In Other News

At Odds with the Ethics Commission

City council member Richard McIver is again at odds with the city’s
Ethics and Elections Commission (EEC).

In May, the EEC slapped McIver with two $500 fines for awarding a
$37,000 no-bid contract to a friend, attorney Joann Francis, who
also represented McIver during his domestic-violence case earlier this
year.

The EEC stipulated that McIver should pay the fine out of his own
pocket, but the EEC instead received a check for $1,000 from the
city’s law department.

McIver—who has been out of City Hall for some time while
recovering from surgery—sent out a brief statement on August 26
citing a city law that indemnifies council members against any
fines related to their work.

“The actions in question had occurred within my responsibilities as
a member of
the city council,” McIver wrote. JONAH
SPANGENTHAL-LEE

New Rules for Reefer

On August 25, a crowd overflowed from a hearing room and onto a lawn
at the state Department of Health offices in Tumwater, where about 150
people had come to comment on proposed new rules about the quantity
of pot a medical-marijuana patient can possess and grow.

Testimony responded to a draft version of the rules released earlier
this year (as required by a bill passed in 2007 by the legislature),
which would allow each authorized patient to possess up to 24 ounces of
dried marijuana, 18 immature plants, and six mature plants. But
patients rebuked those limits, saying that the sickest among them would
need more marijuana to treat their conditions.

“Patients don’t grow very well and they wouldn’t be able to get
enough marijuana off of six plants,” says Ric Smith, a cancer and AIDS
patient who testified. Smith and others also contended that defining
“mature” plants as 12 inches or taller was too short, and patients
would accidentally run afoul of the law, since tallness isn’t an
accurate measure of a plant’s maturity.

Under the existing state law, passed by voters in 1998, patients
with a physician’s written recommendation can have an ambiguous
“60-day supply” of marijuana, which allows law enforcement to
arrest patients for any quantity. Those patients then have to raise
their defense in court.

The Department of Health is expected to release its final rules for
medical marijuana patients in mid-December. The rules would go into
effect one month later. DOMINIC HOLDEN

An Unmitigated Disaster

The city’s first car-free Sunday turned out to be an
unmitigated disaster. On August 24, the city shut down 14th Avenue East
between Republican Street and Volunteer Park—cars weren’t allowed
on the streets to make it more pedestrian friendly—and sent out a
fleet of meter maids and tow trucks to deal with cars left on the
street. All told, the city wrote 21 citations and towed 13 cars.
The event also ended a few hours early due to a massive downpour.

Mayor Greg Nickels’s spokesman Alex Fryer says the city will now be
sending warning letters to the people who received citations, rather
than fining them, and will reimburse drivers who had to pay to get
their car out of hock.

“I think this was supposed to be a positive thing, and
citations and towing cars wasn’t how we wanted to [raise awareness of]
this event,” Fryer says.

The next car-free Sunday will be from 3:00 to 6:00 p.m. on August 31
on Rainier Avenue between Orcas and Alaska streets. The city will also
close Alki Avenue in West Seattle on September 7. Remember to move your
car. JONAH SPANGENTHAL-LEE