Renters' liberation commando Judy Nicastro is asking the city attorney's office to rewrite Seattle's landlord retaliation law. Why? Because the current law has no teeth. For example, city attorneys recently decided not to back jilted tenants of Capitol Hill's Biltmore apartments because, as the city's legal office told Nicastro, the law isn't strong enough to win the tenants' case. Biltmore tenants claim landlord R. P. Management unreasonably jacked their rent up last year in retaliation to tenants' complaints. The city's law department says it won't prosecute the case, because it can't prove retaliation beyond a reasonable doubt. According to a memo Assistant City Attorney Supervisor Mike Finkle sent to Nicastro on February 3, R. P. Management raised everyone's rent, "whether they complained about the violation of the 60-day-notice rule or not." Biltmore tenant Steve Medina and other tenants, who call themselves the Biltmore Tenants Collective, are working on filing a suit without the help of the city's law department. ALLIE HOLLY-GOTTLIEB

School Bully

On February 2, Beacon Hill Elementary School Principal Margie Kates wrote to her neighbors on school letterhead, pleading with them to drop their appeal against Wright Rundstad's Amazon.com expansion (the developers are pushing a 220,000-square-foot addition to the Pac Med space they lease to Amazon in Beacon Hill). Kates informed them that the developers have promised to pay the school $30,000 toward a new playground if the nine Beacon Hill appellants drop their suit by February 18. Aside from helping a major developer buy off a neighborhood, Kates' ploy seems ultra nefarious for another reason. Kates neglected to mention in the letter that she also heads up the neighborhood chamber of commerce. Beacon Hill resident Frederica Merrell said of Kates' letter, "I am pretty appalled at what I feel is a predatory and divisive fundraising strategy." Kates has since apologized. ALLIE HOLLY-GOTTLIEB

Singing Valentine

Peter Clarke, longtime legislative assistant to evil City Council President Margaret Pageler, displayed a rarely seen tender side last Saturday night. At around 10:30, Clarke got up from his front-row table at Queen Anne's famed piano bar, Sorry Charlie's, and joined pianist Howard Bullson for two forlorn pop ballads. Wearing a brown tweed jacket and sporting a full gray beard, Clarke put in an understated and lovely performance of "Black Coffee" and "I'll Never Fall in Love Again." Maybe it was the giant glitter papier-mché heart tacked up behind the piano, but Clarke -- who has insulted this reporter in the past -- wooed us over with his melancholy Valentine's crooning. Now if only he'd tap his obvious love of fine song and convince Pageler to stop road-blocking recent efforts to up the percentage of city funds that automatically go to the arts. NANCY DREW

Sidran Update

Mark Sidran henchman Phil Brenneman, an assistant city attorney, is currently preparing legislation for Council Member Jan Drago that would declare Pioneer Square an "Alcohol Impact Area." This would authorize the city to go to the state Liquor Control Board for help with cracking down on booze sales there. If the Liquor Control Board agrees that Pioneer Square is a drunken, crime-ridden mess, it can outlaw the sale of things like low-cost, high-proof booze from liquor stores. No word on doing anything about rich drunks committing crimes in their own private alchohol impact areas. JOSH FEIT

We Want Information

As contract negotiations drag on between the Seattle Police Officers Guild and the city of Seattle, some impatient officers are beginning to badger the guild to get more aggressive.

Some disgruntled officers, aware that they can't legally strike, say they've been pressing the guild to start an "informational picket." An informational picket is a strike line without the strike, where off-duty officers pass out brochures and propaganda stating their case. Guild Vice President J. D. Miller confirms that he's been approached about the subject on more than one occasion. Still, the guild isn't doing anything about it.

"[Fellow officers] have been asking about doing informational picketing," he says."[But] it never came up in negotiations." PHIL CAMPBELL

More from the Wild Kingdom

City Council President Margaret Pageler went fishing in Council Member Nick Licata's parks committee earlier this week, threatening to yank legislation on Seattle Aquarium redevelopment and cast it over to Jan Drago's finance committee. Pageler didn't want the legislation in Licata's committee, because if Licata had his way, the legislation (which Pageler wants to move forward) would have stayed on hold. Pageler lined up the votes to send the issue to Drago, who promised to take swifter action. Licata wanted the legislation to wait because he felt the proposed Aquarium redevelopment plan -- originally sent to his parks committee by the mayor's office, the Parks Department, and the Seattle Aquarium -- should be subject to a public- private partnership review, so issues like maintaining open spaces on the waterfront (something currently ignored by the proposal) would be addressed. The public-private partnership review panel is not in place yet, and Licata didn't want the council to sign off on Aquarium redevelopment until that panel had a chance to review the proposal. JOSH FEIT

Sandwich Appeal

Developers and environmentalists are usually at each others' throats. But now the opposing camps have found a common enemy: the city. Last spring, the city pissed off both groups with its ruling. A hearing examiner ruled in favor of an appeal filed by the Thornton Creek Legal Defense Fund, an environmentalist group. This ticked off the losers of the appeal, Northgate Mall developers Simon Properties. The examiner's ruling meant Simon Properties had to make a new plan for their giant mall project. But the environmentalists were also upset by the ruling, because the hearing examiner didn't make the developers do a major study (among other earthy concerns) of the number of salmon the mall would potentially displace. Assistant City Attorney Bob Tobin -- who's knee-deep in briefs preparing for the February 18 hearing date -- says, "The city's in the middle on this one." ALLIE HOLLY-GOTTLIEB