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Posts tagged as “Seattle”

Evaluating the vunnel

February 16, 2009
tunnel

Viaduct-tunnel/City of Seattle

Right next to the Crosscut article headlined "The tunnel solution for the Viaduct is too risky," are these links to encouraging stories from other news organizations: "Ideas debated about using private development to help pay for Viaduct park" (Seattle Post-Intelligencer), "Gregoire distances herself from car tabs portion of the Viaduct tunnel deal" (Times), "Tolls probably needed to cover full cost of waterfront tunnel, state says" (Tacoma News Tribune).

It's never easy, is it?

Approved about a month ago by the top elected officials at Washington state, King County and Seattle, the tunnel - why has no one called it the "vunnel" yet?, since it is loosely expected to approximate the current Alaskan Way viaduct - the underground plan has been on the table for a long time. Its main problem has been that it's been viewed as the Rolex plan - nice, maybe preferable, but awfully expensive.

Matt Fiske at Crosscut sums up the issues, which include the financial concerns (fair enough) but also adds this:

"My father Tyman Fikse was an expert who invented many tunneling technologies and spent his career designing massive tunnel boring machines (TBMs) for projects around the world. If there is one thing hanging out with "sandhogs" as a kid and riding muck trains miles in the dark deep below ground taught me, it is this: The earth will surprise you. Consider: The ground between preliminary core samples can change most unexpectedly. Geologic pressures are enormous. Tunnel liners shift and spring leaks. Gases escape — or worse. The best hard-rock boring machine will become gunked-up to a standstill if it is surprised by a section of sand or clay. Stuff happens. Deep tunnels are marvels of engineering that are also among the most difficult projects to plan in advance. To pretend otherwise is delusion. Remove the blinders and the real-world cost of the deep-bore tunnel will easily be double the current guess of $2.8 billion."

All of which sounds real-world. And yet . . . they had to do something.

So now they - and especially their successors (one of the signatories, King County executive Ron Sims, already is almost outta here) - get to ride the tiger.

Not quite so much the warrior, maybe

February 11, 2009
Gil Kerlikowske

Gil Kerlikowske

For coming on to 40 years, we've had a "war on drugs," which has become quite a war indeed. The February 2 Washington Post Magazine featured a must-read, detailed report about the raid on the home of a small-town mayor in Maryland: "Acting on a mistaken drug trafficking suspicion, a SWAT team broke down their door, shot beloved pets and shattered a happy home. Was it an extreme reaction, or business as usual in America's war on drugs?" (The pretext for the raid was a box containing drugs, which police themselves had planted at the mayor's front door.) In a followup online chat, one of the writers remarked, "Obviously, one of the most frightening aspects of this sad tale is that it could happen to any one of us."

This paramilitary activity in our country has been a federally-driven, primarily, development, pushed by presidents of both parties for four decades; the results have included no diminishment of drug activity but unabated violence which is becoming increasingly hazardous. Might the Obama Administration try a different direction?

In nominating Seattle Police Chief Gil Kerlikowske as "drug czar," Obama may be signaling that change is in the wind. Not radical, 180-degree turnarounds - which might have been what appointment of his predecessor, Norm Stamper, would have indicated - but significant adjustment at least.

The key touchstone here is Seattle Initiative 75, a 2003 measure which specifically called for making marijuana not legal exactly, but the lowest priority for law enforcement. The measure passed. It didn't pass with Kerlikowske's endorsement, but that has to be parsed: The Seattle Times reported local law enforcement considered it "vague, potentially confusing and unlikely to change what they do on the street" - in other words, not wrong as policy, but simply unnecessary. The followup sentence: "Arresting people for possessing marijuana for personal use, says Police Chief Gil Kerlikowske, is not a priority now." Since the measure's passage, the chief appears to have abided by its terms, without complaint. (more…)

The Peoria plan

January 27, 2009
Nick Licata

Nick Licata

In this time of weakening newspapers, as lots of people start looking for alternative models, the situation has gotten so serious that public officials are holding public meetings on the subject of "who will report the news?"

Specifically, in Seattle, where one daily newspaper - the Post-Intelligencer - is near certain to end printing and may or may not remain in some online form, and the other - the Times - is also in perilous financial shape. It's where tomorrow Seattle City Councilmember Nick Licata will convene a council Culture, Civil Rights, Health, and Personnel Committee meeting, and devote most of it to "a panel discussion about the importance of maintaining diverse media outlets, the future of daily newspapers, and the potential roles and responsibilities that a community can take to keep public discourse healthy and thriving." (It is supposed to be streamed.)

