HorsesAss.Org

I love the Metro, but there are a few routes that are trouble. The 358, that goes up Aurora Ave N. and through some of the worst parts of Downtown is one of those routes. So don’t think of the following exchange as typical, or anything:

Homeless person #1: “I’m getting off at the next stop, do you have a light I could borrow?”

Homeless person #2: “Sure here.”

Homeless person #1: “Oh a Bic. They’re pretty good. Last a long time.”

Homeless person #2: “Yeah. Well no. Not if you smoke crack anyway.”

Obama on Tuesday (via The Washington Post):

“Folks go around saying ‘Obamacare.’ That’s right — I care,” the president said at a fundraising luncheon in Dallas on Tuesday. He added of Republicans: “That’s their main agenda? That’s your plank? Is making sure 30 million people don’t have health insurance?”

Indeed. But Obama just scratches the surface. The Republican agenda includes elimination of Medicare, Medicaid, food stamps, welfare, the insurance and security components of social security, public education, student loan and financial aid programs, abortion, environmental protections, food protections, safety standards, and, of course, unions.

Oh yeah…and the middle class.

Taken altogether, the Republican “utopia” seems like something out of a Mad Max movie.

And sorry if it’s rather Occupy heavy, that’s mostly what I’ve been reading.

– It will be interesting to see how the leaders of more established liberal institutions interact with the Occupy people.

– Humbled and lucky.

– While of course, I don’t like the city arresting protesters, I’m glad they’re still working to figure out a way to let them stay (I’m not saying the Occupy people should or shouldn’t take the city up on this, only that I’m glad it’s being offered, and that there is a dialogue).

And here’s some non Occupy stuff:

– This fall, Seattle Schools reopened Viewlands and Rainier View elementary schools. In the next few years, the district could reopen Van Asselt, Columbia, Boren and Hughes elementaries.

– Health Care Flow Chart.

– Scott Brown really could have probably won this rhetorically. Instead he just decided to be an asshole.

One of the things I hear again and again from critics of the Occupy movement is that they lack a set of coherent demands. That they don’t have all the solutions yet. But here’s the thing: we’re not at solutions yet, we’re still identifying the problem. The coherent demand is stop. Stop the marginalization of working and poor people. Stop the outsized corporate power. Stop the cozy relationships that allow a few people to profit at the expense of the rest of us. Stop. The status quo isn’t working.

There’s time for figuring out the solutions, and the people here will probably fracture when that time comes. But right now we’re still identifying the problems. So right now there’s a place for the moderates and socialists, for the Ron Paul supporters and for the union folks. They all know things are shit. They all know this can’t hold.

1) Crime is down in the city, but we’ve seen some horrible incidents with the police in recent years. How do we ensure public safety and not have those sorts of things happen in the future?

I applaud and empathize with the police and other first responders, and know from firsthand experience just how tough these jobs are. However, like any other public employees, law enforcement workers need to be accountable to the public. Given the recent spate of widely publicized incidents, and the deep mistrust of the Seattle Police Department in some communities, the current accountability system is clearly not working. We need to work proactively to restore trust in our police, especially among immigrant, refugee and communities of color. At the same time, SPD also has a responsibility to openly and honestly review their training and examine an internal culture that is clearly not serving the city as well as it can.

I will push for and support an end to any and all law enforcement training programs that have contributed to the unacceptable rash of SPD incidents involving abuse of power. The Office for Professional Accountability has not been an effective tool for review of police actions; it needs a mix of civilian and law enforcement representation and subpoena power to better review SPD actions. And SPD must undertake a thorough review of its training policies and procedures to ensure that, in the course of a difficult job that often requires split-second decisions, officers have instilled in them cultural awareness and the tools needed to maintain public safety, de-escalate confrontations, and treat civilians with courtesy and respect.

I also support a greater re-emphasis on community policing, and programs that enable officers to build relationships with neighborhood watch groups, residents, and business owners and employees.

2) Now that the Viaduct is coming down, what should the waterfront look like?

Now that construction of the downtown tunnel to replace the Alaskan Way viaduct is underway, over the next several months city council will face the next phase of the debate: how best to use the newly available waterfront acreage that removal of the viaduct will create. I believe that the final plan must meet several critical objectives:

It must meet critical infrastructure needs. We need to not only replace the aging seawall, but anticipate the climate change-induced rising water levels of coming decades.

It must make the waterfront accessible to the general public. Plans should emphasize public access over private development. The downtown waterfront must be usable by all residents, workers, and tourists, not just those who can afford to pay a price.

It must be affordable. Given Seattle’s budget constraints, and the possible additional costs of tunnel construction itself, this is not the time for the city to once again opt for an expensive mega-project. One preliminary plan costs nearly a billion dollars. This is simply not realistic or wise. Seattle can not afford a blank check for waterfront development.

