Seriously, shaddup:

The decision by transportation planners to possibly map a replacement for the Alaskan Way Viaduct along Western Avenue worries those at the Pike Place Market who fear it could damage the Market’s historic character.

“We’re disappointed this was chosen,” said Carol Binder, executive director of the Market. “We’re going to have to change and look at some of the ways we operate.”

Apparently, the folks at the Market would rather have an elevated freeway in their front yard than an arterial street. Huh.

If you’re not 100% clued in to why they’d be upset with the surface “couplet” option, here’s the skinny:

Instead of a viaduct freeway through downtown Seattle, the “couplet” would send traffic north and south on a reconfigured street grid, using Alaskan Way’s southbound lanes and Western Avenue’s northbound lanes as replacements, knitting together the street grid without building a limited access freeway through the neighborhood.

Western currently comes to a four-way stop at the north end of the Market, near Victor Steinbrueck Park. The plan would be to lid Western near the park, sending traffic under the Market instead of through it.

There is all sorts of hyperventilating over this whole viaduct mess. The Pike Place Market has nothing to worry about. On an issue where so many can disagree, everyone involved agrees that the Market is something worth protecting.

Crazy:

Six candidates have filed to run for King County elections director in an election that will be held without a primary — and, apparently, with gloves off.

…

Julie Kempf, who was fired as King County elections superintendent after she was accused of lying about why thousands of ballots were mailed late in 2002. She denies she lied.

Kempf said she decided to run after she was threatened by political opponents who didn’t want her to run. She declined to offer details of the threats. “If you give in to a threat, they’ve won already,” she said.

Wow. The word “delusional” doesn’t quite cover it.

I thought making the elections director an elected position was supposed to increase the quality of the candidates. So far, we’ve got a “raging bullshiter“; a carpet-bagging state senator with a penchant for irate outbursts; a crackpot civic activist with his own residency issues; and a software guy who nobody has heard of.

Then there’s the incumbent, Sherril Huff, who’s doing us all a “solid” by throwing her hat in the ring. I don’t know what her political beliefs are, and I don’t care. Like Dem chair Dwight Pelz said:

“Sherril Huff isn’t the Democratic candidate in this race, she’s the competent candidate in this race.”

Abject silliness:

In 2012, for example, cyclists and pedestrians will have trails 14-feet wide in SoDo near the stadiums. Any Highway 520 floating bridge schematic includes a lane for cyclists. How about if they help pay their share? If Interstate 90 and Highway 520 bridges are tolled, it’s only logical to expect cyclists to pay a modest toll, too, for access to a great path across the water and spectacular views.

Jon touched on this, and just as I thought it would, the discussion of this issue devolved into an argument on the merits of bicycling and on area cyclist’s adherence to certain traffic laws. Yawn.

What’s more interesting about this issue making a major – major! – daily newspaper’s opinion page is how totally out of touch the writer seems to be about the basics of how we pay for these bicycle improvements. I’ll let this comment from the Times’ column do the explaining:

I saw this ‘enlightening’ article after riding my bicycle with my partner from the condo that we own and passed the car that we also own, to a local coffee shop, where we bought coffees and something to eat. But wait – we own a home and a car and bought prepared food and yet, according to Vesely we are not, “true members of the world of transportation, rather than free riders on the tax rolls?”

I guess all this time we, as cyclists, have been paying taxes that we shouldn’t have? Can I get a refund then?

Way to go Muni League!

High expenses and an outmoded service strategy are hindering King County Metro Transit, asserts a report issued today.

The findings are meant to provoke public debate, as County Council members try to pull Metro from a deep budget hole to prevent cuts in future bus rapid-transit service they promised to voters.

More:

The report urged Metro to scrap its policy that extends 40 percent of new service to the Eastside, 40 percent to the south county and 20 percent to Seattle and Shoreline. The policy was meant to assure suburban taxpayers ample service, but Muni League chairman Brad Meacham calls it “pretty outdated.” Buses should be deployed based on where people travel, the report says.

The 40/40/20 split is an absurd political agreement. It doesn’t make any sense. It’s got nothing to do with running Metro in an efficient way and everything to do with exporting transit dollars from the city to the ‘burbs. If folks in Covington or Duvall or Federal Way want an extra slice of the pie, they should tax themselves to get it.

[I was forbidden to blog during the 2008 campaign, so this is less timely than I would like it to have been… Oh well.]

The Municipal League of King County has a really noble mission. They rate candidates for political office, giving voters more information while subjecting the political process to a modicum of quality control. They do a pretty good job of it, too. Candidates gripe about their ratings (“Good” isn’t as good as “Very Good,” while “Outstanding” is the very best), but all in all, they seem to be doing their homework.

Which is what makes their endorsement of King County Charter Amendment Eight all the more confusing.

Charter Amendment 8, passed by King County voters this November, makes pretty much every elected office in King County non-partisan. The City of Seattle has had non-partisan elections for years; the only other county with non-partisan elections is Whatcom County.

But non-partisan elections don’t make our politicians any less partisan. The Seattle City Council may be non-partisan, but all nine members are Democrats. Same goes for Mayor Nickels. Does anyone think that stripping Kathy Lambert of the Republican label will make her any less of a Republican? Is Larry Gossett any less of a Democrat without that “D” next to his name? Hardly.

