Nightmare on Fifth Street
As an elected official, council member Richard Conlin can't give money to groups that advocate against issues pending before the council, like the monorail. But he can do the next best thing: Hire one of their contributors. Conlin's new legislative assistant, Allied Arts President David Yeaworth, wrote a check in 2002 to Citizens Against the Monorail, the anti-monorail campaign lobby. CAM's members have regrouped as OnTrack, the monorail "watchdog" group that's currently lobbying to add costs and delays to a monorail right-of-way agreement pending before the council. Conlin is OnTrack's council ally. Last week, he issued a statement that likened running the monorail through Seattle Center to putting the R. H. Thomson Expressway through the Arboretum. "If the council does not prevent running trains through the Seattle Center, the people will have to take direct action to do so," Conlin threatened.
Return of the Blob
Until nine months ago, Pioneer Square showed up as an amoeba-like red blob on city maps that track alcohol-related incidents--one dot for each report of drinking in public. That blob has disappeared. Last September, after years of neighborhood complaints, the council created an "alcohol impact area" around the neighborhood, restricting the types of beer and malt liquor that can be sold in the district and the hours alcohol can be sold.... On Tuesday, the council got a preliminary peek at a study of the effects of the alcohol impact area. The verdict: The blob had shifted--to Queen Anne, the city's other notable "hot spot." Meanwhile, alcohol incidents, formerly concentrated in the central city, had dispersed throughout the city. Next month, the council will begin discussing another, much larger alcohol impact area that would encompass the entire central city and the University District.
Return of the Ban
On Monday, May 3, council members voted to extend the city's 15-year-old "temporary" strip-club moratorium yet again--raising the specter of a lawsuit by a prospective strip-club operator. They also advised the mayor to come back no later than September 1 with a proposal to create a special zone for strip clubs somewhere in the city--a symbolically charged but legally toothless gesture. Meanwhile, the Seattle Times breathlessly reported the news that according to City Attorney Tom Carr, the "temporary" ban, which creates an effective monopoly for the city's existing strip clubs, might be illegal--as The Stranger had reported one week earlier ("Council News," April 29). This isn't the first time the Times has chased The Stranger's tail on the strip-club story. Last year, the Times reported that some city officials were thinking about ditching the moratorium--one month after The Stranger reported the exact same story ("Skimpy Evidence," Aug 21, 2003).
