That didn't take long...

Click on the image for a larger version of the sign.

Slog tip and photo sent from Justin Lief, and much thanks to the hilarious pranksters.

Wow... this is going to be awesome. Frank Chopp—Democrat, House Speaker, and the BIAW's sniveling bitch—has his very own plan for replacing the Viaduct. He wants to build something bigger, wider, and taller—and something more expensive than all the other options currently on the table. Here's an "artist's rendering":

Frank Chopp wants to replace the Alaskan Way Viaduct with... a mile-long water-front shopping mall. A mall with 100,000 cars a day roaring through it. And office space. But, hey, he's going to a park on top, so everybody wins.

Does anyone have a clue as to how much soundproofing would be required—and how much it would cost—to make working or shopping inside the Alaska Way Viaduct even barely tolerable?

Seattle Police are investigating a series of burglaries at several North Seattle fire stations after hundreds of dollars were stolen from the stations over the last few months.

Earlier this summer, firefighters at four north end stations discovered that collections of cash—known as "clutch funds," used to purchase meals and other sundries for firefighters staying at the stations—had disappeared.

Around $300 was taken from one fire station, while smaller collections of $50-100 and various food supplies were taken from others. In each case, there was no sign of a break-in.

Following the burglaries, Dean sent out several memos urging battalion chiefs to change the station door codes and deposit clutch funds into bank accounts. However, Seattle Fire Department spokeswoman Dana Vander Houwen says that even after door codes at the stations were changed, one of the previously robbed stations was hit again.

Vander Houwen says SFD is now stepping up security at fire stations.

A group of Ballard activists are working with neighborhood churches to provide shower and car-camping facilities for the homeless.

Sustainable Ballard volunteer Mary-Lee Mahar says her group —along with the Ballard Homes For All Coalition—has almost finished building their first portable shower—a 8x10 trailer on wheels—and is now looking for churches to open up their parking lots to car campers.

In the last few years, there's been an increase in the number of homeless people living out of cars and camper vans in Ballard. Some campers had been parking in pay lots around the neighborhood, but nearby businesses complained about problems on the properties and most of the campers were forced out.

Mahar has been talking to churches in Ballard about allowing a few cars to park on their properties. "There’s 52 churches in Ballard. If each church took three or four campers, that’s a lot of campers [off the streets]," she says.

According to Mahar, Sustainable Ballard would like to build about 20 shower trailers, which cost about $2,000 each. "[Each one has] a little water heater. They’ll get once nice 5-10 minute shower," Mahar says.

Mahar says each shower could be used by about 50 people a day.

Mahar says her group will be meeting with council members and neighborhood groups in the next few weeks to try to build support and find funding for the project.

The prototype shower trailer will be on display at the Sustainable Ballard festival this weekend.

Today's P-I has a piece by Larry Lange about the "debate" over how much Sound Transit's light rail expansion proposal really costs. The "debate" in question: Whether the plan costs $17.8 billion, as Sound Transit says, or $107 billion, as longtime light-rail opponents Jim MacIsaac and John Niles (really, really longtime opponents) say.

This debate is only a "debate" if you assume the following premises: 1) Sound Transit is lying and plans to violate a resolution its board passed to stop collecting the additional half-percent of sales tax in 2038; and 2) Seattle households are actually a whole lot richer (and spend a whole lot more money) than the US Census and city and state demographers say they are.

On the first point: Lange writes, "Transportation planner and Sound Transit critic Jim MacIsaac estimates approval of the measure would authorize collection of more than $107.3 billion over 45 years..."

There are two reasons why this "estimate" is wrong. First, it includes taxes from Sound Transit's Phase 1--taxes the voters passed more than ten years ago, taxes that have nothing to do with the proposal on the ballot this November. Second, as mentioned above, it assumes Sound Transit will continue collecting the taxes well into the 2050s and beyond. That would require Sound Transit to build a third phase of light rail--Sound Transit 3--without getting authority from the voters, and to defy a board resolution mandating that the agency will discontinue the tax once the new lines are paid off around 2038.

On the second point: If the "typical household," whatever that means, actually spent $284 on a half-percent sales tax increase, that would mean that a typical household in the Sound Transit taxing area spends nearly $57,000 a year on goods subject to sales tax--which excludes food, utilities, and rent. Considering that the median household income in the Sound Transit taxing area is only around $64,000, that's a pretty hefty chunk to be blowing on clothes, iPods, and lattes.

A side note on that point: Sound Transit didn't, as Lange reports, "assume a total of 1.3 million households throughout the three counties" and "divide the tax bill by more housholds" to get a lower result. They used those 1.3 million to arrive at a median--the middle point between the highest and the lowest-income households in the group. A median, unlike a mean, doesn't require "dividing by" anything--and it doesn't depend on how many households there are. For purposes of defining a "typical" household, it's also more accurate than just dividing total income by the total number of households in an area--the method MacIsaac acknowledged he used to figure out how much a "typical" household would be spending. (The Mass Transit Now campaign has requested a correction).

Finally, as I noted here (and as Lange, oddly, did not report, despite reporting on the initial court challenge) a lawsuit seeking to change the Sound Transit ballot title to include the $107 billion figure was dismissed with prejudice by King County Superior Court judge John Erlick, who said, "There is neither a factual nor a legal basis for [Knedlik’s] proposed redrafting of the ballot title” or explanatory statement in the voters' guide.

Knedlik, like Niles and MacIsaac, has a long history as a light-rail antagonist. In addition to being a perennial candidate and former attorney (he was disbarred for filing too many frivolous lawsuits), Knedlik sued Sound Transit (and lost) once before--in 2004, when he demanded a refund on taxpayers' money and a rollback of Sound Transit taxes.

Because currently, a ride on an "express" bus from the Rainier Valley--a route that roughly parallels the coming light rail line--means spending 50 minutes on a sweltering, overcrowded bus that runs just once an hour (got a bike? tough shit--if two people got there before you, you're waiting another hour.) Here's what it looks like from the inside (sorry for the crappy cell-phone photo):

Light rail, in contrast, will run every six minutes and allow bikes on board. And it'll get to Capitol Hill in a fraction of the time it takes for the slow, crappy, stuck-in-traffic bus to chug the six miles from Rainier Beach through rush-hour traffic. This may not be obvious to people who drive to work, but having options--that is, options other than sitting in rush-hour traffic on the slow, crappy bus or even in a car--is worth paying a little more in taxes.

Seattle Police have arrested a Seattle man in his 20s for a shooting which took place near Northgate just before 7pm.

When police arrived at the scene of the shooting at 5th Avenue Northeast and Northeast 97th, they found the victim—also in his 20s—lying on the sidewalk, already dead from a gunshot wound to the head.

Police arrested the suspect and recovered a rifle.

Homicide investigators appeared to be coming in and out of an apartment building near the scene.

SPD spokesman Jeff Kappel says police don't yet know how the men knew each other.