It must preserve waterfront jobs. The waterfront plan will almost certainly create tourism-related jobs, but it should not do so at the expense of the existing, well-paying jobs of Seattle’s working waterfront.

It must be accountable. The plan has specific budgetary and completion benchmarks. Council must not only approve the plan, but continue to exercise oversight to ensure that both the tunnel and the waterfront reconstruction come in on time and in budget.

It must ensure that public safety is an integral part of the overall landscape design. The present Freeway Park design has made it an instrument of criminal activities and neighborhood concern. The waterfront landscape design elements must avoid repeating similar design problems.

Once such a criteria is agreed upon than the city can move forward with incorporating fun elements like a venue for waterfront concerts, arts and cultural sites that showcase the indigenous historical contributions of first nation people and those of ethnic origins, immigrant and refugee groups who now call Seattle home.

This is a rare opportunity to remake one of the most visible parts of Seattle. We need to do it right. On council, I will work hard to ensure that any plan meets these goals and delivers a downtown waterfront worthy of a world class city.

3) As the great recession drags on, the city budget is still hurt. What do we need to cut, what do we need to keep, and do we need to raise more money via taxation?

The Seattle City Council recently voted unanimously to place a $60 vehicle license fee increase on the November ballot. I urge voters to reject this proposal as being the wrong plan, at the wrong time, to achieve the wrong goals.

It’s the wrong plan. The proposed car tab increase is an extremely regressive flat tax that will disproportionately hurt the poor and unemployed.

It’s the wrong time. We are in a struggling economy. King County Council has already voted to impose an additional $20 car tab hike that will also affect all city car owners; the city council already imposed its original $20 car tab assessment months ago; and the city council has also put a doubling of the Families and Education Levy on the November ballot.

It’s the wrong goals. The $204 million to be raised by the car tab hike during the next ten years will be divided primarily among transit projects (49 percent); road repair and maintenance (29 percent); and bicycle and pedestrian projects (22 percent). All three of these areas are misjudged. The car tab hike is being widely promoted as a “transit measure,” but that’s misleading. Instead of buses or light rail, much of the money is dedicated to two streetcar projects, given the overwhelming demand for more bus – not streetcar – service; this is an unconscionable misuse of scarce transportation taxing authority.

It’s time to balance our support for these transportation modes with other transportation needs. Both the bicycle/pedestrian funding and the streetcar lines are nice “wish list” projects that pale in importance next to the over one billion dollars in backlogged road and bridge repairs. The part of this ten year tax allocated to repairs and maintenance is less than one-seventeenth of what would be needed even to address today’s backlog. The maintenance backlog is a serious public safety issue that affects cars, buses, bicycles, and every other type of vehicle that uses our streets and bridges.

We need to focus on what matters, capital infrastructure maintenance should be the priority. On par with this for the general fund would be maintenance of the safety net for those most vulnerable. Regressive taxation is not the answer for addressing revenue shortfalls in the future. Seattle should take the leadership in working with legislative representatives from the 36th, 46th, 43rd, 37th, 34th and the 11th in working with legislative allies to urge a WA State income tax to replace all regressive taxes and to lower current sales tax rates.

4) With its budget shrunk at least until the end of the recession what should Seattle parks look like?

The biggest problem for the Parks & Recreation Department in recent years has been lack of accountability to local park users and neighbors, particularly in park controversies like the Gas Works Park concerts, the proposed Woodland Park Zoo parking garage, a redesign of Occidental Park, and many others. There were two common themes to those controversies: pressure from the city to use its parks to generate new income streams, and lack of responsiveness by both Parks Department leadership and city council to neighborhood concerns.

Those controversies have subsided after the departure of longtime Parks and Recreation head Ken Bounds and his patron, former mayor Greg Nickels. But the pressures to generate park income for the city, and the need for oversight by and accountability to the city council, remain. Parks Department leadership and members of the council’s Parks and Seattle Center need to balance the sometimes conflicting needs of the many constituencies of the parks – picnickers, sports fields users, special events patrons, dog lovers, etc. – with those of park neighbors and the general interests of the city.

The goal of keeping Seattle Parks free, safe, and accessible for all Seattle residents should be paramount. Safety is not limited to people and should be extended to keep fighting breeds of dogs out of Off-leash areas, and parks for the safety of other pets and people. User fees should be kept affordable and other income streams – whether park concessions, special events, or more creative attempts to raise desperately needed revenues for the city – should only be undertaken if the impact on that primary goal is minimal. Revenue shortfalls will continue as the recession continues. Parks are places where naming rights and advertisement for a fee could be better utilized to assist with park maintenance and expenses.

5) What is the Seattle’s role in education and public transportation given how important they are to the city, but that other agencies are tasked with them?

The City has made a huge investment in Seattle Public Schools by taxing citizens to invest in a variety of support services for students. Overall the city should and must do a better job of managing the Education Levy dollars so that the wrap around services being funded can assist the school district in raising academic achievement and graduation rates. Dropout rates are unacceptably high. African-American and Native American graduation rates have declined in the last decade. Our schools often haven’t been successful in educating some groups of students ESL students, lower income students and students from African –American, Native American and Latino cultural groups. We’re not being smart to ensure that we are leveraging city influence on the schools to establish some targeted goals and benchmarks to be measured against. The city can also do a much better job working in partnership with the school district to support administrative areas like Human Resource training, shared staff between the cities Park and Recreational staff who oversees the fields and the school district’s garden and janitorial staff who have some similar and shared responsibilities for the same properties. We need to facilitate ways to keep school district gyms and recreational areas open to the public in the early evenings and on weekends. North and South end schools can be paired to support one another much like the Sister City International relationships. In the end, the Families and Education Levy need to be supported but at the same time, we need to build into it some real specific benchmarks for accountability.

The primary role of city government in public transit is to oversee urban planning, zoning, and development in such a way that it both encourages transit use and makes transit itself more efficient. The city government needs to encourage and support a healthy mix of transportation modes; there’s no one-size-fits-all solution. As Seattle moves to greater density, it should both concentrate much of that increased density in areas with good transit service and work to ensure that transit can adapt adequately in areas where demand will increase due to new development.

There have been various proposals over the years to combine transit agencies in the region, particularly Metro and Sound Transit. Depending on the details, I would seriously consider such a proposal. The coordination and elimination of redundancy amongst different agencies is better, but there’s more to be done, and having one bureaucracy to fund rather than several would also result in cost savings and improved efficiency – savings that, hopefully, could be redirected into expanded service.

Once again, the Tacoma News Tribune has achieved a level of stupidity that is both remarkable and depressing. And with Ken Burns’ fantastic series on alcohol prohibition airing this week on PBS, I should probably add inexcusable to that list as well.

The fun began over the weekend when TNT reporter Rob Carson filed a report about how he was able to get a medical marijuana authorization from a doctor he only saw over Skype. Anyone who’s familiar with the medical marijuana situation in the state knows that this kind of nonsense happens. At Seattle Hempfest, there were women with bikinis at the entrance encouraging people to “get legal” or to “get their green card”. Hell, we don’t even have “green cards” in this state.

Most people are smart enough to know that this will happen as long as there’s a way for people to make money from it. It’s no different from before medical marijuana was around, when there were thousands of people in this state willing to illegally sell pot to you for money. Now, along with those people, there are now people willing to provide you with a medical marijuana authorization for money. Not much of a difference other than the level of professional risk. These are merely the evolving ways that the futility of prohibiting a widely used recreation drug manifests itself.

As soon as I saw Carson’s report, I knew there was another Editorial Board disaster in the making. And they did not disappoint:

Restoring credibility to medical marijuana in Washington will require separating drug-seekers from the seriously ill people who may genuinely need it.

Anyone who cares about the latter should be anxious to prevent recreational users and abusers from discrediting the whole system – as is happening in Tacoma on a large scale.

The TNT seems awfully concerned about the credibility of medical marijuana, but they might need to be a little more worried about their own credibility. Hardly anyone disputes the fact that there are folks who derive genuine value from the medical use of marijuana. Even Dave Reichert has come to realize this after the reality of its effectiveness hit close to home. The fact that large numbers of recreational users come up with medical excuses doesn’t discredit that reality at all. But it does discredit the morons who can’t figure that out.

For the last two years, pot-lovers across the state have found it increasingly easy to get the so-called green cards that protect them from the law.

Wow, two big problems. There are no such thing as “green cards”. Anyone who’s told by a doctor that they are getting a “green card” is being scammed. This state does not have a registry system. What a doctor (or other licensed health professional) can give you is an authorization on special tamper-proof paper. And if a police officer finds your medical marijuana and he/she doesn’t think your authorization is valid? Well, he/she can still arrest your ass and see if the prosecutor will press charges. So not only are people not getting “green cards”, they don’t even have protection from the law. Of course, this fact makes the editorial even more completely pointless so it’s not surprising they’re not explaining it well.

Tacoma officials have accommodated them by tolerating a proliferation of illegal marijuana stores that now – according to licensing records – greatly outnumber the city’s pharmacies.

And according to a study by the RAND Corporation, it’s very possible that they lead to a reduction in crime in their immediate vicinity. So what’s the problem? Let’s get more of them!

That’s the visible end of the sham, but it’s not the headwater. Upstream, the industry is sustained by ever-growing numbers of common marijuana smokers who’ve discovered how easy it is get authorization papers on flimsy pretexts.