That's noteworthy right there, since it means the search for news alternatives in the Northwest now has its first substantial public elected official taking point.

The meeting already seems to have had one effect at least: Discussion of what's being called the Peoria Plan. A piece today in the site Crosscut describes it: In Peoria, Illinois, where the daily paper also is in serious trouble, there's talk about creating and using a new type of business structure to encourage news operations.

This blog generally has become increasingly wary of new business structures, but if limited and defined properly this one, called the LC3, has com promise. It's described as a hybrid, with some allowance for limited profits, but also some status as a charity, making possible tax-deductible contributions, which could allow some newspapers to become something akin to non-profits (a term which is in itself a term of art).

The Crosscut piece is worth reading. And the meeting tomorrow should be worth watching.

Circuit City closes

January 16, 2009

A big story nationally - there being 567 big-box stores involved - but notable in the Northwest: Circuit City said today it is shuttering all its stores in the United States (though, for some reason, not in Canada). Jobs lost: About 30,000. The company has been in bankruptcy proceedings since November.

CC is a big retailer in the Pacific Northwest. It has nine stores in the Seattle-Tacoma area, one at Bellingham, two around Spokane, one at Richland, five at Portland, two at Salem, one at Springfield, one at Medford, two at Boise, one at Idaho Falls (Ammon) - 25 big stores in the region, employing a whole lot of people. Or, did employ.

On the consumer level, this has a notable impact in some of the smaller metros; Boise, Bellingham, the Tri-Cities and Idaho Falls will have relatively limited choices at this point for consumer electronics.

Goodbye, P-I?

January 9, 2009
pi

Post-Intelligencer flag

UPDATE The bad rumors have turned real. This just in: "The Seattle P-I is being put up for sale, and if after 60 days it has not sold, it will either be turned into a Web-only publication or discontinued entirely. 'One thing is clear: at the end of the sale process, we do not see ourselves publishing in print,' said Steven Swartz, president of the Hearst Corp.'s newspaper division. Swartz addressed the P-I's newsroom at about noon Friday, flanked by P-I editor and publisher Roger Oglesby and Lincoln Millstein, Hearst's senior vice president for digital media."

UPDATE 2 The corporate letter on the situation.

Last night, when KING-TV reported that the Seattle Post-Intelligencer was about to be put up for sale - as necessary legal prologue to closing it in a month or so - our reaction was caution. The story apparently had a single unnamed source, and everyone quoted by name, at the P-I and the Times, said they knew nothing of a planned sale.

That doesn't mean the report wasn't credible - metro papers all over the country are in this kind of position, and if a sale/closure isn't being mapped out now, it's probably not far off.

Midday today, the story is looking more likely because of the response, when finally elicited, from the publisher (Roger Oglesby) of the P-I: "There's nothing I can tell you now. I will call you later today."

Uh oh.

The Northwest hasn't lost many daily papers in the last few years: after, of course, a long stretch when the numerous multi-paper cities slid to one apiece. (The last lost was the east-King County paper based at Bellevue, a couple of years back.) The loss of the P-I means the last city in the Northwest with two general-interest daily newspapers will have just one. (more…)

Seattle: About to rumble?

January 8, 2009
Greg Nickels

Greg Nickels

When Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels was first elected to that job in 2001, the campaigning was tough. First there was the matter of outpolling a sitting mayor, Paul Schell (and dispatching of a bunch of sliver candidates), but that turned out to be the easier part. In the runoff with City Attorney Mark Sidran (just recently cycled off the state utilities commission), it's easy to forget now that Sidran raised and spent far more money, probably had a broader range of support, and got most of the media endorsements. In the runoff, Nickels won with 50.1% of the vote, likely the closest major race in Washington until the governor's contest three years later.

It's a sign of how readily office holders can establish themselves - and Nickels did, forcefully - that re-election in 2005 was an easy walk, not a run, prevailing with a 29% lead over his nearest opponent. And there's some thought that this year - and Nickels evidently will seek a third term - may be more of the same, as demonstrated in the decision by City Council President Richard Conlin not to run for the job.

And yet it's not that simple. Over at Crosscut, editor David Brewster makes a persuasive argument that this election still may turn into a snorter. Odds favor his case.

The key point is Nickels' favorability ratings in the polls, which long had held to a generally sound level but in recent months have taken a serious hit. The recent no-road-salt dispute in the city - the decision not to salt snowy Seattle roads, a decision later apparently reversed - may have been a contributing factor in Nickels' 28% favorables in one recent poll. Such a low number likely will rebound, at least somewhat. Even so, some core vulnerability is evident. (more…)