Sawant speaking at a fast food workers rally at Pillars Park in August (Image: CHS)

With 50 days left in the Seattle City Council race, 15-year incumbent Richard Conlin and Socialist Alternative candidate Kshama Sawant are going head-to-head in a candidates forum Tuesday at 5:30 PM in the Garfield Community Center, 2323 E. Cherry St.

Seattle Human Services Coalition’s 2013 Candidates Forum

September 17^th
5:30 PM to 8:00 PM

Garfield Community Center
2323 East Cherry Street
Seattle, WA 98122
Metro Transit Routes 3, 4, 48, 84

Invitees include candidates for:
King County Council Position 1, King County Executive, King County Sheriff
Seattle City Attorney, Seattle City Council and Seattle City Mayor

Moderated by Professor David Domke from the University of Washington

Free and open to the public!
Voter registration on site
Light refreshments will be served
Sign language and language interpretation and
child care services available upon request with RSVP.

For more information, visit:
http://shscoalition.org/2013electmenu.php

Three other incumbents also face challengers heading into November. Council members Mike O’Brien, Sally Bagshaw, and Nick Licata will be making their case for reelection in the coming weeks. O’Brien and Conlin both came out ahead in the August primary and face the stiffest competition heading into the general election. Bagshaw and Licata only faced one opponent each going into August, thus bypassing the primary.

Position 2 – Conlin v. Sawant

Conlin appearing at a 2012 community meeting to discuss development around the Capitol Hill Station (Image: CHS)

Conlin is a 16-year incumbent who was behind the city’s plastic bag ban and one of only two elected officials to cast an opposition vote to a new SODO arena. Challenging Conlin is Socialist Alternative candidate Kshama Sawant, who’s running a campaign with strong ties to the Occupy movement. She advanced to the general election after coming in second in the August primary with 35% of the vote. Conlin took home 48%.

Sawant, who has has picked up endorsements from The Stranger and a handful of unions, has made supporting the $15 minimum wage the cornerstone of her campaign.

According to numbers from the Washington State Public Disclosure Commission, Sawant has raised $36,982 for her campaign, while Conlin has raised $177,732. Sawant is the first socialist candidate for city council to advance to a general in 25 years. The Seattle Times reported that in 1991, Yolanda Alaniz, a Freedom Socialist Party member, lost to incumbent Sue Donaldson.

Position 8  – O’Brien v. Shen
Albert Shen also poses a threat to unseat an incumbent this season. Shen picked up 34% of the vote in the August primary to O’Brien’s 59%. Shen is also currently the only incumbent to out-fundraise an incumbent. So far he’s amassed $149,498 to O’Brien’s $113,123.

Shen is a Capitol Hill resident and engineering consultant who calls himself a “back-to-basics progressive.” He served on President Obama’s National Finance Committee and on the Seattle Community College Board.

O’Brien is running his first reelection campaign since being elected to council in 2009. The former attorney and Sierra Club leader was the only council member to join mayor Mike McGinn in opposing the Alaskan Way deep-bore tunnel.

Positions 4 and 6
Bagshaw and Licata each face challenges from local rabble-rousers that pose less of a threat than challengers in the Conlin and O’Brien races. Sam Bellomio is challenging Bagshaw at Position 4. Bellomio is a local political activist described as a loud and combative presence at city and county public meetings. He is also vice president of StandUp-America. In the Position 6 race, Socialist Workers Party candidate Edwin Fruit is challenging Licata. Fruit is married to fellow socialist candidate for mayor, Mary Martin.

Bellomio and Furit have not reported any funds raised for their campaign, according to PDC numbers. Bagshaw has raised $99,726 and Licata has raised $88,844.

Central District nonprofit Clean Greens Farm & Market will receive a donated solar power system if 60 homes or businesses in central Seattle choose to install solar systems in the coming months. Nonprofit Bike Works, based in South Seattle, is also participating.

Cheryl Peterson (board member) and Lottie Cross (director) of Clean Greens Farm & Market (photo courtesy of Solarize Seattle).

The donation is a project of Solarize Seattle, part of Northwest Sustainable Energy for Economic Development (Northwest SEED) and Seattle City Light. It aims to increase solar energy installations through a group purchase, which will bring down the price for each home. To participate in the project, you must attend a free public workshop to learn more about solar energy and to receive a free site assessment for your home or business.

If the targets are reached, the solar systems for the nonprofits will be donated by Puget Sound Solar and Artisan Electric.

The Solarize Seattle website has more info:

“We’re confident we can hit both of these benchmarks in Central/Southeast, given that our previous campaign in Northwest Seattle succeeded beyond all expectations,” said Mia Devine, project manager at Northwest SEED who is managing the Solarize Seattle: Central/Southeast campaign.

Bike Works and Clean Greens Farm & Market were selected by the Solarize Seattle: Central/Southeast Community Coalition, a volunteer group of individuals and non-profits such as Sustainable Seattle, who led the award selection process.  The competitive application process took into account the suitability of each organization to generate solar electricity on site and to serve as a public educational tool.