Who cares? Either those recreational smokers buy marijuana from someone who’s likely being supplied by organized crime, or they can buy it from a locally run dispensary who pays taxes and keeps the profits in the community. I know which option I prefer.

The News Tribune’s Rob Carson, for example, reported Sunday that, after walking into a Tacoma marijuana outlet, he was able to get medical authorization via the Internet from a nurse practitioner in another part of the state.

When the TNT finally goes tits up, I will pay top dollar for their fainting couch.

State law permits providers to authorize marijuana to treat debilitating or intractable pain that can’t be relieved by other treatments. Carson’s long-distance nurse quickly recommended marijuana for shoulder discomfort he normally handled with ibuprofen.

Sure, and if Carson got caught with marijuana and charged with possession, that authorization very likely wouldn’t hold up in court. Although if he were almost anywhere in King County, the prosecutor likely would have more important things to do than to charge him anyway. And if he were in Seattle, he wouldn’t even need the authorization.

The medical ethics of too many pot docs are a joke. Supposed professionals recommend marijuana to the vast majority of “patients” they see, and they offer their customers their money back if they don’t walk away with a license to use. It’s all about the cash.

Wow, how’d you unravel that mystery?! Boy, your investigative skills are top-notch.

Judge John Hickman of the Pierce County Superior Court has lost patience with the charade. He has refused to return confiscated “medical marijuana” to two Tacomans unless they demonstrate that their authorizations actually comply with state law.

Um, I believe they were providers, so even if their own authorizations don’t hold up, they only have to prove that they were providing for a valid patient.

These two aren’t the issue; they may well be in compliance. What’s important is that somebody – at last – is insisting that authorizations pass muster with someone other than a marijuana merchant.

That’s been the law, numbnuts. Look up State v. Fry.

Somebody – preferably, responsible medical professionals – should be scrutinizing the authorizers on a routine basis.

They already do, and few people get upset about it. In fact, a doctor who writes medical marijuana authorizations was one of the main people providing input for how the new law passed this year should prevent scammers.

Marijuana advocates talk about moving the drug from Schedule I to Schedule II, which would allow doctors to legally prescribe it.

That may not be a bad idea. But the prescribing of Schedule II drugs, such as Percocet and amphetamines, is monitored by professional oversight bodies and ultimately by pharmacists. Doctors get sanctioned if they get too prescription-happy.

Actually most marijuana advocates think it should be lower that Schedule II (which is where cocaine and methamphetamine are listed), but the general sentiment is true. If a doctor thinks that you could benefit from medical marijuana, you should be able to obtain it from a safe place where the safety of the drug is most assured. And every medical marijuana supporter I’ve ever known wants more research done to find out exactly what the plant does and how it’s most effective. Up until now, it’s mostly anecdotal and that’s far from ideal.

Sorry this is long, but for an editorial this clueless, it requires a full line-by-line takedown. Here’s the utterly obnoxious end:

Medical marijuana advocates who are out to help the genuinely sick – not furtively legalize the drug for all comers – wouldn’t object to tighter regulations of their own. Would they?

Sorry, but I’m here to both help the genuinely sick AND legalize the drug for all (adult) comers. I mentioned this week’s PBS documentary on alcohol prohibition for a reason, and it’s because the parallels are all too obvious.

During alcohol prohibition, there was a medical exemption for alcohol. If you could get a doctor to write you a prescription for whiskey, you were able to buy “medicinal” booze through legal channels. There was also a religious exemption. This led to a lot of priests and rabbis getting rich supplying people’s “spiritual activities”. All of this was cynical and all of it was driven by greed. But the answer to that problem wasn’t to crack down on the cynical ways people were able to exploit the law to get rich. The answer was to recognize that trying to stamp out a widely popular recreational drug is impossible, and that it was much smarter to make it legal and regulate its sale to all adults. The answer for marijuana is the same, and this should be obvious to anyone with both a brain and a minimal knowledge of history. But it appears that the folks at the Tacoma News-Tribune editorial board still have neither.

The Stranger is reporting from the scene. The last tent has come down, and a dozen or so arrests have been made. I’m not seeing any reports of pepper spray or tazering and the police aren’t in riot gear, so it could have been worse. Still, a damn shame that it’s happened.

I’m going to head down to Westlake park, and see what’s going on. Will update this post as appropriate.

[update 5:43] There are 100-150 people or so. Mostly in one group South of the fountain and a smaller group directly across the street from the mall. I don’t see any police around, but there are a few empty police cars parked. Some have parked under the awning of the building with the Sees and the Tully’s. People are handing out doughnuts and pizza. Others are playing music. It’s a peaceful scene.

