A rendering of the planned YouthCare South Annex at Broadway and Pine
The Central District’s New Hope Missionary Baptist Church is busy this week. Friday, it will be the setting for a Kshama Sawant press conference to discuss her “lead in the vote over the recall effort, and next steps for working people’s movements.” Thursday, one of Sawant’s chief political opponents held one of her final press conferences before leaving office as Mayor Jenny Durkan came to 21st Ave to announce a final $95 million in support for new affordable housing in the city including $13 million for the 87-unit New Hope Family Housing planned for the church’s Central District property.
The Durkan administration says since Durkan took office in 2017, the Office of Housing has invested more than $547 million “to create and preserve over 7,600 rental housing units and permanently affordable homeownership opportunities.”
The funding along with county, state, and federal funds, total an estimated $2.5 billion in “housing investments,” according to the announcement from Durkan’s office. Continue reading →
The full reversal of Election Night’s big lead was completed Thursday as “no” on recall vote totals climbed above 50% putting District 3 representative Kshama Sawant a step closer to keeping her seat on the Seattle City Council.
Thursday’s tally was relatively tiny, covering only 1,300 or so ballots but the overall impact was strong as 67% of the day’s count fell for “no,” pushing the pro-Sawant votes to a slim 232 vote lead.
A spokesperson for Sawant’s campaign declined to comment on Thursday’s tally and said they would have more to say Friday morning.
After nearly 15 years of providing affordable meals to Capitol Hill and the students of Seattle Central, Mia’s off Broadway has permanently closed.
Regulars noticed something was up when a Thanksgiving break closure stretched on and knew it was a done deal when a new paper sign went up advertising “Korean style” corn dogs coming soon.
Owners Bill and Mia Lawrence have posted a brief goodbye note to make the closure official:
After 15 wonderful years, we have decided to close our doors and move on to the next chapter in our lives. From the bottom of our hearts, we want to thank every one of you — our incredible and precious customers, who treated us with such kindness and love over the years, and who allowed us to pour our hearts into serving you. We will remember you for the rest of our lives. Thank you, thank you, thank you!!!
“And who knows,” the message concludes, “maybe we will meet up again sometime. Wouldn’t that be nice?”
We’ve reached out in hope of talking with the Lawrences more about their decision to sell and will update if we hear back. Continue reading →
In need of claiming 62% of the vote in remaining ballots, Kshama Sawant’s latest election count comeback took shape Wednesday as King County Elections added 7,000 new ballots to its tally in the District 3 recall election with, yes, just over 62% of the latest votes coming in for the “no” camp.
What comes next will be a nail biter — there are around 1,200 ballots left to process. Challenged ballots will also be an important factor.
Here are this week’s highlights from the CHS Calendar. You can also Add Your Event here. Wear your mask and don’t forget your proof of vax.
Shop the Hill, the long running effort from CHS, is partnering again with the GSBA and the Capitol Hill Business Alliance for the free service to help promote local retailers and small businesses and share updates on promotions, deals, and holiday offerings. Participating merchants and venues are complying with COVID-19 safety measures and many offer online ordering and curb pick-up. Check it out at capitolhillseattle.com/shopthehill/
This week, CHS reported that Broadway’s Star Fusion and Bar survived opening just as the COVID-19 pandemic hit but is set to close permanently after a year and a half of challenges making ends meet on Broadway.
Another north-end Broadway restaurant also opened into the teeth of the COVID-19 crisis but Carrello says it is still going strong and welcoming Capitol Hill diners who may have never got acquainted with its rabbit meatballs, roasted peppers, alici anchovies, fried artichokes, albacore crudo, and salumi sliced “until it’s gone.”
But two years of business under pandemic restrictions has shaped a different take. Carrello’s namesake carts have been parked. Continue reading →
The Election Night first count of ballots in the recall of Seattle City Councilmember Kshama Sawant revealed that supporters weren’t kidding when they said they would need “the biggest get out the vote campaign the city has ever seen” to keep the District 3 representative in office.
The first count of the District 3 recall ballots Tuesday night showed “yes” on the recall on top with 53% of the tallied vote, leading by just under 2,000 votes. But those votes and six percentage points may very well be an impossible goal — even with the district’s propensity for left-leaning late votes. The challenge? The first count included 32,000 ballots. King County Elections totals show nearly 35,000 ballots were received as of 6 PM meaning the Sawant camp will need to produce a massive showing for “no” votes as the few thousand remaining ballots are processed. If turnout truly hits 50% as predicted by officials, about 6,000 ballots are up for grabs — Sawant will need more than 67% of them to have voted “no.”
UPDATE 12/8/2021 4:15 PM: 62% — Sawant ‘no’ on recall tally gets big boost in second day’s count, now trails by less than 300 votes: In need of claiming 62% of the vote in remaining ballots, Kshama Sawant’s latest election count comeback took shape Wednesday as King County Elections added 7,000 new ballots to its tally in the District 3 recall election with, yes, just over 62% of the latest votes coming in for the “no” camp. What comes next will be a nail biter — there are only about 1,200 more ballots to process. Challenged ballots will also be an important factor.
