day : 15/10/2006 3 results

Numbers game

A new wave of campaign signs washed up along Beach Drive and other points in West Seattle today, this time plugging Seattle Proposition 1, aka Hizzoner’s “Bridging the Gap” transportation tax. (Along Me-Kwa-Mooks Park, a pro-Prop 1 sign promises “More Bike Trails”; closer to Alki Point, the signs exhort “Fix This Street” — hmm, I’m not so sure that Beach Drive-paving $ is in there.) These signs join a semi-early blitz of “No on Referendum 1” signs, and if you think there’s potential for confusion between Prop 1 and Ref 1, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet — throw in King County Props 1 and 2 (plus Seattle Initiative 91, Seattle Charter Amendments 6-16, three state initiatives and a state referendum), and you might think you’re looking at a math worksheet instead of a ballot.

In case you haven’t done your research yet, here’s a few bullet points:
Seattle Prop 1 raises property taxes for a variety of transportation projects, NOT including the viaduct. About $12 extra per month if your house is worth $400K.
-Seattle Ref 1 asks if you approve of the city’s strip-club regulations (including the famous “four-foot rule”).
-King Co. Prop 1 asks if you’ll let county leaders sell off some real estate along Lake Union and the Duwamish (scroll down that page for the full list), which all dates back to a bond measure from almost a century ago.
-King Co. Prop 2 raises sales taxes a tenth of a percent to pay for more bus service (the list on this page mentions Delridge as a key corridor).

We’ll get to the double- and triple-digit ones later. No endorsements here at this point, though we have to say, we’re still a little consumed by bad feelings about the signature-gatherers for Ref 1, who stood outside the Westwood Village Target some months ago and tried to grab shoppers’ attention by barking, “DO YOU HATE STRIPPERS?”

Fun way to get out of the rain today

October 15, 2006 9:57 am
|    Comments Off on Fun way to get out of the rain today
 |   Fauntleroy | WS culture/arts

Never been to the Fauntleroy Fall Festival but sounds like it’s all indoors — 3 to 7 pm today, The Hall @ Fauntleroy (in the ex-school building, just up the hill from the Fauntleroy bizdistlet).

Tunnel schmunnel

West Seattle’s Most Famous Politician may well be cursing into his coffee this morning. Since no voter verdict is pending, a paper & pollster decided to take The Pulse of the People another way regarding Viaduct Vs. Tunnel Vs. Neither. The best stuff is in the middle of the story — the Guv says she’s glad to have SOME kind of public feedback; Hizzoner says, in effect, never mind the people, he’s got the back of future generations; West Seattle respondents say (60%-40%) JUST REPLACE THE DAMN THING AND BE DONE WITH IT, ‘KAY? One thing about the story bugs me, though. It mentions that the first round of questioning to poll respondents included asking them about The Third Option. However, the story never gets around to mentioning exactly how many preferred it. (Maybe there’s a breakdown in the “dead tree” version of the paper? Speaking of dead trees, that’s one of our next topics.)