Unfortunately, the Seattle Parks Foundation just sent out a misguided
bulk email to parks supporters asking them to support Seattle TBD Prop
1. If you are a Parks supporter, you should vote ‘no’. Here’s why:

To address the regressivity of this measure, City Hall has promised to
do rebates to low income people. Because they didn’t budget for rebates
in their rush to place this on the budget, the millions per year to pay
for rebates will need to come out of the General Fund. We are all
acutely aware of the cuts in our Community Centers and Parks Department.
This measure will make that worse.

Unlike our Parks Levy, this measure is so vague they can move the money
around wherever they want. Nick Licata is trying to address this after
the fact, but his measure won’t do the job because of the overly broad
categories they used in this ballot measure.

The Parks Foundation letter talks about $14 million for greenways, but
this number is not accurate. Moreover, spending on that segment has
already been reduced in draft budgets put forth by SDOT between when
this was put on the ballot and last week.  In the original budget
available at the time this was placed on the ballot, $9.5 million was
specified for greenways. In the latest SDOT draft budget, this has
shrunk to $7.5M. You can see the original budget numbers on the
Sidewalks and Streets for Seattle website at
http://www.sidewalksandstreets.org/numbers.html

As far as sidewalks are concerned, this measure is a joke. In the budget
available at the time this was placed on the ballot, only nine new
sidewalk block faces were in the budget. In the October 3rd draft budget
from SDOT, this dropped to four (4) block faces per year for the entire
city.

Despite serious infrastructure needs, we’re spending over $17 million on
streetcar *studies*. We’re allocating nearly 50% of the $204 million
raised by this levy to transit but it does not buy any new bus hours or
bus routes. The number of speedier transit corridors has gone from
nearly nine to as few as four in subsequent draft budgets, and now we’re
told corridor improvements depend on matching funds. In their draft
budget published in early October, SDOT shifted money away from
sidewalks, transit, and pedestrian safety to fund over $6 million in
advertising/promotional programs.

I’m very disappointed in the Seattle Parks Foundation for supporting
this measure. This is absolutely not a Parks-friendly measure and
addressing the regressivity via promised rebates will reduce General
Fund monies that could restore some funding to Parks. This measure could
be Parks friendly, but to make that happen we have to vote this flawed
version down and bring a better one back next year. I urge you to vote
no on Prop 1.

David Miller
Sidewalks and Streets for Seattle

I love Costa Rica. It’s an amazing place. There’s a lot of beauty here. Unfortunately, if you are into trees, you quickly discover there’s not too much beauty in the cities and towns here. Perhaps it is the farming mentality, but in San Jose, Cartago, and many other cities, there are hardly any city trees at all. As a result many of the towns are extremely hot and barren concrete somewhat ugly places (at least from my aesthetic sensibilities).

So what can be done? Education of the importance of city trees is key.

Here’s an inspiring story from South Africa that I hope people will share with Ticos in power. I have to say that I am impressed lately with a lot of the small trees I see planted all of the time lately in San Jose and think their mayor is doing a lot but as the following story illustrates, people need to be educated in the importance of trees and letting them grow.

What I find disturbing is the amount of 30 to 80 year old trees I see chopped down all of the time. These are the big trees that give more shade, more oxygen. It’s a cumulative effect that will take decades to recover. For example, in the shopping mall between San Jose and Cartago they recently chopped some big trees that were in front of it. You don’t have to be super smart to figure out why they did it. The manager of the mall thinks, “Not enough people are coming here. If I chop the trees, more people will come because they will see it.” No, that’s not the reason. It’s because it’s on a curve and everyone is going really fast. It’s a pain to drive in there and get out. If you are heading towards Cartago, you need to remember in advance and get across the highway. Yes, it’s only two big trees that are gone (yet another two, I see it almost daily). And it seems like there’s some newly planted trees right nearby. It will only take 30 or 40 years until they get the size the old ones killed last week are. I will be 80 years old (I am 43 now). There will be a new manager at the mall (will most likely be gone by then anyway, location, location, location). If they are educated, hopefully they will not chop down the new trees.

Pura vida.

