November 2018

By Jason Boyd

In all the talk these days about fake news, and how to tell if the narrative you’re consuming is genuine or not, what I don’t want to see get lost is the ability to analyze one’s motivations for telling the story. Put another way, if you tell me why the chicken crossed the road, it’s one thing to verify whether this really happened, and it’s another thing to figure out why you think it’s necessary that I know why the chicken did it. What’s your agenda here?

City Councilmember Lisa Herbold detailed the current District 1 budget priorities in her newsletter to constituents.

District 1 Budget Priorities

Adding three inspectors to the Vacant Building Monitoring Program 
Since 2013 complaints related to vacant buildings have increased by 64 percent. The proposal would provide resources in SDCI for the Code Compliance division to enhance the existing Vacant Building Monitoring Program. The enhanced program would add a. buildings in the development pipeline, b. buildings that SFD and/or SPD are monitoring, and c. buildings that have had three or more violations within a 36 day period to the monitoring list and those buildings will be monitored monthly by the three new inspectors.

By Jean Godden

Seattle City Councilmembers have proposed dozens of new programs for the city budget to undertake in 2019 and 2020. A complete shopping list would likely amount to a cool billion or so. Thinking big is in the Seattle tradition, even if it means that there are bound to be some disappointments.

Here's how the story begins: On September 24, Mayor Jenny Durkan delivered her 2019-20 budget proposal to the Seattle Council. It was a balanced budget, as all such budgets must be, projecting how much the city can expect to receive in taxes, licenses and fees as well as how to spend taxpayers' money.

Since then, the Seattle City Council has been assessing the mayor's $5.9 billion proposal ($300 million more than this year's budget) and deciding where -- and if -- to make any changes. That's the council's task and, as the pundits say, passing the city budget is the most important job the council does.

information from the Seattle Seahawks

CenturyLink Field and Virginia Mason Athletic Center,and many other Pacific Northwest landmarks, buildings, and institutions lit up blue on Saturday and will again Sunday in honor of Paul Allen, the Seattle Seahawks owner who died last month from complications of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. 

“Our family and all of us at Vulcan continue to be touched by the outpouring of support from so many of the people Paul’s life touched,” Paul Allen’s sister Jody Allen said in a statement. “These beacons of light in Paul’s memory are a wonderful tribute and a reminder there remains important work to do.”

The list of structures going blue — one of Allen’s favorite colors — throughout the Seattle-area and beyond this weekend includes, but is not limited to: