Slick use of dehumanization

The Thursday deadline passed without action, and today the Nickelsville tent city is still there. Maybe Hizzoner decided it would be bad to express support for the homeless one day (see yesterday), and take away one of their places to live the next.

And notice how concerned the Mayor's Office is about the human dimension:

City crews placed more than a dozen no-trespassing signs in and around the camp, dubbed "Nickelsville" in defiance of Mayor Greg Nickels, about two hours before the deadline of a 72-hour eviction notice.

But the 5 p.m. deadline passed without incident at the site in an industrial area in the Highland Park neighborhood.

"We don't announce when the cleanup will happen," said Karin Zaugg Black, Nickels' spokeswoman. Source

"Cleanup." Cleanup is what you do to garbage. People get evicted.

Don't dehumanize the residents of Nickelsville, Ms. Black. Call the eviction what it is.

More: Mayor, Zaugg claim no shelter shortage, define controversy as "political"

The post with Dan Rather

Toddled over to the Westin today, to attend the Plymouth Housing Group annual luncheon. I love this group, it is unbelievably effective in planning, funding and constructing transitional and low income housing around downtown Seattle. And they also provide the medical and social support services people need to avoid becoming homeless again.

Anywho, the annual luncheon always features a celebrity draw. A couple years ago it was Malcolm Gladwell; last year was Martin Sheen. Today at least a thousand people turned out to hear journalist Dan Rather, who spoke in broad historical terms about the rise, neglect and potential fall of the social welfare system in the United States.

Rather is eloquent and cerebral -- which is easy to forget reporters can be, given the current state of the profession's blow-dried ratings leaders.

Also given a few minutes to speak were former mayor Norm Rice, and current mayor Greg "Seattle's Green Mayor" Nickels. Both spoke of the need to reduce homelessness; Nickels finished his free lunch, then slipped out when the lights went down for the video profiling several Plymouth residents.

Nickels' appearance, frankly, was a breathtaking display of chutzpah. I wonder if he'll feel the same way about the homeless tomorrow.

Nickels. He finished lunch and scooted.

The Other Thing:

The new website for the Sam Seder/Marc Maron online show can be seen at mvslive.com, give it a look and enjoy the videos.

New sidewalks -- but not for YOU

Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels rolled out a new initiative on sidewalk construction today -- but this new development is literally about development. Or more accurately, redevelopment.

It's yet another anti-community, responsibility-evading government response in the many-year attempt to get the City of Seattle to do something about funding the basic public infrastructure that sidewalks represent.

Nickels's plan: require sidewalks be built in front of most new residential construction, as well as major renovation/expansion of existing homes.

Who benefits? Transportation and infrastructure interests in the city budget that are not pedestrian related. Nickels's plan does nothing to address the inequity in funding between roads (one big pot of public money) and pedestrian facilities (homeowners must pay out of pocket, and compete against other neighborhoods for grants).

And they all look just the same

The particularly distasteful and outrageous aspect of Nickels's plan is that it shows how he continues to have his eye on just one objective -- enriching developers through redevelopment projects. His plan means that if you need sidewalks on your street, the solution is for you to move somewhere else: sell to a developer who tears down your home, and replaces it with a new cookie-cutter "Northwest Style" townhouse cluster (curse you, Carlson Architects) with a sidewalk out front.

The cost, of course, is passed on to the new buyers -- not you -- and the money goes into the developers' pockets.

That's the price of sidewalks under this municipal regime.

Streetcar may need city loan

Licata proved right about operating costs

Seven months before Seattle christens its new South Lake Union streetcar, the expected operating costs are increasing.

And the income from train and station advertising, though robust, is going to arrive more gradually than planned.

So, Mayor Greg Nickels is asking the City Council to give the streetcar a line of credit -- up to $3 million -- to be repaid within 10 years...
. . .

Metro Transit, which will operate the trains, plans to bill the city $2 million a year, compared to the city's original $1.5 million estimate. Startup costs will add $500,000, compared to the early estimate of $144,000. The current shortfall is about $1.5 million for the first two years of operations, said a City Council staff analysis issued this week.

Rising costs would mean that the streetcar would soak up a greater share of Seattle's Metro Transit allotment than earlier thought, limiting bus-service expansion to other neighborhoods.

. . .

City Councilman Nick Licata, an early opponent, has long warned operating costs would rise.

"I think it's unfortunately indicative of how we're not paying attention to the more basic services around the city. How did Seattle become unaffordable? It's through a number of these projects that benefit a small sector of the population." Source

Ehh, what's a few million between friends? I mean -- those poor gentrifiers.

SDOT games system?

A little bird recently sang me a song about the process for applying to the Seattle Bridging The Gap transportation and parks fund.