In this week's In the Hall, I wrote about rumors that state Sen. Margarita Prentice (D-11) may lose her chairmanship of the powerful Ways and Means Committee, which handles budgetary matters, when the state legislature reconvenes after the November election. (Prentice is up for reelection, but her challenger, Democrat Juan Martinez, has raised little money and has few endorsements). In the column, I quoted Renton City Council Member Randy Corman, who first published the rumor on his blog.

On his blog, Corman wrote that senate leadership was thinking about ousting Prentice because of her ill-fated efforts to build a $500 million stadium for the Sonics in Renton; because she supports tapping the state "rainy day fund" during a tough reelection year for Governor Christine Gregoire, who supported creating the fund; and because she has supported controversial constituencies like payday lenders and casinos. Corman also accused Prentice of "threaten[ing] to cut support for colleges or children's charities" whose board members supported her opponent. "Any citizen ought to be able to endorse whoever they like for office without feeling that [the institution they work for] is going to lose money because of their support of a candidate," Corman says.

I talked to Corman a bit about his blog, which is interesting in large part because it's obviously uncensored by Renton city officials--unlike, for example, city of Seattle-hosted council member blogs, which must adhere to standards written into city policy. (Whether non-city-sponsored web sites, like Council Members Tim Burgess's and Bruce Harrell's, must also adhere to those standards has been a matter of some controversy.)

Right now, Corman's front page includes posts on Renton's garbage rates (they're going up), lousy Renton landlords, and a lawsuit he appears to be involved in--in addition to the gossip about Prentice's future in the senate. Corman told me that the blog gives him a chance to "say the things I don't have time to say" at city council meetings. "We want citizens to understand that we’re not rubberstamping things," Corman said. "The blog relieved that problem."

I don't know enough about Renton city politics to know whether that's just politicking or whether citizens really do use Corman's blog as a sounding board (he does get comments), but I do know that blogging gives citizens and elected officials another avenue to communicate with each other--an avenue they didn't previously have. Given how much local government officials talk about being "open and accountable," it's hard to see any justification, short of libel concerns, for meddling in what they want to say online.

After spending three weeks in the hospital with severe leg burns, Martha Manning, co-owner of Seattle’s only lesbian bar, the Wildrose, is being released later today. Manning was at a gas station on Capitol Hill September 4 when an SUV careened into a gas pump that blew up upon impact.

“She had to have skin grafts on both ankles, her lower legs, and feet,” says Wildrose co-owner Shelly Brothers. Manning's right leg is also in a cast to protect her damaged Achilles tendon.

Before medics could rescue her, Manning first rescued her Chihuahua, Honey, who was sitting in Manning's car before flames charred the pumps and the surrounding vehicles. The unscathed, five-pound pooch now stars in the poster for Manning’s benefit concert next week:

Poster via.

The all-volunteer lineup for the October 1 show at Chop Suey includes Leslie and the Lys, Team Gina, Precious Moments, and several DJs. If you can't attend the benefit but still want to contribute to Manning's recovery fund, you can drop off a check at the Wildrose or make a deposit to the “Martha Manning Fund” at any Bank of America location. The show will also feature a silent auction, including karate lessons and a gift bag from Babeland. Bidders should bring a cash or a checkbook.

Proceeds from the benefit will go toward Manning's medical bills and other expenses while she is unable to work. “It is such a huge bill that insurance won’t cover it all,” Brothers says. “We have no idea how long it will be before she can get back to work."

In the meantime, Wildrose staff have been shuffling their schedules to make up for Manning’s absence at the busy bar, Brothers says. “We all miss her.”

Crocodile PR spokeswoman Kerri Harrop:

Before the rumor mill starts going bananas, I just want to give you all a heads up and let you know that Eli Anderson has been hired as the Talent Buyer for the club, and Roy Atizado has been hired as Director of Live Entertainment.

To read the entire press release, go to Line Out.

Seattle Police and firefighters responded to an automatic alarm call at the Bellevue Olive Apartments—on Bellevue and Olive, naturally—yesterday evening after a man started a fire in the building.

According to a police report, a man—who fire department sources say only had one leg—barricaded himself in his apartment and started the fire on the building's fourth floor. The building's sprinkler system kicked in and put out the fire, and the man jumped from his fourth floor apartment onto a patio four stories below. SPD spokeswoman Renee Witt says the man "was warning other tenants to stay out of the building if they didn’t want to get hurt."

Several Bellevue Olive residents reportedly told police that the man had not been taking his medication and had told building management that "people had been breaking into his apartment and hacking his computer."

The man was taken to Harborview but his condition is unknown. The man has not been charged with anything, although the case could be referred to prosecutors once SPD finishes its investigation.

Well, Jen's mad because the MacArthur committee didn't reward the R&D wing of art this year. Their choice for horticulture was virtuous, but also conservative:

One of Wisconsin’s few African-American farmers, Will Allen, a former professional basketball player in the ABA, founded Growing Power in 1993 in Milwaukee to help teach inner-city kids about the origins of their food. It has expanded to include satellite-training sites in Arkansas, Georgia, Kentucky, Massachusetts and Mississippi.

Now Allen's urban farm sells vegetables, honey, and grass-fed meats to markets in poorer parts of Milwaukee and Chicago, which sometimes have trouble stocking fresh produce. (The disparity between rich-neighborhood access to healthy food and poor-neighborhood access is appalling and depressing.)

Growing Power also sells greens to upscale Chicago restaurants.

Here's Mr. Allen:

Here's an aerial shot of the daughter's garden project in tough-ass Cabrini-Green, planted in a wrecked basketball court:

And here's the original two-acre farm in the middle of Milwaukee:

Urban farms are quaint and of limited value. If urban density is the goal, the next step is learning how to use the world's skyscrapers, which add a little more surface area to the earth every day:

Congress for New Urbanism has a list up for of ten urban freeways that should be torn down and replaced with "boulevards and other cost-saving urban alternatives." Topping the list? Seattle's own Alaska Way Viaduct.

Built in 1953, as State Route 99, the Alaskan Way Viaduct is a north-south route alongside Seattle's Elliot Bay and carries approximately 105,000 vehicles per day. Proposals released by the Washington State Department of Transportation for an expanded elevated highway or a tunnel during the downtown segment—each with price tags of $4 billion or more—met with fierce opposition. On a March 13, 2007, Seattleites voted both of these options down in a local referendum—welcoming in a surface and transit option.

This progress stems in large part from the leadership of the City Council and the People's Waterfront Coalition, led by Cary Moon, who envisioned an open waterfront that would begin to restore the shoreline and support a vibrant urban place. Opening up 335 acres of public land on Seattle"s waterfront could give way to new parks, beaches, and development--and save the city years of construction delays and billions of dollars. "If you try to build your way out of congestion," said Moon, "you'll ruin your city or go broke trying."

Says The Bellows...

The additional automobile connectivity gained by extending a freeway into a dense urban area is small, and absolutely not worth the lost land value. Neither is it a reasonable use of urban land to hold freeway miles designed to carry through traffic. If other institutions want to pay a central city to bury a freeway so that through traffic can have an uninterrupted straight-line journey, then fine, but central cities shouldn’t volunteer to undermine the value of their greatest asset—dense, gridded neighborhoods near job and residential centers.

