1. The non-partisan King County Council held a six-hour meeting last night (mostly taken up by, um, Republican and Democratic caucus breaks).

The evening ended in a deadlock—4 Republicans vs. 4 Democrats—over who to name as King County Executive Dow Constantine's successor on the Council.

Erica followed the meeting last night .

2. As we reported on Friday, Mayor-elect Mike McGinn hasn't yet announced whether he'll keep Mayor Greg Nickels' Office of Housing Director Adrienne Quinn.

(McGinn announced several top members of his administration last week, including some familiar faces from the Nickels administration and some new blood.) Over the last few days, there's been speculation that McGinn plans to jettison Quinn and appoint his own housing director.

Prior to McGinn's announcement, Housing Development Consortium executive director Harry Hoffman sent a letter to the mayor-elect urging him to keep Human Services Dept. director Alan Painter (nope ) and Quinn.

Re: Quinn, Hoffman wrote, "Under her leadership, Seattle's Office of Housing has proven to be one of the most effective in the nation," citing Quinn's work on reducing homelessness, passing the housing levy, and adopting standards for environmentally sustainable low-income housing, among other accomplishments.

McGinn reportedly met with Quinn on Friday.

Meanwhile, two other rumors are swirling. The first is that McGinn is considering Sharon Lee, director of the Low-Income Housing Institute, as Quinn's replacement. Lee was the only prominent housing advocate to come out in favor of McGinn during the campaign. The second: That McGinn plans to merge Housing with another department, possibly the Office of Economic Development. HDC outreach director Anna Markee says the group "took years to get Housing separated into its own department," so they would definitely oppose any merger.

3. PubliCola hit a milestone yesterday: TechNerd Glenn Fleishman's post, "The Killer App of 1900," about how electricity=broadband, got linked (and quoted at length) on national big deal tech sites BoingBoing and Slashdot .

Thanks for the hits, Glenn!

4. Yesterday, we reported that a former T-Mobile executive, Democrat Dean Willard, announced he's running against East King County state Rep. Glenn Anderson (R-5). Shortly after we posted the news, a prominent local leader on the left sent us this post from liberal blog FireDogLake.

It begins like this:

T-Mobile has a nasty habit of intimidating its employees from joining unions, including repeated instances of turning surveillance and security guards on employees and organizers.

A new report from Labor Professor John Logan published by American Rights at Work details multiple violations of the law by T-Mobile, recurring intimidation of employees, and what one employee called a “culture of fear” preventing employees from joining together in a union.

5. Two of the biggest local environmental groups, FutureWise and Transportation Choices Coalition, are accustomed to working closely together on legislation. So it's surprising that the two groups somehow managed to pick the exact same night, and time, for their annual holiday parties, forcing enviros who support both groups to choose (or dash).

FutureWise's party is tonight from 5:30 to 7 at AIA Seattle headquarters (1911 First Ave.), and TCC's bash is from 5:30 to 7:30 at FareStart (700 Virginia).

According to TCC outreach director Shefali Ranganathan, the two groups "lament[ed] the fact that we should have checked with each other before scheduling. We had already put a deposit on our venue so there was no possibility of switching dates."

6. Quick a.m. PubliCalendar update: OneAmerica (formerly Hate Free Zone) will have a rally this morning from 10 to 11:30 in Victor Steinbrueck Park to celebrate the introduction of a comprehensive immigration reform bill by US Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-IL), featuring speeches, personalized holiday ornaments, and hot chocolate. More info available here .

7. According to the rumor mill at city hall, Mayor Greg Nickels has landed a teaching gig at Harvard's Kennedy School. Nickels' spokesman Alex Fryer said he wouldn't confirm or deny the story. (Nor would ex-council member Peter Steinbrueck, who's spending a year studying at Harvard.)

Today's Morning Fizz brought to you by Office Nomads: