A much more experienced office-holder than myself advised me to narrow down the number of initiatives I work on and maybe let go more of the details of those initiatives. It sounds like advice.

It's awfully fun doing it the other way, though.

Monday the Mayor and I helped unveil a new program called Bank on Seattle and King County. Thanks to great work by Human Services Department staff and terrific allies in other cities like San Francisco, we now have 22 local banks and credit unions who have checking and savings accounts that better meet the needs of poor people in our area. Sometimes that might mean no minimum initial deposit or a lower balance required. Maybe it means giving people who have flunked out of accounts in the past another shot. Given how the rest of the week played out in the national and local headlines, it was pretty great to be in a room full of bankers - including the Federal Reserve - celebrating happy news.

Monday was also the day we passed the Neighborhood Plan Update legislation. This is truly a great opportunity to check in on how our neighborhoods have changed over 10 years and to ask if the existing plans still point in the right direction. This is hard work and it will take all of us. Get ready for tough conversations and exciting ideas.

Wednesday we held almost three Planning, Land Use & Neighborhoods Committee meetings. We had regular PLUNC in the morning (discussion of the Workforce Housing Incentive Zoning, a public hearing on the Dravus/Interbay rezone proposal, and a committee vote to better regulate "megahouses), followed by a joint PLUNC with Councilmember Licata's Culture, Civil Rights, Health & Personnel Committee (a report from the Cultural Overlay District Advisory Committee and a report on environmental health threats in South Seattle), winding up with a special PLUNC meeting in Rainier Beach (focused on youth violence prevention efforts). We didn't initially plan to have that many meetings in one day, but that's the way it turned out after trying to juggle everyone's calendars. Tonya, David and Dan in my office did an amazing job pulling it all together and pulling it all off.

Things are starting to move through the PLUNC. We have the Incentive Zoning proposal and the Dravus/Interbay rezone request to get through before the end of the year, among other things. Those are my two priorities, though. A step toward narrowing my focus - at least until after we're done with the budget.

I was just going through my mail folder and came to the information from "Families and Dogs Against Fighting Breeds." This is the group advocating a ban on pit-bulls in the city. According to the summary they sent no new "fighting breeds" would be allowed in the city after passage of the legislation, all existing fighting breeds would have to be spayed or neutered, no one under 18 could own a fighting breed, owners would be required to hold a $250,000 liability bond for each dog, fighting breeds would be prohibited from off-leash areas and public parks, you'd have to be at least 12 years old to walk a fighting breed, and fighting breeds would be banned from all public areas.

I tend to believe that the owners are the problem and not the dogs, but I admit I get nervous when I see pit-bulls at the off-leash park. My partner and I have had bad experiences walking with our dog in Rainier Valley and encountering off-leash, aggressive dogs, some of which have been pit-bulls. I've also met some incredibly sweet pit-bulls. Like everyone else I hate reading th apart of the news article where someone says, "I don't know. He's never acted aggressive before."

Before we ban breeds, why don't we start making changes by making it mandatory to spay or neuter dogs as soon as possible unless you have a special license. I think we could figure out how to make this affordable to low-income people. The license to keep an "intact" dog should be pricey, too, to strongly discourage the owners looking for a super-macho accessory and to discourage the puppy mill people. Our shelters have enough to deal with.

One of the requirements in the "Families and Dogs Against Fighting Breeds" proposal is for mandatory successful completion of dog obedience training (which is as much for the owner as it is for the dog). This seems like a great idea for adoption of any breed of dog, but especially large, muscular special breeds like pit-bulls, Akitas and Rottweilers.

The latter, surprisingly, isn't on the list the Families and Dogs group defines as fighting breeds. However, again surprisingly, my dog is! Well, not Bill himself, but his breed. He's a Kuvasz mix we adopted from the Skagit County shelter about four years ago. The American Kennel Club describes a Kuvasz as a working dog, spirited (he is), intelligent (pretty much), and extremely protective (definitely). He weighs about 70 pounds and can appear a little intimidating. We knew that adopting a big, unfixed male dog from a shelter was a little bit of a gamble, but we took it. We had him neutered. We've been through Obedience I and II. We've helped him conquer fear of doorways and the kitchen linoleum, but he still has the quirks and unpredictability that come with being a rescue dog and a Kuvasz. He hates yellow school buses. He hates motorcycles. He hates white trucks. Sometimes he barks at people in hoods. Most embarrassing of all, he barks at people in wheel chairs. This is mortifying.

I love my dog. It takes time to be a good dog owner. Let's look at mandatory spay/neuter and mandatory training.