Ironic

Aradia Women's Health Center, a twice-weekly target of anti-abortion protests, is turning demonstrations into donations, with a program called "Pledge-a-Picketer" that allows the abortion and family-planning clinic's supporters to pledge a donation every time picketers show up on Aradia's First Hill sidewalk. According to Aradia spokeswoman Amie Newman, the campaign is "our way of letting the protesters know that their presence is actually helping Aradia." So far, Newman says, the clinic has raised around $3,300 from the campaign; to pledge, call (206) 323-9467 or (206) 322-7808, or donate online at www.aradia.org. ERICA C. BARNETT

206)

Even More Ironic

A proposal supported by Senator Bill Finkbeiner (R-45) to make the Regional Transportation Investment District (RTID) and Sound Transit codependent (if one failed, both would fail) seemed headed for defeat, Finkbeiner said Monday, due to opposition from both the left and the right: Eastside Republicans like former Senator Jim Horn oppose it because they see Sound Transit as an albatross that will drag the roads-heavy RTID down, and environmentalists like FutureWise's Aaron Ostrom oppose it because they see RTID as an albatross that will drag Sound Transit down. ERICA C. BARNETT

Even More RTID

State Representative Ed Murray's (D-43, Capitol Hill, U-District) proposal to reform the RTID, which would have opened up the taxing district's project list to transit and relied less on (regressive) sales tax and more on a (progressive) motor-vehicle excise tax, was drastically amended in the senate last week by transportation chair Mary Margaret Haugen (D-10, Island and Skagit Counties), to the chagrin of enviros and transit advocates. Among other changes, the amended legislation would limit transit funding to "construction mitigation"; and force Sound Transit to put any new taxing proposal on the same ballot as RTID. ERICA C. BARNETT