Via Evergreen Politics, “Talking about Paul Allen“: “The New York Times has an article on Paul Allen and his impact on Seattle via both his ownership of the Seahawks and his efforts to redesign South Lake Union and promote an entire new bioscience-based economy in that area.’ The writer, Timothy Egan, is of course using… Continue reading Building on the corpse of the Seattle Commons: vision or social engineering?
Category: US
Parking and downtown revitalization
Via The Olympian: “Meter idea might cost downtown free parking Study: 100 vehicles found to switch spots throughout the day BY KATHERINE TAM THE OLYMPIAN OLYMPIA – Free 90-minute downtown parking could be replaced with meters under an idea that soon will come before city officials. The idea was first proposed years ago by members… Continue reading Parking and downtown revitalization
Parking improvement passes
Via OlyBlog – This ain’t CNN, “City council passes BID“: “The City Council on Tuesday unanimously passed a law creating a Parking and Business Improvement Area.” Those that don’t pay on time are sent to collections.
Red squares across the state
Via OlyBlog – This ain’t CNN, “Evergroove trivia, pt. 1“: “Then we could observe people walking around on Red Square through the grates. The original Red Square, a wide area surrounded by berms and narrow exits, had an incredibly slippery surface in the 1970s. We always felt it was that way on purpose for crowd… Continue reading Red squares across the state
Community Values Act
This was discussed last night. Also discussed was an issue with the port lease of space, and an potential increase of over 100 trucks DAILY to the port carrying logs. What if the city bought westbay, and traded with the port to reclaim the peninsula for town? Likely very controversial for the property owners on… Continue reading Community Values Act
Procedural “stack” variant/mod for rule of order
I was listening to some of the discussion at the CC meeting yesterday. There was a concern about items that don’t appear on a calendar tend to disappear. I recall that there’s a particular innovation to the standard rules of order, for which I’ve been trying to find a reference but can’t, that creates a… Continue reading Procedural “stack” variant/mod for rule of order
no second chance on Kelo
No second-guess on Kelo This is about the eminent domain case that came before SCOTUS, which Ryan and I were talking about because it’s one of the crazy simplified issues on the Christian Coalition questionnaire.
homeless and downtown vacancy
Here’s a discussion about the issues of vacancy and homelessness, which links to what I believe is the recent article that talks about the vacancy rate. “Another article on the state of downtown“
auto-adjusting parking meters?
“Sensors and Sensibility“
meeting with the City staff
So, I was 1 of only 3 candidates to show up. Karen Messmer, Joe Hyer, and myself. Position 7 was well represented. I wanted to but forgot to ask Karen whether she was uncontested now, whether the other guy turned out not have been a resident.
discussion with city staff, etc …
There is a scheduled discussion for candidates with city staff from 10am to 12pm monday (the 22nd) in Olympia. — I wonder how many public restrooms the city thinks it has. I wonder about the repair rate for parking meters. (In one city the repair rate is multiple times a DAY!) I wonder how many… Continue reading discussion with city staff, etc …
semantics of nuclear weapons
A friend notes that there’s a semantic argument about how to categorize the USS Olympia. Should it be called a weapons platform powered by nuclear energy? The difference about the USS Olympia is that it’s not a nuclear weapon, therefore not part of the nuke-free zone, where a nuclear weapon would be. However, it’s moot.… Continue reading semantics of nuclear weapons
A new candidate
Via The Olympian, Teacher to challenge Kingsbury. Olympia City Council race has 6th candidate” Running but not yet filed, we have another new runner.
parking garage
PDF link It was intended to be a pay lot: “Mr. Hall noted projects not included in the draft CFP include a downtown parking garage. He indicated he has heard a request from Councilmembers to add this back on the list of projects included. He stated last year the parking garage was in the CFP… Continue reading parking garage
BID
link So, businesses in the BID automatically become ODA members: “Businesses paying the cost would automatically become members of the ODA.” “At press time, the Olympia Downtown Association board of directors was working to gather the needed petition signatures by the end of July, with the hope of going to the Council sometime in August.”… Continue reading BID
more brainstorm
Just wanted to add to this notion that: “When the commons is given away, it’s almost impossible to get it back. Just take a look at the failed Seattle Commons as an example of how hard it can be.” There was an article in the Sea Times about lessons to be learned from Van BC:,… Continue reading more brainstorm
brainstorm
ISSUE: Parking in Downtown PARKING GARAGES DON’T VITALIZE Neither in spokane nor in Tacoma have centrally located parking garages worked to vitalize the downtown area. In fact, recent suggestions for the Tacoma garage have been to just tear it down. IS PARKING THE BIG ISSUE? My opponent thought the parking issue was a myth is… Continue reading brainstorm
a handful of parking garage references
The parking garage is tied to the BID, apparently link In jun 04, ODA proposes using money from the shelved conference center. link The port needs parking too, and can’t make the decision by itself. link The garage funding is now tied to the BID proposal. Multiple spots suggested, and submitted. Looks cheaper now that… Continue reading a handful of parking garage references
Dystopian mobililty
Via Synergic Earth News “Future Cities” “Dystopic pockets of inequality and dirt inhabit the not so shiny bits. Ask a gathering of leading thinkers in the worlds of architecture and design, and you get a rather different picture. Some 70 million people a year migrate from the country to cities. That is about 130 a… Continue reading Dystopian mobililty
Another candidate …
Via The Olympian, Teacher to challenge Kingsbury. Olympia City Council race has 6th candidate” Running but not yet filed, we have another new runner.