Results tagged “petersteinbrueck”

It reminded us of a little talk we went to a few weeks ago at the auditorium at SPL Central. Billed as The Great Urban Debate, the event pitted Vancouver BC and Seattle against each other, defended by the venerable Gordon Price and Peter Steinbrueck, who share disturbingly similar civic biographies in their respective towns. The twist, however, was that Steinbrueck defended Vancouver, while plucky Canadian Price pled the case for Seattle. Sponsored by Via Architecture, there appropriately was not a shabbily-dressed person in the house.

For a while we were nursing the small hope that Peter Steinbrueck might make Mayor Nickels' rerun election interesting, but Joni Balter at the Times has snatched that from us: "Steinbrueck will be spending the first of the next four years in Cambridge, Mass. He landed a prestigious urban design fellowship at Harvard University, as he says, 'researching the politics, principles and plan for urban sustainability of U.S. cities.''' What is it with Harvard stealing our mayors, anyway? (H/t to Publicola)

As you recall, there's a Facebook fan page for Peter Steinbrueck urging him to run for mayor. Guess what? Steinbrueck wrote its founder and asked for some feedback: "I'm overwhelmed by the outpouring of people interested in new leadership in the mayor's office! Well, it's gotten me thinking... political leadership should always be about change. I am in a listening mode, and I would like to ask ask a simple question of those who are urging me to run. That is: Besides a new mayor, what three things, 'For the Love of Seattle' would people like to see changed?" We feel like we're writing Santa a letter but okay: 1) affordable housing for the full spectrum of those making less than 60 percent of the median income, 2) a waterfront Central Park, and 3) city-funded start-up incubators (for profit and nonprofit) in partnership with the SBA. Drop your suggestions in the comments--we'll find a way to forward them--or over here.

We've been following the news releases--cleverly disguised as Slog posts--issued by Peter Steinbrueck's stealth campaign manager, ECB, and she's gotten us fired up. Now if they just work on Steinbrueck himself, we'll be all set. Yesterday ECB was publicizing green golden boy Steinbrueck via a "RUN FOR MAYOR" Facebook group that has sprung up--it had 41 members then and this morning we became 99, just like in Get Smart. Today ECB has hit the e-bricks early, quoting an unnamed "recent poll" in which "Steinbrueck wallops Nickels 46.6 percent to 24.1 percent, with 29.4 percent undecided" in a head-to-head match-up. (ECB doesn't mention our equally scientific 5-way poll in which Nickels just edged out Steinbrueck 38 percent to 36.) So all we've really learned so far is that ECB would vote for Peter in a heartbeat--but maybe...just maybe...that's enough?

The rumor weed is running rampant across the lawn of Seattle's local politics regarding a possible Greg Smith run for Mayor next year. It looks like he might even have a fighting chance, though the well-funded Nickels is certain to run for a third term. There are other names persistently sprouting up here and there as possible opponents: former and current City Councilmen Peter Steinbrueck and Nick Licata (respectively), and--hell, why not consider familiar Nickels foe Mark Sidran again? What do you think? Which of these men should be our next Mayor? Our poll will close tomorrow at noon, and opinions are welcome in the comments.

City Council candidate Venus Velázquez was arrested for a DUI last night which can't be good for her campaign for Peter Steinbrueck's seat. Apparently, she had "two drinks with her meal" and then hung around for a while to ensure she wasn't impaired. If that's what really happened, bummer. It sounds like she made a better effort than the guys we see "sobering up" at the end of the night by switching to light beer for last call. "No more shots for me...I'm driving. Two Pabsts, please." Needless to say, you don't see those guys appearing in your voter's guide too often. Even if it was two drinks and a cooling off period - a cop saw fit to pull her over, administer the field tests and take her in.

Peter Steinbrueck, a soon-to-be--former City Council member, announced legislation today that would require all city departments that review the environmental impacts of projects to take greenhouse gas emissions into account.

Last week Seattlest whined about the pending doom of the Rainier Cold Storage Stock House in Georgetown, a building that is a Seattle Historic Landmark. "'Historic Landmark' might as well be a death sentence in Seattle," we said, meaning that any building so labeled in Seattle would be quickly demolished (although later in the week the Seattle Weekly would have a different take on the phrase in an article about Peter Steinbrueck and his recent Landmark-a-thon Downtown).

We’re only going to be in our twenties for the next three weeks, so lately we’ve been trying to feel younger--and there is no better place to accomplish this than at a local district Democrat meeting. Once again we were one of the youngest people in the room. We love you sweet, sweet democracy.

The story so far: Two years ago, amid trumpets and fanfare, the City of Seattle sold the 15-story Alaska Building to developer Kent Angier, to be used for "affordable workforce housing." The selling price was $8.5 million dollars -- $500,000 to $1 million less than offers from developers interested in turning it into office space. The City says it had an unwritten understanding with Angier that the building would be used for housing. Recently, Angier announced plans to build instead a non-union Marriott hotel.