[update 5:51] a few of the signs:

– We are the 99%
– Occupy Seattle
– Good Jobs Peace and Medicine for all
– Tax Wall Street
– No Afghanistan War

[update 6:09] People are telling me there will be a “general assembly” at 6:30. Nobody I talked to knew exactly what that meant though. My battery is pretty low, so I’m shutting down until then.

[update 6:34] The first item on the agenda is retaking.

[update 6:41] They’re still deciding how to make the decisions.

[update 6:50] I can’t really hear anyone, so I’m going to try to find a better spot, my apologies.

[update 7:06] We’re coalescing around staying here or going to another park: City Hall, Seattle Center, Freeway Park. I think we’re coming around to staying here or Seattle Center if we’re kicked out, but leaning toward here. But again, I can’t hear everything, so that makes it harder.

[update 7:14] To the people honking: you’re awesome, but making it even tougher to hear.

[update 7:20] I just talked to a woman at the food tent. She says they’d like to be able organize hot meals, especially Midweek at breakfast or lunch. squirlqueen@gmail if you, or your church, etc. can help. Once a week hot meals would be great. Someone else said anyone with any food, they’ll take it.

[7:32 update] My battery is pretty close to dead, but it sounds like they’re staying put. I’m going to recharge it, and grab some food. I’m out for a while.

[9:40 update] I’m back at Westlake. A few dozen people are along 4th Ave and every time the light turns, and a rush of cars come by, cars are honking. People are milling about. I have no idea how many.

[9:46 update] There’s only one police car. I don’t know if cops are massing elsewhere, or if they just aren’t around.

[10:27 update] The rumor was that police would clear people out at 10:00, and that hasn’t happened. I’ve been told people with writing on their arms are willing to get arrested (it’s legal info). The people I talked to now and earlier have said that the people saying “fuck the police” etc, don’t represent the majority. But I guess they were the only ones with megaphones. It sounds like a total of 30 people arrested.

I’m probably heading home soon, but I can’t tell you how brave the people here willing to get arrested, willing to spend the night in the cold, drizzly, hard ground, willing to be seen are. I can’t tell you how proud I am of each of them.

I’ve been hard on King Council member Jane Hague, and sometimes even liberals criticize me for attacking Jane personally rather than going after her on her record.

But my “personal attacks” are on Jane’s character, her integrity. Or the lack thereof. Character and integrity are not just fair game, they’re really important.

And so based on a number of past events, it seems that Jane Hague has some serious integrity issues. In particular, she has real problems accepting responsibility for her own actions.

Take, for instance, the time in 2001 that Jane Hague ran into a bus:

According to the Metro accident report of May 29, the bus was running the outbound 66 route, driving east on Olive Way. Hague’s 1996 Ford Explorer was stopped in the crosswalk of a traffic signal at Fourth Avenue. Witnesses say Hague pulled out quickly to make a right turn onto Olive and drove into the right side of the bus, behind the front-door frame. The driver reported sounding his horn and stepping on the brakes before impact.

“I do not agree with the driver’s account,” Hague said yesterday. “This is not unusual in the case of a traffic accident.”

According to the Metro driver’s report, after the accident Hague said to him, “You know it’s your fault, don’t you?” The driver replied, “No, I don’t see it that way.”

The driver reported Hague asking, “How do you see it?” and then informing him of her position, saying, “Do you know that I’m your King County councilwoman?”

The driver said Hague demanded his license but didn’t want to give him hers. When witnesses stepped forward and corroborated the driver’s version of events, Hague protested that she was being ganged up on, “to make sure that this accident would appear to be my fault.”

Hague said yesterday her statements to the driver after the accident had been mischaracterized. She denied she had tried to intimidate him or transit officials who came shortly after.

Hague, who is running for re-election, called it “highly unusual” to see “such explicit personality issues raised in the course of a pro-forma traffic report.

There are multiple levels of denial going on here. And, perhaps, a touch of paranoia.

I won’t rehash Jane’s abusive behavior to the police officers who stopped her on suspicion of DUI. And I’ll skip right over the episode in which Jane fails to take responsibility for misleading biographies that incorrectly stated she had a college degree.

Let’s jump ahead to Jane’s most recent accident:

Hague spokesman Brad Harwood said Sept. 26 that the council member was injured on a charity bike ride the previous morning when she collided with another cyclist who made a “goofy” turn in front of her. Harwood said he didn’t know what the event was or where the accident occurred.

It turns out cause of the accident, which occurred on the second day of the Kiwanis-sponsored Wine Country Trek in the Yakima Valley, was a bit more complicated.

Hague and two other cyclists said the accident occurred at an intersection outside Prosser where directions painted on the pavement told bikers to turn left. Hague was about to pass a group of riders ahead of her when they began to make the left turn.

Hague said she was moving “at a fairly good clip” as she approached the intersection, didn’t look for directions because the route went straight in previous years, and she didn’t notice other riders were turning.

