Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels either loves condos or he hates renters. The Mayor's Office has indefinitely frozen a $350,000 fund created to compensate Seattle area renters who'd been forced out of housing due to condo-conversions. Mayor Nickels wants to wait and see if the legislature passes a statewide bail-out funded by developers this winter. Because it makes perfect sense to rely on the people who are profiting most off of Seattle renter's misery. If......

It looks like Guv Gregoire was stung by all those comments about her punting on Seattle's favorite watercooler topic: the Viaduct. She's now issued what KIRO-TV is calling an "ultimatum" that if no city vote is held before April 22, the State will issue us a replacement viaduct. Or maybe she's heard about that rumored poll that doesn't show the tunnel gaining 50% of the vote, and is eager to make Mayor Nickels her......

We're glad we stuck around for the audience Q&A after the panel discussion on gentrification Thursday night, hosted by the University of Washington's Evans School of Public Affairs. That way we got to hear from the intense woman who discoursed on a variety of topics, including the abomination of Wal-Mart, things being done in Boston, and the lack of education about some guy whose name we can't remember; and from the gentleman who wondered aloud......

This Thursday the UW will host a panel discussion about change in Seattle's Central District, pitting gentrification against "revitalization"--the latter, we hope, being something said panel will subject to more rigorous definition. We are pleased to see this topic discussed in a public forum, but these days we wonder who listens to panels any more, much less an academic-sponsored one (as opposed to those ever-popular corporate-sponsored panels--everyone listens to them). What happens after the panel?......