Category: LGBTQ+

Courts, Elections, LGBTQ+, Mayor Harrell

Ex-Police Chief Diaz Seeks to Toss a Third Judge from His Case, County Council Candidate Claims Planned Parenthood Endorsement After Losing it Over Anti-Trans Views

1. Former Seattle Police Chief Adrian Diaz is trying to get a third King County Superior Court judge tossed from his lawsuit against the city, claiming that the judge, Nelson Lee, is biased against him. Previously, Diaz petitioned successfully to have Judge Suzanne Parisien removed; a second judge, Cindi Port, later recused herself, sending Diaz’ case to Lee’s courtroom.

Mayor Bruce Harrell removed Diaz from his role as chief last May, after several women accused Diaz of sexual harassment and of fostering a hostile workplace environment for women at SPD. Diaz remained on full pay at the city until seven months later, when Harrell finally fired him after a lengthy investigation. That investigation concluded that Diaz and his chief of staff, Jamie Tompkins, had lied about having an inappropriate workplace relationship and coordinated to cover their tracks.

Diaz’ lawsuit claims Harrell’s true reason for firing him was because he wouldn’t assent to the mayor’s preferred discipline for Daniel Auderer, the officer who was caught on tape laughing and joking about the death of Jaahnavi Kandula, a 23-year-old student, shortly after SPD officer Kevin Dave stuck and killed her in 2023. Interim police chief Sue Rahr fired Auderer in January.

Diaz’ motion to have Lee removed from his case claims Lee is biased against him based on the fact that he is overseeing a case filed against the city (though not against Diaz himself) by SPD officer Lauren Truscott, one of several women who have sued over alleged gender discrimination, sexual and racial harassment, and retaliation at SPD. “Although Chief Diaz is not a named defendant or party in that matter, as this Court is aware, the allegations against him in Truscott are both false and highly prejudicial,” Diaz’ petition says.

In addition, Diaz claims that because Lee “expressly admitted to following media coverage about Chief Diaz,” he is admitting bias, since the coverage of Diaz has been “overwhelmingly negative,” “salacious,” and “false.”

As one of several examples, Diaz pointed to PubliCola’s report on his firing, using an inaccurate version of a headline that appeared on the article only briefly, “Mayor Harrell Fired Diaz over ‘False’ Statements Denying ‘Intimate Relationship’ With Top Staffer.” (I shortened the headline in the interest of brevity, but the newsletter version of the post is subheaded, “Harrell said Diaz repeatedly made ‘false statements’ about an ‘intimate relationship’ with a top staffer to members of the media, to SPD’s command staff, and to Harrell himself.”

Diaz’ attorney altered our headline to remove the quotation marks, making it appear as if we were asserting his statements were false, rather than  Harrell.

“Setting aside for a moment the false nature of these reports, the mere fact that Judge Lee has followed and commented on such coverage gives rise to a well-founded appearance of bias,” the motion claims.

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2. Planned Parenthood Votes Northwest (PPVNW) filed a complaint against King County Council candidate Peter Kwon, saying he falsely claimed to have their endorsement on a campaign mailing earlier this month.

Kwon, a SeaTac City Councilmember, is running against attorney Steffanie Fain for the South King County seat. The reproductive rights group rescinded their endorsement of Kwon on September 18 after learning he told the King County Republican Party that he supports banning trans girls from girls’ school sports and locker rooms.

This position was inconsistent with what Kwon told PPVNW in a written statement, according to the complaint.

The Republican questionnaire included the question, “What are your thoughts on allowing trans students assigned male at birth to play in girls’ school sports and use girls’ restrooms and locker rooms?” Kwon responded: “I believe students should compete in their respective biological category to preserve fairness and protect opportunities—especially for girls and young women. Competitive sports are often divided by sex for a reason: to ensure a level playing field and prevent physical advantages from undermining fair competition.”

