Can these people do ANYTHING right? Seriously. It's like a daily fuckup from Council chambers. I have an idea: BUILD FUCKING HOUSING AND CLEAN THIS CITY UP. Carry on.

The villain here is Erica “C is for Kook’ Barnett. All councillors and city staff offer to help residents with testimony when there is time and the subject is important. Providing public testimony is not some kind of truth squadding or test of aptitude. Erica hates Seattle; please don’t help her destroy this place.

TREASON?

Blatantly bad policy ideas like the EHT don’t just happen. Our local homeless -industrial complex organizes homeless persons into rent-a-crowds to fill Council chambers with loud demands for funds for the homeless-industrial complex. Careful manufacture of the appearance of popular support explains the resulting 9-0 Council vote for the hugely unpopular EHT.

Apparently, our Council has become so habituated to listening to manufactured support for policy proposals, they are now themselves actively manufacturing propaganda to justify their own actions. Hence their 8-0 vote for a policy which will not save the Showbox, but is getting us sued.

@1: That would be them doing their jobs. That would be work, which is hard. Writing the lyrics to Death Cab for Showbox was fun, and in no way served any useful purpose. See the difference there?

o noez, skandulz. might as well give up!

I can't believe I'm going to say this but I miss Tim Burgess and Greg Nickels at this point. Where in the fuck are the adults?

@2: “All councillors and city staff offer to help residents with testimony when there is time and the subject is important.“

If true, then Erica has done an even greater service by exposing an especially egregious example of such witness-fluffing. Coaching a longtime public performer on how to perform in public: that’s some Stalinist-level political stage-management, that is.

Maybe less witness-prep, and more listening to what actual citizens really have to say, might help our Council to avoid making unproductive policies which also get us sued?

I’m so ready for this stupid fucking building to come down.

@8 - also more understanding of the law. The government shouldn't be allowed to steal land arbitrarily even if actual citizens requested it.

Could we say that the Council has the facts and they're voting yes?

That was lame. Sorry/ not sorry.

@9: yes, preservation decisions based on spite are what makes cities great.

So....it's down to the head-butting between Deathcab for Cutie lead vocalist, Ben Gibbard and the owner of the Showbox over whether to preserve a historical Seattle landmark or put up a parking lot?
@6 FDR: I don't know what to tell you. I left Seattle in '97.

Even Better (really worse) is Lester B pretty much stole Barnett's work to write this piece. I guess her mistake was sharing the source docs on twitter before she had published a story. You would think a local writer would have some professional courtesy. But Wait, Lester is an intern and needs some oversight.

@14 thanks for the heads up on a dick move by a lazy fuck.

The WaPo pulled the same dick move this week, reporting the NYTs anonymous op ed from a Trump insider. Yeah, they wrote that it was broken by the Times, but still. Dick move. Once one journalist breaks a story, all the others are forbidden from speaking of it. This the Law of duh Journalist.

Anyway, if this is all nothing-to-see-here, perfectly normal, nobody did nuthin wrong, how come ECB had to pry the information out of them with a crowbar? And how come nobody but her thought to do that?

The Seattle City Council couldn't organize a fuck in a brothel.

@18

And yet you can't unseat even one of them. Huh. That's got to hurt.

@13: Our Council voted 8-0 to protect a parking lot. (Actually, two of them.) The building which is currently leased to The Showbox was to have been torn down and replaced by a modern residential tower, not a parking lot.

how is that weird that professionals used to the rhetorical and procedural manners and methods of city hearings would coach up an amateur at such things? research and write some fucking journalism for god sake.

If comments from #2 are right, then how much counciling is appropriate and is it done fairly? I do not normally agree with Erica, but Seattle Council favoritism should ne wrong. Does our Seattle Council help people with opposing views how to speak? Do they help make their point?

@20 tensor: Modern residential tower or parking lot-----what's the difference? Beloved historic buildings in what used to be quaint Seattle neighborhoods are getting razed for high rises, and any effort to save them is being swatted back and forth by bullshit politics. The livable charm of Seattle is dying fast to real estate greed. It's like the lyrics in a Joni Mitchell song:
"...if you hate paradise, put up a parking lot."

@25

Quaint little seaside fishing villages are lovely, don't get me wrong, but this one's got 1500 settlers arriving every month who need a roof over their heads, in addition to the thousands already here who haven't got one.

Are you going to build a wall around the town, and consign newcomers to live in shanties in its shadow?

@25: “Modern residential tower or parking lot-----what's the difference?”

As @26 implies, more persons can live in the former. The former also pays more taxes.

“Beloved historic buildings in what used to be quaint Seattle neighborhoods...”

Downtown hasn’t been a “quaint Seattle neighborhood” in over 150 years. And please do give examples of “historic buildings” out in neighborhoods.

“The livable charm of Seattle is dying fast to real estate greed.”

Then lucky you, not having lived in Seattle since the ‘90s! Those of us who have continued to live here can decide for ourselves how to run this place, thank you very much.

“...any effort to save them is being swatted back and forth by bullshit politics.”

The only “bullshit politics” around the Showbox is brought to us by our City Council, who slapped an historical designation on not one, but two parking lots. Now we’re getting sued. Those of us who pay taxes in Seattle will literally pay for this “bullshit politics.” Try not to sympathize too much.

I’ve been to dozens of great shows at The Showbox, and maybe a plaque on the building which replaces it will mention the history of the site.

The Stranger needs to pay Erica Barnett for her work.

Lester might benefit from more sobriety, the better to see the ethical line he crossed by grabbing Erica's work and mking it his own.

@26 robotslave: That wasn't what I meant at all. Why would I build a moat around Seattle?
I share your frustrations. Seattle City Council really screwed up; now there's an ugly $40 million lawsuit. How many $2 million condos does Seattle need, let alone a shiny new 44-story apartment building with most likely astronomical rental rates building that would replace the Showbox if erected?
@27 tensor: A lot of what you said was what I was trying to point out. Current Seattle residents--and taxpayers like you and others---are getting stuck with a nasty legal bill over a historical landmark that the property owner wants to raze for Big Bucks. Lucky me for leaving Seattle in '97? I just couldn't afford to move back with rents and property values being what they are. What saddens me is that many people now living in Seattle will never enjoy what I once had, such as a one bedroom apartment with an indoor parking garage space in Ballard for $560.00 a month. Those days are gone.

@31: “Current Seattle residents--and taxpayers like you and others---are getting stuck with a nasty legal bill over a historical landmark that the property owner wants to raze for Big Bucks.”

The only reason we’re getting stuck with the bill for a lawsuit is because our City Council rashly (and post facto) designated as “historical” two parking lots and an old cinder-block building which used to be a furniture store.

“... shiny new 44-story apartment building with most likely astronomical rental rates building that would replace the Showbox if erected?”

Yes, the city would get a lot more tax money out of such a place than it will out of the old cinder-block ex-furniture store it has “protected”. Thank you for reminding us of yet more costs attached to our Council’s foolish action.

You still haven’t named any historical buildings out in the neighborhoods. (Or were you thinking of parking lots?)