Meh, a fuckbunch of progs are resting in the pockets of big business.

I have my own reasons for not liking the CoC.

Join the National Federation of Independent Businesses, you'll be better served.

As usual, none of the Wall-Street Klandidates are discussing electoral improvement. --- http://theyrule.net

So even organized labor isn't sure what Sawant's fuss is about:

http://www.seattlemet.com/news-and-profi…

Also, if The Stranger really cared about the substance of this issue rather than the optics and narrative they would actually take the time/expense to send a reporter to the event. I attended one day of a Suncadia annual retreat when I covered city government for a suburban newspaper. It was as dreadfully boring as you'd expect, but a good window into individual council members' views on big picture issues of governance. There's a good argument to be made that elected officials meeting 100 miles away from their constituents is a violation of the spirit (if not the letter) of the Open Public Meetings law, but the histrionics about it being some Illuminati gala is childish.

low grade muckraking. you're acting like this isn't how shit gets done for the last millennia. grow up.

So does Sawant have any actual evidence for her charges, or is she just saying words?

To your objection about using taxpayer funding to cover the travel expenses - would you prefer that private corporations had paid their way? The entire point of public funding for travel is to remove the rather obvious conflict of interest.

The Stranger needs to get a real.reporter to cover the city beat.

@8 & 10 - You both said it correctly. Little Ansel is just trying to get clicks on his story. Bad writing and a little drama are this kids hallmarks. If people weren't leaving The Stranger in droves, they might consider firing little Ansel. Lord knows they should - he drags the bar down for this publication.

The men on the council need to take some cues from the women and buy some pants that fuckin fit correctly.

To a Stranger reporter I'm sure $1,350 seems like a fortune, but it's pretty minor in a city budget. So are the campaign contributions. Really, it's not about the money.

Now if you want to argue that City Council members are way too cozy with big business interests I wouldn't disagree. But this is a silly example to make that argument.

Is their any other civic group organized by labor or neighborhood people who could generate this level of attendance by this many City Council members? This far away from Seattle? And on the City's nickel? The answer is clearly No.

@9 well, she wasn't there and apparently neither was the Stranger, so no. I mean, of course it's possible, but this article and her accusation are at this point nothing but conjecture.



I like and support Sawant, so I'd like to see her be better and more substantial than this. Unfortunately I can't hold out as much hope for the current state of the Stranger's city reporting.

I'm usually pretty critical of Ansel's stories, but credit where it is due, this story raises an important issue (the cozy, to the point of unseemly relationship between corporate types and politicians). More like this Ansel. And you can dial down the red-faced anger/sarcasm tone even a bit more. The facts speak for themselves.

Hey! You got your hyper in my bole!

Screw the budget, I want to see the attendee list. $50 says David Sabey is on it.

Someone please put this cub reporter out of our misery.

@5 good luck getting the stranger to talk about eb5, I've posted about it on multiple threads but since it doesn't go with any of their current narratives they never buit up. Weird that "journalist" so close to Vancouver can't reconize this.