A conversation with Seattle
With 98,328 ballots counted (and 96,445 on hand to be counted, plus whatever continue to trickle in through the mail), Ed Murray and Mike McGinn have established clear leads over the rest of the field. Continue reading McGinn and Murray to Battle for November’s Mayoral Title
Surprisingly, the audience for this particular piece of political theatre is the state legislature in Olympia, as they control King County’s ability to create more stable funding mechanisms for Metro, but have been reluctant to cede that authority, despite King County’s evident willingness to pay. Continue reading Why Your King County Metro Bus Route’s Future is Up to the State
The first gun buyback is scheduled for Saturday, January 26, 2013, from 9:00 am to 3:00 pm, in a parking lot between Cherry and James Streets, beneath I-5. At present, the buyback program’s coffers contain about $70,000 but $100,000 is the goal, said Mayor Mike McGinn Continue reading Seattle Brings Back its Gun Buyback Program
“Infants younger than 6 months account for 90 percent of all pertussis-related deaths and the majority of hospitalizations,” reads the Seattle & King County Public Health brief on whooping cough (pertussis). That statistic came into stark relief last Thursday, when a newborn baby died from a cases of pertussis. Continue reading In King County, a Baby Has Died of Whooping Cough
From South Dearborn to Denny Way, Seattle’s Third Avenue marks the spine of an area that could be papered over with the police reports used to track the crime within it. During the past year, it’s been the setting for more than 3,800 incidents, everything from shoplifting and narcotics use to car theft, robbery, and shootings. 33 times, someone threatened to kill someone else. Continue reading Seattle Plans Third Avenue Clean-Out Redux
The health of the home real estate market correlates strongly with people’s ability to pay their mortgages, so it’s not surprising that three years of chronic unemployment have done little to improve local listings: “King County median home price falls by double digits again,” Eric Pryne tells you in the Seattle Times. As a case in free fall, here’s a top-floor unit in a 1924 brick co-op condo at 13th and Cherry going for $79,900…somewhat less than its original listing of $184,900. Continue reading Economy Exerts “Downward Pressure” on King County Real Estate Prices
It’s an unsettling sign of the times that the King County Council needed to think as hard as it did about approving a $20, two-year, car-licensing fee to forestall a 17 percent cut in Metro bus service. As mentioned earlier, that’s a nickel a day to keep bus service going that carries over 340,000 people every day. People who can’t afford that have other, more significant financial problems that have little to do with Metro funding and car tabs. Continue reading King County Council to Okay $20 Congestion Reduction Charge