Results tagged “publicola”

The local homeless advocacy organization SHARE is forcing its residents to participate in camp out protests in front of elected officials’ homes, reports PubliCola.

The Seattle Times reported that minority group leaders called both McGinn and Joe Mallahan "strangers," and not in the Balki-Bartakamos wacky roommate way.

Publicola got their hands on a UW research poll that shows leftward-leaning Mike McGinn "leading" in the mayor's race among Republican voters. McGinn's got 15 percent to Nickels' 10 percent. McGinn says the appeal is due to his "fiscal conservatism" in being against the deep-bore tunnel. That said, the poll's 600 people surveyed left Nickels in the lead, with Mallahan, Donaldson, Drago, and McGinn each divvying up about 10 percent.

Our August 18 primary is being held entirely by mail--we got our ballot last week. If you're still scratching your head over the mayor's race, check out Publicola's interviews with the mayoral contenders (scroll down to item #5).

When we first read the headline "1 in 3 Americans likes to nap" in the Seattle Times, we initially thought, Sweet, we can do an Times Op-Ed board joke! But then fate--well, Publicola--provided us with better napping evidence.

Erica C. Barnett over at Publicola has an interesting tidbit this morning: apparently, a local lobbyist has filed an ethics complaints against Mayor Greg Nickels for the above ad. The shot that's causing the trouble is at 40 seconds in. Apparently, that shot of the new Link Light Rail line wasn't filmed from a public area (or so the complaint maintains), raising the question of how the crew got access. It would be a violation for Nickels to use his power as mayor or other public resources to help his election campaign. UPDATE: As comments suggested, it turns out it was pulled from earlier footage, according to Publicola.

• "Thousands" of Seattle residents have access to Qwest's superfast VDSL2 already, says TechFlash, with a top speed of 40 mbps download/20 mbps upstream, and all for only $110 per month...when combined with your monthly phone service.
• Don't worry, reassures the Seattle Transit Blog, light rail ridership will grow like kudzu. And then the Seattle Times will write about how crowded it is.

• Urban farming--Sightline has a nifty article with mock-up photos about what it would be like to really green up our cities. Because, you know, it would be totally cool to have cows on the roads.
• Publicola has its own problems with recent KING5/SurveyUSA polls, offering the hope we could have both a bag tax and a not-Mayor Nickels! Oh, and Erica C. Barnett scratches back at Joel Connelly for flaming her in his column today.

Publicola is feeling grim about the legislative session's taxes vs. deficit paralysis, and boils down the basics with a look at Rep. Eric Pettigrew’s (D-37, S. Seattle) sales tax bill. It called for an increase of three-tenths of a percent, and Publicola says its failure—"with a $13 million cut to children’s health care, a $75 million cut to low-income care for hospitals, a $28 million cut to mental health care among other cuts—defines the 2009 session."

• Easter on Capitol Hill will be easier to navigate, thanks to CHS' guide.
• West Seattle Blog has the scoop on Easter in their neighborhood, including church and non-church services.
• Rainier Valley Post has details on recent crime on Beacon Hill, as well as a request for volunteers to tend to traffic circles.

• MyBallard has photos of a very cute raccoon lounging in the sun on someone's roof, watching the world pass by. That's exactly how we want to spend the afternoon.
• The Rainier Valley Post spent yesterday at Seward Park. We'd settle for lounging in the sun there instead of on someone's roof...!
• Beacon Hill Blog published a reader's letter asking for improved internet service in their neighborhood.

• Feeling lonely? The Daily Weekly says Larry Phillips will email you if you email him. (Wonder if he'll send pics, too.)
• Publicola says Gregoire does not support a state income tax, so stop asking. Goldy at HorsesAss is not so sure he's entirely against the idea.
• Fourteen percent university tuition hike, anyone? The Capitol Record reports on why that might not be feasible.

The Seattle Times discusses how the planned Senate budget cuts "roll back much of the party's agenda." Publicola has four "angry press releases" on behalf of service workers, NARAL, low income housing, and childen's health. And Schmudget lays out the cuts in the areas of education and health, pointing out that some cuts are so deep, they effectively cut twice, by losing access to federal recovery funds.

Newly minted mayoral candidate Mike McGinn has already provoked an awkward situation. While McGinn didn't want to get into Nickels-bashing at his press conference, his campaign fired off an email critical of mayor Nickels' green credentials today, so Publicola's Josh Feit got Nickels' man on the horn for a response. Only thing is, Nickels' man is Publicola's Sandeep Kaushik. Kaushik responded, “Nickels has an excellent environmental record,” and “I’m surprised Mike McGinn is going negative so early in this race," and did not say, "This is an untenable position, and I can clearly have no comment."

• A Redmond-based firm's high-tech biomaterial is being used to treat dogs with glaucoma, reports TechFlash.
• Rainier Valley Post has a story about a woman whose laptop was stolen right out of her lap as she was working in a Southend coffeeshop.
• CHS is celebrating the release of a new infographic (!!) showing the busiest pedestrian areas of downtown, and wishing we had the same kind of map for the Hill.

And if so, win what? Yesterday we got this terse message: "Michael McGinn will be making an announcement tomorrow at Piecora’s Pizza on Capitol Hill. Please join him at 11:30 a.m." Which we are planning to do in case there is free lunch pizza.

(via Publicola, who stick their noses into politics so we don't have to)

• Giganticasscity has photos and reflections on a rectangular brown house in the Central that may or may not be doing a great job of fitting into the neighborhood.
• Orphan Road is discussing the possibility of distance-based Metro fares ($0.10 for 4 blocks sounds pretty good!).
• White Center Now has a juicy account of yesterday's turn of events, involving public intoxication and the Seattle Police Department.

We try to resist loading up on bad news first thing Monday morning, but let's just do this quickly and get it out of the way: Publicola records Sen. Maria Cantwell's fight to insert some accountability into the bailout of AIG and others (she was overruled, and now AIG is claiming it has to pay $165 million in bonuses with bailout money because it promised! Out of curiosity, who writes a bonus agreement that puts a company on the hook even with catastrophic losses?) And Schmudget tells us Washington unemployment is forecasted to top out at 10 percent next year. On the plus side, all those unemployed people won't have to negotiate the kind of new, transfer-ier bus system proposed by Seattle Transit Blog. So that's a tiny little win.

• Jobs are difficult to find, but not so scarce that P-I staffers aren't feeling free to turn down Hearst's online operations job offers. "Bottom line: An online-only P-I is not a done deal. At least not yet," says Publicola's Sandeep Kaushik.
• Southlake reports on a man shot in the butt, and Queen Anne View has a kickass firefighter who won a stair-climbing competition.
• Over at Schmudget (caution: policy wonkstrosity ahead), they're talking about sub-prime lending in Washington state all week long. Today, their angle has to do with the depressing racial disparity in the mortgage market. Best of all, the post includes an infographic!

• Big Blog won points with a post about The Bachelor's ex-wife and her YouTubed guest spot as a groupie on local band Out From Underneath's Seattle-heavy music video. Onwards and upwards, Gas Works Park.
• The blog formerly known as bigasscity is quoting none other than ZZ Top while crunching the numbers about Metro's projected budget shortfall and how much money the city could have saved by rejecting the bored tunnel viaduct replacement option.
• Cliff Mass thinks it's "pretty definite": we're looking at more snow, probably on Sunday. Actually, that works well with our schedule. How kind of the gods to check with Seattlest HQ's Google Calendar before sending the cold front!

Back in early February, we were reporting on the education reform bill HB 1410 and the debate about the merits of the reformation. Then we asked you to lobby up--pro or con--because lawmakers were listening. Today Publicola has the news that HB 1410 has been tabled and a new, even more vague idea for a notion of education reform has "sailed out of Rep. Haigh’s education appropriations committee." Just to point up the Titanic/deck chairs angle for those of you watching from home, neither of the two bills had a defined funding source, which you'd think would be an important place to start in a state facing an $8 billion deficit.

Publicola reports today on an ongoing conflict between the Democratic leadership in the state legislature and environmental groups trying to protect the provisions of I-937, which requires Washington utilities to acquire 15 percent of supply from renewable sources by 2020, from being watered down. "The amendments would allow efficiency improvements in hydro generation—not considered a renewable in I-937 because the voters wanted to encourage the production of new alternatives—to count toward the goal," writes editor Josh Feit. Another sign of exactly how useless our state Dems have become.

We've now "observed" two future of news media via Twitter (the City Club and ONA events) and watched the Seattle City Council and "No News Is Bad News" events go down via their live stream (while eyeing the #nnbn Twitter channel). One caveat before we recap: what we've learned is mostly useless in practical terms.

Over at Capitol Hill Seattle they're going all i-team over the Howell airgun shooting. The Rainier Valley Post has got hints to where all the Valentine hearts are hidden in Hillman City. MyBallard has the pre-opening news on Green Go Food, "fast food with a conscience." And Publicola busts new HUDster and inveterate Twitterer Ron Sims for his faulty real estate prediction.

With the return of the dreaded S-word juxtaposed with some of the most beautiful sunshine we've seen in months, the Northwest is feeling a bit punchy. In that spirit, Josh Feit at Publicola takes on Seattle's odd political climate ("green urbanists" vs. "economic populists"). It's a wonder we get any political dialogue accomplished at all, given how sore people are--still!--over the infamous Seahawks in the Superbowl referee fiasco. Pouring salt on the open wound, the owner of the Pittsburgh Steelers wrote a letter explaining precisely how fair that referee was. After reading the letter on the Daily Weekly, you might feel a little punchy yourself and need to scream about it. Just let it out, you'll feel better. If yelling doesn't help, have you considered turning to alcohol? Some tequila from Sammamish, perhaps? The Issaquah Reporter has the story (via GreenerGrad).