1. City Council candidate Jessie Israel (running against popular incumbent Nick Licata) is going to get the firefighters endorsement.

2. For his part, Licata has released a spoofy newspaper, The Seattle Planet , including the story of how Licata got arrested at the Fremont solstice parade for riding in the nude bike ride with his clothes on . The dude is Woody Allen.



3. 92,000 people showed up to check out and ride Seattle's new light rail system this weekend. Cool. Of course, Seattle Transit Blog owns the coverage and has links to all the other good coverage. (Transit nerd, Erica C. Barnett, will file her five-volume post, I kid you not, soon.)

Meanwhile, I have two complaints  A. There's nowhere to lock up your bike downtown around the Westlake station. Nowhere. I asked one of the yellow-shirt attendees at the entrance where to lock up my bike, and she shrugged and half-heartedly pointed to the Cascade Bicycle Club tent (set up just for this weekend's kickoff) a block-and-a-half away and across the street in Westlake Park. Ha. I hustled over there, but they were closing  up shop. I locked my bike to a park bench and ran back to (almost not) catch my train.

I guess I could have brought my bike on the train, but bringing your bike on a crowded commuter train is a stupid idea for everyone. And it's not the way trains—NYC, D.C., Boston, Philly—work. (For example, and rightly so, only two bikes allowed per car, and only at certain times—not rush hour—on the awesome D.C. Metro.)

As people who live in cities know: You're supposed to lock up your bike by the station (more bike racks downtown please!), take the round trip, and grab your bike on the way back.

Which leads me to my second complaint: B. Why'd the train stop running at 6 pm yesterday? I had to be in Columbia City at 5. I took the train down to the Columbia City station at Edmunds, but was kind of f'd on getting home an hour later.

4. In a recent entry on his blog , City Council Member Tim Burgess explains how he's going to cut the "head tax" but still fund transportation projects. (The "head tax" is a $25-per-single-occupancy-vehicle-employee tax on business that goes to fund transportation projects.)

Burgess told me the tax as it stands—on businesses—doesn't work (i.e. doesn't get employees out of their cars) because the tax hits the employer not the employee. (Uh, Yay Tim—tax people not business?)

5. There were an unusual number of posts here on PubliCola this weekend—usually we take the weekend off—including a fight in the comments thread about Amazon.com's "Orwellian" behavior. Scroll down for all the action.

This morning's Morning Fizz brought to you by  Candidate Survivor .