Bremerton Motel 6 Explodes After Gas Leak: One person is critically injured and two are unaccounted for, the Seattle Times reports. The building was evacuated just minutes before it burst into flames, after reports of a gas leak.
Mayor Murray Rallies Supporters of His Hookah Bar Crackdown to City Council: Things got heated in the city council chambers on Monday between groups supporting and opposing the mayor's proposal to shut down all Seattle-area hookah lounges. Josh Kelety has a full rundown on what the two sides are saying and what appears to be a generational gap between them. Kelety notes that the mayor's office called supporters and asked them to show up at City Hall—a tactic that detractors of Kshama Sawant frequently bray about, as if there's something wrong with it. Donnie Chin, the International District public-safety activist, was reportedly shot and killed last month as he monitored an area outside a hookah lounge. Some feel Murray is using Chin's death to push an anti-hookah-lounge agenda, though the mayor's office hasn't explicitly made that connection.
City Council Takes Up Mandatory Inclusionary Zoning: The zoning policy is the centerpiece of the compromise between affordable housing activists and developers reached during the HALA negotiations, and it still has the mayor's support, unlike other recommendations from the housing committee. The policy is expected to create 3,700 units affordable to people making 60 percent area median income or below (around $40k), with a further 2,400 units to be funded by linkage fees. If you need a refresher, and you probably do, David Kroman at Crosscut explains how this works:
The meat and bones of this strategy are the HALA proposals for mandatory inclusionary housing and commercial linkage fees. The former allows developers to add an extra floor above what current zoning allows. But regardless of whether or not developers take advantage of that floor, it requires that they include 5-7 percent affordable housing. Developers can choose to pay a fee rather than include affordable units. The latter levies a per square fee on developers of commercial real estate that the city would use to build affordable housing.
Seattle Police Pull Over Speeding Car, Help Deliver a Baby: And the story got picked up by the BBC. You can't see a lot from the dashcam video, but former Stranger writer and current SPD blogger Jonah Spangenthal-Lee posted a thank-you note from the father of the newborn. The note said Officer Anthony Reynolds removed fluid from the baby's mouth so she was able to breathe. "I was surprised and deeply touched by the compassion of Officer Reynolds," the father said. "He stayed with us during the entire time and went above and beyond to ensure the safety of my wife and newborn child."
This Is the Argument of Opponents to Reform of Seattle's Campaign Finance Rules: "The number one reason people don’t contribute to political campaigns is because they don’t want to.” Um, really? Sightline's Serena Larkin, a member of the Honest Elections Seattle campaign, whose November ballot initiative would distribute candidate donation vouchers to voters, dismantles the claim right here.
In Vancouver, a Bear Spent the Afternoon in a Hot Tub: The bear pushed down a fence and then went swimming, Canada's CTV News reports, and the homeowner's video system caught it on tape.
Seattle Met Ranked All of the Seattle Starbucks: The pithy one- or two-sentence rankings of the city's 104 stores are occasionally amusing, but, in the end, not very useful. The link is there if you want to click on it.
Video of Hillary Clinton's Behind-Closed-Doors Meeting with Black Lives Matter Activists Is Out: Watch it over at GOOD magazine, or below. The short version is that Clinton ignores a question about her own support for mass incarceration, waves her hands in their faces, and tells the activists they need to give her a policy agenda she can run with. "I've said it a million times, but let me be explicit. No BLM folx should be tap dancing for and meeting with white politicians," said Marissa Johnson, the Seattle Black Lives Matter activist, on her Facebook feed yesterday.
