What the Fuck Happened With the 37th District Democrats’ Endorsement Process This Year? Heidi Groover wades into the hyper-local political insanity, including accusations that Harrell essentially bought votes in an endorsement clusterfuck that’s being compared—at least by people in the 37th—to Bush v. Gore. A note for people interested in math as well as intrigue: even if Harrell did everything he’s accused of, and even if all disputed votes were somehow subtracted from his endorsement vote total, he still would have won the endorsement. For what that’s worth.
Racial Disparity in Truancy Labeling in Washington: “Poor and minority students in Washington state are more likely to be labeled truants,” KUOW reports. “That’s according to the state’s 2015 Truancy Report out Wednesday. The law is clear in Washington. If a student has seven unexcused absences in a month, or 10 in a year, that counts as truancy. And the school district is required to file a truancy petition with juvenile court. But according to the truancy report, that only happens in about a third of the cases. Students who are reported as truants—at least in the high school grades—are disproportionately students of color, low-income students or in special education.”
Bertha Delays Could Cost Almost $80 Million: “The state has incurred $3.25 million in losses due to the two-year delay of the Seattle tunnel boring project, and expects costs to climb another $75 million as a result of the delay,” the Puget Sound Business Journal reports. “The new figures, which were included in a Sept. 25 letter to insurers, are mostly for consulting and staff costs related to the delays. It’s just more evidence that while the tunnel boring machine is getting close to digging again, the legal battles are just beginning.”
Sawant to Demand Answers on Lowered Discipline for SPD Officer: As Ansel reported here, Seattle Police Chief Kathleen O’Toole took advantage of a loophole in police accountability rules and quietly lowered the recommended discipline for a cop who pepper-sprayed a peacefully protesting public school teacher on Martin Luther King Day. The department’s top misconduct investigator had recommended a one-day suspension without pay for the officer, Sandra Delafuente; O’Toole gave Delafuente an oral reprimand and—perfectly legit under current rules—didn’t notify the mayor or council that she’d unilaterally lowered the recommended discipline. Today at 8:50 a.m. at City Hall, Sawant and Hagopian—along with representatives from the Public Defender Association, the NAACP, and Black Lives Matter—will demand answers ahead of O’Toole’s budget presentation to the city council.
Not Cute: “A bunny brouhaha has been brewing for some time in Langley, Island County,” writes Evan Bush. “Proliferating rabbits have overrun the Whidbey Island town. Residents are ready for action. ‘It’s got to stop. It’s not cute anymore,’ Langley resident Fran Johnson told [KING 5]. Johnson recalled, with a hint of envy, how her father’s generation would have handled the situation: ‘You put them in a gunnysack and throw them off the dock. That’s not going to go over too good with too many people,’ she said.”
A High Rise Made of Wood in Portland: “A 12-story highrise building is set for construction at the corner of Northwest 10th Avenue and Northwest Glisan Street. But this building stands out from the scores of new highrise construction in one significant way: it will be made of wood,” KUOW reports. “It uses a technology called cross-laminated timber. Giant panels of wood are made out of many layers of timber sheets that are very tightly pressed together. The wood comes from timber in rural Oregon, and the panels themselves will be made long before they arrive at the building site.”
Bill and Melinda Gates Say Reforming the US Education System Is Harder Than Curing Malaria: “Working on reforming the U.S. education system is the hardest job they’ve ever tackled, Bill and Melinda Gates said Wednesday — even more difficult and complex than trying to find a cure for malaria,” the Seattle Times reports. “In the first major address assessing their educational-philanthropy work in seven years, the couple that lead the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation acknowledged that many issues surrounding education have become politicized. But they said they think they are on the right track by focusing on teacher training as the key to improving education, defended the use of testing as one way to measure teacher and student performance, and said the Common Core state standards are starting to show results.”
The New York Times Explores Seattle’s Attempt to Keep Its Soul and Not Become San Francisco: “For years, business leaders here have closely studied the San Francisco region, seeking to emulate the way it churns out so many leading technology companies,” Nick Wingfield writes. “In large measure, those efforts worked. But now, leaders in Seattle are looking to the Bay Area as a different sort of model: a cautionary tale.”
More in NEWS
Local (and not-so-local) news from your favorite writers.
