Sonics

Activists opposed to a proposed $220 million Sonics bailout are planning a "Seattle Sonics going-away party" at City Hall at noon on Thursday, May 11. According to one sponsor of the "party," Real Change organizer Rachael Myers, the event will include toasts, songs, and MVP ("More Valuable Priorities") awards. The group will also deliver a petition with 1,000 signatures to the city council imploring council members to oppose the Sonics subsidy. For more information, go to www.finethenleave.com. ERICA C. BARNETT

Strippers

This November's proposed strip-club referendum, which would overturn draconian new strip-club rules banning lap dances, requiring bright lighting in strip clubs, and confining dancers behind a tall railing, is on track to become the best-financed local ballot measure in Seattle history: Six months before the election, referendum supporters have poured more than $425,000 into the ballot measure—a total that's even more astonishing when you consider that all but $5,000 of it came from just two sources—Lake City LLC (Rick's strip club, with $190,000) and Seattle Amusement Co. (Deja Vu/Showgirls, with $232,000). The remaining $5,000 came from Sands West, a strip club on 15th Avenue Northwest in Ballard. ERICA C. BARNETT

Southeast Seattle

You wouldn't know it from attending the public meetings, but there are some Southeast Seattle residents who aren't hurling invective at the Downtown Emergency Service Center, which wants to build apartments for the homeless and mentally ill on the border between Columbia City and Hillman City, the neighborhood to the south.

Senator Adam Kline (D-37), who has had the unenviable job of moderating the community meetings, says, "The proponents are just now organizing—the opposition got there first."

This is the hope of Bill Hobson, DESC's executive director, who so far has mainly encountered enemies of his project who fear the facility will fill the streets with exactly the kind of unstable personalities they've tried to chase off during the area's recent renaissance.

"I think there is a highly effective and highly mobilized opposition group spreading misinformation about the population (to be housed in the facility) and the intentions of our organization," says Hobson. "They are drowning out the majority of citizens in Columbia City and Hillman City, who I think would be prepared to sit down and look rationally at what we're proposing." THOMAS FRANCIS