At a meeting this week of the Seattle City Council’s Transportation Committee, Chairman and Council Member Tom Rasmussen said the city will have no “other choice but to go back to the voters again in two years to ask for approval of extending or perhaps even increasing” the current “Bridging The Gap” levy before it expires in 2016, in order to continue progress on bridge maintenance, repair and replacement, and funding for other city transportation system fixes. His remarks came at the close of a presentation January 8th in which department officials accented some sobering facts. They stressed Seattle has a $1.8 billion deferred transportation maintenance backlog including more than $1 billion for bridges, retaining walls, public stairways and other vertical structures; and that current annual transportation maintenance spending of $40 to $50 million by the city is far short of the needed $190 million per year.
Collaboration in Civic Spheres
Archive for the ‘Audio/Video’ Category
Rasmussen: Seattle needs transpo levy renewal or increase
by Matt Rosenberg January 10th, 2013
Washington marijuana legalization bid: smoke and mirrors?
by Matt Rosenberg October 23rd, 2012
The Seattle Channel’s “City Inside Out” takes a look at Initiative 502 in an informative TV magazine segment below. If approved by voters, the initiative would legalize possession in Washington state of an ounce or less of marijuana for medicinal or recreational purposes. Pot purchased from approved dispensaries would be taxed at a rate of 25 percent, adding as much as $500 million a year in state revenues, according to official estimates. Street busts of small-scale buyers and sellers, which clog courts and which some say unfairly ensnare African-Americans, would subside. But critics say the high tax would fuel continuing black market sales – and that because it’s still a federal crime to possess pot, I-502 raises more questions than it answers.
The question facing voters on the ballot: “This measure would license and regulate marijuana production, distribution, and possession for persons over twenty-one; remove state-law criminal and civil penalties for activities that it authorizes; tax marijuana sales; and earmark marijuana-related revenues. Should this measure be enacted into law?”
More from “City Inside Out.”
Here’s another debate on I-502, at The Washington Living Voters Guide, sponsored by the University of Washington’s UW Engage project, and the City Club of Seattle.
RELATED: “Marijuana legalization Leads In New Polls, But Not A Lock,” Seattle Times, 10/22/12
Public Data Ferret is a news knowledge base program of the 501c3 public charity, Public Eye Northwest. Ferret In The News. Donate; subscribe (free)/volunteer.
Blue Scholars bust some verse for Sound Transit rail
by Matt Rosenberg October 16th, 2012
Seattle hip-hoppers Blue Scholars are rapping the praises of their regional transit agency in a new music video for Sound Transit.
Here’s one-half of the Scholars, MC Geologic, bustin’ some verse on the South Sounder commuter train from Tacoma to Seattle.
He likes the scenery inside and outside the coach, the WiFi, and the great Asian eats at the end of the line in Seattle. He also has a warning for pedestrians about train crossings.
FLIP THE HIP-HOP:
“Sound Transit’s Ridership Up, But Big Challenges Loom,” Public Data Ferret
“North Sounder Low Ridership, High Costs ‘Not Acceptable,’ Says Oversight Body,” Public Data Ferret
Public Data Ferret is a news knowledge base program of the 501c3 public charity, Public Eye Northwest. Ferret In The News. Donate; subscribe (free)/volunteer.
Government ethics podcast: “Dark Money and Big Data”
by Matt Rosenberg October 14th, 2012
From the Leonard Lopate Show on WNYC radio in New York comes an exploration of “Dark Money and Big Data,” or concerns about undisclosed campaign contributions funneled through so-called “social welfare” tax-exempt 501c4 non-profits. Guests are Bradley Smith, the Chairman and Co-Founder of the Center for Competitive Politics; Adam Rappaport, the Chief Counsel of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington; and Kim Barker, a reporter for ProPublica. Here’s the podcast.
Social Capital Review is the mother blog of Public Data Ferret, a news knowledge base program of the 501c3 public charity, Public Eye Northwest. Ferret In The News. Donate; subscribe (free)/volunteer.
