A group working on an initiative to transform the Seattle City Council into a district-based body says it has raised $20,000 and is putting plans in motion to raise $100 grand and collect the nearly 40,000 signature required to get the initiative on this year's ballot. If they succeed and the measure passes, the City Council will be made up of representatives from five city districts and four at-large members. The group is lead by Andrew Lewis, campaign manager for Councilmember Nick Licata's re-election bid.

The plan calls for the five districts to be approximately the same size as a legislative district. The districts would be redrawn by a city commission every 10 years based on the results of the Federal census. Here is a map of the 43rd Legislative District, for example:

In a statement e-mailed to potential supporters, organizers said the district-based council would:

• Increase the diversity of the current Seattle City Council.
• Make Seattle City Councilmembers more accountable to neighborhood groups.
• Require...

Thanks to the way that website Walk Score defines neighborhoods, Capitol Hill ranks a lowly 12th place in this list of Seattle's most walkable neighborhoods. It's not completely fair. Pioneer Square ranks 1st, thanks to a very tight definition, while Capitol Hill (according to Walk Score) is bounded by Madison to the south, Lake Washington Blvd E to the East, and E Interlaken/SR-520 to the north. That's just too much territory for a single 'hood.

Now, I know it's somewhat silly to get riled up by Capitol Hill's low rankings on Walk Score, but I know we're a more walkable hood than we're being given credit for. Also, because Walk Score put these rankings together in order to "help people find more walkable places to live," I'd hate to think that people who appreciate density are being steered away from the hill thanks to a poorly drawn map.

I'd like to send a note to Walk Score asking them to redraw the bounding box. What should the boundaries for Capitol Hill be?

Hey, Radio Point -- you asked to be in the club but you haven't started dancing. No posts. Earn it. Or we're drawing the line at Madison.

After some healthy discussion and help from neighborhood mapmaster jonglix, we've reorganized CHS. Check out our new CHS neighborhood map. The goal is to give CHS contributors a useful (and entertaining) way to organize their posts. How'd we do?

St. Mark's | The Fancy Pants | I-5 Shores| Broadway | Hilltop | Miller Park | Pike/Pine| Radio Point

Look for the giant towers. Radio Point is the pea-soup green wedge in the southeast corner of the CHS map.

The Pike/Pine corridor is marked in pink on the CHS map.

The mint green wedge in the southeast corner of the CHS map is Miller Park.

Hilltop is the mauve rectangle just east of Broadway on the CHS map.

That big green block in the middle of things on the CHS map? Broadway.

The azure strip in the west marks the I-5 Shores on the CHS map.

The big orange square on the CHS map is the Fancy Pants neighborhood.

St. Mark's is the yellow swath in the northwest corner of our CHS map.