Last week, the Seattle Times reported that a group of veterenarians were refusing to volunteer at King County animal shelters, "citing a lack of accountability and a reluctance from shelter staff to fix a broken system." In the story, Times reporter Sonia Krishnan quoted vet Brad Crauer, medical director of the Redmond Animal Hospital, who said that he had stopped offering his services at the Kent and Bellevue animal shelters because "I did not want to act as enablers to the proven failed procedures."

Crauer, the only named source to denounce King County's shelter practices (the only other quoted anti-county sources are surveys filled out by anonymous veterinarians ), claims in the story that King County did nothing to improve problems at the shelters; isolated animals; and did nothing to help sick animals.

Last week, County Executive Ron Sims responded to the Times story--via Twitter, which he used recently to announce that King County's budget deficit had increased from $85 million to $90 million. Sims's understated post read simply, "Dear Seattle Times and KOMO - Here is a blog story regarding King County's Animal Control that is worth reading." A link went to a blog post at King County Animal Shelter Creatures, titled, "Pain and muscle relaxants prescribed by the vet for himself using name of his dead dog."

The "vet," in this case, would be Crauer--who, the post goes on to contend, also wrongly accused King County of falsifying euthanasia numbers and faking discrepancies in the logs documenting use of controlled drugs at the shelter, among other misdeeds. The clear implication: Why should the Times (and KOMO, which also reported on the vets' defection) listen to Dr. Crauer, when he had falsified records and prescribed himself controlled substances under his dead dog's name?

While I'm not sure if Sims's criticisms are on point (Crauer certainly seems like a less than reliable source; on the other hand, do his alleged drug problems and supposed false cremation documents negate other vets' claims that there were real problems at King County shelters?), his method (Twitter) and tone (combative) are noteworthy. And they certainly got the attention of the King County Council, which is planning to release a response later this week (a lengthy request for information about the shelters' 2008 work, sent last Friday, has reportedly been in the works for some time) to Sims's Twitter attack on Crauer. I'll post their response as soon as I get it.

This report of a very unpleasant evening stroll in Madison Park came to me last week, but the details were just confirmed by the Seattle Police Department this morning.

The incident is not quite as bad as some of the other gay-bashings that have happened on Capitol Hill this year, but for Sarah, 28, and her partner Whitley, 27, it was still an unhappy night.

Here's the email I received from Sarah about the incident:

my (female) partner and i live on howell st. not far from mlk (madison valley? madrona? the cd?) and decided to take a walk to the lake last night via madison park.

we reached the end of madison, turned around, and were heading back home--engrossed in conversation and holding hands--when we heard a woman who we had just passed mumble something like, "get that out of here."

we both stopped, turned around, and very non-aggressively asked her if she had said something to us. she proceeded to raise her voice and ask us if we were both women. when we said yes, she repeated that we were both women and stated that we were holding hands. she then proclaimed that we were lesbians and that lesbians were not wanted in madison park.

she continued to become escalated despite the little resistance she got from us (we were both shocked) and screamed on the sidewalk that madison park was her neighborhood and that lesbians weren't wanted there and that we should "go back to capitol hill."

we didn't say much but we did ask her if she was serious and if she was really talking to other human beings that way. she replied (still yelling) that she was "goddamn serious" and to get out of her neighborhood. i asked her if she was drunk to try to embarrass her in front of her friend who stood silently by her side. she yelled that she wasn't drunk and that "this is america and america doesn't tolerate lesbians."

she then pulled a male passerby into the conversation by yelling, "he'll tell you. we don't want lesbians in our neighborhood, do we?" the man quickly took our side, standing with us and apologizing on behalf of madison park (he said he'd lived there for 20 years and had never seen anything like this). he told her she was wrong and then left.

in hindsight, of course i wish i had reacted with anger and quick words. instead, my state of shock at being singled out and yelled at on a relatively quiet night in the middle of the sidewalk turned into sobbing in the middle of the sidewalk. the woman stood and watched with her arms crossed as i broke down right then and there--still waiting for us to leave her neighborhood.

my partner put her arm around me and brought me to a bench half a block away, and all of a sudden, seemingly out of nowhere, the bartender from bing's came up to us and said he had heard me crying. he didn't know what was wrong but said he brought a sprite to make me feel better. we told him the story and he asked what she looked like (in case she's a customer) and consoled us and gave just the kind of compassion we both needed.

our family/roommates came to pick us up, we thanked the bartender, and are now processing the fact that our romantic walk culminated in a 60-year-old woman (seemingly not mentally ill, per se) spewing hate and bigotry and trying to rally a passerby to gang up on us.

thank you to the bing's bartender and to the man who stood with us and told her she was wrong. this was the first time i was harassed by a woman and the first time i was harassed in seattle. luckily we weren't physically injured but it was shocking and completely devastating. thank you for reading this and maybe even spreading the word.

Because there was no physical violence involved, the police have classified the incident as a disturbance—and not, for example, as malicious harassment, the common designation for violent hate crimes.

But Sarah and her partner were told the incident will be added to the police department's list of gay-related disturbances this year.

ECB and I just boarded Sound Transit's Lunch Bus which will allegedly take us on a tour of the unbuilt light rail line, which opens next year.

The bus is fricking amazing. Each seat is roomy, has a reading light and CLIMATE CONTROL! It's like an airplane.

There are about 30 people on the bus and a lot of grey hair. Our excellent tour guide just pointed out "some very large galvanized poles" on the side of the road and an old woman just screeched for him to "speak a little more slowly".

Most of the people on this bus won't be alive by the time the light rail is up and running.

12:05-

Facts about the train: during peak hours (6-9 am/3-6 pm) trains will run every six minutes.

On elevated sections of track, the trains will be moving at about 55mph. At ground level, the trains will go the city speed limit. Theoretically, a train could get a speedi

ST will use fare insectors to audit riders, a system which hasn't worked out so well for the Sounder train system.

You can also take your bike on the train. Although ST hasn't figured out where bikes will be stowed during rush hour.

12:13- important update: We're going to the airport!!!!

12:20- The ST airport station looks awesome but is filled with some terrible public art. There's a weird lightbulb/teardrop thing hanging from the ceiling. As ECB says: "why can't public art ever be good?"

2:12- The bus stopped for lunch. Longest lunch ever. I think they had to blend up food for half the crowd.

We're passing the entrance to the Beacon tunnel. Apparently ST named their giant drill machine the Emerald Mole.

Light rail opponents are crowing today about a collision between an L.A. light rail train and a bus that turned into its path--proof, they say, that light rail is untenably dangerous. In an email to local media, rail opponent Emory Bundy wrote,

The population is smaller along the five affected miles of the MLK corridor than it is in south LA, so maimings and deaths will be less frequent than in Los Angeles. But they will occur, as Sound Transit acknowledges, buried in the fine print of its EIS. Rather than engineer the line to assure safe operations--like it intends to do in more affluent neighborhoods--Sound Transit will tell the people in the Rainier Valley to be careful, and then, when accidents occur, blame the victims for being careless. Even victims who are children, or with impaired sight or hearing.

