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The Ties That Bind
At first glance, it seems like good news for the monorail. When Olympia legislators passed the state transportation bill on March 14, they included a monorail bill as part of the package. The bill would let Seattle tax itself to build the monorail. Unfortunately, this is actually terrible news for monorail fans. The problem: Olympia's transportation bill is headed for a public vote; if the public votes down the transportation bill--a $16.4 billion package that includes ferries, new bridges, and an I-405 expansion--the monorail bill sinks too.
"It's a bad domino effect," says lead monorail campaigner Peter Sherwin. Sherwin is starting a campaign lobbying Governor Locke to veto Section 18 of the monorail bill--the section that ties it to the statewide vote. Monorail warriors: Call Locke at 360-902-4111. PAT KEARNEY
Stranger Personals
#18 The Mystery of the Moss-Covered Mansion
The stately, columned white building on Pike Street, across from Bauhaus Books & Coffee, is in the middle of a transition from creepy mortuary to office space. Last October, Butterworth Funeral Home sold the three-story building for $2.4 million and moved operations to Queen Anne, says Jerry Everhard, who represents the new owners, Groff-Murphy LLC.
"Most of the great character is on the main floor," Everhard says of the 1922 building. "We're keeping that pretty much intact." NANCY DREW
The Shopping Liberation Front
Seattle City Council Member Margaret Pageler introduced a council resolution on March 11 that would scrap a Northgate neighborhood rule requiring developers to go through something called a General Development Process (GDP). The GDP gives Northgate neighbors the chance to challenge and tweak major development plans such as Simon Property Group's current project to redevelop Northgate Mall.
The GDP has given Northgate-area environmentalists the leverage to battle for daylighting Thornton Creek, currently covered by the mall's south parking lot. Daylighting would be impossible if Simon Property Group went ahead with its current plans to expand the mall, which include building on that spot.
"The community and environmentalists want to see this creek daylighted. A vote to repeal the GDP process is going to make that less likely," says Knoll Lowney, attorney for the Thornton Creek Legal Defense Fund, which has successfully kept Simon's plans hung up in red tape.
Indeed, citing frustrations of Northgate tenants like Nordstrom, Pageler's resolution says that the GDP has created an unfair roadblock for commercial development. "Northgate Mall is in substantial need of redevelopment in order to provide a vital shopping experience," Pageler's resolution says. JOSH FEIT
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