In an email to Kwon rescinding the endorsement on September 18, PPVNW Washington State Director Courtney Normand wrote, “As we discussed on the phone last week and via email, there are inconsistencies between written statements you made to Planned Parenthood Alliance Advocates and to other groups regarding your position on trans youth and their right to full inclusion and participation in all parts of school and community life.” 

“We hold our endorsed candidates to the highest standards of integrity and any decision to rescind an endorsement is made with careful deliberation and due diligence,” Normand said in a written statement. “We have zero tolerance for the misleading or unauthorized use of our trusted name and respected brand.”

Kwon did not respond to a request for an interview.

LGBTQ+, Police, Uncategorized

SPD Chief Puts Cop Who Called 2020 Protesters “Cockroaches” In Charge of East Precinct
SPD’s East Precinct in 2020

By Erica C. Barnett

The Seattle Police Department’s East Precinct, located at 12th Ave. and East Pine St. in the heart of Capitol Hill, came under new leadership in September, when SPD Chief Shon Barnes quietly removed the precinct’s gay acting commander, Doug Raguso, and placed a newly promoted captain, Mike Tietjen, in charge.

If Tietjen’s name sounds familiar, that’s because he was at the center of two high-profile incidents during protests against police violence in 2020.  In the first, then-sergeant Tietjen was suspended without pay for shoving a man forcefully into a bus stop, causing him to hit his head. In the second, he was moved to a different precinct after driving an unmarked vehicle onto a sidewalk full of protesters, later comparing them to “cockroaches” because of the way they scattered in the path of his SUV.

In 2007, Tietjen and his partner were accused of choking a man in a wheelchair and planting drugs in his hoodie; although then-SPD chief Gil Kerlikowske exonerated both officers in a press release, they were subsequently reassigned to Harbor Patrol. Two years earlier, according to KUOW, Tietjen was accused of ” punching and choking a man” he was arresting “to the point of unconsciousness.”

In an internal email announcing eight promotions, including Tietjen, Barnes wrote that everyone he was promoting had shown “the ability to rise to challenges, embrace innovation, and guide others with clarity and purpose. … The leaders we celebrate today represent our commitment to building an organization that is resilient, forward-thinking, and deeply connected to the community we serve.”

Raguso, a 22-year SPD veteran, was a fixture at the East Precinct who previously served as SPD’s LGBTQ liaison. SPD declined to say why he did was not promoted to captain. A department spokesperson said, “We promote our captains based on input from Command leadership, their Civil Service test scores, and other feedback.”

In 2021, Tietjen was disciplined for a 2020 incident in which four officers, including him, pulled up on a trans woman who was walking along the sidewalk and allegedly harassed her by asking her if she “had a dick under” her skirt.

Tietjen has an adult child who belongs to the LGBTQ+ community, from whom he is estranged. PubliCola is not providing any further details about Tietjen’s child in order to protect their privacy.

Raguso is now overseeing operations at SPD’s Real Time Crime Center—a recently expanded downtown facility where officers and civilian SPD staff monitor live surveillance footage from around the city. PubliCola was unable to interview him.

The SPD spokesperson acknowledged that Tietjen “had been the subject of complaints five years ago,” but said he had completed “an opportunity for training and growth” and “has successfully delivered results to the community” since then. “In his current role, he is building positive relationships in the community, in line with Chief Barnes’ promise to police forward and continuously improve our organization,” the spokesperson said.

Andrew Ashiofu, a member of the city’s LGBTQ commission who spoke to PubliCola on his own behalf, said Tietjen’s appointment “sends a deeply troubling message” to people living in “one of Seattle’s most LGBTQIA+-dense neighborhoods. His presence in this role is not just inappropriate, it’s dangerous. It sets a precedent that undermines trust and signals to marginalized communities that their safety and dignity are negotiable.”

“As a Black gay man living within this precinct, I do not feel safe,” Ashiofu continued. “How can we trust the police to protect us when those in charge are the very people we need protection from?”

