David Brewster, a founding member of Post Alley, has a long career in publishing, having founded Seattle Weekly, Sasquatch Books, and Crosscut.com. His civic ventures have been Town Hall Seattle and FolioSeattle.
One decision is to give up on the Republicans, rather than trying to woo them into some marginal concessions, since they have obviously been "bought." The effort now is to unify the Left, not seek a center.
Restaurants are reinventing themselves in this way, knowing that eating outdoors is healthier for resisting transmission of the coronavirus. Might Seattle reinvent itself broadly as an outdoors city, despite the mild and rainy winters?
Folio: The Seattle Athenaeum, a nonprofit membership library in the Pike Place Market, is launching a digital series of live discussions moderated by Mort Kondracke, a Post Alley writer....
"What troubled me about the whole convention center business/financial model was its self-feeding locomotion. Once a city begins to compete in the big leagues (not unlike sports) it has to buy into a whole multi-decade commitment. And the bar keeps getting raised."
How we can tame this beast, and (if it comes to this) what might be a better use of the convention center 3, now one-third built and facing a serious financing problem?
The big political question is whether the new progressive majority on the Seattle City Council can adjust to the new economic realities and find the coherence to actually get something done.
Old institutions in Seattle never die, they just fade and fade. So hats off to the Port for agreeing to "delay" its misbegotten plans for a giant new cruise ship terminal in south Downtown. And while we're at it...
And what would a city-state of Seattle look like? It would be a progressive bloc, quite unified in its politics, particularly over the environment, social justice (attention Amazon!), and climate issues. It would be diverse, welcoming to migrants, globally open.
Ultimately, the advocates ran out of time, the complicated house of cards toppled, and the first appearance of the coronavirus crisis distracted everybody.
It was a moment of emergence for the the region, though it may not have momentum. I count at least four areas where these new leaders have impressively stepped up, often leading the nation in pandemic responses.