UPDATE 12/8/2021 10:15 AM: King County Elections says it expects Wednesday’s count to add 6,000 ballots and subsequent counts to add around another 2,800 putting just under 9,000 ballots in play. With that math, Sawant must claim at least 62% of the remaining vote to retain her seat. Total turnout will have hit 53%.
The final numbers could be a neck and neck race and challenged ballots are likely to take on heightened importance. In early voting, the number of “challenged” ballots over issues like signature matches, disproportionately affected younger voters with more than 2% of ballots returned by voters 25-34 facing challenges vs. less than 1% of those from voters 65+. 18 to 24-year-olds, meanwhile, saw around 4.9% of their ballots challenged. Typically, King County says about 1.5% of ballots will be challenged in any election. Voters will have weeks until certification to verify issues like signature matches but many will not be aware or go through the effort to verify.
CHS discussed the latest updates Wednesday morning with Converge Media’s Morning Update Show:
Tuesday night in front of supporters, Sawant expressed optimism that her past success among late voters would prevail.
“In every one of our elections, there has been a dramatic swing after Election Night in our direction,” Sawant said. “Given the unprecedented nature of this undemocratic December election, while we cannot be sure of the final result, if past trends hold, it appears working people may have prevailed in this fight.”
The next update will come by Wednesday at 4 PM, officials said.
Only voters in District 3 — encompassing Capitol Hill, First Hill, the Central District, Montlake, Madison Valley, and Madison Park — are participating. If the majority of D3 voters choose yes on the recall, the council will select a temporary replacement until the next general election in the city. The winner in that vote next November would finish Sawant’s current term through the end of 2023.
The Kshama Solidarity campaign defending Sawant gathered at Capitol Hill’s Chop Suey for a large event complete with vaccination and mask requirements plus mandatory temperature checks as socialist speakers and community activists took the stage in the lead-up to the first release of numbers to speak out against “corporate landlords” and Seattle Police’s “violations of the Geneva Convention.” “Which side are you on?” one speaker asked.
The Recall Sawant did not publicly announce a location for an Election Night gathering. The campaign stopped replying to CHS’s inquiries this week but has continued to post comments on the news website and on the site’s social media.
“Today is JUDGMENT DAY,” the Recall Sawant Facebook page read Tuesday. “Time for Sawant to face her constituents and be held accountable!!!”
The Kshama Solidarity campaign has been operating in a difficult arena, trying to drive turnout among the district’s youngest, most transient voters with on the ground tactics including “grassroots voting centers” in an unprecedented special election. The December 7th vote has fallen in the middle of the holiday season after the Recall Sawant campaign failed to meet deadlines to be part of the November General Election and decided to target a December vote. Pandemic restrictions have not made things any easier. The Solidarity campaign said one of its biggest challenges was simply informing voters than election was happening. Continue reading →
The Seattle City Council’s Finance and Housing Committee is hearing an update Tuesday morning on the city’s social justice initiatives to help reshape equity in Seattle’s small business communities. A long-delayed effort to bring a more equitable mix of owners into the city’s legal cannabis economy is in the mix.
2021 started with delayed efforts as an 18-member Social Equity in Cannabis Task Force dug in on work to ensure communities that were heavily policed during the war on drugs can gain a foothold in the state’s legal pot market.
In Tuesday’s update, the city’s Department of Finance and Administrative Services laid out the facts about current ownership –“As of January 2020, 42 of Seattle’s 48 cannabis retail stores had white majority ownership, of those 37 by white men” — and a framework for what it will cost to get the program moving in Seattle including the major challenges posed by current statutes and the city’s zoning laws. Officials say current restrictions limit the city to a number of new stores community groups say won’t be enough to make a dent in the predominantly white ownership: Seattle only has room for two new shops. Continue reading →
Imagine opening your restaurant in a $12,000-a-month Capitol Hill space eight days before the neighborhood blog ran its first headline on the COVID-19 virus. Now imagine managing to stay in business for another 21 months.
Now it’s time for Ernie Enkhtaivan to give up. Broadway’s Star Fusion and Bar is set to close as Enkhtaivan has a deal set with a buyer for the business and is ready to make his exit from the Capitol Hill food and drink scene.
“I’m out of funds,” Enkhtaivan told CHS this week. “We might eventually regroup but want to clear our minds right now.” Continue reading →
Capitol Hill’s state legislative district will add Laurelhurst and a chunk of Belltown while Seattle’s federal Congressional district borders will hardly budge. The changes from the state’s redistricting commission are ready to become official after Washington’s Supreme Court ordered the commission’s final maps to stand despite the body’s failure to meet the deadline for agreement. Continue reading →
