Did I mention I'm not good with heights or extended time in the sun? I had to do both in full bunking gear with air tank and mask. You can read about it here. Seattle has awesome firefighters who work under labor-intensive, technically demanding conditions. Thank you to Local 27 and the Washington State Council for the smart lobbying.

Most people around here think that July 5 is the real start of summer in Seattle, but there is an earlier sign. Every year in late May an osprey returns to the Mount Baker Rowing & Sailing Center bay and makes it his or her breakfast feeding ground for a few months. Last year there four osprey (I won't make any assumptions about pairing, who was with who). In the mornings you get a fantastic air show at the expense of a number of small fish.

This morning the osprey was cruising above us as we put boats in the water. As we moved off the docks and around to head south into Andrews Bay you could see the osprey looping in a deceptively lazy way about 100 feet up, stop in mid-air, hover lightly and then dive straight down, piercing the water and reemerging with a breakfast snack.

Happy summer.

This past weekend's neighborhood plan update town meeting in the Othello/New Holly neighborhood illustrated that neighborhood planning can be difficult, uncomfortable work. Several participants had pointed questions about who was running the show, where the process was headed and whether the day was really a cover for a city rezone agenda. The good news is people are struggling to wrest ownership of the process from the city. That's great. It means people (at least rhetorically) believe in building the process and the plan update together or with the community in the lead. The not so great news is that distrust of city staff and city goals is thick and sticky and weighs down those who want to get going shaping the plan update. In the end, a small group of people caucused with Department of Planning and Development leadership to talk about plan update process while approximately 70 people broke into smaller groups to look at the walkability, sustainability and scale of the neighborhood.

We knew last year when we finalized the structure for updating the neighborhood plans starting with three neighborhoods in Southeast Seattle that it would be tough going. It's tough being first in a new initiative. We've never updated the plans so we're all learning from successes and mistakes. That's not comforting if you're in the first neighborhood in the first wave of updates. We also knew it would be tough going because, frankly, there are oceans of ideological and personality differences separating many of the most ardent activists in Southeast. Wounds from the community discussion on community renewal are still open and raw. Distrust of the mayor bleeds into distrust of city staff. Distrust of new development and added density means a sea of skeptics. We need skeptics, we need watchdogs. However, sitting back with arms folded won't make change go away.

Neighborhood people we saw at Othello/New Holly Saturday want more communication and they want more say in shaping the meetings. That's good and the city should jump at that desire for connection and ownership. It needs to happen in a way that respects all the new voices that are coming to the process by way of the tremendous outreach work by the Department of Neighborhoods. I can't imagine the neighborhoods will feel any differently at North Rainier or North Beacon Hill, both of which have town meetings coming up fast (North Rainier on Saturday, May 16, 9 a.m., at the Northwest African American Museum and North Beacon on Saturday, May 30, 9 a.m. at El Centro de la Raza).

Russ Zabel, the great reporter for the Queen Anne/Magnolia News, passed away April 12. In these days when major print media is "contracting" (that's what the economists call it, but most of it just call it going bankrupt), I've found the smaller neighborhood newspapers in Seattle to be more important than ever. Russ did a fantastic job truly covering the news important to Queen Anne and Magnolia. He understood the finer grain of coverage for the neighborhoods. You're as apt to read about Little League scores in the neighborhood paper as you are about Viaduct replacement conflict. He was also very able to pin down city councilmembers and other decisionmakers with pointed questions and suspicion. I was always happy to get to talk with Russ. He knew his stuff, he enjoyed a good conversation on complicated subjects, and he liked finding a wrong that could be righted.

Russ had what I consider to be a fantastic job serving the city with information and he made the most of it. As is often the case we learn so much about someone after they're gone. The Queen Anne/Magnolia News ran a great tribute to Russ detailing his achievements and his life as a traveler, calling his life "picaresque."

