On an afternoon that offered a welcome break from the recent spate of torrential thunderstorms, it was heartening (or, depending on your viewpoint, a little weird) to see dozens of earnest citizen-activist types packed into the tiny, overheated L-shaped box of Irwin's Cafe in Wallingford, where this year's city council contenders gathered Sunday to "meet and greet" the public.
Among the highlights:
• A shouting match between council incumbent Richard McIver and self-righteous aspiring perennial candidate Ángel Bolaños, who accused McIver of skipping out on meetings to develop the city's low-income housing levy. McIver's poised (but appropriately contemptuous) response: "If you haven't seen me at those meetings, then you've been going with your eyes closed."
• A heated exchange between King County Council Chairman Larry Phillips and two rural residents opposed to the Critical Areas Ordinances, which regulate land use in rural King County. The activists' seemingly scripted questions-plus the fact that they showed up at an obscure neighborhood forum on a Sunday in the first place-point to an organized and vocal opposition that isn't likely to disappear before next November's county elections.
• The conspicuous absence of former mayoral spokesman Casey Corr, who's running against council incumbent Richard Conlin. Corr did find time last week to send out a volley of anti-Conlin press releases, including one recycling this tired assertion: "We've had too many years of circus animals, strip clubs, and other silly stuff." (Circus animals, in case you missed the entire 2003 election, were a 2000 council issue that has since become lazy political shorthand for supposed council frivolity.)
An upcoming PBS documentary called Edens Lost and Found features a glowing segment on the efforts of the People's Waterfront Coalition to convince city and state officials to tear down the Alaskan Way Viaduct. But the film, which portrays the city's proposed $4-billion-plus tunnel in a less-than-flattering light, may have run into trouble with one of its funders: the City of Seattle.
A draft of the book that will accompany the film accuses unnamed "city officials" of supporting the PWC's work privately (while decrying it publicly); calls the city's tunnel plan unrealistic; and asks bluntly, "Does it make sense to blow $4.5 billion-to mortgage a city's future"-for what will likely be a temporary solution. Steve Nicholas, head of the city's Office of Sustainability and Environment, which contributed $25,000 to Edens, says the filmmakers have "assured" him that they'll broaden what he calls an "extremely narrow portrayal of Seattle's transportation challenges."
It's been five years since Nick Licata (currently the only single member of the city council) started dating Andrea Okomski, a recent UW law grad who, like Licata, got her political start in the mid-'90s neighborhood movement. Last weekend, the pair announced that they're making it official: The two plan to get married later this year. ■