Hague’s bike struck Mercer Island resident Penny Storie’s bike, throwing both women to the ground, causing cuts and severe bruising. Hague, who also reported blurred vision and nausea, was later taken by ambulance to a Toppenish hospital and spent two nights in a Bellevue hospital. Storie was not hospitalized.

Hague, 65, said she gave no verbal warning she was about to pass Storie, 66, and a companion because they were still ahead of her.

Storie said the accident was Hague’s fault. “You can’t crash into the back of somebody and put the responsibility on them. . . . I’m black and blue but thankful I have no broken bones.”

Hague said Tuesday she didn’t think anyone was at fault. “It happened so quickly, it’s hard to say.” As for her office’s initial report that the accident was caused by another biker turning into her path, she said it would have been better if she had spoken directly to a reporter. “We were doing the best we could.”

More denial.

Sadly, ten years after the bus accident, Jane has a bicycle accident that ends in denial and a failure to take responsibility for her own actions. This is a long term pattern with Jane.

And after a decade sprinkled with such “events” the pattern has become much too obvious—even too obvious for the mainstream media to ignore Jane’s integrity problem.

– I’ve been riveted to the #occupyseattle thread. Looks like no arrests last night.

– People who point out that it’s bad to use racist language to name places are the real racists.

– Wow, Politico needs to get out more.

– Conservatives frequently claim that casual sex is bad for young women, but this study makes a persuasive case that what’s actually bad is the judgment of casual sex. Women may enjoy hooking up just as much as dudes — and college students understand this. But the stigma against women’s sexuality means having casual sex with someone you later date can cause power imbalances down the line.

– One of you must have stepped on a butterfly or something.

It’s Tuesday…and that’s Drinking Liberally night in Seattle. So please join us for an evening of politics under the influence at the Seattle Chapter of Drinking liberally.

We meet at the Montlake Ale House, 2307 24th Avenue E. at 8:00 pm. Stop by earlier for a quiet dinner.

Can’t make it? The Tri-Cities chapter of Drinking liberally meets every Tuesday night as well. And the Vancouver, WA chapter also meets tonight. On Thursday, Drinking Liberally Tacoma meets. And the Everett chapter of Drinking Liberally meets in Snohomish next Monday. With 226 chapters of Living Liberally, chances are good there is one near you.

What is the Editorial Board really saying in this Seattle Times editorial titled Gubernatorial hopeful Jay Inslee should shift gears toward state issues?

U.S. REP. Jay Inslee is wasting voters’ time by making an issue of federal health-insurance reform in his campaign for governor in 2012. Instead of attacking Attorney General Rob McKenna’s challenge to “Obamacare,” Inslee should focus on state issues.

Translation: “By ‘wasting voters’ time’ we mean that you can only discuss one issue at a time. And this isn’t it! Come on, Inslee, you’re killing us here. Rob made a mistake—showed his cards, if you will—but we still want folks to believe that McKenna is an honest-to-gosh moderate.”

That the health insurance law will apply in this state does not make it a state issue. The law applies in all the states. It is a federal law being challenged in federal court regarding the federal Constitution.

Translation: “The Tea Party is quite unpopular in Washington state, so stop pointing out that McKenna jumped into this Tea Party-inspired lawsuit. That’s just dirty politics to tarnish McKenna with his own actions.”

Opponents argue that the Constitution gives the federal government no power to order individuals to buy insurance. The Obama administration argues it has that power under the Commerce Clause. This is just the sort of argument the Supreme Court is designed to settle, and the argument was bound to arrive there. That McKenna joined one side and Gov. Chris Gregoire joined the other will not affect the outcome. Nor will a future governor of Washington, whether Inslee or McKenna.

Translation: “Whatever you do, don’t remind people of what has happened in other states when a Teabagger Republican has taken the reigns as Governor. Mentioning the lawsuit makes people fear that a future Governor Rob McKenna might do to Washington state what Florida Governor Rick Scott or Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker have done to their states. We don’t like that. So stop it and talk about other stuff.”

All the while, there boils a huge state issue: the $2-billion budget shortfall. Gregoire has ordered state agencies to offer a list of 10-percent cuts. She will use this list to recommend a package of cuts to a special session of the Legislature. Does Inslee support this?

Translation: “Jay, do you support a Governor being able to collect information from state agencies and make recommendations to the Legislature? Really?!? Because…we’re not so sure….”

Does he think the governor should be empowered to make discretionary cuts if the Legislature does not? How would he close a $2 billion gap? Cuts? Tax increases? Reforms?

Translation: “And don’t even think of bringing up the fact that our own reporting finds McKenna’s state budgetary ideas utter fantasy.”