Because the only acceptable transit system is one that never has a single accident--and, as everyone also knows, buses never have accidents, especially accidents involving disabled people or innocent children.

Nope, buses are 100% safe, unlike those dangerous, dangerous light rail trains.

So you're driving your cab and you get called to the Silver Cloud Inn near the University District. Not the usual spot for big names traipsing through Seattle, but there he is, slipping into your back seat: Joe Lieberman and his wife, Hadassah.

So goes the story from the Slog tipping and cab driving Joel Severson, who adds that Lieberman, presented with a $21.10 fare for getting from the Silver Cloud to the Pike Place Market (Severson blames traffic) handed over $25 and told the cabbie to keep the change.

“On a $21 fare, that’s very average," Severson told me. "Everything about him seemed modest. The place that he was staying, his tipping, the way that he tipped, and the way that he was dressed.”

Aw. But did Severson overhear any secret Republican strategy coming out of Lieberman's mouth?

“I thought they may have whispered something about something current," Severson said. "I really don’t recall. They started to talk in hushed terms, but I don’t think they were talking about any big names.”

Got a famous face in your back seat? The Slog is always open for tips. (Photo by Joel Severson)

Two items of interest (because it's Roundup Day here in the news office):

Brian McGuigan (AKA Bus Bitch) at the Rainier Valley Post points out something I might have noticed about King County Metro's bus expansion proposal, had I not been so bent on finding something nice to say about it: The service expansions completely ignore the Rainier Valley. That's despite the fact that the area has some of the highest ridership in the city. Writes McGuigan:

Despite having 3 of the 25 routes with the highest increases in ridership over the last year, we are seeing no additional service in the Valley. In fact, only one (Yes, one!) of the bus lines that will see increased service as part of the Transit Now initiative is on the list of buses with the highest increases in ridership since last year— and yes, you guessed it: that bus is not in the Rainier Valley. The one bus, the 44 serving Ballard and the U-District, has about a third of the passengers of the perpetually late 48 line and a little more than half of the Beacon Hill vomit wagon, the 36. Of the remaining buses receiving additional service in Seattle, all run through central and north Seattle neighborhoods (Again, no Rainier Valley!).

From a completely parochial perspective, I would LOVE to see bus service improved on South Seattle express routes that only run every hour, and only until the afternoon. (Does Metro really believe that NO ONE on Capitol Hill/First Hill works after 6:30?) That said, the workhorse of the Rainier Valley, the 7, runs pretty frequently--and I'm not sure increasing service would improve the very real problems of massive overcrowding, nonexistent schedules, buses that pile up on top of each other, poorly maintained electric trolley buses and generally unpleasant conditions on that route. What will help is light rail, which--as McGuigan notes--will give much of the Rainier Valley some relief starting next year. I do wish Metro and the city would be more conscious of South Seattle's needs when it comes to transit, bike, and urban planning (believe it or not, there are people down there, and they do vote), but I'm also excited (again, from a totally parochial perspective) that we'll be able to hop on light rail in just over a year.

In unrelated South Seattle news: Tomorrow, at 9:30 am, Jean Godden's finance and budget committee will discuss a proposal to create a Business Improvement Area for Columbia City--essentially, a special district where businesses and property owners pay extra taxes that are then used to pay for improvements to the area. Those improvements, according to the legislation, include maintaining public areas, removing litter and graffiti, sweeping sidewalks, and looking out for and reporting security threats to the Seattle Police Department. Other neighborhoods that have formed BIAs include the International District, Capitol Hill, and the University District.

UPDATE: Here is the tallest of three proposals to increase building heights in South Lake Union. The larger of the two numbers in each area refers to the proposed height limit for residential buildings; the smaller number refers to commercial buildings.

The city will unveil three proposals for taller buildings in South Lake Union at a public meeting tonight. Flip charts will be out for attendees to write their comments, says Alan Justad, a spokesman for the city’s Department of Planning and Development. Surely, many of those comments will be, “Too tall!”

The most ambitious proposal would allow towers up to 400-feet on many of the blocks between Denny Way and the lake's southern shores; on the other end of the spectrum, a proposal would leave height limits at current levels. You can read more on this over here, here, here and here.

Realistically, SLU—part of downtown—is the logical place for tall buildings. But folks with views of the Space Needle shouldn't worry about 400-foot buildings. That proposal is a bookend, I think; it was proposed so the development interests and neighbors can come to an apparent compromise somewhere in the middle. What we should worry about is packing the area with chunky, institutional buildings devoid of character. Vulcan has already proposed several for Amazon—reminiscent of those already built by the Cancer Care Alliance—that look like hospital wings. They fall pathetically short of the city’s stated goal of making the area “a livable, walkable and sustainable neighborhood where people choose to live, work and play.” We can build density that still has character.

The city will take comments at a yet-to-be-scheduled forum this fall, forward its recommendations to the mayor, who will forward it to the council, which will hold more meetings, and South Lake Union will be upzoned moments before we invent flying cars. Tonight's meeting runs from 5:30 - 7:30 p.m., with presentation at 6:00 p.m., at the South Lake Union Armory (Naval Reserve Building at Lake Union Park), 860 Terry Ave North.

The plastic industry-funded Coalition to Stop the Bag Tax--which, as I reported last week, spent more than $180,000 paying a California-based consulting firm called PCI Consultants to gather signatures for its campaign to repeal the 20-cent fee on disposable grocery bags--has successfully bought its way onto the ballot. Yesterday, the anti-bag fee campaign announced it had collected more than 15,000 valid signatures, enough to put the measure on the ballot. (For perspective, that's about $12 per valid signature). The "coalition" is funded exclusively by the Arlington, VA-based American Chemistry Council, which is funding an almost identical campaign against a proposed 25-cent bag fee in California. (Check out their Seattle and California web sites.) The bag fee won't go into effect next year as planned; instead, the plastic industry's referendum will go on the ballot in August, or earlier if the City Council decides to hold a special election.

In response, an actual coalition of environmental organizations, including the Sierra Club and People for Puget Sound, has launched its own, pro-bag fee campaign. The campaign will focus on the fact that Seattle is the first city in the nation to impose such a "green fee," as part of the Zero Waste Strategy adopted by the council last year. Several other cities have banned plastic bags outright. To find out more, contact Heather Trim of People for Puget Sound.

This morning, Metro announced it will be adding new bus routes and more frequent service to keep up with rising transit demand, and "revising" bus service for 22 other routes. That's great news if you ride any of the 19 routes that are being upgraded, not so great if you live in certain parts of the city and like to take the bus late at night (several late-night trips are being cut), or use one of the bus stops that is being eliminated. Overall, however, the changes appear to add up to a pretty substantial improvement.

