Cascadia Report

Seattle-area candidate ratings released

There are several mild surprises in the Municipal League's ratings of candidates for 26 races in the Seattle area.

The annual nonpartisan ratings, released Tuesday, are based on four criteria: Knowledge, Involvement, Effectiveness and Character. They assess each candidate's potential to be effective in office and ability to serve the community. They don't consider political affiliations or stands on particular issues.

I'm a trustee of the League so I'll just pass on the news, including a few upsets:

-- At the Port of Seattle, challengers Jack Block Jr. and Gael Tarleton got Outstanding ratings while incumbent Bob Edwards was rated Good. Commissioner Alec Fisken got an Outstanding while challenger William Bryant got a Very Good.

-- For Seattle City Council position 1, incumbent Jean Godden got a Good, the same as challenger Joe Swaja. For position 7, challenger Tim Burgess got an Outstanding while incumbent David Della got a Very Good.

The rest of the results and complete definitions of the ratings are posted here.

This year's ratings are the result of the work of more than 60 citizens who studied the public record, reviewed candidate questionnaires, checked references and conducted live interviews with the candidates. (As a League trustee, I was one of the people who reviewed the ratings.)

Solving Seattle's housing crunch

Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels wants to give more tax breaks to developers to encourage them to build moderately priced housing. But there are better ways to make housing affordable.

The mayor's plan would expand tax breaks for developers who build homes for people who earn middle-income wages. That's a well-intentioned step to meet a legitimate need.

Instead the city would be better off encouraging significantly larger buildings, especially along transit corridors. Why not allow 25-story condos in places where there's good infrastructure and they don't overwhelm neighbors? How about along I-5 near the UW, on major corners of Capitol Hill and next to the light rail station in the Rainier Valley? On this issue, even Federal Way is ahead of Seattle.

Other critical steps are improving in-city transit to serve those buildings and then making neighbohoods more walkable. Expand the streetcar and bus system (and replace the Viaduct with busways) so people can more easily survive without a car. If a middle-class family of four could survive with one car or no car, suddenly Seattle would be a lot more affordable.

It won't be easy to build support for these changes, even though more housing supply would lower prices for middle-income and poorer residents. The city would need to guarantee good design, which hasn't been the case with cookie-cutter townhomes overtaking some neighborhoods.

What's clear is that cutting property taxes starves the city of resources to provide services like parks, police and transit. Even so it's far from clear that extra tax credits would be enough to lure more development.

Low unemployment means strikes

What happens when a red-hot economy leaves the number of jobs and workers closely balanced?

In British Columbia and Alberta, workers are going on strike. There are a variety of issues behind the disputes but the underlying catalyst is that employees have the upper hand for the first time after years of stagnation.

What Vancouver can learn about rail building

Seattle's nascent light rail line was showered with praise this week -- in Vancouver.

The reason is the $50 million fund set up to help businesses impacted by construction of the light rail line through the Rainier Valley. Apparently there's no such support for business during construction of the Canada Line, which will connect downtown Vancouver, the airport and Richmond.

It's odd to hear praise of Seattle's transit efforts from Vancouver, which has had rail transit for more than two decades and is considering building a fourth line. But a representative of a Vancouver neighborhood suggested B.C.'s free-market loving government might support a Seattle-style fund: "It's a classic American approach," he said. "It's seen as an economic initiative to ensure a tax base, not as a handout. I thought the Campbell government might embrace this approach."

Seattle's Rainier Valley has been showered with support during the rail project, ever since the decision was made years ago to build that section at-grade instead of underground. Just wait until the surge of newcomers and gentrification when the line opens in 2009.

Seattle's latest shot at China flights

An airline that offers only business class seats wants to start flights between Seattle and Shanghai, a surprise entry in the race for more connections to China.

Beginning in 2009, MaxJet would fly to Seattle and on to Los Angeles. The airline faces stiff competition from other U.S. airlines -- at least seven applications have been filed for a handfull of flights allowed under a U.S.-China treaty, according to AviationWeek.

Seattle wants nonstop connections to China to jumpstart business and tourism. Meanwhile Vancouver has daily flights to Beijing, Shanghai and Hong Kong. This month a new airlines started nonstops between Hong Kong and Vancouver, meaning there are now 30 flights a week on that route.

Density coming to the suburbs

Suburban Federal Way picked a Vancouver developer to build a residential, retail and office complex with 22-story towers in its new downtown.

The project will bring more than 900 housing units to an area known for sprawling parking lots. Judging from images in the article above, the development will have character similar to those in British Columbia. If done well, the project could help wear down resistance to the idea of residential towers in the Seattle area.

More housing supply also will help meet growing demand, especially now that Federal Way's single-family neighborhoods are developed, and provide a market for better transit.

Seattle backsliding on bicycle plans

Take a quick spin around north Seattle by bicycle on a Sunday afternoon and you'll find missing links in bike routes, bike paths that abruptly end and almost 100 percent preference for cars along roads and at intersections.

For the clearest example of bicyles taking a lower priority look at Fremont, where the Burke-Gilman bike trail was supposed to reopen this month after a year-long closure.

Instead the city suddenly agreed to extend the closure for another year. The reason? The neighborhood's top landowner apparently just started construction on an office building and doesn't want bicyclists nearby.

The change is one sign of backsliding on plans to make bicycling more practical. Evidence is piling up to suggest that Seattle is gutting its new bicycling master plan. For a study in contrasts, consider what Paris is planning.

All commuters should demand Seattle do better. A sudden route closure wouldn't be allowed if it blocked car lanes. Delaying better bicycle infrastructure simply makes it harder for the city to accommodate more people without adding to congestion.

Private investors right about rail corridor

A government plan that would close the door on transit in a rail corridor through Seattle's eastern suburbs is such a bad idea that private investors are reportedly considering a bid for the property.

The corridor -- from Renton to Snohomish -- could serve as a key link in the region's future transportation network as the city grows around it. It should be upgraded and connected to projects like the Sounder commuter rail in Tukwila and the proposed light rail line from Seattle to Redmond. A bike path also could be constructed along much of the route.

This rail-to-trail deal stokes frustration about the Seattle area's too little, too late approach to transportation, for example in this op-ed. What's missing is a plan to make it pay (hint: put tolls on 405 and beef up transit to compensate). What's upsetting is that the public sector isn't taking a lead on this vision.

Spending money to make money

The latest BusinessWeek has a summary of how Google convinced a poor North Carolina county to pay $212 million in exchange for siting a server farm there -- without even getting a guarantee of how long they would be there or how many locals they would employ. Poor suckers.

But wait. A few pages into the article there's a table of recent corporate welfare handouts, topped by Washington's $3.2 billion gift to Boeing in 2003 to site final assembly of the 787 in Everett. That deal surely played a part in improving perceptions of the state's friendliness to business.

Of course you have to spend money to make money, especially in a globalized economy. But how do you walk the fine line between losing to competition and selling out taxpayers? Unfortunately the magazine suggests just a few tentative ways to safeguard the investment.

Tacoma needs a sales job

Tacoma has had it with pr. Now it needs to close a sale.

After years of promotion as a tech-savvy livable city, it's now looking for a team that can actually lure investment and jobs.