This gap should be closed by the time the new governor takes office in 2013, but the questions are likely to be similar.

Translation: “So even though our recommended “issue” will quite possibly be irrelevant for the next Governor, and you have 13 more months to talk about similar issues anyway, and regardless of the Health Care reform lawsuit being a timely news item now, and ignoring the fact that McKenna has admitted to losing control of the lawsuit’s agenda, and dismissing the fact that hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of Washingtonians will be hurt by success of the lawsuit that McKenna claims to have co-founded, please, please talk about only what we want you to talk about.”

Inslee has been in Congress since 1999, and he is still thinking about national issues. He needs to shift gears.

Translation: “Inslee should shift away from discussing things McKenna has done to harm the people of Washington. The people don’t need to know.”

“P.S. We won’t be endorsing you.”

1) Crime is down in the city, but we’ve seen some horrible incidents with the police in recent years. How do we ensure public safety and not have those sorts of things happen in the future?

In many categories rates of crime are down in Seattle. However, that didn’t make my neighbors around Graham Hill School feel any better last spring when there were more than a dozen home break-ins in the area. It also didn’t matter to the families when the young pregnant woman was shot and killed in south Rainier Beach in the spring. It hasn’t mattered to any of the Pioneer Square or Belltown people I’ve spoken with who are angry and frustrated by on-going street dealing and violence.

We make progress by staying focused on the places we know experience trouble, policing them consistently, engaging the surrounding community to build stronger families and institutions, and connecting people with options that change lives, like Community Court, Drug Court and Mental Health Court.

We’ve all seen too many cell phone-captured incidents on television of incidents we don’t associate with the vast, vast majority of officers who do a great job. Fundamentally, there’s no place for abuse by any public servant. We avoid incidents like the few we’ve seen by investing in great recruitment (for problem solvers from all parts of our community), training and supervision, and, when necessary, in clear discipline. In the wake of the John T. Williams tragedy I joined with the other members of the Council’s Public Safety Committee to put forward a set of 11 recommendations to the Chief of Police and the Mayor. The recommendations touch on investigation procedures, department transparency, supervisory expectations, hiring and training. While a handful of the recommendations will require contract negotiations, many can be executed immediately by the Chief of Police and Mayor. Some require further vetting with communities of color and officers. Diversity and sensitivity training are a constant process. I don’t believe that work is ever done.

2) Now that the Viaduct is coming down, what should the waterfront look like?

Whether rain or shine, Seattle’s Central Waterfront will be a place we want to visit to see the water, perhaps touch the water, take visitors, go jogging, walk the dog, sit on the grass, catch a concert, watch a street performer. As we walk, wheel or ride from north to south we’ll move through zones with different character or activities depending upon how the seawall is rebuilt in that section and on how much right-of- way is recaptured when the Viaduct comes down. The reclaimed area will be well- maintained and programmed through a successful partnership between public and private (both for-profit and foundation) funders. Surface transportation will effectively move people and goods, but also be minimal in its physical spread. The Waterfront will be an awesome place to experience the every-day beauty of our city’s surroundings, all watched over by the Olympics and Seattle’s own skyline.

3) As the great recession drags on, the city budget is still hurt. What do we need to cut, what do we need to keep, and do we need to raise more money via taxation?

The challenge during this very, very, very slow economic recovery is to protect the core services required of local government (police, fire, clean water and mobility infrastructure to name a few) without hampering our future success in areas not considered core services but which enable us to be a great place to make a life (affordable housing, human services, community-building and urban planning to name a few).

My top General Fund budget priorities are public safety (patrol officers and firefighters), survival services for low-income and at-risk people in our city, and protecting areas where our spending leverages other dollars and shows measurable outcomes. The Neighborhood Matching Fund is an example of the latter. NMF is the catalyst and boost that produces not just hardscape projects all over our city, but yields a stronger, more resilient community as a result of neighborhood partnerships.

As the economy recovers to the point where we see additional revenue, I am committed to returning to the SPD hiring plan abandoned with the economic downturn. I believe we need to be hiring to both replace retiring officers and to increase the overall number of officers on patrol. I would also like to invest new dollars into more effective shelter programs, ones that provide 24-hour shelter, better meet the needs of people currently sleeping outdoors, and ones that show positive results moving people into housing.

We need to cut or restructure efforts that don’t yield measurable results. This is easier said than done. We have a great deal of recently compiled information on both general crime prevention efforts and youth violence prevention efforts. The efforts under way, involving millions of dollars, serve community needs. They involve great community volunteers and city staff, and they serve constituencies. However, not all the efforts underway can demonstrate through outcomes that they move the needle in a positive direction when it comes to crime.

Note: In this answer I’m addressing the city’s core budget. I favor other infrastructure investments (street care connections and extensions, better street infrastructure, a great waterfront) but these are topics being discussed in relation to supplemental revenue sources.