That's a good thing, right? Yes and no. More Metro service should, in theory, improve the bus-riding experience, because buses will be less crowded and, again in theory, more reliable. The more frequently your bus arrives, the less likely you are to be seriously inconvenienced when a bus shows up late or doesn't come at all. And the less crowded the buses are, the easier it is for them to stay on schedule.

On the other hand, all those service upgrades don't come free. With gas prices soaring, Metro has already had to raise fares 25 cents, and another 50-cent increase is in the works. Higher fares mean lower ridership, which means fewer revenues for things like new bus routes. Which leads to crowded buses, unreliable schedules, and a less pleasant bus experience... which leads all those new bus riders to start thinking, maybe it's worth it to take the car after all.

All around the country, the story is similar: Transit agencies forced to choose between raising fares or laying off workers and reducing service. In Miami, the choice is between raising fares 50 cents and firing 700 workers and reducing transit service by more than 4 million miles a year. In Chicago, the Chicago Transit Authority is removing all the seats from some of its trains, just to squeeze more passengers in. And in 85 percent of US transit agencies, capacity--just having enough room to hold all the riders--is a problem, with four out of ten agencies saying they now have to turn passengers away.

One possible solution, suggested here, is for transit agencies to ask Congress for transit funding from the federal Highway Trust Fund, which primarily pays for roads and bridges. (The US secretary of transportation has already asked Congress to put another $8 billion into the fund, but that would only pay for roads, not transit.) An infusion of cash could allow transit agencies to expand service (and maintain their current bus and train fleets) without raising fares or firing workers. As the writer notes:

Transit provides an energy-efficient and affordable option for a lot of Americans right now. If we respond to their need by cutting bus lines, packing transit cars to the gills and ordering steep fare increases, we will risk losing critical public support and ridership at a time when our transit systems have their best opportunity in 60 or more years to position themselves for long-term growth.

About a week before the big Pro Walk/ Pro Bike Conference in downtown Seattle, I started to notice tons of new, hastily scrawled pavement markings all over the city. The spray-painted signs indicated places where the city planned to put in bike lanes and sharrows--those lane markings that are supposed to let drivers know that cyclists may be in the lane of traffic. (Of course, many drivers don't know that.) Because my route to work includes a lot of up- and downhill cycling, my path transitions frequently between bike lanes (which the city is painting on uphill slopes) and sharrows (which are mostly limited to downhill slopes in places where there isn't room or the political will to add another bike lane).

In some ways, the bike-lane-uphill/sharrow-downhill system makes perfect sense--on uphill slopes, it's much better to have a bike lane than a sharrow, because cyclists can't get uphill as fast as cars. A bike lane puts them out of the way of traffic and allows cars to pass.

But substituting sharrows for bike lanes on downhill slopes creates problems the city might not have foreseen. Unless you're going as fast as car traffic--in which case, you'd have to be cruising along at 35 miles per hour on most of the designated bike routes in Seattle--you're going to stick to the right side of the lane, to avoid annoying drivers and to stay out of harm's way. That puts you right smack in the "door zone"--the area of the traffic lane where car doors can open into a cyclist's path. If you're moving at a typical downhill speed of 15 to 20 miles an hour, you're not going to have time to stop--or check the lane, move out of the way, and shake your fist at the jerk who didn't bother to look for you--before you run into an opening door. That's less of a problem with bike lanes, because they give cyclists more room to maneuver and stay out of the door zone without veering into the lane.

And intersections--where the majority of bike/car collisions take place--are even more perilous. If you're cruising along on the right side of the lane of traffic, confident in the false sense of security a sharrow gives you, you're not going to have time to stop if a driver pulls out in front of you--which, believe me, happens all the time. Yes, plenty of cyclists love to tear down big hills like 10th Ave. East on Capitol Hill, at top speed. But plenty of cyclists get hit doing just that, too. It's irresponsible of the city to encourage them.

So why not just install bike lanes everywhere? Because it would mean removing some on-street parking. Parking spots are practically sacrosanct in Seattle, and making parking as convenient as possible for drivers has always taken precedence over making the roads as safe as possible for cyclists.

(Photo via Bicycle Facilities Pool on Flickr)

In related news: A recent study shows that the more dedicated bike facilities (and cyclists) means fewer bike accidents. Thus in countries like Denmark and the Netherlands, where many more people get around by bike, the cycling fatality rate is about a fifth of what it is in the United States.

Save the Trees—a group of North Seattle residents who recently won a court ruling halting the Seattle School District's plan to remove a grove of trees from Ingraham High School's campus—is rallying the troops again after a developer apparently cut down a patch of trees in North Seattle over the weekend.

In a letter, Save the Trees spokesman Steve Zemke says:

The first lot is a pile of tree trunks and branches where a number of trees have just been cut down including a Douglas fir some 80 years old as well as healthy madrone trees.

[T]he developer appears to have jumped the gun on cutting down and destroying all the trees and vegetation on this site before the final permits were granted.

This action points out the urgent need to pass an emergency tree protection ordinance prohibiting cutting down trees like this until environmental and land use review has been completed.

Developers win again and again. Trees lose again and again.

Save the Trees will hold a press conference at the site this Sunday at 10:00 AM.

The Skate Park Advisory Committee is holding its monthly meeting tonight at the Seattle Parks Department's HQ at 100 Dexter North.

SPAC will discuss plans for skateparks in Delridge and at at Dahl Field, and give updates on the Seask8 rebuild.

The meeting starts at 7pm.

South Lake Union resident Red Reddick was wary of a letter that arrived in her mailbox last month on a letterhead for Vulcan Endeavors, LLC. It said that by using public records, the company had ascertained she owned land in the area, and that “if you would like to sell your property… we may be just what you are looking for.” It continued, “We guarantee you an offer.”

Reddick is a member of the Shelter Project, a low-income housing collective that owns three side-by-side apartment buildings. The project's bylaws prohibit the owners from selling. Reddick says she's concerned that Paul Allen's Vulcan Real Estate is systematically buying up affordable housing in South Lake Union and turning it into high-end developments; already, Vulcan has bought up more than 60 acres of the neighborhood.

Several years ago, Redddick and her neighbors tried unsuccessfully to protect the Lillian Apartments, which Vulcan bought and then demolished. “Our property taxes are much higher than they were five years ago,” she says. “We’re pretty much talking about wide-scale gentrification.”

When Reddick called the agents named in the letter, she asked if they represented Vulcan Real Estate. They replied "no," but said that they “are working with Vulcan,” she says.

But in a bizarre twist, Vulcan denies Vulcan's claim.

“We have never heard of the company Vulcan Endeavors,” says Vulcan Real Estate spokesman Aaron Blank. He says Vulcan has never used the “Vulcan Endeavors” name to buy property nor has it ever worked with the company. Neither the web site nor the mailing address on the letter are shared with Vulcan Real Estate. So it isn't clear if Vulcan Endeavors is anything more than a letterhead. Blank asked for a copy of the letter so Vulcan could follow up.

The agents named in the letter from Vulcan Endeavors, LLC have not returned phone calls or emails to comment.

