Do the Math

EMP laid off 124 staffers (24 percent of its staff) this week. EMP spokesperson Paige Prill says the layoffs reflected EMP's commitment to being a "self sufficient, more efficient" nonprofit, and a downturn in visitors since September 11 (about 35 percent). Prill says EMP, which has been open since June 2000, had 840,000 visitors in its first year and about 360,000 in the last six months. JOSH FEIT


New Year's Resolution

Paige Kayner, owner of Aurafice Internet and Coffee Bar on Capitol Hill's Pine Street, is angry over the way the Seattle police treated the Infernal Noise Brigade's parade on New Year's Eve. So angry, in fact, that she might file a lawsuit. "I'm not after money," Kayner says. "I'm after accountability."

She ran into the riot-gear melee a few minutes before midnight on December 31 (she wasn't marching in the parade) and caught a faceful of pepper spray--a brutal reminder of 1999's WTO action on Pine Street, in front of her then-newly opened business. "I felt like [the police] screwed up then, and they would learn from it," Kayner says. "And here it is again." AMY JENNIGES


Eyman Eyes Sound Transit

Salesman Tim Eyman is planning to bring another initiative to the people. On Monday, January 7, Eyman filed I-776, a clever ploy to force a revote on beleaguered Sound Transit. Eyman is spinning the initiative as a follow-up to I-695, his 1999 initiative that limited the state Motor Vehicle Excise Tax (MVET) to $30.

I-776 posits that I-695 never truly took effect because voters in the four-county Sound Transit region still spend more than $30 on the MVET. Voters in King, Pierce, and Snohomish Counties approved a special Sound Transit MVET when they passed the regional transportation plan in 1996. Indeed, voters agreed to pony up an extra .4% sales tax and .3% Motor Vehicle Excise Tax.

With I-776, Eyman fuses two populist angles: The people didn't get what they asked for when they passed the original MVET restriction, and the people aren't getting the 21-mile light rail plan they voted for in 1996, so we shouldn't pay for the 14-mile stand-in. Eyman needs to gather roughly 200,000 signatures by July 5 in order to qualify for the ballot in November 2002. JOSH FEIT


The Monorail Bargain

On Monday night, January 7, in a packed City Council Chambers, the Elevated Transportation Company released the estimated building cost of the monorail. The proposed 14-mile line from Ballard to Downtown to West Seattle will cost roughly $970 million to $1.7 billion. Depending on how many train cars there are, and how fast they arrive (every two to four minutes!), the monorail cost ($70-$120 million a mile) is at least $30 million less than Sound Transit's light rail debacle ($150-$200 million a mile). PAT KEARNEY