Seattle Channel looks at WA charter school initiative
by Matt Rosenberg October 8th, 2012
The Seattle Channel recently posted online an edition of its City Inside/Out public affairs show which delved into the debate over whether or not Washington State should have charter schools. On the ballot for the November 6 election, Initiative 1240 will pose the question to Washington voters for the fourth time since 1996. They’ve said no each time previously. Mail-in ballots will be sent out statewide on October 19. In the episode, Tara O’Neil, principal of the successful Emerson Elementary K-5 charter school in Portland, Oregon, tells City Inside/Out, “What happens to a normal school that’s not working? It stays open and keeps not working…harder. A charter school can be closed down. That’s the big difference.” But 1240 opponent Sharon Peaslee, a Seattle School Board member, argues, “There is no reason to vote for charter schools.” Citing a 2009 Stanford University report, she said, “Twice as many charter schools fail as succeed. That’s not a good recommendation for charter schools.” Here’s the half-hour City Inside/Out segment.
RELATED:
Public Data Ferret is a news knowledge base program of the 501c3 public charity, Public Eye Northwest. Ferret In The News. Donate; subscribe (free)/volunteer.
University of Washington video highlights apps for students
by Matt Rosenberg October 1st, 2012
Recently at Public Data Ferret we reported on a number of digital initiatives to enhance the student experience at the University of Washington.
Today we came across a newly-posted video by UW on some of those apps. It gives quick profiles of tools to find study space according to desired criteria; know when buses will really arrive; find courses quickly; be notified when openings in popular courses occur; and navigate Dawg Daze. The video also suggests some key Twitter news feeds for UW students.
Here’s an auxiliary link to the video in case the embed above is acting balky.
Public Data Ferret is a news knowledge base program of the 501c3 public charity, Public Eye Northwest. Ferret In The News. Donate; subscribe (free)/volunteer.
Video: UW info school aids SF Zen Center in digital archiving
by Matt Rosenberg September 27th, 2012
Information and library science experts from the University of Washington feature in a new video segment for UWTV’s UW/360 magazine show. It’s about their work helping the San Francisco Zen Center archive 50 years worth of historical materials. UW Assistant Professor of Library and Information Science Joe Tennis says that to deal with the daily pressures of life he found himself drawn to Buddhism and then to the Zen Center, where when he mentioned his vocation, a staff member’s eyes lit up. They needed help, not knowing how best to preserve and organize decades worth of important historical materials including documents, photos, art and textiles, and cassettes. The video segment describes how Tennis and six UW students in the Master of Library and Information Science program at UW’s Information School have volunteered over the three past summers to help the 50-year-old center organize its materials for analog and digital storage. The UW team lived on site at the center and awoke each morning at 5:00 a.m. for 40 minutes of meditation. Tennis says the meditation underscored the relevance to their archiving work of the Buddhist saying, “Use both hands,” or doing one thing at a time, with mindfulness and intention.
In an email interview, Tennis said it’s not precisely clear when the first digitally archived materials will appear at the Center’s related gateway. “We are discussing ways that more of the currently digitized material can go live. We want to have quality meta-deta associated with it, so it is part of a process.” Meta-data, or data descriptors including key words incorporated by Web masters into items published online, help both information providers and information seekers find what they are looking for.
A valuable lesson for the UW students who participated in the project, says Tennis in the video, was that library and information science studies need not result in work only in traditional public library or university settings, because non-profits and a wide range of other organizations have growing information management needs.
RELATED: Public Data Ferret’s Education+Technology archive; and our Video archive.
Public Data Ferret is a news knowledge base program of the 501c3 public charity, Public Eye Northwest. Ferret In The News. Donate; subscribe (free)/volunteer.
Seattle wants takeover of mismanaged Indian commission
by Matt Rosenberg September 25th, 2012
A Seattle City Council committee Wednesday will hold a public hearing and then likely approve for a full council vote soon afterward a resolution to take over the floundering Seattle Indian Services Commission. A city public development authority formed in 1972 to help facilitate delivery of social services to the city’s Native American population, the Commission has suffered a major meltdown in the last several years. Its Pearl Warren Building at 606 12th Ave. S. at the eastern edge of Seattle’s International District has $2.5 million in unmitigated water damage. Its main tenant, whose monthly rent is key to paying for those repairs and retiring $6.7 million in outstanding debt tied to bonds which got the structure and a neighboring facility built, is the non-profit Seattle Indian Health Board. The board occupies space in both the Warren building and the commission’s adjacent Leschi Center at 611 12th Ave. S., and had been threatening to move out unless it could take over the properties and fix the problem. But the pending resolution leaves open for now the exact specifics of future control. Meanwhile the city has spent upwards of $120,000 on emergency repairs and studies on solving the water infiltration problem; and the commission, which has no staff of its own at present, owes more than $75,000 in back rent.