SAE again? Shocking!

(Now that I think about it, I bet Kathlyn Ehl dated an SAE brother.)

SPD fires officer.

http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news…

And I hope the Stranger didn't spend more than $40.00 redesigning its website, because it sucks.

I thought that Sissley's land was supposed to be a part of some tower to be built in that block (which also had a lot of neighbors upset).

Still, it's darn impressive that the city has been going after him since the Nickels administration and still the buildings are there.
http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news…

If you powder it, people will snort! Not just "kids." Can you make it safe to snort? Dilute with benign filler? So boring you wouldn't bother. Not when there are plenty of actual drugs available in our fine city.

Agreed that vaping makes you look like a doofus. People look like they are sucking on cheap metal vibrators, and it makes a disgusting wet suction-y sound every few puffs or so.

I help people quit using tobacco for a living and sometimes this includes people who exclusively use e-cigarettes but want off those too. I've spoken to a couple of high school students (we have a special youth/under 18 program) who were caught vaping at their schools and told to go through several phone counseling calls with us to clear the it from their records (like cigarettes, e-cigs DO have an age limit of 18-and-over to buy).

Moving on to another post today, I once (20 yrs back, in a previous career) was the cook for a UW fraternity that I always felt was the exception to the rule that they must all be full of pricks. The house tended to attract guys who were science/math/pre-med students and was very diverse. The biggest display of machismo I saw was that each member was kind of expected to, at least once, donate bone marrow to the medical department for its experiments. If I knew ahead of time that one of my fellas was going to do that, I'd make sure to have his favorite food on the dinner menu that day.

AAAAAGGGGGHHHHHHH

A fucking park? Seriously? You've got one of the best locations for development in the region, right by a soon-to-open subway station with quick connections to Northgate, the U District, Capitol Hill, and downtown, and you're going to put...nothing on it?

Maybe you can get into a time machine and go Full Seventies, and build a concrete berm around the whole thing so it becomes a hidden crime magnet while you're at it.

YOU DON'T NEED A PARK. YOU NEED RESIDENTIAL UNITS AND SHOPS AND OFFICES. This isn't fucking Redmond or Covington.

I used to rent from Sisley via his middle man Keith Gilbert (who was once on the cover of Seattle Weekly regarding seattles worst slum lords). Hugh has had this coming a long time.
The park next to the HS sounds nice, but Seattle needs low income housing in almost every neighborhood, and his properties are a prime opportunity for the city to do right, especially (where this neighborhood is concerned) college students, families with school age children, and those who work in and near that neighborhood.

Powdered alcohol... brought to you by cyclodextrans.... ecause who wouldn't want a Febreze cocktail you can snort.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Febreze

Also, Matt the Engineer's (and subsequent commenters') takedown of Palcohol from last year: http://www.thestranger.com/blogs/slog/20…

(And a belly laugh from Urgutha Forka at comment #21.)

I live a few blocks from the Sishole, and agree it's a terrible place for a park. It's right up on 65th and near the forthcoming subway station. The site isn't large enough to provide space to get away from busy traffic. Froula Park is just a couple blocks away.

The best use for that land, for the neighborhood, would be more ground-level retail with a few floors of apartments.

I suspect the park idea was a bone tossed to the immediate neighbors, who have been dealing with this creep for the last few decades.

A park will be a refreshing change from the blight, but I do think it's a better spot for some development. It's close to Froula or Cowen/Ravenna Park already and Greenlake isn't a bad trip from there either. If they do a park I hope they have a food truck area or something, commuters and kids are gonna want some snacks.

They might need a park to justify eminent domain? Or they might want a park to preserve Mt Rainier views for Roosevelt. Maybe they could just give it to Roosevelt as a school extension.

A park isn't bad if everything else around it is upzoned.

I agree with the post stating that the city needs low-income housing. There is already a park 2 blocks North - Froula Park next to reservoir. . Maple Leaf Park is about a mile North. Greenlake Park is 6 blocks West, and Carkeek park to the South is about 2 blocks away. 65th and 15th NE is is a perfect location for low-income senior or family housing - walking distance to UW, Greenlake, major buslines, and light rail. Come on Seattle, put your money where your mouth is! There are people in the sisley houses who WILL BE DISPLACED.
Here is a recent paragraph from a Stranger article that addresses the housing issue as well as parks and homelessness:

Mayor Murray Talks About Housing Crisis and Homelessness: Among the other things he told KUOW in this interview, Mayor Ed Murray says he doesn't support allowing new homeless encampments in residential areas—as some council members have tried to propose—because he thinks that would allow encampments in parks and community centers and other low-income people need access to those parks and community centers. “I don’t think we should pit one good against another good," he says.

