White Center Now: The blog about White Center

For those who missed it, KUOW today broadcast an interview with, King County Executive, Susan Hutchison.  You can find the interview at KUOW Weekday.  In a prior post I had made the following observation which sparked a fair amount of discussion:

Ms. Hutchison has never held public office.  She has never had to struggle with the political realities of governing a complex political entity whose ambits include not only roads and sewers but social services, neighborhoods and law enforcement.  It is difficult to see how her experience on the board of the Seattle Symphony prepared her, in the slightest way, for such a weighty role.

If anyone had any doubt about Ms. Hutchison’s lack of specificity on issues, policies or even advisors, it is worth a listen (available on podcast).  Pressed by the moderator to name a single advisor who she consults, or who she would bring to her administration, she flatly resisted naming anyone, except to say bus drivers.  Her conclusion was “trust me” they will be great people.  I have nothing against bus drivers, but maybe she could have named a couple of the guys that she intends to bring to the Hutchison administration that will “bring people together.”  I’m sorry but calling Hutchison a “lightweight” does not begin to describe the chasm that is her lack of qualification to hold such an important post.  Listen for yourself.

Ron Sims was on KUOW this morning.  The issue of the jail’s location was raised by one caller and Sims was unequivocal in saying that, as far as the County goes, the only viable site is downtown, next to the present jail.  This has been my position all along, for reasons which I will be glad to elaborate.  But, the placement is not in the County’s hand, given that this is a regional jail for misdeamenants.  The City of Seattle is the gorilla in the room on this one.  I for one, do not comprehend why they would imbroil the city in litigation (and delay the construction) over the placement of a jail by inserting it into a neighborhood.   Nobody would bat an eye, and everyone would be happier, if the jail was located downtown.  I am not a big Sims fan, but he actually had a number of good ideas today.  More importantly, he didn’t seem burned out, as he has in prior interviews.

PS:  You can twitter Sims and he will add you to his twitter list, giving you direct access.  Do you suppose we could convince Mayor Nickels to put us on his twitter list?

As reported on our partner site West Seattle Blog yesterday, the proposed Seattle jail site closest to White Center, on Myers Way South, is now off the list – but the Highland Park Way/Marginal Way site is still under consideration. Here’s the WSB report. Meantime, you can get the latest on the site search and next steps from the community group that’s been leading the campaign against a new city jail, the Highland Park Action Committee (whose coverage area includes what you might call the “West Seattle side of White Center”) – join them at 7 pm Monday, Highland Park Improvement Club, 11th/SW Holden (map). You can also read up on all the city documentation in what is now a regional search (Seattle has joined with north-end and eastside cities) at a new website: www.necmunicipaljail.org.

UPDATED FROM ORIGINAL FRIDAY MORNING VERSION: MagnoliaVoice.com covered a Magnolia meeting Thursday night regarding the proposed jail site in Interbay. That site’s original report said that Burgess thought the Interbay and “South Seattle” sites were the most likely ones of the “final four” — since there is no “South Seattle” site, but rather two West Seattle sites (Highland Park Way SW/West Marginal Way and Myers Way South), we contacted the Magnolia Voice editor (a veteran journalist who I worked with for years in Seattle citywide media), who reported he’d said Myers Way (which she confirmed when we checked with her again just now). However, Councilmember Burgess left a comment on this post saying he had mentioned the “First Avenue South Bridge” site, and pointing to a post on his own blog from early August in which he said Interbay and “First Avenue South Bridge” were the sites most likely to meet the criteria. No site is identified as “First Avenue South Bridge” on the city list; the Highland Park Way SW/West Marginal Way site is the closest to that bridge. We have a message out to Councilmember Burgess to clarify that’s the one he describes as “First Avenue South Bridge.” and will update this again if/when we hear back. *Note that we have not amended the comment thread below, so it refers to the original version of this post, up through my response to Councilmember Burgess’s comment; anything after that would be responding to this updated post.* UPDATED SUNDAY AFTERNOON: Councilmember Burgess’ reply to our request for clarification of which site he meant:

Correct, the West Marginal site which is about 1.5 blocks off the southwest corner of the bridge. The site is partially owned by the city and partially owned by WSDOT which used it as a staging location when the bridge was repaired a few years back. I refer to it as the First Avenue South Bridge site because that helps people understand the geographic location better than the intersection.