rich neocons, and now they have one more of their propaganda machines in place, to confuse and convert intelligent and independent-minded Seattlites. Don't be fooled by the Slog's pro-neocon agenda.

Development, Development, Ueber Alles!

You guys are just too funny with your ongoing hits at Harrell. After you ran the story of Venus Velequez (who?) getting contirbutions from the pay day loan people the next day you allowed her to explain her position and why, in her opinion, those contributions wouldn't effect her. Then she had the developer funded Forward Seattle PAC (who?) behind her and you continued to endorse her. But now we get titles like "Who's Buying your Councilmember." Is "fair and balanced" your motto?