King County home prices down 12 percent: Since spring, reports Mike Rosenberg with the Seattle Times. The times of record-high home prices that we saw early last year are now a distant memory. Seattle-area homes have a new median price: $739,000. That’s a $91,000 drop. It’s a similar story across the county. It’s also a nice time to be a buyer since there’s a heckuva lot of supply to go around and plenty of time to mull over choices—”The number of single-family homes for sale across the county jumped 148 percent from a year prior.”
A word of warning: Seattle City Council members Teresa Mosqueda and Lisa Herbold spoke in New York today about the reality of living next door to Amazon. The company is planning to embed itself within New York’s Long Island City for HQ 2 1.5. Mosqueda and Herbold are urging New Yorkers to pass affordable housing and transportation legislation now that will protect them later when Amazon comes knocking.
Blue C Sushi is dead: The sushi was never particularly good and the conveyor-belt food delivery was more a nuisance than a convenience. But, the Seattle-based chain never seemed like it was in particular jeopardy. Except this weekend, employees were notified that nearly all of them were fired and that Blue C Sushi would, almost immediately, cease to exist. The email cited “unexpected financial and other circumstances” as the cause. In a somewhat fishy detail, staff will receive their final paychecks at nearby Starbucks locations. Seattle Eater muses that the company may no longer have access to its restaurants.
Washington representative Rep. Adam Smith being pretty fucking blunt on CNN: Atta boy, Adam. The new Chair of the House Armed Services Committee has no time for Trump’s “drunken sailor” border nonsense. It’s partly a response to Trump blasting Smith on Twitter earlier today. Smith’s got a lot to say:
It would be a huge mistake to declare a national emergency to pay for the President’s wall. There is no national emergency. The President is artificially creating this “emergency” to keep up his anti-immigrant and racist campaign promise. pic.twitter.com/AA3NaMAyIT
— Rep. Adam Smith (@RepAdamSmith) January 7, 2019
Seattle city council challenger gets Jayapal’s seal of approval: Tammy Morales is a community organizer who first ran against incumbent Bruce Harrell for the District 2 seat in 2015. She nearly unseated him. Now, she’s entering the race again. This time, she’s got Pramila Jayapal’s support on her side. District 2, which makes up Southeast Seattle and parts of south downtown, is one of the most diverse districts in Seattle. Morales said she thinks those constituents are hungry for change. It’s unclear whether Harrell will seek reelection.
A chilly night: My bones are already cold at work. I guess the plastic covering our windows in our ancient (but historically landmarked—that’s a verb now) building don’t really do a whole lot for insulation. It keeps us on our toes here. Keeps us fresh and alert! Someone send me a blanket. Some people still don’t have power from the wind storm this weekend so I probably shouldn’t be complaining.
It is going to get cold tonight. Most areas that are still reporting power outages after Sunday morning’s storm will see lows in the lower to mid 30s. Be carbon-monoxide safe: If you don’t have power, don’t use a generator or grill indoors, in carports, or in garages! #wawx pic.twitter.com/bClYjGCVdp
— NWS Seattle (@NWSSeattle) January 7, 2019
Cyntoia Brown’s life sentenced has been commuted: She killed a man who picked her up for sex. She was 16-years-old and a victim of sex trafficking. Still, she was sentenced to life in prison. After a slight 51 years, she’d be up for parole. But, after widespread outrage—some of it from celebrities—over the sentence, Brown, who has served 15 years of her sentence, is getting out of jail. Gov. Bill Haslam of Tennessee granted her clemency today. She’ll be released in August.
Far-right asshole ejected from Whitman County GOP: James Allsup, that piece of shit who used to be the president of the college Republicans at Washington State University, was unanimously voted out of his position of precinct committee officer. Allsup, who attended the alt-right rally at Charlottesville in 2017 and is a prolific far-right YouTube personality, sucks. Anyone who is known for going on racist rants probably does and probably shouldn’t hold any kind of power in public office. Glad to see the Whitman County GOP realize this, too.
This is a terrible take: Your Period of Maximum Constraint life hack should not be to clog mass transit routes. Ditch the car and take the bus and, spoiler alert, you’ll get to take those routes without being a massive asshole.
#ViaductShutdown starts Friday night. Great tip from @mattmarkovich who found city engineers can adjust traffic lights on the fly when commuters jam other streets.
*Drive on streets that have bus routes. Priority going to mass transit. #KOMONews pic.twitter.com/eQIT1CPIsW
— ElisaJaffe (@ElisaJaffe) January 7, 2019
Trump will be addressing the nation tomorrow night: To talk about “the Humanitarian and National Security crisis on our Southern Border.” CNN, CBS, and (shockingly) Fox News will air it. Other networks are deliberating. Should Trump be given this free air time?
California monarch butterfly numbers have dropped drastically: They’ve dropped by 86 percent since a year ago. They migrate to California coastlines for the winter, but not as many are turning up this year. The populations have declined 97 percent since the ’80s. A lot of things could have caused these plummeting numbers—the wildfire season definitely didn’t help.
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