The city does have the right to protect neighbors property values and tenants rights to a safe rental unit.

The city would "inspect" without cause (tenant or neighbors complaints, city official observing poor external conditions) or register any property of mine over my dead body.

And those of you bemoaning expensive Seattle rents? This new invasion of property rights will certainly help keep them on the upswing!

"The city would "inspect" without cause (tenant or neighbors complaints, city official observing poor external conditions) or register any property of mine over my dead body."

Oh Seattleblahs, maybe someday you'll own some property, and we'll be able to have that come true!

I've been wondering for years why the city hadn't seized the Sisley properties long ago. Between the compounding arrears and the well-demonstrated threats to public health and indifference to public safety, the city would have been well within its legal rights to do so. No "future open space" justification required.

If such a seizure had happened during the Nickels era, it would have prevented much of the heightened emotional tenor that undermined the later rezone process, which resulted in the overwhelming majority of future Roosevelt growth being quarantined right next to the highway -- an objectively horrible place for apartments, not to mention farther from the upgraded-to-$500-million subway station.

It was more important to spite Sisley than to achieve a rational urban outcome with our massive infrastructural investment. And now it seems we'll be getting even less city than even the prior lousy compromise would have allowed. Worst of all worlds.

I'm glad Sisley will finally be relegated to an unpleasant historical footnote, but this outcome is more evidence of a city run by city-haters. The superlative Cowen/Ravenna Park is three ridiculously short blocks away. What the hell is the mayor thinking?

Clearly SAE's overall culture has a bit of historically racist culture that's being passed down from "elders"/alumni to the younger members, including fathers who are alumni teaching their sons the "ways" of SAE. I'm sure there have been times when this was quashed when there happens to be a black SAE member in the local chapter living in the house. I'd like to see a team of investigative reporters conduct research on this and expose some major shit with regards to SAE.

@17: there's no one in those houses - they've been boarded up for years.

Carkeek Park is 5 or 6 miles to the NW. You mean Cowan.

I will never forgive the Sisley family for lots of things, but especially for what they did to NW Author Betty MacDonald's depression-era home. It had been a lovely old Seattle Craftsman, but became beyond decrepit during his ownership, and when he wanted to demolish it he forced his tenants out - who had paid their rent - by sending a thug over to smash their electric meter with a baseball bat.

It sure appears Hugh Sisley is nobody's idea of a good landlord, good neighbor, or even maybe a good person. If the city needs to use fines and even depriving him of property he makes into dangerous eyesores and refuses to repair or keep safe and clean I can see their point.
But between that and sending a thug to destoy property is a leap.
Got any proof of that claim?

Why yes, Seattleblahs, I do.

@25: not sure why I'm bothering to respond to you, since you seem impervious to fact, but both Hugh and his brother Drake (and hired thug Gilbert) are fricking notorious in Seattle. Hugh was named worst landlord in Seattle by both the Weekly and Stranger. I had the unfortunate pleasure of renting from both of them and to describe them as bottom-feeding slumlords would be to malign most other slumlords.

And agreeing with others that turning the properties at 65th into a park is a horrifically stupid idea. The best revenge on Sisley would be to be build a couple of hundred units of below market rate apartments. With a kosher deli and halal eateries at street level.

@8 I believe it was theta xi on 18th ave. The u w daily referenced it in one of their editions.

@18: Well, if the city shows up with a warrant that you think is unjustified, you're certainly welcome to resist with force rather than raise an issue about it in court. Oh Seattleblues, when will you learn that violently resisting against any legal action you dislike doesn't make you any friends?

@19: Invasion of property rights? Cute. He owes the city money. He's not paying it. It's gone to collections is all. This is all just like Cliven Bundy using 'muh freedumbs' as an excuse not to pay his fines.
Funny that you call other people moochers when you're against forcing landowners and slumlords to pay their bills to the city, eh?

Sure, kick the slumlord to the curb. Put a park in there, or housing. But retail? Taco trucks? Street level eateries? WTF? Has corporatism become so de rigueur in this region that one literally cannot see a project without trying to squeeze some soulless capital out of it? We need less taco trucks, not more. This mindless "Spend! Spend! SPEND!!!" mentality threatens not just to doom us as a region but as an entire species. Why support such destructive mindsets?

@29

There were two issues in my comments, based on the original slog post.

