Welcome to the Virtual Editorial Board.

Podcast: Roads and Transit.

King County Council Member Julia Patterson, join Sound Transit's Joni Earl, Ric Ilgenfritz and Kjris Lund to talk about the upcoming ballot initiative. The proposal would build 50 more miles of light rail, fix bridges and highway, add HOV lanes and improve freight corridors. Would it work? Can we afford it? The P-I Editorial Board questions about the Regional Transportation Investment District.
- Listen now (54:07, 24.77MB)

We will probably talk about this session again this morning. A few thoughts: We do like a balance between transit and roads. We do favor more tolling. On the other side of the ledger we are concerned about the price tag of this plan. Is the tax burdern too much? And do we have a population density high enough for light rail from the Eastside?

Editorial plans.

Speaking of the RegionalTransportation package, we're writing about the proposal. At this point -- at least for us -- it's too early to say yes or no. We do have lots of questions, some small, some financial and others largely philosophical. Joe Copeland is writing this editorial. Email: joecopeland@seattlepi.com

Draft of an editorial:

Secret is flawed

Sen. Jon Kyl is taking some deserved heat for holding up a bipartisan bill to promote open government. But the Arizona Republican hardly deserves all the attention for his sneaky, secret maneuver to put a hold on the Open Government Act.
Kyl says he was responding to Justice Department concerns. That figures. In trying to transform the U.S. government to run on presidential whims, the Bush administration has had no more malleable tool than Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.
The bill, cosponsored by Texas Republican Sen. John Cornyn, would force government to provide more public information. It passed the House with 80 Republican votes. Now the Senate must open the doors Gonzales and cronies closed.
On the Net: Sen. Cornyn's views:
goto.seattlepi.com/r785

Also, housing is again in the news. Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke said the housing sector won't be rebounding right away. The problems are starting to cascade from the subprime lending arena to other areas of the housing market. Mark Trahant is writing this editorial. email: Marktrahant@seattlepi.com

Draft of the editorial:

Up was more fun

The Web is an amazing place. Someone took a chart of inflation-adjusted housing prices and programmed the data as a roller coaster.
Let's just say the ride is not smooth, it's not the steady, always building equity mantra that's become the norm. Over time, housing prices have always gone up and down.
Federal Reserve Bank Chairman Ben Bernanke – in the careful language of a central banker – has his own way of framing the issue. "As you know, the downturn in the housing market has been sharp," he said Tuesday at a conference in South Africa. "From their peaks in mid-2005, sales of existing homes have declined more than 10 percent, and sales of new homes have fallen by 30 percent."
He also said that more recent data shows that "demand weakened further, on net, over the first four months of this year."
We've been reading (over and over) that Seattle is immune to such roller coasters, sharp housing declines and perhaps even the economic cycle.
Then again: We think there is more to the housing story, one that the Fed chair articulated well. "Subprime mortgage borrowing nearly tripled during the housing boom years of 2004 and 2005," Bernanke said. "But decelerating house prices, higher interest rates, and slower economic growth have contributed to an increased rate of delinquency among subprime borrowers."
The most telling part of the story is that so many loose loans were written just last year that there is now a substantial increase in "early payment defaults." In other words, banks or mortgage companies could not even count on more than a few months of payments from a new "homeowner."
Hang on. The roller coaster is speeding up.

Reader comments.

Seattle's nightclub rules are drawing discourse. Comments range from this is a city, it's noisy, to keep my house quiet.

Belltowngirl posts a note of personal experience:

I had a nightclub across the street from me for almost 10 years. And for the most part, it wasn't the club per se that was the problem. I rarely, if ever, heard any loud music coming from the club. The problem was the patrons who would park out front and blast their car stereos to the point were the bass made the buidling shake. Then, at closing time (2am, and yes, this happened on weekdays too) these same patrons would literally block the street with their cars as they all tried to decide who was driving in what car and how to get directions to the after party. With traffic completely blocked it there would be people yelling and horns honking like crazy. This would go on for 10-15 minutes at least.

I know I chose to live in a noisy place and I accept that I do. In fact I think most of us who chose to live in the downtown area accept that there are drawbacks when it comes to peace and quiet. However, would a little civility on everyone's part be too much to ask?

I'm not asking that clubs move out, or that they have to get new licenses, or that we need to create a whole new set of laws. Quite frankly, to me that "solution" just creates more beaurocracy and doesn't really do anything to solve neighborhood problems. But that doesn't mean club operators should be able to wash their hands of all responsibility when it comes to being a good neighbor. All that I would ask is that when the club's employees (bouncers) are already stationed on the street (monitoring the line/door) they take a little responsibilty to help out the neighbors. If they can hear the loud booming car stereo right in front of them chances are it is disturbing the neighbors too. How about having the bouncers ask the drivers to turn down the stero? (I used this solution a number of times and found that they'll usually do it if the bouncers ask.) And when the club is clearing out how about a little crowd control from these bouncers? Maybe direct a little traffic so a couple of idiots can't block the road?

Let's face it, having the clubs around provides commerce in the neighborhood which makes it more attractive to residents. Having residents in the neighborhood provides a customer base and a daytime presence in the neighborhood which is of benefit to the clubs. Having both gives a neighborhood a cachet that benifits both. A little effort from both sides to be better neighbors would benefit all.

That's it for now. We'll be back after the morning meeting. Thanks for dropping by.