Joel Merkel, the co-chair of the Community Police Commission, said that “promoting someone who’s had these type of disciplinary actions” against them raised concerns about the new police chief’s  “knowledge and insight into SPD’s history history and dynamics … particularly as we’re trying to change the culture of SPD. With the consent decree going away, it sends a concerning message.” SPD had been under a federal consent decree since 2012, and was seeking to have it lifted when President Trump announced he was unilaterally dismissing all Justice Department consent decrees over local police departments, including Seattle’s.

City Councilmember Joy Hollingsworth, who represents Capitol Hill and the rest of District 3, did not respond to a request for comment.

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The complaints against Tietjen in 2020 were serious and highly publicized. All occurred on Capitol Hill within a short distance of the East Precinct headquarters.

In the first incident, for which he was suspended without pay, Tietjen violently shoved a man who had been trying to help another demonstrator who was blinded by pepper spray, pushing him and slamming his head into a bus stop.

Although Tietjen claimed he had simply tried to get the man to “spin around” and rejoin the crowd of people SPD was pushing out of the area,  video from his body-worn camera later revealed that he had “forcefully pushed” the man “down and towards the bus stop” as he was trying to assist a demonstrator who had taken shelter there, according to the Office of Police Accountability’s investigation into the July 25, 2020 incident.

“Moreover, but for the fact that the Complainant was wearing a helmet, he could have suffered very serious injuries based on the manner in which [Tietjen] pushed him, his momentum in falling to the ground, and his striking the bus stop with his head,” the report said.

In the second incident, on August 12, 2020, Tietjen was driving an unmarked SUV when he  accelerated suddenly and drove onto a crowded sidewalk at 11th and Pine, forcing people to scatter to avoid being hit. When someone confronted him, according to the OPA report, he compared the people he almost hit to scattering “cockroaches.” A widely posted video shows him saying he still works for SPD “because they pay me like 200 grand a year to babysit you people.” Tietjen was suspended without pay and received a “disciplinary transfer” to the North Precinct for that incident.

In the third incident, Tietjen was in an SUV with three other officers that pulled up to talk to a trans woman who was walking on the sidewalk during a protest. According to the OPA investigation, one of the officers took her picture with his phone and asked if she “had a dick under” her skirt. “She said that she told the officer to ‘come take a look’ and he replied that he would ‘need a microscope’ to do so,” the report says..

Later, the woman told OPA investigators, “the unmarked SUV again drove by her and an officer again yelled out to the Complainant to ‘show them what’s under my skirt.’ She started yelling at them, but they drove off while still saying things to her.” The OPA report says Tietjen acknowledged taking the woman’s picture and hearing someone in the car say something about a microscope, but denied most of the other details. The officers said they stopped the woman because they suspected her of “throwing rocks at” the East Precinct building.

Tietjen got a written reprimand for failing to document or report the interaction with the woman, and for failing to “counsel” another officer who shouted transphobic comments about why that was unacceptable behavior.

Five years later, Barnes promoted Tietjen to captain and put him in charge of public safety in city’s historic LGBTQ+ neighborhood.

legislature, LGBTQ+

New Poll Tests Messages on Initiatives Opposing Trans Girls in Sports, Student Privacy

Survey question that reads: "There's a simple truth: males have a physical advantage over females in most sports. It's why we have women's sports leagues. Too many people have become afraid to state the truth because of the attacks they might facê, but we have to stand up for it. If we allow biological males to play on girls' teams, it destroys decades of progress for women athletes. Vote Yes." The question is followed by an initial response bubble that says "very convincing" (additional possible responses are cut off but included in the full survey)

 

By Erica C. Barnett

Some Washington state voters received a poll this week testing messages on two new initiatives from Brian Heywood, the right-wing megamillionaire who tried unsuccessfully last year to overturn the Washington Climate Commitment Act and do away with the state’s long-term care insurance program.

