The city is trying to collect $3 million in fines owed by Hugh Sisley, whos widely known as a slumlord.
The city is trying to collect $3 million in fines owed by Hugh Sisley, who's widely known as a slumlord. The Stranger

City Will Seize Slumlord Properties to Build a Park: The city wants to seize properties near Northeast 65th Street owned by slumlord Hugh Sisley (who has been fined $3 million to date), demolish the buildings, and build a park there, reports KING 5.

UW Is Investigating Allegations That Frat Members Called Black Lives Matters Protesters "Apes": According to a complaint from student protesters, this involved members of the Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity and happened during a protest in February. We can all just agree fraternities are gross, right?

Climate-Change-Denying Senator Andy Hill Is Thinking About Running for Governor: Just what we need! This is according to an e-mail from former Washington secretary of state Sam Reed leaked to The Stranger.

Here Are the Bills That Are Still Alive in the State Legislature: Among them, measures to combine the recreational and medical marijuana markets, to decrease college tuition, and to raise the minimum wage to $12 over the next four years.

Vaping doesnt make you look cool, kids. Just look at this guy.
Vaping doesn't make you look cool, kids. Just look at this guy. Alexander Mak/Shutterstock

Kids Are Vaping More (Weed or Tobacco? We Don't Know!): The county has released the preliminary results of its latest Healthy Youth Survey, and a couple bad things are trending down among 10th- and 12th-grade students: alcohol use and cigarette smoking. Cool! But vaping is up, like, a lot. Just 2 or 3 percent of students reported "any use of e-cigarettes or vaping in the past 30 days" in 2012. (See how that question could mean vaporizing pot or tobacco?) In 2014, that number was about 14 percent for sophomores and about 22 percent for seniors. As Seattlish points out, this is likely to get parents and lawmakers already worried about e-cigs even more riled up. One more note on this survey: Despite the legalization and increasing normalization of weed, kids' reported marijuana use is about the same as it was in 2008, even slightly down. But, "almost a quarter of seniors (23.7%) reported riding in a car with someone who had been using marijuana."

Speaking of Weed, a Bunch of People in Washington Don't Know the Most Basic Facts of Our Pot Law: The University of Washington found in a small survey of "115 low-income families of teens attending Tacoma middle schools" that only 57 percent of people knew the legal age for using recreational marijuana in Washington, reports the AP. In case you don't trust a university, KIRO replicated the results by asking people on the street.

WTF Is Powdered Alcohol? Washington state senators have passed a bill regulating powdered alcohol—which you mix with water to make a cocktail and which some people worry kids will start snorting—even though other states have banned it, reports KOMO.

There's a Rumor Out There That John Roderick Wants to Run for City Council: As Publicola points out, the lead singer for the Long Winters "would bring a shot of Seattle's defining, indie rock–era counterculture to city hall—a major element of Seattle that has only edged its way into politics over the years via nightlife issues but hasn't brought its urban sensibility to city policy in other ways." And he'd be the second arty type to jump in, joining James Keblas, whom I reported earlier this week is considering a council run .

Thats some very expensive responsive design.
That's some very expensive responsive design.

The Seattle Times Spent $4 Million Redesigning Its Website: That number also includes some other digital "advertising and business products" yet to be released. "It doesn't match up to the more than $100 million the Times spent on its printing press back in the 1990s," reports the Puget Sound Business Journal, "'but that was a different kind of technology,' [publisher Frank] Blethen said."

More Workers Were Injured on the Tunnel Project in 2014 Than the Previous Two Years Combined: That's according to an AP investigation, which didn't even include all of 2014's injury claims.

Mayor Murray Talks About Housing Crisis and Homelessness: Among the other things he told KUOW in this interview, Mayor Ed Murray says he doesn't support allowing new homeless encampments in residential areas—as some council members have tried to propose—because he thinks that would allow encampments in parks and community centers and other low-income people need access to those parks and community centers. “I don’t think we should pit one good against another good," he says.

Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz and Seattle Police Chief Kathleen O'Toole Got Together to Talk About Race Yesterday: At the Starbucks at 23rd and Jackson. Casey Jaywork was there reporting.