If you sneeze or cough, cover up. Wash your hands. If you're sick, stay home. And wash your hands. I'm on the Board of Health. That makes me almost a doctor. Go wash your hands.

If you want advice from people who went to school to learn how to keep us all from getting H1N1, check out Public Health Seattle-King County's great site:

http://www.kingcounty.gov/healthservices/health/preparedness/pandemicflu.aspx

Hello from the American Planning Association conference in Minneapolis!

I'm here as a presenter with the Seattle Planning Commission, Puget Sound Regional Council and Port of Seattle to talk about Seattle-area efforts to save blue collar jobs. The panel discussion was this morning. I think it went well. No one walked out mid-way.

Now I'm trolling the other panels. Neighborhood planning, neighborhood character, neighborhood health, neighborhoods for artists.... It's basically a big planning candy store here. I'm hoping to bring back great ideas.

You can take a look at the powerpoint presentation we gave here.

This has been a somewhat painful, but instructive few days with regard to the budget briefings by the Mayor's staff. I wasn't part of the small team in the meetings this past week, but I wasn't against the idea of doing advance, small-group discussions with the Mayor's staff about their initial ideas for cuts. That's not to say that I want to move aside the open meetings rules when convenient. As a former reporter, I'm a big fan of doing anything and everything in open session. It's fundamental to democracy that we see the "how" before we see the "what."

We have a whole month of public sessions coming up devoted to considering the budget gap. In those discussions I'm going to ask questions about the potential impact of certain cuts. I may want to put out a dumb idea just for the sake of argument. If the results didn't affect people's jobs and families, it would be easier. If I ask, "What would happen if we cut the entire Seattle Department of Transportation?" I alarm several hundred people who would lose their jobs. It's unlikely we would cut the entire Transportation department (despite the wishes of some of you), but merely asking the question raises the heart rate and blood pressure of people with kids, mortgages, aging parents, etc. That's the kind of question I'd like to ask first in the privacy of my office. I still will, probably, but it won't be with three other councilmembers and the Mayor's staff.

An odd thing about this whole ruckus is that in the end, the Council may not have any formal action to take after all the public input. The Mayor's staff will explain all the proposed cuts and councilmembers will weigh in with support, caution or downright opposition. However, when the Mayor underspends an appropriation (we approved and appropriated levels of money last fall), he doesn't need the Council to sign off. I think it's in the Mayor's best interests to be in agreement with the Council about these cuts (more than $40 million worth), but there's no formal legislation required for him to make the cuts in any way he wishes.

Here's a BIG problem that needs to be fixed before light rail starts running in July. At the City Council Transportation Committee meeting this week Metro staff said that if you pay cash for your trip on Metro your transfer won't be good when you get off the bus and step onto light rail. You will have to purchase another full trip again. Yikes! So, if I get on the 39 in the morning and pay $2, ride to Othello Station, get off to transfer to the downtown-bound train, I'll have to pay another $1.75 on the platform before boarding the sleek, swift, attractive light rail car I've been admiring for so long from a distance.

If you have an Orca Card by that time, you'll be fine. Sound Transit and Metro will even be handing out Orca Cards pre-loaded with $5 to entice you to ride. If after the $5 on the card runs down you go back to cash, beware. Five dollars will barely cover your trip to work if you take both bus and train. Why would I take light rail? I wouldn't - I'd stay on the bus which will now take longer to get me where I'm going because we're harvesting bus hours to operate light rail. This seems like a huge problem in the lowest income area of the city where I have to imagine fewer people have bus passes than in other parts of the city.

After the committee meeting we learned that Sound Transit was surprised by Metro's description of the cash-payer problem. I hope there's a fix to announce soon.

That's the new number we heard from staff last night at the public hearing on budget priorities. We will likely show a $40 million gap between what we thought we could spend this year and the amount of revenue we'll actually see. That includes a really bad fourth quarter in 2008 and a pretty bad first quarter of this year. Not a surprise, right? Most of us know someone who has lost their job or is experiencing a severe slow-down in business compared to last year.

