Motley Blog

The educator Piaget talks about the abstract mind forming roughly during puberty. I started an alternative school at about that time, and I have very clear memories of realizing that there was more than one way to do things in society. The school I'd left was the R.M. Nixon Elementary, after finishing 5th grade, in 1974, the year of Nixon's resignation - not the end of that controversy.

But perhaps most important was the realization that one could change oneself - which I did, picking up whitewater kayaking and competing in same.

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In the spring of my Junion High School year I went east to train with a former UofO grad student employed by the Oakridge National Laboratories in Oakridge Tennessee. Attending school in Oakridge was an experience unto itself. The city has the highest per capita of PHD's in the world. The school was certainly smart as well, but also managed to be regular winners of the State Football Championship (something my Oregon school was able to do the year after I graduated under Quarterback Gary Stott and a black running back, just about the only black in the school.) The school was big into partying as well. It definitely still had racial issues - being only about ten miles away from places where black churches had been bombed.

As a result of some of the extra credit associated with AP classes at this school I was able to graduate a semester early. I do still have some gaps in my math knowledge, advanced Trig, but the guy who spent three years in an alternative school basically doing nothing but socializing still scored a 700 on his Math SAT.

The picture was taken by my father, at Nanthahala Falls, North Carolina.

As I recall neighborhood matching funds were started in Seattle. I believe they were either Ford Foundation supported or the Foundation noted their success in the first year.

This was just as I was finishing off my degree and I got involved. As a side project I did a proposal for a tree planting in Squire Park, between Seattle University and 23rd. I believe this was the first of its sort. I was not involved in the implementation - as I recall the project was completed by the YMCA led by Richard Conlin, now a Seattle City Councilmember.

One of the things this project did was give me my first opportunity at trying out Geographic Information Services. The graphics here are rough, but they are functional.

This is a partial scan of a full spread on the Madrona neighborhood - where I served as Secretary of the Community Council for 3 years.

Published photo from the Seattle Press.

Paul West, the subject, was one of the great 'tree people' employed by the City of Seattle. Other's would include Tree Steward Coordinator Liz Ellis and City Arborist Jerry Clark. All 3 are pretty darn close to my top ranked City employees.

Another Sound Transit 'antithesis', #2b.

The current Sound Transit plan is now being finalized - likely though through the same sorts of irrelevant public process that led to the failure of Prop. 1 earlier this year.

Two elements of this evolved plan merit your consideration.

The first is the environmentalists call for a vote seperate from roads. Though I am a balanced roads/transit guy, I do support this as a fair process. I would of course hope that any environmentalist of political integrity would also support the submital of a roads only package, to be fair.

This is all well and good - until you consider item number two. The current alternatives being seriously discussed are centralized Seattle-centric plans - as opposed to a distributed priortization which serves all sub-areas with 'equity'. As such the 'environmentalists' are apparently forming a coalition with the power, and cash, sucking 'people' of Downtown Seattle.

This is a lose-lose decision. On the one hand this geographic divisiveness may well kill any environmental benefits that the Sound Transit light rail plan might provide.by alienating suburban voters. On the other hand the plan might pass and we would be stuck with an environmental bully as damaging as Gregoire's gender bullys.