UW Screws Neighborhood

We all know about the questionable property takings that would level the south end if Sound Transit builds its preferred light rail system. Less publicized are the property losses at the University of Washington. If the U-District rail station is built as planned, the UW will lose a parking lot. And that just won't do. UW administrators have been lobbying to move the station site a block west, toward the Ave. That way, their parking lot would be saved. Unfortunately, the neighborhood would lose every building between the University Bookstore and NE 45th Street, including the eight-story, 124-unit Malloy Apartments, a tower of affordable housing for years. -- BEN JACKLET


Showing up Boeing

August 22nd's Seattle Times headline was titanic: "Software Payroll Surpasses Aerospace." In short, state economic data showed that "Jet City" has officially become "Jetson City" -- with sci-fi computer whizzes, rather than airplane mechanics, driving our economy.

And the power shift from Boeing to Microsoft isn't only showing up in escalating housing prices. The historic changeover is also altering Seattle's voice in Washington, D.C. According to a recent study by the Center for Responsive Politics, Boeing's lobbying expenditures dropped 15 percent between 1997 and 1998, while Microsoft's wining and dining budget rose 76 percent. -- JOSH FEIT


Amazon Goes Fishin'

Low-wage permatemps at Amazon.com should be thrilled to learn that the company recently lured its new chief operating officer into the job with an estimated $25 million in signing bonuses. According to the Wall Street Journal, Amazon managed to outbid PepsiCo's Frito-Lay Unit for the services of Joseph Galli by agreeing to pay him $5 million cash, plus options on 1.96 million shares worth at least $20 million. By comparison, Galli's salary of $200,000 seems paltry. -- BJ


Lolla-Licata

The parade of progressive city council hopefuls who showed up at current City Council Member Nick Licata's fundraiser on Saturday night, August 28, should have been taking notes... on how to throw a party. Licata, who's not up again until 2001, raised $3,500 from a roomful of low-income housing activists and labor organizations by putting on a one-of-a-kind event. Held in Licata's lovely Capitol Hill group house, the evening featured a belly dancer, a henna tattoo artist, a poetry reading, a guitaring troubadour, and an impromptu blues stomp starring Charlie Chong campaign manager Matt Fox. -- JF