The first initiative would prohibit “biologically male” students from competing in girls’ sports in public schools, while they second would undo legislative changes to the so-called “parent’s bill of rights.” Heywood proposed the “bill of rights” as an initiative two years ago and the state legislature passed it into law; they’ve since softened the language of the bill, which gave parents unprecedented access to their kids’ school health records, including notes from confidential sessions with school counselors.

As we noted at the time, “Legislators and most media outlets described the legislation as a simple ‘parental rights’ measure, but it goes much further, intervening in the lives of kids who may have good reasons to feel unsafe talking to their families about sex and identity.”

The poll tests several messages voters could hear later this year, many of them relying on dangerous and unfounded tropes about trans girls threatening the safety of their cisgender female peers. “We need a statewide ban to guarantee every girl can compete and participate without worrying about injury or losing her privacy,” one test message reads.

Other questions are designed to suggest that while cis “girls” are weak and vulnerable, trans children are actually hulking “men” who are undoing landmark civil rights laws protecting women.  “Biological men are competing in girls’ sports in Washington State, and it’s destroying fairness in girls’ sports,” one of the questions says. “[W]hen biological males compete in girls’ events, they have an unfair advantage that no amount of training can overcome. We can’t allow the opportunities Title 9 created for girls to be erased.”

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Most of the studies that purport to show that adult trans women outcompete adult cis women have compared cisgender men and cisgender women. Overall, the number of trans women in competitive sports is so small that it’s hard to come to reliable conclusions about performance, but even in elite sports such as professional running, cis women frequently defeat trans women, since ability isn’t defined just by things like physical size; and that’s in professional sports, not K-12 gym classes and school teams.

Another question suggests that cis girls will be “ridiculed” and are already dropping out of sports across the state because of the presence of trans girls on their teams. (In fact, the evidence is exactly the opposite—trans girls are afraid to participate in sports because the nationwide obsession with girls’ sports has made them targets.)

Heywood’s test messages are framed as a matter of fairness in women’s sports, a topic right-wing activists have seized on not because they’re invested in women’s sports (the audience for Storm games is not furious men in MAGA hats) but because low-information voters see girls’ sports as an edge case.

The test messages also include arguments for restoring parents’ ability to read their kids’ school medical records, including notes about conversations with school counselors about things like birth control, sexuality, gender, and abortion.

“No government employee can love or care for a child like their family. Parents have the fundamental right and moral duty to guide their kids’ upbringing—children belong to families, not the government,” the poll says. The ability to speak to a counselor in confidence is critical for kids whose parents may be abusive or unsupportive—and who, it apparently must be said, are human beings in their own right who don’t “belong” to anyone.

Development, Elections, King County, LGBTQ+, Mayor Harrell, Police

This Week on PubliCola: August 23, 2025
A site map from the permit for the “Revive In ‘25″ event at Gas Works Park on August 30.

Big bonuses for top cops, election fallout, anti-LGBTQ group relocates provocative event, and more.

Monday, August 18

Harrell Fared Worst In Southeast Seattle District He Once Represented on City Council

A geographic breakdown of primary election results shows that Mayor Bruce Harrell lost badly in the primary on his own home turf—Southeast Seattle’s 37th District, where he won just 36 percent of the vote to challenger Katie Wilson’s 56 percent. Harrell also failed to win a majority in any Seattle district.

City Plans Major Overhaul of Affordable Housing Tax-Break Program

The city is getting ready to overhaul a program that provides tax breaks to developers who agree to keep 25 percent of their apartments affordable for 12 years, known as the Multifamily Tax Exemption program (MFTE). It’s the city’s main program for providing housing affordable to moderate-income people, but in recent years, developers have become less likely to participate in the voluntary program.

Tuesday, August 19

SPD Chiefs Received $50,000 Bonuses Meant to Address Police Hiring Shortage

Two of the top-level staff hired by new Police Chief Shon Barnes, Deputy Chief Andre Sayles and Assistant Chief Nicole Powell, received lateral hiring bonuses that were created to hire more trained police officers, not as incentives for command staff. SPD told us the two top executives were “eligible” for the bonuses.