Updated at 3:15 on Friday.

As several local papers have reported, the Edmonds School District has rescinded its policy denying hot lunches to kids whose parents owe more than $10 in lunch money to the district. (They received a cold cheese sandwich instead). What outraged parents and readers might not know, however, is that Seattle Public Schools actually has a more onerous policy, at least for kids in grades 6-12: If they can't pay, they don't get any lunch at all.

An official school-lunch calendar provided by Seattle Public Schools' nutrition services division (and, digression: I would not want to be a teenage vegetarian in Seattle schools; Cheese Pizza Munchables, anyone?) states the district's policy as follows: When an elementary-school student fails to pay for lunch (which costs $2.25) three times, he or she "will receive a substitute meal of a cheese sandwich and milk." After three cheese sandwiches, "your child will no longer receive a meal." Moreover, "students in 6th-12th grade without funds [lunch price: $2.50] are not provided substitute meals."

SPS spokesman David Tucker says the district's calendar misstates the district's policy regarding lunches for elementary-school children. "We continue to provide those students with a substitute meal, and that doesn’t end," Tucker says. "We want to make sure that those children get hteir nutritional needs met." He adds, "What is in the calendar is not accurate." The calendar does accurately state the district's policy for kids in grades 6-12, who Tucker says have generally "been in our system for quite a while; there’s insitsuttional knowledge about how our system works. ... We want to focus on the younger students and ensure that they get fed."

I understand the need to recover losses in tough economic times, but punishing kids--even those who know how the district's electronic-payment system works--for their parents' failure to pay by taking away their food seems a little harsh.

(Thanks to Slog tipper Sara for the calendar).

Ride Civil--a Bike Hugger project aimed at "promot[ing] civility between motorists, pedestrians and cyclists," will hold an approximately hour-long ride tomorrow, September 12, starting at 5:30 pm at Westlake Plaza. Ride Civil started in the wake of violence at Critical Mass protests in Seattle and other cities; unlike Critical Massers, Ride Civil riders "signal and stop, smile and wave, ride 2 abreast and yield to pedestrians. We won't be corking or blocking traffic, just safely cycling our city."

The campaign to repeal the 20-cent fee on plastic and paper bags, passed by the Seattle City Council in July, has just released its financial disclosure reports for August. Not surprisingly, the "coalition" actually has just one contributor--the Arlington, VA-based American Chemical Council, which has also funded an almost identical campaign against a 25-cent bag fee proposed in California. The Chemical Council poured more than $180,000 into its Coalition to Stop the Seattle Bag Tax, which spent every penny of that money paying people to gather signatures for a referendum to repeal the fee. Although the campaign's disclosure forms don't make clear which firm the group used to gather signatures (Ethics and Elections director Wayne Barnett says the group plans to amend their report), the group has said it collected more than 20,000 signatures, or about 6,000 more than the number of valid signatures needed to put the repeal measure on the ballot. That works out to about $9 a signature--a hefty price, considering that the going rate for signature gatherers is about a buck a name. The campaign's disclosure forms also don't include a location and hours when citizens can review campaign records, information that is required by law. information that will be required starting 21 days before any anti-fee measure goes on the ballot.

If it works, a plan from Mayor Greg Nickels's office will create more affordable housing and increase building heights in neighborhoods across the city. But critics say that as the proposal is currently written, the housing benefits are negligible.

The plan takes a formula already in use downtown, which allows developers to build taller in exchange for funding affordable housing, and applies it to new housing citywide. For example, developers who want to build taller in South Lake Union would have to dedicate some of the extra stories to affordable housing, or put money into an affordable housing fund.

But because the mayor's proposal only requires developers to dedicate 11 percent of the new height to affordable housing, some advocates for low-income people are skeptical that it will do any good. “I don’t see this as a plan that would increase the number of affordable homes,” says Anna Markee, outreach director of the Housing Development Consortium, which represents nonprofit housing developers Markee says the city council should increase the affordable-housing requirement to at least 20 and as much as 30 percent. (Affordable, in this case, works out to more than $1,000 a month for a one-bedroom apartment.) Markee says there should also be more incentive for developers to build actual affordable housing, instead of paying into the affordable housing fund. Others, such as John Fox of the Seattle Displacement Coalition, say any incentive to build taller could backfire by encouraging developers to tear down affordable housing that already exists.

Markee and Fox may find support in City Council Member Sally Clark, chair of the city’s land-use committee. “I think 11 percent is too low,” Clark says. “Even in the market right now, I’m more interested in looking at figure that is around 20 percent.” The mayor's office will send the legislation down to Clark’s committee next week.

The one I wrote about over here, in which longtime light-rail foe Will Knedlik claimed that the title and explanatory statement for this year's Sound Transit expansion measure misrepresented the true cost of the proposal and should include language calling the measure a "permanent tax," was dismissed with prejudice by King County superior court judge John Erlick, who said the ballot title "sufficiently informs voters where and how they can obtain more information and does not need to contain financial forecasts" about how the tax increase might be used in the future. Erlick concluded: "There is neither a factual nor a legal basis for [Knedlik's] proposed redrafting of the ballot title" or explanatory statement, meaning that the ballot title and statement, as written by Sound Transit, will appear on ballots and voter guides in the three-county Sound Transit region.

The city's still trying to decide where to build a new jail to house people arrested for misdemeanors—the King County Jail will stop accepting misdemeanents in 2012—and tomorrow night, Magnolia residents will get their chance to grumble about the city's potential plan to build a new jail near their neighborhood in Interbay.

In July, City Councilmember Tim Burgess stated that according to the city's siting criteria, the Interbay site "makes the most sense."

Tomorrow's meeting is in the Blaine Elementary cafeteria from 7-9 pm.

At last night’s meeting of the South Lake Union Friends and Neighbors Community Council (SLUFAN), the group assigned to draft a new neighborhood plan for taller buildings, the city’s Jim Holmes gave an update. Under three incremental proposals, developers could construct taller buildings (the tallest plan would allow 400-foot towers), allowing them to build more sellable square feet.

But before the council enacts such a proposal, the city must study the effects of increasing density—estimating traffic impacts, demands on utilities, blocked views, need for public facilities, etc.—in the South Lake Union neighborhood. That impact study will cost $350,000. So who will pay for the city’s study?

“We are going to be asking property owners,” says Holmes, a planner for the city’s Department of Planning and Development, which reports to the mayor’s office. He told the group, “There are some property owners who want to see the work done and would benefit from it.”

The SLUFAN board seemed taken aback. Vice-chair Dawn Oliver expressed her concern about “private funds going into a city function.”

“I was surprised to hear it,” said board member Noel Franklin when contacted after the meeting. “As a nonprofit professional, it concerns me to have the city in the fundraising mix.”

Normally, if property owners want the city council to allow building above current height limits, they must independently pay for an impact study. So this proposal essentially allows them to pay for the research up front (Holmes says a similar practice was applied downtown). But the private funding of a public planning appears to create a conflict of interest.

