1. This year’s city council elections were supposed to cause turnover on city council—and certainly with Sally Clark, Nick Licata, and Tom Rasmussen retiring, Jean Godden losing in the primary, and Tim Burgess facing a legit challenge—voters may get their new-look council next year.

But it's not just council members.  A surprise resignation email late yesterday afternoon from the council’s HR director Rhonda Lyon (to take a part-time job with the city auditor) caps a year in which four city council central staffers (the brain trust that works on policy) have left already, including 25-year-veteran Martha Lester, with no replacements. That’s a third of the staff.

With budget season coming this fall and several heavy policy lifts such as the affordable housing recs on the council docket, it’s hardly the time for brain drain on the second floor.

Time for a New York Times expose on the workplace culture at city hall?

In addition to Lester, other central staffers who have left this year are: Sara Belz, Meg Moorehead (20 minutes' notice), and Rebecca Herzfeld.

 2. King County Elections announced the official results of this month's primary yesterday which provides a chance to pause and highlight that Republican Teri Hickel, who trains small business leaders, bested Democrat incumbent state representative Carol Gregory in the 30th Legislative District (Federal Way, Des Moines) primary.

The pair will face off again in November with a general electorate that's a bit better for Democrats. But not only does this month's result put the Democrats on notice (Hickel won 51.2 to 48.7) that their advantage could slip from 51-47 to 50-48 next session, but it also underscores the new GOP strategy: running younger, small business-focused women. The GOP ousted a longtime Democratic incumbent last year when supposedly pro-choice, young entrepreneur—now representative Melanie Stambaugh, R-25, Puyallup—won.

3. What seems to have been assigned as a bit of a puff piece about mayor Ed Murray on the new online national news site Ozy, took a turn for the strange when Murray—"a reddish color flooding up his milky cheeks"—got all insecure and existential, talking about how he's not cool enough for Seattle liberals and making predictions about his tombstone. 

Murray frets about the fact that progressives still think of him as "the man."

Yup. And this doesn't help.