City Government

$4 billion in four weeks gushed Cindi Laws in an interview this morning (15 Sept). Too bad only the Seattle Monorail Project Board believes this smoke.

How is it that three of the largest engineering and construction companies in the country bailed out of the monorail bidding process before the proposals were submitted?

Such a deal this new, new study is. Saving us $4 billion over the old new study and cutting the payoff time from 50 to 39 years to boot.

Wonder how we arrived at the $1.75 billion from the old old study that enticed Seattle voters to go for the project in the first place?

As with the majority, I am tired to the bone of studies and study panels on this issue but would gladly invite just one more entitled "Ways to De-Finance Seattle Monorail Project ASAP."

Talk about timing, the mayor's news release answered mine to a tee.

After studying the latest financing plan for the monorail, John Haley, the new director, recommended continued pursuit of the project and called for completion of a contract by the end of December.

The monorail board of directors unanimously agreed.

"I think we should proceed with the Green Line," Haley said. "It is complicated but it appears to be viable."

Two days later, Mayor Greg Nickels drew quite a different conclusion.

"The financing plan presented to me is not prudent," Nickels said in a statement last Friday.

When the doors opened last Wednesday at Federal Way's new EX3 Ron Sandwith Teen Center, student Charmaine Monk finally has the hangout she and her friends have wanted for years.

The young woman, honored with the title of Boys and Girls Club Youth of the Year, stood at the podium during the center's grand opening and spoke with a hint of nervousness in her voice.

Times/News

I am so proud of the Times/News' home city of Burien where volunteers turned the vacant Gottschalk's building into one of the biggest collection centers in the Puget Sound area for aid to victims of Hurricane Katrina.

Highline School Board vice president and city council candidate Steve Denmark, who came up with the idea, calls Burien the "small city with a big heart."

Pastor Pat Foutz of the Westside Christian Fellowship and several Burien lawmakers also spearheaded the effort.

But there were also countless unsung volunteers who did so mu

Dwight Pelz has spent the last eight years serving on the Metropolitan King County Council, but said he now wants to try his hand at the many "exciting decisions facing the Seattle City Council."

Besides the fact that Pelz' seat on the County Council is to be eliminated due to county downsizing, he said he is running for City Council because he says it is at the forefront of many of the important decisions being made that effect the direction of the city.

"I think you can sense from my energy that I like problems, I like discussing them and coming up with answers," he sai

If Seattle doesn't get the $2 billion approved by the Washington Legislature to help replace the Alaskan Way Viaduct, the city will tear down the deteriorating elevated highway anyway because it is unsafe, said Mayor Greg Nickels during an interview last week about his campaign for a second term in office.

Delivery of the promised $2 billion hinges on continuation of the state gas tax. The Legislature passed a 9.5-cent gas tax increase to be phased in over four years. It would raise about $5.5 billion for 274 road and bridge projects around Washington.

Times/News

The fault, dear Brutus, lies not in the stars, but in ourselves.

from Shakespeare's

Julius Caesar

The most refreshing headline I've seen in a long time appeared above an editorial in last week's West Seattle Herald/White Center News, our sister publication.

"Sims needs to go" it proclaimed atop editor Jack Mayne's indictment of the two-term liberal Democrat's management of King County government.

Times/News Correspondent

As local political campaigns for the fall election heat up, many voters will notice changes in the King County Council districts.

Many of these voters also will find themselves in new districts.

One of these is in Southwest King County, where District 13 King County Councilwoman Julia Patterson (D-SeaTac) faces a challenge from Republican Orin Wells (R-Kent) in new Council District 5.

Last November, voters approved a cost-saving measure to reduce the number of King County Council districts from 13 to nine.

After th

I guess hizzoner thinks he's Richard J. Daley of Chicago (Mayor: no gas tax, no viaduct, Sept. 7).

First he tells us that 99 is important to the region because of all the commerce that uses it. The county and region should kick in lots of money to build 'Big Dig 2' to keep that commerce rolling. Then he lectures the Legislature in Olympia, telling them 99 is an important state arterial and so they should kick in a couple of billion to put in the tunnel.