1. The manhunt for suspected cop killer Maurice Clemmons ends in South Seattle: An SPD officer shot and killed Clemmons early this morning. The Seattle Times report is here.
2. Yesterday afternoon, on the 10th anniversary of the WTO protests, about 100 activists marched into Pacific Place. The group was protesting the mall’s custodial contractor, who protesters believe is unfair to immigrant workers. The group chose the tenth anniversary of the WTO protests because there’s a link between immigration, trade, and workers’ rights, says Colette Cosner of Witness for Peace Northwest.
“If we’re going to talk about globalization and global justice movements, we have to talk about it locally—this is a local issue that has global implications,” she says.
The group, organized by the Immigration Rights Action Coalition (IRAC), was quickly escorted out of the mall by security and briefly congregated at Westlake Park.
3. The PI.com has an exit interview with Mayor Greg Nickels. Nickels addresses the defining issue of his era—the fight over density. (He also thinks incoming-Mayor Mike McGinn’s last-minute campaign move on the Viaduct was “pivotal.”)
Does Seattle sometimes not know what it wants?
I think, like a lot of Western cities, we’re a city that hated sprawl and despised density. And you can’t have both. You have to make up your mind what kind of city you want to build. And we literally had a two-year civic conversation about what type of place you want this to be. What we heard from people is they wanted it to be a dynamic, 24-7 city, that they wanted a diversity of people and opportunities and activities, and then we started talking about density as one of the ways to achieve that. It’s one of the tools. And that really has been the vision that I have pushed as mayor. And that’s why you see in neighborhoods around the city, and particularly around the center city, downtown area. So I think we may have resolved one of those dichotomies. But then there’s a lot of people who say ‘I wish it was still the small town that I remember growing up in.’ I think it’s probably true anywhere – change is a hard thing. You learn to love a place and when it changes you feel regret, you feel anxious about what that change is going to be. And will there be a place for me as the city changes. I think that’s probably pretty normal. It’s a healthy thing for a city to have that debate periodically, and to bring that forward. So I think my race in ’01 was a healthy thing and I think this race past fall has been a healthy thing.
Was there anything that struck you about the most recent mayoral race?
I thought, at the time, and I think I said this on Dave Ross or something. I thought that when candidate Mike McGinn said that he would not stand in the way of the viaduct agreement, I think that was pivotal. I think that said to people, here’s a guy with strong beliefs, but is flexible enough to do a good job as mayor. That was something that struck me. A lot of people were saying ‘he’s flip-flopped, he’s done.’ I didn’t think so. I know as a voter it was something that appealed to me and I figured if it appealed to me it would appeal to other voters.
I’ll ask you this question, but I don’t necessarily expect you’ll answer it. Would you say who you voted for?
I won’t.
4. Mayor-Elect McGinn held his first post-election town hall last night in Northgate where he announced his deputy mayor (south Seattle activist Darryl Smith), his deputy mayor of operations (Vulcan community relations director Phil Fujii), and his chief of staff (political consultant Julie McCoy).
Erica’s full report on the town hall is here.
5. It was a busy day on the site yesterday: Among other things, Erica had the scoop on Deputy Mayor Tim Ceis’ future plans; we interviewed state Speaker of the House Rep. Frank Chopp; LawNerd weighed in; Jonathan Cunningham weighed in; former GOP state Rep. Toby Nixon weighed in (with “The Comment of the Day”); and Josh weighed in on (he thinks) Timothy Egan’s misguided NYT editorial.