Another reason to be aware of what you eat, incredible talk on how the food is going away from nature. Eating simply, fruit and naturally can really help your health.

Plenty of Parking Spaces When You Charge Too Much

Dear Mr. Burgess,                               October 14, 2010

As a lifelong resident of Seattle who has spent a lot of time abroad and lived 8 years recently in Los Angeles, I have returned to Seattle.

I like a lot of the things that have been done particu larly the waterfront park and the library, but one I find most disturbing is the parking regime crackdown.

I am certain that Joe Diamond and the like love it as I have seen the lots in my neighborhood of lower-Queen Anne double in the past couple years. Unfortunately for the small businesses that don’t have the luxury of free large parking lots such as at University Village, this development does not help.

I notice that you have an 85% goal of parking. Well, if that’s the case if you drive down lower Queen Anne (or bicycle down the street, whatever the people are doing these days) any morning or afternoon you will see about a 8% per block because you treat my neighborhood like it’s the financial district and it’s really a residential neighborhood. So if this is the case, could we go back to the 1 hour free parking. The small businesses are being destroyed because, you know what, people can’t afford to park or move around any more, so they move around less and who gets hit the most? The small businesses, the poorer people who don’t have parking spots but live in apartments with the parking tickets, and the families who will no longer visit the city or the Seattle Center because it is just too expensive to do it with the outrageous parking fees.

I have a small business, I ride a bike, I don’t have a car and you know what, I am against all of these new bike lanes destroying traffic.

For example, drive down Queen Anne Avenue between Mercer and Denny. Be on the passenger side and try to open your door. Guess what, you now have about one foot and almost get your door ripped off by the cars going 30mph because the new bike lane squished the lanes up against the cars to the left creating a massive hazard for anyone getting out of their car. this is happening all over the city and guess what, you are spending lots of money to make things worse and more dangerous. Seriously try opening the door there.

Spending millions on these parking meters which incidentally are the worst UI design I have ever seen (how many thousands of hours are wasted going back and forth from the car, to the sticker, etc…) is helping kill this city.

Think Seattle businesses have it bad now, just wait until the moneyed people don’t come downtown at all anymore to spend. What changed downtown shopping more than anything was the HUD financed/subsidized parking garage that gave cheap/free parking in downtown like in Los Angeles bringing people from the Eastside to the city where it’s cheap and easy.

The current regime and plan of making it unbearably impossible to move around in Seattle will not make it world class, it will just lower the revenues and help the sprawl as the people stay only in their cars in the outskirts.

The plastic wheelchair non-stick things would be a great thing to chop out of the budget on all the intersections. They are slippery in the rain (9 months of the year) and the meshed concrete works fine. I wish I had that government contract.

Best regards,

Travis Winn

Fifth of World's Plants at Risk of Extinction

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/39419038/ns/world_news-world_environment/

I want to vote for this guy and support this new law!

So sad. I love the way the world is getting so connected though! Keep up the great work Mary Eng.

http://thereallacc.blogspot.com/

I am a healthy adult, vegetarian, etc, etc. I had health insurance for about four years. From that time about 2005 to 2009 my premiums went up from about $111 to $267. From what I was reading in the above article they would be most likely $390 by now. This is and was outrageous. When I found out my wife was pregnant (and she was visiting from another country), I realized that it was going to be virtually impossible to get health insurance or pay for the birth simply in a hospital.

We determined that it was going to be best to do it in Costa Rica instead, and from what I am reading I am so glad for that decision. In Costa Rica when you go to a private hospital to give birth, you get a detailed list of the prices and what they cover IN ADVANCE. I first experienced that in Thailand almost 20 years ago when I had to go to the hospital there. They gave you a list: One price for private room, another for shared with one person, and a cheaper for a group room. Pretty straight forward. Why can’t this be done in America?

Our cars when they are sick have more rights then their owners. The mechanic has to give you a signed quote in order to “operate” on them.

Most countries in the world you can ask in advance what the price is going to be, and then make an informed decision, this more than anything so that people can comparison shop instead of the hoping insurance might cover it, is what needs to happen for true insurance.

Price control must be done as well that is the only way that we are going to move forward on this (oops, did I say a dirty word?).