End of May, we posted about how the city sold the Alaska Building to a developer, with the understanding that it would be turned into affordable "workforce" housing. The city took a loss of somewhere between $500,000 and $1 million because of that stipulation, Mayor Nickels was able to gesture grandly at his affordable housing gesture, and then Kauri Investments Ltd. and Ariel Development got to thinking and they were all, "Hey, you know what would be better than affordable housing is a 250-unit Marriott hotel! People who work stay in hotels a lot, so it's not even a big difference when you look at it."

The other day we spotted our first campaign sign for the upcoming civic elections, and our dork meter perked up a bit. The election season has begun, and all over the city campaign managers are starting to hate their lives.

We had a little trouble interpreting the results of the Viaduct public vote a while back. Clearly it was a vote against the tunnel. Was it a vote for a new Viaduct? Was it a vote for surface and transit? Was it a vote for "further political uncertainty?" None of the above, it turns out. It was actually a vote for "we're suffering from severe Viaduct fatigue and we don't want to talk about it anymore." A landslide, it seems. Once upon a time you could rally the whole office with any mention of the elevated roadway. Head over to the water cooler right now and say, "blah blah blah Viaduct." You'll clear the place out faster than if you asked for volunteers to train on the new TPS reporting system.

Hot issues don't really die, ever, they just retreat underground and cool for a while before popping up in new places. Increased regulation of strip clubs was put down by voters recently by a pretty strong majority, but according to this email we just received the City Council is reintroducing some of the restrictions of the placement of new clubs in the form of a zoning ordinance. Today at 5:30 at City Hall there's a meeting to discuss the ordinance, which, this email claims, will reduce the areas available to new strip clubs to those outlined on the map below.

The advisory vote on the Viaduct is in and a crushing defeat has been issued to the “No and Hell No” campaign by write-in candidate “Hell No and No.” With strong turnouts in West Seattle, Magnolia and Capitol Hill, voters voiced their opinion on the mayor’s tunnel: as of 11:30pm, 69.88% responded in the negative to a tunnel-surface hybrid--a dramatic “Hell No” in our book. And voters rejected the elevated structure alternative with a less emphatic 55.48%-44.52%--a definite “No” by our reckoning, but definitely not a “Hell No.” Remember the scene in Dumb and Dumber when Dumb takes a one in a million shot to be good news? “So I have a chance!” We’re going to hear from Dumb regarding this 55%.

Unlike some other quitter we could mention City Council Member Peter Steinbrueck will be finishing out his current term, however, he will not be seeking re-election this fall. Instead he will dedicate his time to stopping a viaduct re-build and promoting the surface street alternative. (Although Seattlest Seth has a theory that he just wants more time off to watch his son play basketball for Seattle Prep in the 3A State Tournament).

--Northwest stocks weren't immune from yesterday's stock downturn. The market is up so far, though.

--Miss Kirkland USA hangs it up and tips her hat to Miss Washington USA.

There aren't any pictures of the Wawona that are findable on the web. We looked when we posted something about the boat a few weeks ago. Recent pictures, not some artist's representation of the ship in its prime, carting timber and city forefathers around the Sound. Go ahead. Try to find them.

Mayor Nickels' campaign to make local strip clubs no fun for anyone popped up on the local radar again yesterday. Turns out Georgetown residents aren't too happy with Nickels' desire to create a strip club zone that borders their neighborhood to the north.

When the City Council's study came back last month recommending downtown zoning changes that would raise the ceiling on the business core while funding lower-income housing Seattlest was skeptical:

Say what you like about our rain, or how we all drink too much coffee; hell, hurl expletives at one of our many giant megalomaniacal corporations. But please New York, please please don't start calling us "Allentown."

Didn't we just do a stadium post yesterday? That one was to complain about a potential NASCAR track in the area. We approached it from the public monies angle, but, as a commentor pointed out, traffic is also a concern. Today there are some rumblings in regards to a potential Key Arena replacement. Tomorrow, who knows. Maybe we'll be posting on the new 40,000 seat Ultimate Frisbee stadium in Shoreline.

Seattle planners have a crush on Vancouver. So tall, so slender, so mixed-use. That's why Councilman Peter Steinbrueck talked the Seattle City Council into hiring two of Vancouver's lead planners to look over Mayor Greg Nickels' "Center City Strategy" for development downtown.

We at Seattlest aren’t ones to talk about times that we’ve left a hotel room early in the morning; I mean that information is personal. However, if we had left the Downtown Westin early last Wednesday we would have not only left our watch behind, but also run into Mayor Nickels and a room full of Seattle’s most influential check writers.