4) With its budget shrunk at least until the end of the recession what should Seattle parks look like?

The City of Seattle enjoys a Department of Parks & Recreation that runs the spread from natural open spaces (East Duwamish Greenbelt, for instance) to heavily-scheduled recreation fields (Woodland Park, Delridge and Dahl, for instance), tiny skate dots up to recreation and teen life complexes (Garfield, for instance). We serve thousands of people, some of whom have deep pockets some of whom don’t know where they’ll find their next meal. Parks and parks facilities and beloved and the classic government service – a community “good” not expected to make a profit. The problem is we can’t continue running the system at the subsidy levels we have now. DPR has been hit hard in the past couple of budget cycles. We’ve cut budgets, raised fees and demanded more revenue be generated out of community centers and boating facilities. While DPR receives a charter-mandated level of minimum funding that level is nowhere near the cost of running the system we have now. Additionally, you can find plenty of people who believe we short-change ourselves via less-than-regular maintenance of our active park spaces. We can raise fees only so far before we lose the ability to attract the kids and adults our ballfields, courts and community centers should serve.

City parks should be beautiful and well maintained. Community center activities should be diverse in content, co-determined with the community, and accessible to anyone regardless of income. Facilities should be spread through the city with regard to great transit, proximity to density and with regard to social equity. The city should continue to partner with the Associated Recreation Council to run programming and should be more aggressive about finding other programming partners; groups that can fill our community centers, pools, fields and courts during the days and evenings to generate some additional earned income. We should also work closely with ARC, the Parks Foundation and others on additional ways to under-write the costs incurred when low-income kids sign up for swimming, the computer lab, tennis, rowing, etc. Perhaps an endowment to under-write partial costs for kids who fall under a defined family income threshold.

5) What is Seattle’s role in education and public transportation given how important they are to the city, but that other agencies are tasked with them?

High quality public schools and safe, efficient, comfortable transit are key if we are to be successful in our urban development goals. While City government directly controls neither of these areas we can and do play a significant role in shaping the success of both systems in Seattle. With both education and transportation Seattle’s opportunities can be found in setting clear expectations, demanding accountability, and furthering our goals through partnership.

In terms of expectations, I have been a part of ongoing work with the Seattle Scholl Board about our mutual interest in high performing neighborhood schools. We have a long way to go in the south half of the city, but I have lead conversations in Rainier Beach and other neighborhoods about what we want from our neighborhood schools. With regard to Metro, we have a transit plan (currently be revised) that sets a course for “frequent” transit headways of 10 minutes. The Transit Master Plan serves as a clear statement of expectations for a transit plan in the city (involving both Metro and Sound Transit) that supports our city and regional growth goals.

With regard to demanding accountability, I am using the commitment to neighborhood schools, the school “report cards,” and school visits as a way to track progress on improvement. We’re also using the outcome requirements attached to funding from the Families & Education Levy as a way to produce accountability. In the transit realm, the city has flexed accountability muscles after snowstorm shutdowns and, in less crisis fueled times, in determining where Rapid Ride routes should run. I’ll put in a plug for a colleague – Councilmember Tom Rasmussen. Tom has done a terrific job building relationships and trust with electeds from other cities and King County on the Regional Transit Committee and the Transit Task Force. Through this work we have built a new agreement regarding Metro service allocations with better outcomes (at least theoretically) for Seattle.

Partnership plays out on an every-day level and through special efforts like the Families & Education Levy renewal proposal before voters this fall, Transit Now (passed by voters in 2006) and the maintenance and mobility car tabs proposal slated for this fall. These are supplemental dollars earmarked for specific objectives via the schools or Metro. The funding helps Seattle Public Schools and Metro with system objectives and ensures Seattle gets specific services and outcomes important to our goals. On a regular basis I work in partnership with Seattle Public Schools on facilities and neighborhood development issues that come up related to the Council’s Committee on the Built Environment, the committee I chair. I look for opportunities to make facilities changes logical and predictable for the school system and the community, and I look for opportunities to weave school system planning into our work planning for new development in urban villages.

– Always, always, always check the ellipses when a conservative quotes something to make a point (in fact, it’s a good idea in general).

– The Trib is right about the pain budget cuts in the special session can cause. But still, not a word about raising taxes.

– Reading Unnecessary Journalism Phrases is going to waste a lot of my time.

– I don’t stay up at night worrying if Rick Santorum is a jackass.

– Does anyone know anything about Michael Baumgartner?

– Anyone seen Saving Aimee?

Last week’s contest was won by Right Stuff. He didn’t get the exact location, but he was within a few blocks and he guessed correctly that it was a Solyndra building in Fremont, CA.

This week’s contest is a random location somewhere in the world, good luck!