“This project would be highly valuable to our organization,” says Bike Works Executive Director Deb Salls, “because it would reduce our direct energy costs, leaving more resources to invest in our youth and adult education programs.  It would also be a point of pride for us and interest in the community.”

The donated solar electric system will be rated at 3 kilowatts (kW) and will include all equipment and labor required for a rooftop installation, in addition to 10 years of maintenance service (the system itself has a life expectancy of at least 25 years).  The award is approximately a $15,000 value and will provide the host organizations with an additional value of up to $750 per year in electricity savings and Washington State production incentive payments.

You can track the progress towards the installation awards on the Solarize Seattle website.

The Seattle Globalist will honor Rita Zawaideh and five others (including Central District residents Anna Goren and Jill Mangaliman) at Washington Hall Friday October 4th.

Rita Zawaideh
Owner, Caravan-Serai Tours
Board of Directors, Arab American Community Coalition of Washington State
Board of Directors, Salaam Cultural Museum

It was tough to get ahold of Rita Zawaideh to tell her she’d won the Globalist of the Year Award, because she was out of the country, leading a humanitarian mission in Jordan and Syria. We finally spoke with her yesterday, at about one o’clock in the morning Jordan time. Continue reading →

If you value this coverage and want to support the continued independence of Central District News, please subscribe today for as little as $5/month — DRIVE ENDS SEPTEMBER 30.

The new home of Chuck’s Hop Shop on 21st and Union.

Chuck’s Hop Shop, due to open at 21st and Union, was awarded its building permit on August 26th. The specialty beer shop could not proceed with alterations to the former Copymaster building until the permit was issued. They applied in late June, hoping for a late August or September opening. Now, though, that opening will be delayed further.

Now that the permit has come through, Chuck’s estimates about four weeks of construction remaining. They’re currently building a massive walk-in cooler and hope to be open by the end of October.

The long-awaited opening was originally hoping for a quick build out and a May opening. When it’s complete, the bottle shop will host food trucks, serve ice cream, and pour beer from 50 taps.

If you value this coverage and want to support the continued independence of Central District News, please subscribe today for as little as $5/month — DRIVE ENDS SEPTEMBER 30.

Seattle Police Department Patrol Officer Eric Faust has been suspended for excessive force and unnecessarily escalating a confrontation in the October 2012 arrest of Leo Etherly.

Etherly had been suspected of hit-and-run driving with a cyclist at 29th and Jefferson and was reportedly being uncooperative as police attempted to detain him. A dashboard camera taped the incident and the video was released to the public, leading to a vocal outcry. Etherly later died of a suspected drug overdose.

The Seattle Times reports that Officer Faust has been suspended without pay; he is appealing his suspension.

Interim Seattle police Chief Jim Pugel has handed an eight-day suspension to a patrol officer, finding the officer used excessive force and unnecessarily escalated a confrontation with a man suspected of hit-and-run driving, according to newly released records.

The discipline, imposed on Officer Eric Faust, addressed the type of broad issues raised by the Department of Justice when it found in 2011 that the Police Department had engaged in a pattern or practice of constitutional violations regarding use of force. The finding led to a landmark settlement last year in which the department agreed to make broad reforms.

Pugel’s findings, outlined in a June 7 disciplinary-action report, were disclosed Tuesday in documents released to The Seattle Times under a public-records request. One day of Faust’s suspension was held in abeyance for two years if he doesn’t have the same or similar misconduct.

Faust, 37, who joined the department in 2006, is appealing the suspension without pay.

The rest of the report is available on the Seattle Times website.

New graffiti appeared on the side of the Neighbor Lady building, on August 30, on the wall that faces Med Mix. The graffiti is in the same spot where the “4 Pratt + Trayv” was painted on the night Med Mix was set on fire by an arsonist, still at large.

Ian Eisenberg, owner of both the Med Mix building and the Neighbor Lady, says he has since painted over the graffiti. The paint read “Don’t test me,” “Stop erasing my poetry,” and “Boo, forever.”

Surveillance cameras caught two people on video as they wrote on the wall. Eisenberg says maybe the perpetrators were taking advantage of power being out since the arson, which left the area dark — and would logically mean the surveillance cameras were down, too. The cameras, however, were still operating. The following still shots were pulled from the videos:

A full video of the incident is available here.

If you have information relating to this incident, please call Seattle Police Department’s non-emergency line at (206) 625-5011.

“3 car roll over at MLK and S. Jackson in front of @SeattleFire Station 6” Image via @timdurkan

Seattle Fire rescued two people trapped in a car and transported three patients to the hospital following a rollover crash at MLK and Jackson Wednesday afternoon.

Details are still coming in on the collision first reported just after 2 PM.

Seattle Fire reports that it transported a 93-year-old male driver in stable condition and a male and female in their 30s both in stable condition following the crash.

Traffic in the area was diverted during the response.

Animal control was called to care for an uninjured dog from one of the vehicles.