Voters use partisan labels to help make decisions on election day. Taking away this information ultimately makes it harder for the public to make an informed choice.

Why did the Municipal League, an organization that gives the public more information about candidates for office, endorse a charter amendment that would give voters less information?

The Municipal League gave telecom billionaire John Stanton a big award last year for his work on transportation governance reform. Some folks say Stanton is serious considering running for King County Executive. Removing the Republican label from John Stanton gives him a better chance, but it doesn’t make him any less of a Republican.

Dan Savage said it best: “If sex offenders have to register with the county, so should Republicans.”

After a knock-down drag-out fight over I-1000, I’m still pretty amazed by the margin of victory bestowed to the initiative I worked to pass:

58% to 42%

I-1000 won in every country west of the mountains, and won 11 out of 20 counties on the east side.

You know, for such a “controversial” issue, voters seemed be able to cut through the baloney pretty easily. Campaign-types like myself would like to take credit for this, but I think the credit belongs to my friend Nancy and others:

Nancy’s husband Randy died an awful death. His allergy to morphine, combined with a particularly nasty manifestation of brain cancer, resulted in one of the five percent of deaths that can’t be eased with palliative care. Nancy’s husband knew he was going to die a painful, undignified death, and there wasn’t anything anyone could do for him. Until now.

Folks have been talking past Nancy for most of the past year, arguing that I-1000 is a basic human right, or that I-1000 will result in full-scale euthanasia. It’s easy to bash Booth Gardner, or to slam the Catholic Church. Nobody wants to talk about Randy and the humiliation he went through.

Whatever. For 57.77% of the voting public, some issues are less complicated than the headlines would suggest.

To find out why this is the coolest thing ever, click here.

Meet your new State Treasurer:

Mike Lindblom:

The 34 miles of additional light rail, to Lynnwood, north Federal Way, and the Overlake Transit Center, near Microsoft, aren’t expected to be finished until the early 2020s. The theme of serving future generations sounded at odds with the official campaign motto: “Mass Transit Now.”

Ugh.

Look… Like most folks, I’d prefer they build this stuff sooner rather than later, but them’s the breaks. On Tuesday, voters decided to put to an end the kind of hand-wringing and second-guessing that had slowed the region on the issue of mass transit infrastructure for decades. We’re making up for previous generations, and their inability to address this issue.

So if the slogan is “Mass Transit Now,” think of it as a truncated version of this:

“Let’s Decide To Invest In Mass Transit Now For The Benefit Of The Region In The Decades To Come.”

I like both, but the second one didn’t fit on a yard sign.

Meet your new Commissioner of Public Lands:

David Brewster:

“There’s a good chance the Proposition 1 ballot measure to expand light rail will fail, stalling for years comprehensive transportation planning in metro Puget Sound.”

Jim Vesely:

“I think it’s pretty iffy whether or not, in this climate, people will accept that level of taxation.”

Ladies and gentlemen:

Sound Transit leaders today congratulated Seattle-area voters for giving future generations a regional train system.

Proposition 1, the $17.9 billion measure to expand light rail, commuter train and bus service, won easily, despite the national economic slump.

I no longer listen to the predictions of our local media talking heads. It’s clear now, more than ever, that these guys don’t know any more than I do about this stuff, and just because they write for newspapers or have been around for years doesn’t make their insight anymore prescient than mine.

They’re not bad people, and it’s not that they’re not smart… They’re just out of touch.

UPDATE:
Seattle P-I columnist Joel Connelly ads this in the comments:

In defense of David Brewster, he had pro-Prop. 1 sign on his lawn. I twice witnessed him argue the case for light rail at breakfasts with skeptical neighbors.
He was clearly in touch, just pessimistic: After 40 years he had reason to be.

Meet your governor:

UPDATE (Goldy):
Let me just say that it is more than a little grating to see the 1% property tax limit touted in Gov. Gregoire’s ad.  It’s terrible policy.  But if it helps her get reelected I suppose I’ll keep my mouth shut now that the damage is done.  Hell, it’s not like Rossi is any better on this issue.

Joel Connelly:

The voice and visage of Attorney General Rob McKenna are much in evidence of late on public service announcements in which McKenna warns about identity theft.

The state Democratic Party has mailed off a complaint to the Public Disclosure Commission, declaring that the corporate-sponsored ads give a backdoor boost to McKenna’s re-election.

“It is properly characterized as an ‘electioneering communication’ and a ‘contribution’ to Mr. McKenna’s campaign. It is therefore subject to the contribution limits and reporting requirements under the Public Disclosure Act,” state Democratic Chairman Dwight Pelz argues in the PDC filing.

The filing indicates that Comcast sponsored a McKenna TV ad on identity theft, the Boeing Employees Credit Union paid for a radio ad on assisting consumers, and the Century Council picked up an ad with McKenna warning about drinking and driving.

The Century Council is a coalition of alcoholic beverage distillers and distributors.

McKenna fired back Friday.

The ads “do not constitute electioneering,” he argued. McKenna said, for instance, that the Century Council approaches attorneys general across the country to appear in ads against underage drinking.

Back when David Goldstein was on the radio, I would listen to the ads while in the studio. McKenna was a regular on the PSA circuit. He’s done far more than any politician I’ve ever heard of. There should be rules about how many ads these guys can do, and how close they can be done to an election.