Jolt
Afternoon Jolt: Lesser Seattle Comes Out on Top
Today's Winners are Seattle's Paleoliberals
With their sacred rebuild option getting the top spot at 38 percent in today's Elway Poll, and with their rival urban greens doing their dirty work for them against the Cadillac tunnel option (which came in a close second at 35 percent), the lesser Seattle folks are back on top of Seattle's political heap.
The surface option, the favorite of green urbanists, came in a distant third with 21 percent.
Today's Lone Loser is State Sen. Doug Ericksen
Although it didn't come with any money quotes—like it did when it passed the house earlier this month—state senate transportation chair Sen. Mary Margaret Haugen (D-10, Camano Island), a conservative Democrat, did slip into some fine hippie speak as her committee passed the house's "complete streets" bill today.
The legislation gets the state "looking at things in a holistic manner," Haugen said of the bill, which gives cities incentives to pass ordinances that make city planners consider the needs of pedestrians and bikers when building new roads.
In fact, even the Republicans voted like hippies on this one, with six of the seven Republicans on the committee (including the trio of new Republicans from Seattle's Eastside suburbs, Sens. Joe Fain, Steve Litzow, Andy Hill) all voting with the nine Democrats on the committee in a 15-1 vote.
The lone holdout against the holistic approach, Republican Doug Ericksen (R-42, Ferndale). We have a call into Ericksen's office to find out why, although we do have our suspicions.
With their sacred rebuild option getting the top spot at 38 percent in today's Elway Poll, and with their rival urban greens doing their dirty work for them against the Cadillac tunnel option (which came in a close second at 35 percent), the lesser Seattle folks are back on top of Seattle's political heap.
The surface option, the favorite of green urbanists, came in a distant third with 21 percent.
Today's Lone Loser is State Sen. Doug Ericksen
Although it didn't come with any money quotes—like it did when it passed the house earlier this month—state senate transportation chair Sen. Mary Margaret Haugen (D-10, Camano Island), a conservative Democrat, did slip into some fine hippie speak as her committee passed the house's "complete streets" bill today.
The legislation gets the state "looking at things in a holistic manner," Haugen said of the bill, which gives cities incentives to pass ordinances that make city planners consider the needs of pedestrians and bikers when building new roads.
In fact, even the Republicans voted like hippies on this one, with six of the seven Republicans on the committee (including the trio of new Republicans from Seattle's Eastside suburbs, Sens. Joe Fain, Steve Litzow, Andy Hill) all voting with the nine Democrats on the committee in a 15-1 vote.
The lone holdout against the holistic approach, Republican Doug Ericksen (R-42, Ferndale). We have a call into Ericksen's office to find out why, although we do have our suspicions.
