KUOW Blog
News, factoids, and insights from KUOW's newsroom. And maybe some peeks behind the scenes. Check back daily for updates.
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Ideas for all your pandemic facemasks: Today So Far
- Washington state has put a price tag on carbon pollution.
- Seattle's beloved cherry blossom trees were almost cut down this week.
- TSF readers have a few ideas for what to do with all those facemasks from the past few pandemic years.
This post originally appeared in KUOW's Today So Far newsletter for March 8, 2023.
Washington state has put a price tag on carbon pollution. It's $48.50 per ton.
After years of being crafted and organized by state leaders, Washington's cap-and-invest system went live in February. Companies get a set amount of carbon they are allowed to pump out, and if they want more, they have to buy credits at an auction. The first such auction was slated to have a floor price of $22.20. Turns out, companies were willing to go higher. A total of 6 million credits were sold for $48.50 each. The revenue is slated for climate mitigation programs and clean energy projects. Read the full story here.
Seattle's beloved cherry blossom trees were almost cut down this week. No, not the trees at the University of Washington. The ones near Pike Place Market.
The city is redesigning the sidewalks in that area and the trees were slated to be removed. There were previous public comment sessions about them, and it was decided to replace them with elms. in time, those trees could grow and arch over the street. But in a last-minute move, locals fond of the cherry trees urged city leaders to "stay the execution."
The trees are safe, for now, as City Hall considers how to move forward. Read the full story here.
What are you going to do with all those facemasks from the past few pandemic years? That's what I asked TSF readers on Monday. So far, no one felt my idea to sew them onto jackets and shirts as elbow patches was a good idea...
Liliane suggests saving them "for wildfire smoke season, possible volcano ashes (long shot)." The masks could also come in handy for folks out in the country where smoke from wood-burning stoves is more common. "And, if you live where you can burn your yard waste, you might protect your lungs from the smoke."
Lora says masks can still keep your face warm on cold days and "keep bugs out of your mouth when biking," and also points to others who have made art using facemasks.
Meg says, "Keep those babies! You never know what is going to hit next." She notes that Covid isn't over, and that's pretty accurate. It's going to be with us for a while, like the flu. Meg is keeping masks around for travel, and for potential future outbreaks.
Thekla wrote in with a thought that I felt was a good reminder to us all. While many of us contemplate returning to offices, or taking trips, or what to do with old facemasks, there are still people in our communities who cannot join in so easily. Thekla says she is immunocompromised. Masks help protect people like her, whether she is wearing them, or everybody else is. So Thekla is "not celebrating" the recent decision to remove the mask mandate in health care settings.
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WA bill aims to increase access to Death with Dignity Act
In 2008, Washington voters passed the Death with Dignity Act, a measure allowing terminally ill patients to seek physician-guided assistance with ending their lives. Under the current law, only physicians can carry out a dying patient’s request.
A proposed bill making its way through Olympia, ESSB 5179, would allow nurse practitioners to become more involved in the process.
Darrell Owen, a nurse practitioner, spoke in support of the bill before the House Health and Wellness Committee.
“We are already allowed by law to serve as the attending of record for hospice patients,” Owens said. “We admit hospice patients to the hospital, we sign do not resuscitate orders and death certificates, and we prescribe opioids.”
Additionally, the bill would shorten the patient’s waiting period between oral and written request for the necessary medications from 15 days to seven. It would also allow the necessary medications to be delivered or mailed.
Other supporters like Cassa Sutherland say the changes are overdue and would remove barriers to patients accessing the law.
“The barriers to this law disproportionately affect those living in underserved areas of our state, where participating clinicians are few and far between,” Sutherland said.
But critics like disability rights advocate Conrad Reynoldson call the changes a recipe for disaster.
“This would open the door to more patients potentially being pressured and/or coerced, and to quickly pursuing assisted suicide with little chance for a second opinion or to give it further consideration.”
The Senate passed the bill last month. Washington is among nine states, along with the District of Columbia, that have enacted a death with dignity statute.
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Proposed downtown Seattle makeover, mental health levy, and more: King County Executive's annual address
In his annual address Tuesday, King County Executive Dow Constantine told councilmembers the state of the county is strong.
He struck an optimistic tone about the possibilities of the future. But he also acknowledged the continuing challenges facing the county.
Constantine touched on the homelessness crisis, public safety, the environment, and the fentanyl crisis in his speech.
He urged the state legislature to act to remove a 1% cap on property taxes, saying the county will be forced to make budget cuts if they can’t raise more revenue.
He also called for support of a levy to create new behavioral crisis centers.
“There is currently no walk-in urgent care clinic in King County for a person in mental health or addiction crisis,” Constantine said. “All too often, there’s the emergency room, there’s the jail or — as we’ve all seen — there’s the street.”
Constantine said providing crisis care and treatment beds is not only the right thing to do, but it’s the smart thing to do as jails and hospitals remain full, and the homelessness crisis continues.
King County voters will decide on the property tax levy next month.
If passed, it could raise as much as $1.25 billion over nine years, and fund five new crisis centers around the county, as well as investing in the workforce and helping to replace lost long-term treatment beds.
Redeveloping county sites downtown
Constantine also took the opportunity Tuesday to launch an initiative that would reimagine the county’s government building campus, spanning multiple blocks in downtown Seattle.
Constantine’s "civic campus" plan centers on an area near Pioneer Square that includes the county jail, courthouse, and administrative buildings.
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The cherry trees are safe outside of Pike Place Market — for now
The city of Seattle has postponed its plans to chop down the flowering cherry trees outside of Pike Place Market.
The two rows of flowering cherry trees have greeted market visitors with pale pink blossoms each spring, since 1980.
But the trees narrowly made it past Monday, when the city of Seattle was scheduled to start cutting them down.
The city’s Office of the Waterfront and Civic Projects is redesigning the sidewalk and road on the 100 block of Pike Street, and plans to replace the 40-year-old cherry trees with Hybrid elms. It's part of the Pike Pine Streetscape and Bicycle Improvements.
But preservation activists petitioned the mayor and city council in the 11th hour, asking them to "stay the execution."
They decorated the trees with ribbons over the weekend to put their pleas on view. The ribbons hang next to a yellow sign on the tree stating it's due for removal.
"Mounting evidence suggests that these trees were gifts of friendship from Japan post war," said Ruth Danner, president of the group Save the Market Entrance.
The trees evoke the importance of the city's relationship with Japanese Americans, she explained, after so many Japanese Americans were incarcerated in the Northwest during World War II.
They represent fragile, short-lived beauty, Danner added.
"Every spring we see these beautiful cherry tree blossoms. It can't help but remind you we need to enjoy what we have while we have it."
The trees are off the chopping block today.
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What is Seattle's best dive bar?: Today So Far
The definition of a dive bar depends on who you ask, and perhaps which city you're in. Bill Radke has taken a dive into the term "dive bar."
This post originally appeared in KUOW's Today So Far newsletter for March 7, 2023.
What is your favorite Seattle dive bar?
Before you answer that, consider the latest "Words in Review" with KUOW's Bill Radke. This week, Radke dives into the term "dive bar," which he argues been watered down from its true meaning. This issue is not exclusive to Seattle, but it does feel like a lot of bars, and patrons, tend to throw this term around a lot.
I would argue that there is a range of factors that could add up to a dive bar, and "it depends" is probably the best answer to whether or not a bar is a dive. Beyond that, the modern hype for the dive bar may speak to something larger that Seattle is searching for amid its current evolution.
"I think a dive bar is kind of implied in the name, that it's below society. A dive and its customers are both kind of desperate. It's not a place where the well-heeled gathered to watch sports for example or sing karaoke," Tom Flynn told Radke.
Flynn, who started working in his dad's bar at the age of 10 and tended bar through his 20s, said that when "dive" was previously attached to a bar, it implied a certain desperation. Or as Radke puts it: "I think of a dive bar as doing the absolute minimum to keep its liquor license and keep the doors open. They're not fixing the broken hand dryer in the men's room."
I think I know what Bill and Flynn are talking about. Come with me to a bar in downtown Portland, many years ago. This hole-in-the-wall (you seriously could miss it if you blinked) was around the corner from a bookstore I worked at. While it was open early in the day, I caught the after-hours crowd. The sidewalk punks would bring their pit bull in for a beer after a hard day's panhandling. The culinary offerings were limited to bags of chips and jerky. In the restroom, next to the operational toilet, was a hole in the bare concrete floor where another toilet was supposed to be installed — to this day, I do not know if that hole was truly capped off, I was too scared to look. This was a dive bar to the standards of Radke and Flynn. A bar akin to this one would not be found on this recent list of "The absolute best dive bars in Seattle."
"There is not a dive bar on the list, under the classic definition," Mike Lewis told me. "Jupiter is a great example; nice places are referred to as a 'dive' (on that list)."
Indeed, if you consider Jupiter Bar a "dive," then I assume your standard pub has a dress code and your credit score must be approved at the door. Bill has his bar expert, and I have Mike Lewis — a former Seattle PI reporter who purchased the local journalist bar after the newspaper hit hard times. Now, he operates the Streamline Tavern.
"I think the Streamline absolutely was (a dive bar) back in the old location ... now, it is characterized as one, but from my old-guy interpretation, it's more of a really good neighborhood pub than a dive bar," Lewis said, further noting that the Streamline doesn't have people asleep on their stools, or other classic dive bar characteristics (I would further note that the Streamline has great tacos, which also wouldn't be included among many definitions of a dive bar).
The definition of a dive bar depends on who you ask. Personally, I would consider many places around Seattle as dives, places where the lights are kept low to hide stains on the carpet, or with scrawl on bathroom walls that cannot be repeated here, or with cans of beer for those on a tight budget. Someone actually made a list of dive bars on Wikipedia, which is very heavy on Seattle and Portland locations. I don't know if it's a good thing that I can say I've been to many of these places and can therefore comment that many are not dive bars. My name is on the wall at Holman's in Portland for being part of its whiskey club — not a dive. My grandma was a regular at Joe's Cellar, where I don't think sunlight has entered in decades — dive. Linda's on Capitol Hill has a brunch menu — not a dive. An old lady, and self-proclaimed psychic, read my palm (without me asking) at the Blue Moon in Seattle's U District, before sort of passing out — dive. If you ask Radke, Flynn, or Lewis, such assessments may vary. Lewis argues that times change and modern patrons often call regular, neighborhood pubs "dives."
"The meaning has stretched," he said. "Now it's become something that people want to put in their description of their bar, whereas when I was young, you didn't want (dive) anywhere near the description of your bar, if you cared about your bar."
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Washington needs more than 1 million homes in 20 years, study says
An official state report warns that Washington state needs to build more than 1 million homes in the next 20 years to keep up with population growth.
Ann Fritzel is one of the authors of the Department of Commerce projection, and says that "70% of land in most cities is allocated for single family housing, and that's out of reach for many households."
Fritzel says if the problem is not addressed, Washington will see more of the same issues that it is seeing now, such as homelessness.
She also says the short housing supply is leading to worker shortages, and that hurts local economies.
Under the state's Growth Management Act, counties must work with cities to plan to address the problem. The Commerce Department says 50,000 new units need to be built per year for the next 20 years. And more than half of those new units will need to be affordable to lower-income residents.
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This is what Washington is now charging carbon polluters
The results are in from Washington's first-ever carbon credit auction.
The cost to pollute in Washington state is going for $48.50 per ton of carbon dioxide.
This year, the state is implementing a new cap-and-invest program. Business and government agencies cannot surpass a certain pollution amount, unless they buy credits to offset their emissions.
The first auction was last month, and results announced today show it was highly competitive.
The floor price for carbon allowances was set by the state at $22.20. But all 6 million credits were sold for $48.50 each, more than doubling the minimum. The Department of Ecology reports that the auction ranked high on a competitiveness scale called the "Herfindahl-Hirschman Index."
RELATED: Bidding for the right to pollute, WA's first carbon allowance auction
The state will hold four auctions per year. The state will continue to auction off credits, and qualified bidders can put theirs up for resale.
As KUOW's John Ryan has reported, some big polluters, including fuel suppliers and the state’s two largest universities, need to make steep and immediate pollution reductions of 7% a year. That, or buy their way out of that mandate at the auctions.
But many of the biggest climate culprits, like oil refineries, pulp mills, and other manufacturers don’t have to cut pollution as soon or as fast as others due to fears they might take their businesses and jobs elsewhere.
We don't know how many companies participated — or how much they each spent. That information is protected for privacy.
The state Ecology Department will release a report March 28 with more details on the revenue raised from the auction.
This money will go toward funding climate mitigation programs and clean energy projects.
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Seattle could get 2 new off-leash dog parks
Seattle’s Parks and Recreation Department said this week it wants to add a couple of new off-leash dog areas to some city parks.
The first step in the multiyear process will be studying 30 potential locations around Seattle.
In many parts of dog-loving Seattle, finding an open space to let your pooch run free requires a car or a very long walk.
There are currently just 14 off-leash dog spots around town for the tens of thousands of pets who live here. In West Seattle, for example, the closest dog park is in Delridge at Westcrest Park.
But that could change — soonish.
This week, Seattle Parks and Recreation said it will study 30 parks around the city to possibly add two new areas for dogs to be off-leash.
The study will take a few months and examine all kinds of criteria, said the department’s off-leash area liaison, Danyal Lotfi.
“We do not want to put off-leash areas in areas that are environmentally critical areas that obviously would disturb the environment,” Lotfi said.
The department’s landscape architects and designers will assess the 30 locations’ drainage, size, and vegetation.
Lotfi said there are lessons to be learned from the current dog park setup and the department will “focus on neighborhoods that have the least amount of access to an off-leash area, in terms of walking distance.”
Parks and Recreation will share their two recommended spots with the public when the study finishes in late spring or early summer, Lotfi said.
Public feedback to those proposed areas will be part of the planning process, he added.
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Words In Review: Why everything is a 'dive bar'
Seattle sure has a lot of clean, pleasant, well-appointed “dive bars.” Bill Radke asks why this term has taken over our watering holes.
Last week, Seattle chef Ethan Stowell’s restaurant group bought The Attic Alehouse in Madison Park.
The Attic is a friendly neighborhood sports bar. You can get a French Dip sandwich or a Cobb salad, a prosecco or a pink Whitney Cosmo. It’s nice! But would you call it a dive bar? The Seattle Times did: “Chef Ethan Stowell buys a historic Seattle dive bar”
Tom Flynn says this is typical of what's happened to the term "dive bar": People are applying to to any neighborhood bar or tavern.
Tom Flynn started working in bars when he was 10 — his dad owned one — and he tended bar for 15 years. So I asked him: What is a dive bar?
Tom Flynn: Well, I think a dive bar is kind of implied in the name, that it's below society. A dive and its customers are both kind of desperate. It's not a place where the well-heeled gathered to watch sports for example or sing karaoke.
Bill Radke: Weekly trivia night.
Flynn: Exactly.
Radke: Which they have at the Attic Ale House & Eatery in Madison Park.
Flynn: Right. They serve pretty good food there, or did, and plan to … dives generally don't serve food. If they do serve food, it might be a pizza from a toaster oven or old chips and peanuts, that kind of thing, but certainly not a menu in a nice kitchen in back. There certainly isn't craft beer on tap. Generally, you're gonna get a cheap bottle of beer, a cheap draft, no fancy cocktails, the kinds of cocktails that are a booze and a mixer: bourbon and Seven, scotch and ginger, that kind of thing.
Radke: And I think of there being one bourbon.
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'Sacred ground': Why Camp Minidoka's survivors say 'no' to this windfarm
Many Japanese Americans who were incarcerated during World War 2 at a federal camp in Minidoka, Idaho are opposing a wind farm project near the campsite. More than 13,000 people were imprisoned there, many were from the Seattle area.
The Bureau of Land Management is proposing a commercial-scale wind energy facility called the Lava Ridge Wind Project. The site would host up to 400 turbines on approximately 84,000 acres of federal, state, and private land. If approved the project would power as many as 300,000 homes.
The BLM published a draft of the environmental impact report this year. The agency has been collecting public comments for the project and, last week, concluded its in-person public comment tour on Mercer Island.
RELATED: Japanese Americans remember the legacy of 'camp' 80 years after their incarceration
About 40 people came to the event on Mercer Island, including activist Erin Shigaki. She is a fourth-generation Japanese American and many of her relatives were incarcerated at Minidoka. Shigaki also helps coordinate the “Minidoka Pilgrimage.” Every year survivors, descendants, and allies travel together from Seattle to visit Minidoka.
Shigaki says this project is “pitting us [people of color] against the need for clean energy.” She added, it also goes against promises made by the current administration.
“President Biden stated, when he came into office, that we were going to work toward a greener future. But, communities of color, we're not going to be left behind as they always have been," Shigaki said.
The environmental impact statement acknowledged that this project could cause “disproportionate high and adverse impacts to the Japanese American Community and Native American Tribes from changes to setting, feeling, and experience due to visual and noise impacts.”
The report also categorized survivors and descendants of the camp, who visit Minidoka as "tourists." When asked about the use of the word "tourists," representatives of the report's author, SWCA Environmental Consultants, called it a mischaracterization. They added that it was "offensive" and they are still learning how to use better language.
RELATED: New memorial honors Japanese Americans incarcerated at the Washington State Fairgrounds
Shigaki says it’s “inappropriate” to put a clean energy project near Minidoka because it's “sacred ground.” She says incarceration of Japanese Americans is a “huge scar” on our community. It's also a lesson that needs to be learned. Shigaki says information on what happened to her community is not widely published and in textbooks. Parts of the history is already being erased.
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What are you going to do with all those old face masks?: Today So Far
- There is a lot of coincidence and serendipity surrounding Washington's recent Powerball jackpot winner.
- There are $30 million worth of Funko Pops in need of salvation.
- The last lingering mask mandate in Washington state is now slated to end April 3.
This post originally appeared in KUOW's Today So Far newsletter for March 6, 2023.
Auburn might just be the luckiest city in Washington state. Actually, there is a lot of coincidence and serendipity surrounding the recent Powerball jackpot winner.
For starters, two Powerball lottery tickets have been sold in Washington state that were big jackpot winners. Both were from Auburn. In 2014, an Auburn woman won $90 million. And just last month, the fifth largest Powerball jackpot in history was won by Becky Bell. She purchased the winning ticket at the Auburn Fred Meyer.
Then you have the Boeing connection. Bell has worked at Boeing for 36 years as a supply chain analyst and was planning to retire in June (she's retiring a lot earlier now). The other Auburn jackpot winner from 2014 — her husband worked at Boeing. Also, there's the reason Bell purchased the Powerball ticket in the first place. She says she usually spends $20 a week on lottery tickets and had already played that week. But then, at the grocery store, she happened by a sign stating the jackpot total: $747 million. As a Boeing employee, Bell knew that the last 747 jumbo jet rolled off the assembly line that week and figured it was a sign. So she bought yet another ticket, beyond her usual amount. And that was the winner (actually, she purchased two sets of Powerball numbers on one ticket; the other numbers won $8). In total, Bell won nearly $755 million.
If Bell is looking for ways to spend her big winnings, there are $30 million worth of Funko Pops in need of salvation. Everett-based Funko is planning to send millions worth of its vinyl figurines to the dump. The company says it has too much inventory sitting around in warehouses, taking up space and costing money. Its solution is to just throw them all in the trash.
During the pandemic, there was a surge in collector activity, and Funko enjoyed a bit of that increased interest. Funko collectors are a special breed, and stray, culturally, from your usual beanie baby, porcelain figurine, coin or trading card collectors. Funko devotees are to the collector scene what edgy puck rockers are to pop music. But this passionate group of fans aren't enough to keep the company's finances thriving. Funko lost $47 million in the fourth quarter of 2022. It's also looking at cutting its workforce by about 10%.
Funko's trashy move comes about a year after the company opted to close its Washington warehouses and distribution center. It moved those operations to Arizona. Its HQ is still in Everett. If those warehouses are purged, expect hordes of collectors to descend upon Arizona landfills in the months ahead. The situation brings to mind the legend of the E.T. Atari game. The video game was created in 1982 and was apparently so bad, the company decided to send all of the cartridges to a landfill instead of putting them on the market. Some folks were able to dig up a few of those cartridges and sold them for big bucks, decades later.
The last lingering mask mandate in Washington state is now slated to end April 3. Masks are still required in many medical and health care settings. Also, correctional facilities. The state is now nixing that requirement. It's worth noting that the masks did some good, and still do. Private businesses still have the right to require masks, and in general, it's probably a smart idea to still mask up in crowded settings.
If you're like me, however, you now have a collection of stylish face masks, more than what you need, and you don't know what to do with them all. I have Schitt's Creek masks, and a Bill and Ted mask. I even found a Magnum PI mask (original, not the remake). I've been toying with the idea of using them to patch up holes in my jeans, or sewing them onto my shirts as elbow patches. Even making a face mask quilt. Ideas? What are you doing with your face masks? Let me know at dyer@kuow.org.
AS SEEN ON KUOW
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Macklemore spurs free concert on Seattle with less than a day's notice
This blog post was published March 6, 2023.
Better act fast. With less than 24 hours, Seattle rapper Macklemore announced a free show at Neumos on Capitol Hill.
Doors open for the show at 7 p.m. (Monday, March 6, 2023) on a first-come, first-served basis. "Special guests" are expected.
The free concert marks the debut of Macklemore's recently released album "BEN." In an interview with NPR, he describes the album as a return to his roots, having fun just making music and not being tied to any single genre or sound. Its title is based on his real name, Benjamin Haggerty.
"Each album is a process of self-discovery," Macklemore told NPR. "So 'Ben' is a return to my origin story, which is making art for the sake of art, making music because I love the creation of it — not because of the music business, but because of music itself.
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