Seattle may have intentionally withheld documents about secret head tax meetings: City Council and the Mayorâs Office were being mad shady about this head tax business. They refused to release documents to the Seattle Times after records requests. A local blogger â a for now nameless hero (UPDATE: THE HERO HAS A NAME AND WE WERE WRONG) â managed to get a hold of them. Anyway, the documents are texts and emails. In one exchange, Deputy Mayor Shefali Ranganathan told Councilmember Rob Johnson how his fellow council members would be voting. Ranganathan even sent a photo of a voting sheet.
New: Did city deliberately withhold records showing private tallying of council membersâ positions before head-tax repeal? https://t.co/QFZGxEXSZn pic.twitter.com/MObc1OkbHF
â Lewis Kamb (@lewiskamb) August 24, 2018
'Decade of terrorâ possible along Cascadia fault: Some University of Oregon researchers have been looking into where the Big One could strike. They have no idea when, because why would we need to know that? But, theyâve narrowed it down to like, three options. It could strike at the beginning of the fault line near northern California, off of southwestern Oregon, or along the Washington coast. Seems like some pretty obvious research. They donât know whether there will truly be one big quake â a rumored 9.0 magnitude big boy â or a series of serious quakes when segments of the fault rupture separately. That is the option called the decade of terror and I would like to opt out of that reality.
Goddammit I knew this was too good to be true: The smoke is coming back. I donât know what else to say, guys. I thought we were in the clear. This whole drama is exhausting â will I be able to breathe today or not? Apparently, itâs a hard maybe on all fronts. The smoke is back for the weekend but it wonât be as bad. It will still be smoky, though. Death may be the only option.
To strike or not to strike? Seattle Public School teachers are in the midst of a battle for a raise. The McCleary school-funding case settled this year when lawmakers set aside nearly $1 billion for public schools to pay for teachersâ salaries. A lot of Washington schools have already seen sizable pay hikes. Seattle Public Schools are still working on it; they just recently opened up talks about the matter. If they donât reach a decision with the union before school starts, teachers may strike.
Portland learns you canât house everyone: Multnomah County enacted a âright-to-shelterâ policy for homeless families in 2015. It quickly became too much to handle and the county was far exceeding its budget. It was scrapped last October. The lesson Seattle can learn is that if a city has wide open doors for shelter they need to have equally wide open opportunities to get housing. Either that or they have to limit the amount of people they shelter.
Brush fires shut down northbound I-5: I wonât do it, I wonât put âtheâ in front of a freeway name today. Two lanes of northbound I-5 ( see??? ) were closed in south Seattle this morning near Boeing Field because of an encroaching brush fire. Two homes were impacted. Donât be fooled by the misty morning yesterday, itâs still hot and dry out there. Donât burn anything.
Already a couple of brush fires along the freeways this morning. Many stations in the interior of western Washington will be setting records for the driest May thru August ( Seattle current May thru August rainfall 0.89", record dry 2.05" 2003 ). Let's be careful out there! #wawx
â NWS Seattle (@NWSSeattle) August 24, 2018
JuneBaby is one of the Worldâs Greatest Places: TIME magazine gave the Ravenna restaurant the honor. I still havenât been because itâs so popular now and it doesnât have reservations. JuneBaby is a myth to me, an idea, a dream â no matter what, it will always be just out of reach and intangible. The thought of it is comforting.
1 in 4 Seattle homeowners are mortgage-free: Talk about wealth disparity, damn. As of 2016, 42,000 Seattleites owned their homes outright. Thatâs a 36 percent increase from 2010. Seattle has one of the highest rates of mortgage-free homeowners out of other big cities. A big chunk of this number is the aging and retiring baby boomer generation. They make up 40 percent of Seattle homeowners. Rich millennials (the ones who skipped the avo toast, you know?) are the other demographic.
I love love:
Portland man gets engaged to boyfriend he made out of trash https://t.co/6L2Arbnazd pic.twitter.com/Qf8rcL9epS
â The Oregonian (@Oregonian) August 23, 2018
A side of outrage for your day today: Whatâs up with this shit?
This country is badly broken..
A 60-year-old white man was arrested in Grand Rapids, Michigan after he urinated on a 5-year-old Black girl and called her the N-word.
The suspect's name is David Allen Dean.
Twitter do your thing. pic.twitter.com/JhRcWbe5L1
â Together we rise đđž (@Matsamon) August 23, 2018
Urban Meyer didnât fire his fucked up assistant coach: Meyer, head coach of Ohio State Universityâs football team, was well aware that his assistant coach, Zach Smith, was an abuser and an asshole. Smith kept his job and even got raises along the way. Smith was accused of throwing his pregnant wife against a wall in 2009 while coaching at the University of Florida. He wasnât fired then. At OSU, he consistently had bad conduct mixed in with all the abuse stuff and still Meyer did nothing. OSU conducted an internal investigation and only punished Meyer by suspending him for three games. Smithâs wife won protections against him this summer. When Meyer found that out he consulted an administrator on how to delete old texts.
Big win for diversity?
BREAKING: Officials scrap plan to cut most polling places in majority black Georgia county amid allegations of discrimination
â The Associated Press (@AP) August 24, 2018
John Lennonâs killer denied parole: Again. This is the tenth time. Mark David Chapman was sentenced 20 years to life for killing Lennon. Heâs up for parole again in two years.
Alien truther and former abductee is running for Congress in Florida: I canât do this justice. Hereâs an excerpt from the AP: âBettina Rodriguez Aguilera says she was taken aboard a spaceship as a young girl by blond extraterrestrials who resembled the Christ the Redeemer statue in Rio de Janeiro. She says they told her that the âcenter of the worldâs energy is Africaâ and that thousands of non-human skulls were once discovered in a cave on the Mediterranean island of Malta. She says her alien abduction doesnât define her.
A fun fact for your Friday: "There are as many as 800 languages spoken in New York City, and nowhere in the world has more than Queens."
This weekend's best Seattle entertainment options include: The MEXAM Northwest Festival celebrating Mexican American culture, the live music-filled Gigantic Bicycle Festival, and the Little Saigon Festi-Roll celebrating Vietnamese street food, culture, and entertainment.