Motley Blog

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 (at 24) 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.

In the summer of 1994 I was given the honor of editing the Vision Seattle Newsletter, City Watch. Here I talk a little about communications as they apply to civic and neighborhood decision making, as I take up those reins.

This isn't so much a biographical item as an interesting story which I was a somewhat close spectator of.

The district election reform effort would play out as a major scandal. Though not conceived as an attack on the Seattle establishment, it was certainly an effort to make electability more accessible to the average citizen. Kerman Kermoade, the author of the following clipping was a friend on the Vision board, doing this as a project for his later life Poly Sci degree. I was at the initial organizing meetings for their effort in support and followed the issue loosely.

As you may recall this became a scandal when it was revealed that food executive (and active Republican) Tom Stewart was making illegal contributions as a way to seek revenge for previous battles with the City bureaucracy. I wasn't active in the campaign nor know anything about the details of Stewart's other city battles. Stewart, with his company, has since left the State, one of several biggies in the last decade or so.

Tacoma, as you may know, has a mixed system of at-large and district seats - the particular mix I came to favor out of observing these debates. Seattle still talks about it, but does nothing.

This is a partial scan of a full spread on the Madrona neighborhood published in the community newspaper the North Seattle Press. This is, I believe, a good example of advocacy journalism, I served as Secretary of the Community Council for 3 years. I'd like to think it reads better than the typical chamber of commerce promotion stuff.

Here's some published architectural photography from the Seattle Press, classic military housing at the Sandpoint Naval Station.

I also had the opportunity to work with Councilmember Chong's Staff, Matt Fox and Jay Sauceda, as well as Tim Baker, staffing a community forum on the future of this public asset. Good event and I do believe some positive seeds were sown in that well run (and substantive) community forum.

I was doing some early morning grumbling about some unusual traffic on the neighborhood arterial a block from my house only to be quite surprised when cops starting pouring out of the unmarked vehicles in front of me.

My Tacoma neighborhood has some great homeowners and a lot of potential - it's Lincoln/McKinley on the ridge to the South of the Tacoma Dome. However the owner-occupiers are less than 50% of the population, the rest not exactly the best sorts of renters. Tacoma's been a dumping ground for recent prison releases and we're one of the areas that gets em big time - worse even are the folks that whose next stop is into jail. I've not even looked at the sex predator list, but certainly have heard the stories.

We're not all that far from UW-T, so hopefully those folks will start moving in here at some point - at the moment though the best renters by far are the illegals. I'm in a personal situation where renting would've been the right choice, but I'm not comfortable renting to this market.

On a related note, on my return from Seattle last Thursday there was a very aggressive semi-driver giving new meaning to the term 'class A' - tailgating me as if I was blocking him, though he had nowhere to go. The trailer was from New Century Transportation, the cab a rental from Ryder. I wrote down an identifier, but I'm not sure if it was the plate or trailer number - R54126, in case anyone does a web search. This was about 3:25p. I'd be happy to testify if his behavior results in any problems.

Sunshine State

Written and Directed by John Sayles

Starring Angela Bassett, Edie Falco, Timothy Hutton, and Alan King

2002

This is another gem from the legendary John Sayles who has a profound ability to capture a place and its people. This ensemble movie will likely only appeal to those that have gotten involved in their local community as it does refer to many of the typical conflicts that manifest themselves as real drama in our real lives.

The story involves two old established neighboring beachfront communities facing development threats, one black, the other white - race is a factor in the story, but it is secondary.

One idea that this story implicitly raises is whether neighborhood segregation is not always a bad thing - in this case the two seperate neighborhoods do seem to work - including forming a larger community between them.

Army Officer Appointment Acceptance and Oath of Office

I (insert name), having been appointed a (insert rank) in the U.S. Army under the conditions indicated in this document, do accept such appointment and do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic, that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter, so help me God.

From the Washington State Constitution, Article IV

SECTION 28 OATH OF JUDGES. Every judge of the supreme court, and every judge of a superior court shall, before entering upon the duties of his office, take and subscribe an oath that he will support the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of the State of Washington, and will faithfully and impartially discharge the duties of judge to the best of his ability, which oath shall be filed in the office of the secretary of state.

New York Times stringer and author Tim Egan (The Good Rain) opines in the New York Times on the steep decline of housing prices in the greater San Francisco 'sprawl' zone. Anecdotally Egan cites the case of Lathrop California, two hours from the Bay Area in the Central Valley. Housing prices there have dropped from a peak of $500,000 to $150,000.

This is an interesting phenomenon, certainly both worthy and timely. But where Egan takes his analysis of this tragedy is truly irresponsible.

First, he implies that the problem in Lathrop and surrounding communities is the model of foreclosure throughout the United States. Then, curiously, he defines such areas as slums in a typical Seattle passive aggressive manner.