First, this guy Sisley appears to have accrued large fines for safety and visual concerns. I worked with the city on a similar issue (750k in fines for unsafe or derelict properties) and they were willing to forgive all fines if he just brought his places into compliance. So in my opinion Sisley brought this on himself and if ge loses some property it's his own fault.

But in the reporting from the link this paper provided was a change in city policy regarding rental units. All landlords must register rental property with the city and submit to random, but at least once every 10 years, inspections. Not because of complaints or visibly neglected property, but because city officials want more power. Hell with them. I will neither register nor submit to warrantless invasion of my property by city lackeys.

" I worked with the city on a similar issue (750k in fines for unsafe or derelict properties) and they were willing to forgive all fines if he just brought his places into compliance."

Yeah kinda figured you are a slumlord Subhumanblues.

Likely a lawyer rather than a slumlord. The lexicon is legalese.

i have not seen a map detailing the plans, but i have heard (neighbor friends? comments?) the park does not include the pictured blighted houses as for those wanting more housing, the immediate area is already receiving a huge boom in housing and retail, and if what i seem to have heard is correct so will the lion's share of the sisley's holdings eventually.

@31: Don't understand the logic behind random inspections? It's no different than Weights & Measures dropping by my place of work unannounced to make sure we're in compliance. It keeps public purveyors of goods and services honest without making someone go to the trouble of report a complaint. Suppose you have a tenant who notices a violation (such as, say, missing smoke detectors) but doesn't go to the police about it, maybe because he's afraid of retaliation by his landlord, maybe because you offer him a couple bucks a month off his rent. That violation is still a hazard to the safety of your tenants and violates the relevant law, but it won't be caught without an inspection.

Like it or not, you are subject to the laws imposed by municipal, state, and federal authorities. If have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear, and it is a BUSINESS SERVING THE PUBLIC that is being inspected, not ONE'S PRIVATE RESIDENCE, and your privacy in that regard is therefore less protected. You're welcome to take it to court, but this sort of thing is pretty well established as fair, so long as the inspections are done evenhandedly (just like traffic stops, no biased picking and choosing of who to inspect), so you'll probably lose and have to pay court costs ON TOP of whatever fees for noncompliance.
Enjoy either having your stuff taken away from you or (more likely) knuckling under and following laws while loudly claiming that you're Fighting The Man. Say, are you still on your old health insurance plan that didn't comply with ACA standards? Like you promised you would be? Of course not, because insurance companies no longer offer non-compliant plans, and also because you're a little bitch. (See for reference regarding little-bitchiness: that time you offered me a ~$500.00 bet and then backed out of it.)

@31: Also, how are random inspections going to raise costs for landlords that would then be passed down to tenants? I imagine the fee for registration will be negligible on a per-unit basis, and it's not like the inspections themselves will be particularly costly besides an hour or two of the landlord's time every so often. The only potential cost I can see (and feel free to correct me if I'm missing something, as myself am not a landlord) is that you'll have to be more vigilant about keeping things to code (because who knows when a visit will be scheduled), incurring either higher maintenance costs or fines from not doing proper maintenance.

GASP. Are those higher costs you predict the result of housing code and rental law actually being enforced? Landlords won't be able to cut corners as much? Well, I have no pity for you on that front, and neither should you. You've explicitly said that if people don't like getting fined/imprisoned, they should just obey the law: easy as that! If you get fined for violations, it's your own fault for not fixing them in a timely manner, not that of the city for actually catching them, and your slip-ups shouldn't be a burden placed on your tenants, right? Or is this another case of the laws being only for people other than Seattleblues...?

Sounds like a good excuse to have dozens of properties in the city but renting out none of them.
"But you're hoarding land people could live on!!!!???!!!!11111"
"Yep, and all that needs to be done to fix it is for the government to change one stupid law. Then all of this would instantly turn into rental properties, and the magic pixie dust will spring forth from the ground to enrich everyone."
The solution is easy. Landlords simply need to stop renting. If you think it is hard to find a place to live in Seattle now, how hard do you think it would be if the top ten landlords decided "No. Not until you fix the laws."? Sure, you can slowly eminent domain a few properties at a time, after the lengthy lawsuits. But you'd never take enough land fast enough to stop the damage to the region.
If this law is that bad, there are venues to fight it. Use your wallet. Start a referendum. But don't just complain if it is really that bad. Do something about it. You have the power, the freedom, the right, and I'd argue the responsibility if random inspections are that horrible in your mind.