History, politics, people of Oly WA
Well, officially it will be on Monday, but we can start celebrating now.
As everyone in the freaking world is noting (here, here and here), Seattle is getting a new MLS team. Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!
I’m just happy.
While I’m being happy, think about coming out to O’Blarney’s next Sunday morning to watch the MLS Cup with a group of us. Please
Pierce County voted for Instant Run-off voting last year, but the county council put it back on the ballot against this year. The folks weren’t fooled up there, and they’re voting against delaying IRV until 2010 by a two to one margin.
Funny thing: Piece County has eight charter amendments on the ballot this year and almost every single one of them is winning. Most are in the 60 percent area, but several are in the 70s and at least all of the winning ones are above 54 percent.
The two charter amendments that would have messed around with IRV are the only ones that are losing. Looks like the voters paid attention to this one.
I know it only matters to weirdos who would sit at their computer and hit refresh on election night, but it bugs the ever-living-crap out of me that the Olympian is posting live results, while the county Auditor’s office is MIA.
UPDATE: 10:07 p.m. and we’re the only county in the state not reporting any results (at least officially). Theoretically, since we are the state capital, you would assume we could bike our results over to the state auditor and still beat some other counties.
Update again: Last Tabulated: 11/6/2007 10:21:34 PM. Freakin’ finally, two hours?
We’re Seattle — we have options. We could pursue the Golden Baseball League model and form an independent basketball league, or, better yet, a league of smaller basketball teams. There are other sports to consider, like, say, hockey. It doesn’t have to be a National Hockey League team — how about supporting the existing Western Hockey League? If this is about keeping arena seats filled and giving people who love sports something to enjoy, then we could do worse.
The problem with the hockey thing, especially the WHL Thunderbirds, is that they’re already leaving Seattle. Not to say we couldn’t draw another minor league hockey team to Key Arena and have a great local derby between Everett/Seattle/Kent, but that’s going off in another direction.
I love this idea of a competing winter basketball league. Unlike baseball, and to some extent hockey, there is no organization top-to-bottom in basketball. All of the independent basketball leagues in the United States operate independently from the NBA.
List of minor league basketball leagues
Since the ABA merged with the NBA in the 70s, there has been little competition with top flight basketball in the United States. Taking the opportunity now to compete, I could see putting into play a handful of things that would strike at the heart of sports over here.
A new basketball league (or rather system) could involved promotion/relegation where good teams go up and bad teams down. In this way, you could invite teams from existing leagues to compete.
Community ownership could also play a role. The NHL supposedly played with this idea a few years ago, but outside of the Green Bay Packers and some other minor league teams, it is untried. Ask any fan if they’d buy stock in their team though.
Also, is it totally necessary to have a t.v. contract? This doomed the ABA… so, for now, despite internet and all that, I guess it does.
I’ve been poking around the PDC website for a couple of days, and now I’m going to post how much money is given to the both major state parties and the two parties in Thurston County.
All future posts in this topic will be categorized here.
For September:
State Republican Party (exempt): $41,471
State Republican Party (non-exempt) $0
Total: $41,471
Top giver, George Rowley of Rowely Enterprises in Sammamish who gave $25,000.
State Democratic Party (exempt): $4,543
State Democratic Party (non-exempt): $67,103
Total: $71,646
Top giver, Greg Amadon, a venture capitalist.
Thurston County Republicans: nada
Thurston County Democrats: $5,238.41
Top giver, lots of people, because over $4,000 came from a low cost fundraiser. I’m going to guess the burger booth.
I listened to this by podcast, so I couldn’t see either state party chairs’ faces, but I was hoping that given some dead air, each had a list they’d refer to.
Pelz: “I’m not sure this state wants to elect George W. Bush as governor.”
Esser: “You know, the governor held the door open as 30,000 inmates were released.”
Pelz: “Rossi can’t make up his mind on transportation.”
Esser: “Gregoire has been in government for 30 years.”
Pelz: “You can’t trust Republicans to balance the budget, look what they’re doing in the other Washington.”
I know I wasn’t looking for actual debate, but this was silly.
How do you embed video from TVW? Go here.
In response to this:
The governor’s office sends me this:
All emails to the Governor sent through her website are first viewed by employees of the Constituent Services Department within the Office of the Governor. These emails are coded with subject information and then routed within the office or to individual agencies for follow-up. All communications to the Governor are made available to her executive policy staff who use this information when helping the Governor as she moves forward with issues important to the residents of Washington State.
I hope this answers your question.
What I was looking for wasn’t a direct email from govchris193@hotmail.com, but rather some sort of indication that my email wasn’t going into some black hole. I’m not totally sure that if you do send anything to Dino at his email address collecting website that you’ll get anything back at all.
Either way, the governor’s office seems to be taking this more seriously.
I came across this last night:
There have definitely been closed-door meetings involving Seattle city officials about a new basket ball arena in Seattle Center. The idea of also having Memorial Stadium (the ugly thing in the above picture), remodeled, renovated or rebuilt, is a possibility. A Seattle MLS team playing there is one option, and there’s been a rumor that Bob Whitsitt would be interested in putting a lacrosse team there as well.
But, no matter how many closed door sessions the city has, it can’t actually do what by law it is prevented to do: Seattle can’t spend money on Key Arena if it helps the Sonics.
But, King County can. And who recently presented a “vision for Seattle Center?” Ron Sims, the county executive. Yeah, it got the official cold shoulder from the city, but if there are closed door meetings, there might also be closed door reactions.
Sims even put the funding portion of his idea onto paper:
Sims floated legislation in Olympia that would have allowed the county to use hotel-motel and other taxes for a new Sonics arena, plus a redevelopment of Seattle Center and any other “civic amenities” deemed worthy by the county. The legislation would have raised $1 billion for those purposes over 25 years.
In terms of the popularity of sports team subsidies in King County vs. Seattle, remember that the Qwest Field initiative never would have passed without King County. It also might be easier to squeeze through a rebuild of Key Arena to a county-wide electorate if its wrapped around a broader revamping of Seattle Center.
Dan Evans on Husky Stadium:
“There’s one thing that we are all certain of — we won’t build anything more than what we can pay for,” Evans said.
David Stern on the Sonics arena:
“there was no heart whatsoever for assisting a Sonics team.”
This relates to part one.
I knew I remembered this from back in the day:
TJ Johnson, who will be sworn in tonight, said he compiled the list after hearing residents say they wanted a more receptive council.
“It’s the sense that we need to do a much better job of communicating and engaging the public,” Johnson said Monday. “That’s the spirit in which this is offered, to rebuild trust, to rebuild the partnership with citizens and the city.”
Johnson plans to discuss the proposal tonight and ask the council to set the wheels in motion.
…
– All e-mail communication between council members should take place in a “chat room” accessible to the public via the Internet.
– All written and electronic mail sent or received by council members in their capacity as council members (i.e., not personal e-mail) should be copied to a central repository operated by the office of the city manager.
That sounds a lot like a blog. I don’t really remember the details of what happened to T.J.’s plan, but you can assume he never got the blog going.
Council vows to consider efforts to draw in public
Olympia City Council told what to change
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