Following my article in this week's paper on the Mosaic Community Church's (MCC) recent move to Neumos nightclub on Capitol Hill, the club has decided to terminate their relationship with the church, effective immediately.

MCC—sort of the soft-rock version of Mars Hill—is affiliated with the Waco, Texas-based Antioch Community Church. Antioch's website contains statements lumping homosexuality together with "drug addiction, poverty, pornography, and people unaware of their need for God."

While Pastor Jady Griffin told The Stranger that his church is "open to everyone," several members of the MCC told us that gays would not be accepted at the church.

Following the release of the article, Neumos co-owner Steven Severin pushed Griffin to clarify the church's stance on homosexuality. Severin says he didn't get the answers he was looking for.

"After speaking with [Griffin], I didn’t find enough new information that made me comfortable with what their actual stance [on homosexuality] is," Severin says. "We have to have people who support our community here [and] we’re very careful about who we work with. We decided we’re no longer going to have them here."

Although the failure of a small group like the Hillman City Neighborhood Alliance doesn't impact many people directly, news of the group's demise—it dissolved earlier this week, reportedly due to lack of interest—could be a sign that that corner of Southeast Seattle isn't changing as fast as many residents want. Billed by realtors as the affordable Columbia City, Hillman City was thought to be the next up-and-coming neighborhood. Like Columbia City, it has a charming, if rundown, "downtown" strip of historic buildings; unlike Columbia City, those buildings are currently occupied mostly by social justice agencies and programs serving the homeless and people recently released from prison.

New businesses that have tried to move in to the neighborhood have either foundered (Lola's South City Bakery, which is open odd hours and competes with the Columbia City Bakery just up the street) or never gotten off the ground (the Barbeque Pit, which has been vacant, but for a sign and some assorted kitchen equipment, for at least a year). The addition of housing on Rainier for chronically homeless people, most of them with persistent mental illness, doesn't help. While the loss of this one group doesn't necessarily mean efforts to improve the neighborhood are doomed—the commenters at the Rainier Valley Blog claim the group was "insular" and "cozy"—it could be a sign that Hillman City's renaissance will have to wait for the end of the current economic downturn.

This just in from Hot Tipper Callie:

I'm at the downtown library on the second floor at the tables with the dividers for laptop users, and the old dude next to me is totally watching porn. Gross. I just moved. Now I can see his face. This probably isn't that noteworthy, but I'm disturbed.

Sex! In a publicly funded building! Marlee Ginter, stop calling Rent-a-Ruminant and get thee to the library!

After receiving a number of letters about the presence of military recruiters at city parks, the Seattle Parks Department has changed its policy and will begin posting notices when recruiters are scheduled to appear at Parks events.

According to an email from Seattle Parks Superintendent Tim Gallagher:

We received mail from several people asking Parks to take a variety of actions ranging from alerting parents when military representatives will be present at events for youth, to making parks “military-free zones.”

We are sensitive to the issue of opposition to military organizations. Limitations on free speech must be content-neutral in order to be legal. To make a distinction among park users, or parties to whom we rent rooms or issue permits, would be a violation of the rights of the military under the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

However, whenever military representatives are expected at any Parks-sponsored event involving young people, we will note that on the event’s activities list.

Potter says military recruiters aren't currently scheduled to appear at any upcoming events.

The Alaskan Way Viaduct Stakeholders Group will be releasing new cost estimates and potential funding sources for the (ugh) eight remaining viaduct options this afternoon. Of interest: The most expensive of the eight options (and the one that would take the longest to build) is "Scenario F"—a four-lane deep-bore tunnel combined with a pair of north- and southbound one-way streets on the surface, near the waterfront. That scenario would cost an estimated $3.5 billion and take up to nine and a half years to build. Those numbers could put a damper on proposals to simply "bypass" the waterfront by digging a very deep tunnel under downtown Seattle—an idea long supported by Seattle City Council transportation committee chair Jan Drago.

Also of note: The cheapest and fastest options by far were the three surface options (Scenarios A, B and C), which would cost between $800 million and $900 million and take between 5 and five and a half years to build. (Note that none of these figures include non-central waterfront capital costs that would be critical to any viaduct replacement, but particularly the surface alternatives. Those are priced separately as "building blocks" in all of WSDOT's analyses. Improving city surface streets, for example, is estimated to cost between $205 million and $378 million; supplement transit service is estimated between $135 million and $476 million).

The remaining scenarios, in order of cost from low to high, are: Scenario D, which involves two side-by-side two-lane elevated viaducts, at $1.6 billion and 6 and a half years to build; Scenario H, a "lidded trench" (essentially a tunnel that isn't fully enclosed), at $1.9 billion and six years to build; Scenario E, AKA the Chopp Option, which would include an enclosed four-lane viaduct and a concrete wall on the waterfront, at $2.2 billion and seven years to build (more on that option here); and Scenario G, the familiar (and voter-rejected) cut-and-cover tunnel, at $2.7 billion and six and a half years to build.

Viaduct planners also released a list of potential funding sources for the various viaduct replacement components, including a commercial parking tax, a motor-vehicle excise tax, a tax on real-estate sales, and several types of property tax.