I asked Holmes after the meeting which land owners, exactly, would be asked for dough. He wasn't sure. “We will look to the logical ones to be contributors—major and small,” he said. Paul Allen’s development firm Vulcan has amassed approximately 60 acres of land in South Lake Union.

Last night, Friends of Seattle, a group that promotes urbanism and good environmental policy, hosted a Q&A with Sound Transit staffers, including chief spokesman Ric Ilgenfritz, at McLeod Residence in Belltown. The questions were generally thoughtful, unique, and even surprising--a pleasant change from what you usually hear at these events, which is more along the lines of "Is it going to go by my house?" and "How much will it cost me personally?" (Answers: Probably not, but it benefits the whole city; and about $69 a year.)

Here are a few things you might not know about Sound Transit, in Ilgenfritz's words. (Sound Transit haters, take note: This is all from Sound Transit's perspective. If you disagree, feel free to let me know in the comments.)

On ridership, and whether Sound Transit will pay for itself: "By 2030, we expect 360,000 daily riders with a capacity of more than one million. ... No transit system anywhere fully funds its operations [with fare revenue].. We’re expecting to recover 45 to 50 percent [of costs] from fares, which is on the high end of the industry standard. ... The system will reach a point where the benefits to the economy begin to exceed the costs in around 2034, which is about ten years after operation begins. So it’ll pay for itself."

On Sound Transit's claim, in campaign literature, that it will "deliver an immediate 17% increase in express bus service": "Seventeen percent additional service means another 100,000 hours [of bus service] to the highest-demand routes. That means 30 percent more service on the I-5 corridor between UW and Snohomish County and UW [and on I-405]... and more service on the 520 and I90 corridors. ... Seventeen percent is the average across the system but it’s targeted toward the highest needs."

On the agency's failure to deliver light rail from Sea-Tac Airport to the University of Washington by 2006, as promised: "We screwed it up coming out of the gate and we have to wear our legacy there. We overpromised and we were too ambitious. ... I can’t guarantee you it’s going to work the way I’m telling you, but I think it’s going to work… Time will tell."

On how many people will really switch to transit because of Sound Transit expansion: "Right now, 38 percent of the trips in and out of Seattle are on transit. This will take it above 50 percent. For Bellevue, it will triple transit [use] from 5 to 15 percent. [After that], any future corridors would have to be funded with the sales tax authority we’re using to fund Sound Transit 2 [this fall's ballot measure], because that's the only taxing authority we have."

On whether stations might be added in the long, surface-level stretch of rail between Othello and Edmunds Streets in south Seattle: "Probably not. ... It’s technically feasible, but expensive. Right now we are not considering adding more stations [but] if the stars align, it’s conceivable."

On what happens if this year's ballot measure fails and the legislature comes back with a "governance reform" package that would effectively kill Sound Transit: "People who don’t like the plan think they can solve it with process. There are no doubt people out there for whom a Sound Transit defeat means open season. But we’ve gone to battle with those people before."

Last week, when I heard city of Seattle bike planner Peter Lagerwey tell a crowd at the Pro Walk/Pro Bike conference that the city had "started on 25 road diets, and we're working on the 26th now," it sounded too good to be true. As the city employee who headed up the development of 2007's Bike Master Plan, Lagerwey was tapped to head up a panel called "How to Develop and Implement A Successful Bicycle Master Plan"; the particular aspect of Seattle's plan he was referring to wasnarrowing roads by removing lanes of traffic and converting them to bike lanes or other bike facilities, such as sharrows. (Sharrows are road markings in traffic lanes that let drivers know to look for bikes.) Such "diets" tend to be controversial, because they reprioritize streets for bikes and pedestrians instead of cars. So it struck me as odd that there could've been so much progress in so little time.

Turns out, there hasn't been. A list of "road diets" provided by the city's Department of Transportation (SDOT) shows that of the 25 Lagerwey was referring to, only four--or, really, two, given that three of the diets listed are actually contiguous sections of Stone Way--have occurred since 2007. The rest are older--in some cases, much older: The first road diet on the list, the narrowing of N. 45th Street between Latona Ave. NE and Stone Way from four lanes to two, dates back to 1972. Only nine of the road diets on the list took place this decade. And the three most recent ones were controversial--so controversial, in fact, that SDOT attempted to eliminate them at the instigation of area business owners. Only massive pushback from cycling advocates, who organized a protest and commissioned an independent traffic study to prove narrowing Stone Way wouldn't harm nearby businesses, convinced the department to narrow the road as planned.

That's certainly not to say that Seattle's bike master plan is a failure--just that, like every political process in Seattle, it remains open to discussion and outside influence. According to Cascade Bicycle Club's David Hiller, who also spoke on the Pro Walk/Pro Bike panel, SDOT's progress is "tracking really well" with the adopted bike-plan schedule. In the weeks leading up to the conference, the largest such event in the nation, spray-painted temporary markings for bike lanes and sharrows appeared on streets all over the city. Hopefully, cyclists won't have to wait until next spring--the next time the city will be able to paint once the winter rain sets in--to see those promised bike facilities made permanent.

Will Knedlik, an attorney disbarred for filing frivolous lawsuits and a longtime opponent of Sound Transit, is suing the light-rail agency, alleging that it misrepresented the true cost of November's light rail proposal in its ballot title and the explanatory statement in voter guides; and that the Sound Transit board does not have the authority to put a light-rail expansion measure on the ballot.

Knedlik's lawsuit is confusingly worded even by the standards of legalese, but what it boils down to is this: 1) Because voters declined to pass last year's roads and transit ballot measure, which included 50 new miles of light rail, Sound Transit does not have the authority to put a light-rail measure on the ballot again. And 2) Even if Sound Transit did have the authority to put light rail to the voters, the agency should use Knedlik's own figure, derived from "preparation of calculations based on Interested Party SOUND TRANSIT's financial documents, materials, and worksheet," of $107.5 billion in its ballot title and voter guide explanation.

The first point makes no sense because this year's proposal isn't the same ballot measure as the one that was proposed last year, so the legislative ban on putting the same measure on the ballot twice doesn't apply.

The second claim also doesn't pan out. It's based on the same dubious math that led opponents of last year's measure to claim it would cost $157 billion once all the costs were factored in. The $100 million figure assumes that the initial sales tax voters passed to pay for the first phase of light rail will continue indefinitely; that the sales-tax increase on the ballot in November will be collected for at least 50 years (the agency has adopted a rule requiring it to roll back the tax as soon as the capital costs for the expansion are paid off, estimated to happen in 2023); and that Sound Transit will keep collecting taxes for Sound Transit 3, a scenario that voters won't even consider for many years, and only if Sound Transit 2 is passed in November.