The painfully ironic thing is that this is exactly the time we need to invest more revenue in safety net pieces like food banks. Area food banks are seeing huge jumps in requests for help. We heard from several food bank representatives, but more poignantly from people now dependent upon food and shelter help because of the economy. A mother who had been sleeping in her car with her kids, another who lost her son in an apartment fire and was left with nothing. Last evening more than 50 people came downtown to testify and plead with Council to not cut funding to human services. We receive the official revenue numbers and projection April 6. Then we figure out how to balance the budget without cutting the very services people need most now to survive.

This past weekend while many of you are studying NCAA "bracketology" and mourning the Huskies' loss to Purdue, kids from all over Seattle competed in the city league basketball championships. From morning to night kids raced on the fast break, sank three-pointers, set clean picks, bounce-passed to the inside and played all around great ball in the gyms at Garfield and Miller Community Centers. The teamwork, the skills, the effort -- it all demonstrated why sports can be such a great place for kids to learn, push themselves and excel. At the end of each game Saturday and Sunday, one team went home with silver medals and one with gold. Special congratulations to Jefferson Community Center's 12-year-old boys, coached by Council Central Staff Analyst Mike Fong and my Legislative Aide Dan Nolte. Sunday I had the honor of handing out medals to winners of the 11-year-old girls bronze level, Magnolia Community Center, and to winners of the 13-year-old girls gold level, Garfield Community Center. Congratulations!

Big thanks to the volunteer coaches, City of Seattle Parks and Recreation staff and volunteers, and to all the family members who make the basketball season happen.

With Dan Savage's declaration that he'll run for mayor of Seattle I've decided to declare my intention to form an exploratory committee. This committee will help me decide whether or not to declare for the position of editor of the Stranger. With the decline of print newspapers I believe the Stranger will need an experienced editor who can guide editorial development in a rapidly changing city and rapidly changing journalism economy.

I'm prevented by ethics rules from discussing my election intentions further. I look forward to discuss the idea further in other forums.

With the shutdown tomorrow of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer this city loses part of its common dialogue, part of its history, and a necessary part of its democracy. I lose my morning routine, a way of checking in with the world and the ideas of others. Others lose their jobs in the best career there is. Yes, some will stay on and work for the new online P-I, but it will be different. Better? Not likely. Different. The remaining writers and editors will be joined by people like me, "regional leaders," in producing the first "on-line reformed" newspaper. The multiplicity and diversity of voices will be great, but will an on-line P-I attract readers and drive dialogue the way the newspaper did? We'll see.

David Horsey did a great cartoon image of Thomas Jefferson back in January when the impending closure was announced (cloaked as putting up a for sale sign). Jefferson looks shocked next to his words:

"Were it left for me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter."

Of course, Jefferson is also to have said:

"I do not take a single newspaper, nor read one a month, and feel myself infinitely the happier for it."

I do not feel myself infinitely happier for losing the P-I. Our understanding of each other and of the issues that challenge us locally, regionally and nationally will be the worse. Many thanks to all the great writers, editors and photographers.

I attended the annual State of Downtown breakfast hosted by the Downtown Seattle Association a couple of mornings ago. The room at the Convention Center was jam packed with business people sharing glum awe over the cliff the economy had driven over. Maybe that's why a page of the DSA 2009 State of Downtown Economic Report gleamed so brightly. Check out a few bright spots:

Seattle is #1

• Seattle forecasted as the best overall 2009 real estate marketplace and ranks #1 for Commercial/Multi-Family Investment (the Urban Land Institute and PriceWaterhouseCoopers, October 2008)

• Seattle continues to have the most LEED-certified buildings in the nation (U.S. Green Building Council, April 2008)

• Seattle continued to have the nation's highest number of arts-related businesses per capita in 2008 (Creative Industries 2008: the 50 City Report, January 2008)

• Seattle leads the nation in technology job creation (Trade in the Cyberstates 2008: A State-by-State Overview of High-Tech International Trade, Summer 2008)

• Seattle is the best in the country for cafes and coffee bars, farmer's markets, and intelligent people. (Travel+Leisure Magazine, October 2008)

OK, all the citations reference 2008 and 2009 may be different, but it's nice to read some good news and be reminded of what we do right sometimes.

