Taking marching orders from the Seattle Times.
Mayor Ed Murray: Turning on his own affordable housing committee. Kelly O

After More Than 10 Months of Process by an Affordable Housing Committee HE APPOINTED, and After Initially Supporting His Committee's Recommendations to Modestly Upzone This City's Single-Family Neighborhoods, Seattle Mayor Ed Murray Has Decided There's Too Much Backlash to Support That Idea Anymore: "The mayor," Ansel reports, "is backing away from two of HALA's key recommendations for more density in Seattle, and it is an all but swift and total capitulation to the Seattle Times... [On Wednesday] morning, Times columnist Danny Westneat declared 'upzoning' in single-family zones dead. (Even though council elections that could test the public's feelings on this issue aren't for another six days, even though no one elected Danny Westneat mayor, and even though Westneat only quoted three council members—one of them retiring—about the issue.) In a matter of hours, Murray effectively agreed with Westneat."

Portland Protesters Force Shell Arctic Drilling Support Ship to Turn Back: "Shortly after a Shell icebreaker attempted to leave Portland and appeared headed toward a Thursday morning showdown with protesters dangling from the St. Johns Bridge, the vessel turned around," Evan Bush and Hal Bernton report. "Greenpeace activists suspended themselves from ropes Wednesday to try to stop the icebreaker from heading north to the Chukchi Sea. On Thursday morning, it appeared that the daring protest was having at least some temporary results. The Fennica pivoted and turned back upstream." If the Fennica can't leave Portland, Shell can't drill in the Arctic this summer.


Body Found in Parking Garage at Northgate: "A woman’s body was found in a Northgate-area parking garage Wednesday night, and Seattle homicide detectives are investigating," the Seattle Times reports. "It was not immediately clear how she died."

Street runoff: fucking up local lakes and Puget Sound since...
Street runoff: Dirtying local lakes and Puget Sound ever since "impervious" streets were created. Abramov Timur/Shutterstock

Murray Outlines Plan to Manage 400 Million Gallons of Stormwater by 2020: Sydney Brownstone reports: "While Mayor Ed Murray was walking back from HALA recommendations on Wednesday, his office released another plan to deal with one of the city's longest-standing problems. Stormwater is the number one source of toxic pollution in Puget Sound (orcas!), and a lot of it has to do with the way our cities have been built. By covering everything in what urban planners call 'impervious surfaces' (asphalt, concrete, anything that supports the car economy), we've effectively cut off rainwater from following the usual process of being treated through tree cover, soil, root systems, and depositing in bigger bodies of water. Now our lakes and rivers are full of pollutants from the likes of cars, dog poop, and human anti-anxiety medications that come by way of stormwater rolling off of parking spaces or flooding a combined sewer system. Two years ago, the Seattle city council passed a resolution demanding a plan to retain or treat 700 million gallons of stormwater by 2025. The new draft Green Stormwater Infrastructure Strategy sets an interim goal to manage 400 million by 2020."

Gas Works Park Car Campers Being Removed: "Neighbors have been complaining about campers like this," KUOW reports. "In response, the city has given overnight campers through [yesterday] to move. But it offered help first."

The old, dangerously decrepit juvenile detention center.
The old, dangerously decrepit juvenile detention center. King County

New Committee Will Tackle Racial Disparity in King County's Juvenile Justice System: Yesterday, King County Executive Dow Constantine announced that he has "joined with Superior Court Presiding Judge Susan Craighead and members of the King County Council to announce members of a countywide steering committee charged with recommending solutions to a growing racial disparity in the regional juvenile justice system. It is the largest and most diverse group King County has ever assembled to act on juvenile justice issues." (The specific issue of the King County juvenile detention center in Seattle, and what to do about it, has been hotly debated on Slog—see here and here.)

The Dark Night Rises: Tim Eymans back, yet again, with an initiative for the fall ballot that seeks to change the Washington State constitution to his liking.
The Dark Night Rises: Tim Eyman's back, yet again, with an initiative for the fall ballot that seeks to change the Washington State constitution to his liking. ES

Coming This Fall, Tim Eyman's Plan to Mess with the Washington State Constitution: The Spokesman Review reports that Eyman's latest, I-1366, "requires the Legislature next year to place a constitutional amendment before voters that requires super-majorities from each chamber to approve any tax increase." Why? Because his last attempt at requiring super-majorities for tax increases was declared unconstitutional by the Washington State Supreme Court.

Officer Charged with Murder in Killing of Samuel Dubose: "A judge set bail at $1 million on Thursday for the former University of Cincinnati police officer who shot and killed a motorist, after a traffic stop over a missing license plate," the New York Times reports.