The city's plans to revamp South Lake Union into a biotech hub keep getting pricier--and weirder! A recent Seattle City Light study, funded in part by developer Vulcan, recommends pumping deep, 45-degree water from Lake Washington to biotech buildings in South Lake Union through pipes buried beneath Capitol Hill. "Lake Washington can provide a renewable source of air-conditioning energy... for over 75 percent of total annual cooling requirements," the report states--providing maps of a plastic pipeline submerged 200 feet below the ground.

In addition to wondering how eco-friendly it would be to heat up Lake Washington by tapping its cool water , skeptical comments scribbled in the margins of the report I saw blared, "At what cost?" and "Bull!" JOSH FEIT

Training the Masses

Rainforest Action Network (RAN), the San Francisco-based group that brought its brand of theatrical environmental activism to Seattle on February 19 when five RAN members climbed a Belltown construction crane to unfurl an anti-logging banner, is headed for Seattle again. This time, the show-stopping activists will train others in direct-action techniques. The $30 April 2-4 training will cover street theater, blockades, and climbing--plus nuts and bolts like fundraising and public speaking. Check out www.ran.org/training for details. AMY JENNIGES

Ignoring the Masses

Mayor Greg Nickels was reprimanded by the state this month for failing to include U-District residents and neighbors in the 2003 negotiations that led to the elimination of the U-District "lease lid." (The 19-year-old lease lid, supported by neighborhood groups, had limited the amount of property the university could occupy in the area to 500,000 square feet of floor space.) While the regional Growth Management Hearing Board, a state board that watches over the Puget Sound area's Growth Management Act (GMA), didn't take issue with the substance of Nickels' plan (approved by the city council last June), it did rule that the ordinance flouted process guidelines; i.e., the affected community was left out of the loop. "The Ordinance fails to comply with public participation requirements," the March 3 ruling flatly stated--confirming neighborhood activists' long-standing complaint that they'd been dissed. "The mayor seems to have ignored a critical component in the process," says Jeannie Hale, president of the Laurelhurst Community Club, which opposed lifting the cap: "the neighborhoods."

The board's ruling also sends a clear signal that messing with the lease lid falls under the purview of the GMA, and so the substance of Nickels' anti-lease-lid ordinance may be adjudicated once the council passes it a second time using proper procedural guidelines. JOSH FEIT

Channeling the Mayor

Speaking of the mayor's penchant for ignoring people, Nickels still hasn't responded to a feisty e-mail from local music booster Dave Meinert, president of the Pacific Northwest Chapter of the Recording Academy. Meinert's March 1 e-mail urged Nickels to take time out during an April 21 visit to Denver to meet with a Colorado music promoter named Doug Kauffman. Kauffman is battling music-industry giant Clear Channel in federal court, accusing the $8.4 billion radio and promotion company of antitrust violations ["Clear Fear," Josh Feit, March 4]. Meinert wants Kauffman to educate Nickels on Clear Channel's alleged monopolistic tactics because Clear Channel already owns five radio stations and a promotions company in Seattle, and is looking to open a midsize venue here, according to real estate industry folks.

"I would love to sit down with your mayor and answer any questions he might have about the impact that Clear Channel has on a music scene," Kauffman says.

Greg? JOSH FEIT

Eyeing the Prize

According to a list leaked to the press, the Seattle Times' December 2004 series "Coaches Who Prey"--a weeklong investigative report about male high-school coaches who entice vulnerable teenage female athletes into sexual relationships--is on the shortlist for a Pulitzer Prize in the Public Service category. Congrats to Times' reporters Maureen O'Hagan and Christine Willmsen, and good luck. Competition reportedly includes the Providence Journal's "Rhode Island Nightclub Fire" story. NANCY DREW

Biggest Lapse of Judgment by a Council Member This Year:

Missing Street Links

Fifty supporters of the Street Links program--which provides basic services like food and clothes to the homeless youth of Seattle--held a candlelight vigil late on Friday night on Broadway Avenue and in the University District to protest the transfer of the program from Seattle Children's Home (SCH) to another agency, YouthCare, which other providers fear won't continue the services Street Links offered.

Street Links, under the banner of SCH, has served Seattle's homeless youth for 10 years by sending a van of volunteers to the streets of Capitol Hill and the U-District seven nights a week. Now, SCH is passing the torch to YouthCare, an organization that operates other homeless-youth services, including the Orion Center in the Denny Triangle neighborhood. Other area social-service providers say the change will likely leave a gap in services; while YouthCare's outreach will be bolstered by an SCH mental-health-care provider, outreach services will likely be limited to things like transporting youth to the Orion Center. Services Street Links performed, like distributing food on Broadway, will likely be discontinued. YouthCare did not return our call. BRIAN WALTON