In talking on the the Sunday editorial page about the federal stimulus package and the Obama Administration's willingness to focus on cities starved in the Bush era, Jim Vesely writes:

"At the end of the day, cities are whole and not accumulations of individual neighborhoods."

This may be the toughest concept to drive home during the neighborhood plan updates. Wallingford works as Wallingford only if all our neighborhoods make up a whole, healthy city in which people can hatch safe, affordable, sustainable lives.

One of the things I sometimes have trouble with is giving short answers. Another reason the Land Use Committee is great for me. There are no short answers when it comes to land use. People have been asking me if I support HB 1490 and I do my usual, "Well, I like many parts of the bill, but I can't support others." Not a satisfying answer to a reporter or neighborhood advocate seeking a yes or no.

HB 1490 is a piece of legislation being debated in Olympia that ties together transportation, land use and green house gas emissions. For many people, the most notable section of the bill (as it is drafted now) would require that within a half mile radius of a light rail station that cities zone for a minimum of 50 units per acre on average. The bill also requires the provision of affordable housing in station areas and replacement of affordable housing lost in new development. Much of that sits in the shadow of the minimum density figure, though. The minimum allowed density would apply to every light rail station neighborhood in Seattle and the Sounder stop cities like Kent, Auburn, Federal Way and Sumner.

While I really, really like the affordable housing requirements in the bill, it would be hard for me to support a minimum density number handed down from the state with no involvement from Seattle neighborhoods. Light rail station areas should grow more dense over time. (Some are already pretty dense, like Capitol Hill and the U-District and might not be affected by the legislation at all.) It makes a lot of sense to group apartments and condos near the stations so people have the option to use their car less or maybe even live without a car. Seattle neighborhoods have set the table for this kind of development through neighborhood and station area planning. I think that's where the hard work of planning for growth belongs.

There's a lot of rhetoric flying around about the bill, it's goals, the sponsors' intentions, the opponents' intentions, and current zoning capacity. And so I am hosting a workshop Wednesday, Feb. 18, 6 p.m., at Langston Hughes Cultural Center (17th and Yesler). We'll hear from proponents of the bill (Futurewise and the Washington Low Income Housing Alliance), opponents (Seattle Displacement Coalition), neutral land use experts (from the Urban Land Institute) and from many neighborhood advocates. The goal is to provide information and to ask questions. It's up to you then to make your voice heard in Olympia.

Deep. That's the upshot from an early estimate we received this morning in the Council's Finance & Budget Committee. When we wrapped up the budget building process for 2009-2010 in November of last year, we had closed a $19 million budget gap that had opened between the Mayor finalizing his proposed budget in September and the Council's pre-Thanksgiving adoption of a final version. We cut a few people and a few programs. We deferred a few projects.

Now it seems the sales tax and business and occupation tax numbers for the fourth quarter of 2008 will likely be worse than we thought due to the overall economy and the bad weather. We're looking at having to fill another estimated $7.5 million gap in the 2008 budget. Then, adjusting future revenue expectations further down based on the economic slide of the past couple of months, we might have more than another $16 million to cut out in order to balance the 2009 budget.

The real numbers come out in April. That's when we start trying to figure out how much we cut from General Fund services (police, fire, parks, human services, etc.) and how much we take from the Rainy Day Fund (the Revenue Stabilization Account). The Rainy Day Fund has a little over $30 million. That may sound like a lot, but it might be raining for a couple of years given the national economy. The trick will be to use the Rainy Day Fund and cuts in the right proportions. Watch this spring for the difficult discussion about priorities and how hard it's raining.