The initial step is for citizens to write down their ideas for projects on official Project Identification Forms, which will be sent to the Seattle Department of Transportation for exploration -- screening. In other words, it sets up a bottom-up process in which the citizens tell the agency what they want.

SDOT may have other ideas. It seems that residents of Greenwood recently met with SDOT staff to discuss how to fill out the Forms. Instead, the staffers presented the residents with SDOT's own wish list of projects, and suggested that those be entered on the Project Identification Forms.

No doubt some people agreed, while others wrote up their own ideas. But SDOT coordinates screening of the projects and final recommendations -- whose projects will SDOT be more likely to choose?


New today:
Decisions on levy campaign leftovers were political

"Bridging the Gap" levy election cash under scrutiny

When Vic Odermat wrote a $1,000 check to the "Bridging the Gap" campaign last fall, he did so to support a property-tax levy for Seattle streets and bridges.

The owner of Brown Bear Car Wash never imagined $4,000 from the campaign fund would go to the Irish Heritage Club and possibly pay for a trip to Ireland for Mayor Greg Nickels' wife.

"Oh my goodness," Odermat said, when he learned that $31,557 in surplus campaign money was doled out after the Nov. 7 election to some nonprofit groups and campaign workers.
. . .
[Deputy Mayor Tim] Ceis said decisions on spending the surplus were made by the mayor's "political brain trust," which includes Ceis and Nickels' aides Viet Shelton, Regina LaBelle and Michael Mann. The mayor was told of the payments, Ceis said, but was "not very involved" in the decisions.

Ceis said he never thought about turning the surplus over to the city to help with street projects at the heart of the levy's mission. Source

Wouldn't it have been nice if the money had gone to citizen groups that want to plan pedestrian safety projects? Currently they are required to seek grants to hire consultants to do the work.

Political Landscape, Part One: Falling into the gap

Last fall as Seattle voters considered how they should vote on the Proposition 1 "Bridging The Gap" transportation ballot measure (Wiseline Institute - 1, 2), the attitude I heard among The Folk was -- I'm going to vote Yes because we need it, but why are we having a special levy for basic facilities?

I too adopted that rationale, and so vote Yes we did, to the tune of 53.4%.

The thing is, what I don't recall from the Pro campaign was an explanation of how it would be implemented: How would needs -- especially for pedestrian and bicycle facilities -- be identified? Prioritized? Selected? Projects planned?

A partial answer arrived yesterday in the mail, in a big envelope from the Department of Neighborhoods. "Money and resources are available for groups and individuals to get involved in improving their neighborhoods," the cover letter begins. Involvement is great, but how about money for actual improvements? But I kid. Then farther down:

Funds Available from Bridging the Gap Levy! (Larger Transportation Projects)... Using the attached blue form, community members are being asked to identify specific transportation problems or concerns. Seattle Department of Transportation will then explore your ideas, and using a review committee of neighborhood volunteers, will make project funding recommendations to the Mayor and City Council.

It appears therefore that while there is one fund, which Neighborhoods is calling "the NSF/CRF [neighborhood street fund and cumulative reserve fund] and Bridging the Gap Fund," the selection process is different from the old Neighborhood Matching/Small & Simple process. This is good. Sidewalk construction and repair never belonged in the Small & Simple process, a competitive one that essentially played neighborhoods against each other. Your project is worthy, it says to some, and to others Yours is not worthy. Fine for community artwork, not fine for projects that are about making unsafe streets safe places to walk.

Small & Simple treats basic pedestrian infrastructure as a luxury, that neighbors must agree to, and then pay a significant amount (on top of taxes) to build public sidewalks in the public right of way.

Clearly, Neighborhoods is not an engineering shop, so that it will hand-off project requests to SDOT is good. It is also bad.

In certain parts of Seattle, if you want your neighborhood to be safe for walking, you're on your own. You have to apply for grants even to plan sidewalks, because you have to hire a consultant -- that's right, City engineers don't lift a finger because your needs aren't in their budget. Then when you have a plan, you still must scrape together funding, hope you get into an SDOT budget for a future fiscal year and then, maybe, part of your neighborhood will get sidewalks.

Note that if you just want to be able to drive your car quickly around town, by way of whatever short cut strikes your fancy, SDOT is right there to serve you with planning services performed by a staff of necktie-wearing specialists, all paid for out of the department budget. And if the affected neighborhoods happen to find out about it, one of the necktie wearers will show up at their community meetings to tell them how silly they are to be concerned.

A hopeful part of the new process is that the Mayor and City Council will have the final word on projects. This takes the decision out of the hands of the SDOT bureaucracy and makes it a political process, meaning it might be more responsive to ordinary citizens. What we want is for the City's engineering specialists to, at long last, take pedestrian and bicycle needs seriously. Will the added political dimension accomplish this?

We'll pick up here next time.


Also today: Greg Nickels is out standing in his field (Newsweek).