Soccer

Last year, as part of its annual budget process, the council unanimously voted to prevent the use of city funding to turn Magnuson Park's Hangar 27 into a private soccer arena operated by Arena Sports, until the city's parks department came up with an alternative that allowed the hangar to be used for other purposes. This week, a coalition of groups that use the facility, including the Northwest Crafts Alliance, Lakeside School, and Rat City Rollergirls, sent a letter to interim parks superintendent Betty Jean Brooks imploring her to come up with another alternative before sending the Arena Sports contract to the council. "Believe us, if this facility was not so vital to so many events which define us as a community, we would not be so passionate about this," the letter says. Parks spokeswoman Dewey Potter says the department is "continuing to work on our negotiations with Arena Sports," adding that she doesn't expect the department will send a contract to the council anytime soon. ERICA C. BARNET

Speak Out

Mayor Greg Nickels's nightlife license proposal will get its last formal public vetting Monday, June 4, in city council chambers at 6:00 p.m. Why should you care? Because nightlife in this city is heavily regulated already; because there are better ways to deal with nuisances like noise and litter than making clubs responsible for things that happen off their property; and because Nickels's license scheme would give the city excessive regulatory power, allowing city staff (who answer to the mayor) to shut clubs down for relatively minor violations. Go, sign up, and speak your mind. City Hall is located at 600 4th Avenue. ERICA C. BARNETT

Scandal!

While it's no tribal-casino scam like the one that got Mayor Nickels's son Jake Nickels in trouble last week, it looks like Team Nickels had a supersecret inside fix of their own.

The latest financial reports from the Team Nickels campaign show that the winners of a Nickels fundraising trivia night were all former and current Nickels and city staffers.

The suspicious winners included Nickels's community outreach director, Sharee Pierce, who won Gwen Stefani concert tickets; former Nickels campaigners Katie Kuciemba and Peter McGraw, who got gift cards to El Gaucho; and Jake Nickels himself, who scored $58 Mariner tickets. As of press time, no indictments were pending. NANCY DREW