Letters to the Editor

THE NICKELS-ALLEN ALLIANCE

Kudos to George Howland for unmasking the increasingly cozy relationship between multibillionaire Paul Allen and our city's chief exec, Mayor Greg Nickels ["South Lake Disunion," Oct. 1]. The gall of a man like Allen, who is richer than Croesus, attempting to finagle control of limited tax dollars to enhance his property values and bolster his pet projects is stunning. But Nickels' seeming willingness to go blithely along with such arrogance is downright disturbing.

Vulcan's proposal for public funding of Allen's South Lake Union venture is not a just nor is it an effective use of funds. There are other crying needs in our municipality. The Nickels-Allen alliance stinks to high heaven.

Joe Martin

Seattle

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BUILD IT AND THEY WILL RIDE

After living on Capitol Hill for 20 of my 35 years in Seattle, I recently relocated to New Orleans, which is just reopening the Canal Streetcar from the Mississippi River to Lake Pontchartrain. This in a city of severe poverty, crime, and unemployment. New Orleans is finding ways to fund and reinstall their streetcars. Why and how? Because they are cost-effective and much needed transportation.

Contrast this with richer and less troubled Seattle, and it seems Seattle has a transportation death wish ["South Lake Disunion," Oct. 1]. All mass transit projects seem to be too expensive at the beginning and praised as a godsend after completion and for long into their future.

Tom Richards

New Orleans

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BACK TO BUSINESS

We are facing more than $20 million in cuts to city services, and yet all the media wants to report is the lunch appointments of City Council members ["Buzz," Oct. 1]. Can we get on to the real business of the city, please? My vote will be based on decisions that reflect good city policy, not who ate lunch with the former governor.

Geoff Puett

Seattle

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WORRY OVER SCHOOL PLANS

I'm also a neighbor worried by the [Seattle Country Day School's] expansion plan ["There Goes the Neighborhood," Oct. 1].

You need only look at [Seattle's Department of Construction and Land Use] files and find a long history (over 20 years) of neighborhood complaint on intrusion, traffic, and parking. Time and again, these issues were swept aside by promises by the school to implement "traffic management" programspromises that were not effective.

I also have documentation from the past and from the current process, which started last February with neighborhood meetings hosted by the school that did not reveal their already hatched plan to expand. (The school holds two meetings with the neighbors to "gather input," does not reveal its plan to expand, and yet claims to have involved the neighborhood in the process. How can we not be angered by this?)

We neighbors feel like we are caught in a system that we are unsure who it works for.

Keith Weinberger

Seattle

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WRITE-IN FOR CITY COUNCIL

I have to agree with Geov Parrish on his belief that we voters have poor choices in the general election for City Council ["Run, Someone, Run," Oct. 1]. (I have a problem picking between Judy "Mayberry" Nicastro and Jean Godden.) Speaking to the race that Parrish wrote about, Jim Compton versus John Manning, I, too, have concerns. I started a petition drive to save Green Lake's Engine 16. When Margaret Pageler told me if I could find $1.6 million I could keep my fire station, I looked over the mayor's budget and, lo and behold, the budget for SCAN (the municipal channel) was going way up (all franchise fees from cable service can go wherever a city wants and Seattle uses it for SCAN). I pointed this out to Compton (who oversees not only Public Safety but also Communications), but both he and the mayor said it was very important to civic engagement. My reply: over a fire station, parks, or libraries? The answer was yes. Manning, on the other hand, wants to put back all the jobs lost over at the police department, but not once does he mention stronger citizen oversight of police action.

Mel Westbrook

Seattle

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FOREST THINNING WORKS

Before letting loose his pen on the realities of thinning federal forests under the guise of fire prevention, Eric Scigliano should just maybe visit a thinned site or two and see what kind of trees are being cut ["Burn the Forest for the Trees," Oct. 1]. I am a forester who works for a private timber company that occasionally buys a thinning sale from the Forest Service.

The mill I work for cuts a maximum log diameter of 26 inchesa typical second-growth log of 60 years or so in agebut much prefers smaller logs that average 17 inches in diameter.