This slide, part of a Sound Transit presentation on the agency's proposed financial plan for rail expansion, illustrates why Knedlik is wrong. The dark blue portion is Sound Transit 1--the rail line that's currently under construction and due to open in 2009. That section, along with the cost of operating and maintaining the system (in yellow) goes up slightly every year because of inflation. The light blue layer is the capital costs for Sound Transit 2; those taper off in 2023, after which all revenues that aren't needed to pay for operations will go into a "rollback fund." Once that fund includes enough money to pay off the bonds on construction, sometime between 2036 and 2038, the tax from Sound Transit 2 will be rolled back completely--as reflected in the steep decline in the pink section from several billion dollars to zero. The red section, finally, represents the potential taxes that won't be spent because of the tax rollback requirement--taxes that are included in Knedlik's $100 billion estimate.

Knedlik's case will be heard in King County Superior Court tomorrow.

City Councilmember Sally Clark is holding a hearing this evening to take public comment on a proposal to revamp plans for 38 Seattle neighborhoods. The council’s land-use committee, chaired by Clark, is poised to send two pieces of legislation to the full council on Wednesday, and the council is scheduled to vote on them in two weeks.

Clark is proposing a 21-person volunteer committee to recommend how the city should reshape the neighborhood plans, which were written in the 1990s. Most of those plans were supposed to last 20 years; but several neighborhoods are already facing more growth than anticipated, prompting the move to revisit the plans. For instance, Clark proposes spending $1 million for status updates and plans for all the new residents expected to move in around light-rail stations in South Seattle.

But tonight’s hearing is catching a few people by surprise.

“There was probably not as much notice as there should have been,” says Robert Hinrix, chair of a group called Beacon Hill Pedestrians, which has been planning for a new town center around the planned Beacon Hill light rail station. Hinrix only heard about the meeting Friday. So he sent a letter expressing concern that the plans could give the city too much influence over neighborhood planning to the city departments, rather than neighborhood residents themselves, who generated the plans semi-autonomously in the '90s.

Over at Crosscut, Peggy Sturdivant writes that she was blindsided by the meeting. “How much public can be expected to comment with four days' e-mail notice?” she asks.

Clark’s office responds that the city posted a notice on its web site weeks ago, and has already heard a lot of feedback from residents. The proposals being discussed this evening are a response to an audit, requested by Clark in 2007, which surveyed 820 residents online and interviewed 15 residents involved with neighborhood planning. Among other subjects, members of the land-use committee are seeking input on ways to invite more lower-income and minority residents to participate in neighborhood planning. The meeting is tonight at 5:30 p.m. at City Hall in the city council chambers.

Seattle Transit Blog reported this weekend on efforts by the anti-Sound Transit campaign--headed, in this case, by Chris Van Dyk, most recently seen lobbying against taxi drivers on behalf of taxicab owners--to take over Sound Transit's domain name, which expired briefly over the weekend. According to blogger Ben Schiendelman, Van Dyk claimed he had hacked in to Sound Transit's web site (by guessing the user name and password) and paid $35 to renew the domain registration. Then, Van Dyk announced in a press release, he generously handed the site registration back to Sound Transit.

Unfortunately for Van Dyk and his crowing press release, the campaign didn't do its homework: Instead of renewing soundtransit.org, Sound Transit's official web site, they re-registered ratg.org--an old, long-disused site for the Regional Accessible Transportation Guide, which provided information on transit accessible to people with disabilities. (That information is now available at findaride.org). As Schiendelmen puts it: "This is like these guys tried to break into Sound Transit’s house, but ended up in the middle of the living room of the guy next door."

In the comments to Schiendelman's post, Van Dyk provided a bizarre, off-point "explanation" for his actions, which he said were made purely in the interest of Sound Transit's "security." If Sound Transit failed to take stronger security measures, Van Dyk wrote, it was likely that "someone malicious could access the address pointers for the website through Network Solutions—and literally redirect your traffic to a different website. By leaving the email address changed to us, we were able to monitor any activity subsequent to the domain name renewal, and prior to what was to be our presumed Monday contact with you for formal and permanent resolution of the problem."

No response yet from Sound Transit on their opponents' magnanimous efforts to preserve their web security.

Last night, in the foyer of the Seattle Aquarium, with a wall of fish on one side and the viaduct on the other, the Seattle Design Commission--which reviews public buildings and open spaces--celebrated its 40th anniversary. A slide show shuffled through a hilarious retrospective of the commission’s greatest public works. The 1968-to-1977 segment started to the tune of Jimi Hendrix’s "Foxy Lady," and up popped a picture of the Kingdome.

Ooh, foxy lady. Despite a few more duds, such as Medgar Evars Pool and Freeway Park, attendees insisted that time has been good to Seattle and its Design Commission. In more recent years, the commission has influenced a wave of new parks, libraries, and fire stations that are, indeed, downright foxy.

The Ballard Library, via.

“This crowd of architects and designers—everyone in here—has stunningly good eyewear,” said Sally Clark, chair of the city council’s land-use committee. She added: “Most folks have no idea what the design commission does.”
Current challenges for the commission include light-rail stations and the waterfront.

Cary Moon, head of the People’s Waterfront Coalition and the leading advocate for replacing the Alaskan Way Viaduct with a surface/transit option, worked the room. Among the crowd was newly hired city planner Ray Gastil. Recently plucked from his post as head of the Manhattan planning department, Gastil transformed the vision for the New York waterfront.

However, the future of Seattle's waterfront hinges--not on Seattle planners--but on decisions from city, county, and state transportation departments. But, says Moon, “If [the design commissioners] stood up with nonprofits and non-governmental organizations and said, ‘We won’t accept any less,’ they could set a high level for what gets done eventually on the waterfront.”

As widely reported yesterday, a woman at a Capitol Hill gas station narrowly survived the worst pun of the recession. “Pain at the pump,” the veritable walker with tennis balls of newspaper headlines about high gas prices, became a horrifying reality when someone driving an SUV hit a gas pump that subsequently burst into flames, severely burning the woman’s legs.

Today The Stranger learned that the victim was 39-year-old Martha Manning, co-owner of Seattle’s only lesbian bar, the Wildrose.

At about 4 p.m., Manning was at the 76 gas station at the north end of Broadway getting a receipt from the gas pump’s pay terminal. “I heard a really big bang,” says Adam Nemeth, a chef who was working across the street at Bella Pizza & Pasta. He believes the driver "was avoiding an accident, and he sped up instead of stopping and ran into the pump," he says. “I looked up and saw a Volkswagen SUV… planted into the pump” on the other side of Manning. Within moments, “The whole thing was engulfed in flames,” he says. Both cars and the pump were charred.

After running out of the smoke, Manning rescued her five-pound Chihuahua from inside the white vehicle and then tried to extinguish her burning pants. “Her leg was smoldering,” says Nemeth.

“When they called me at work I was like, ‘What?’” says Shelley Bothers, who has co-owned the Wildrose with Manning for seven years. “What do you mean a gas pump exploded?” Manning is currently at Harboview being treated for second- and third-degree burns below her knees, Brothers says. “I was there last night and she was doing pretty good. About all she can do now is wait to heal.”

Manning may be released from the hospital next week, Brothers says, and the bar may hold some sort of fundraiser to help pay her medical bills.