Christian Nationalist Rally, Planned for Cal Anderson Park, Will Move to Gas Works Park

The anti-LGBTQ organizers of the August 30 “Revive in ’25” event planned for Cal Anderson Park, in the heart of Seattle’s historic LGBTQ neighborhood, agreed to move the event to Gas Works Park after negotiations with city officials, including the mayor and City Councilmember Joy Hollingsworth. The voluntary relocation came after the city determined that they didn’t have legal authority to deny the permit or force the group to move.

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Wednesday, August 20

New Police Chief Shon Barnes Accepted $50,000 Hiring Bonus Created for Rank and File Officers

After reporting on the hiring bonuses SPD provided to a new deputy chief and assistant chief, PubliCola confirmed that Police Chief Shon Barnes also received the $50,000 bonus created to increase the number of deployable police officers. SPD said Barnes’ bonus was allowed under the legislation that created and the bonus.

Friday, August 22

County Executive Candidate Balducci Proposes Dedicated Funding for Retail Theft Prosecutions

Claudia Balducci, a King County Council member who’s running for county executive, announced plans to introduce a measure that would dedicate a portion of a recently approved countywide 0.1-cent sales tax increase to create a permanent retail crimes task force. Balducci, who came in second in the primary behind her council colleague Girmay Zahilay, said prosecuting retail theft would help prevent store closures like that of a Fred Meyer in Kent.

Chamber CEO Leaves, Mayor’s Office Contradicts SPD Explanation for Police Chief’s Bonus, Progressives Prevail in Burien, and More

Friday’s Afternoon Fizz included stories about the departure of Seattle Chamber of Commerce CEO Rachel Smith; conflicting explanations for Chief Barnes’ $50,000 bonus; progressive victories in Burien, a city that recently passed a complete ban on sleeping in public aimed at barring homeless people from the city; and details from the permit for the relocated “Revive in ‘25” event at Gas Works Park.

Business, Elections, LGBTQ+, Mayor Harrell, Police

Chamber CEO Leaves, Mayor’s Office Contradicts SPD Explanation for Police Chief’s Bonus, Progressives Prevail in Burien, and More

1. Rachel Smith, the longtime CEO of the Seattle Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce, is moving on to become director of the Washington Roundtable, a statewide group that represents large employers.

According to a press release, Smith will leave the Chamber as of October 1; Gabriella Buono, the Chamber’s Chief Impact Officer, will be interim president and CEO until the Chamber’s board picks a permanent replacement.

Smith became head of the Chamber in January 2020, just as the group was reeling from a 2019 election in which the Chamber’s political action committee, Civic Alliance for a Sound Economy, spent unprecedented millions to defeat City Council incumbents. That flood of money appeared to spark a backlash against big-business spending, and the Chamber’s candidates mostly flopped. In 2021, the Chamber decided not to endorse any candidates—and, in that election, the more conservative candidates prevailed.

Under Smith’s nearly five years as its leader, the Chamber  has thrown its weight behind internal and public-facing campaigns to defeat social housing (the Chamber urged the council to delay the election and backed a ballot alternative that would have directed the city to spend existing funds on traditional affordable housing), as well as a number of efforts to squelch progressive tax proposals.

They’ve opposed the business and occupation tax reform proposal, which—if voters approve it—will pay for critical programs at risk for budget cuts; supported Mayor Bruce Harrell’s efforts to sweep homeless encampments, particularly downtown; and backed a proposed city charter amendment, “Compassion Seattle,” that would have required the city to keep all public spaces clear of encampments while imposing an unfunded mandate for homeless services on the city.

Under Smith, the Chamber also backed the Seattle Transportation Levy and connected the dots between the housing crisis and Seattle’s need to upzone, supporting efforts to build “middle housing” across the city.

2. As we reported earlier this week, Seattle Police Chief Shon Barnes received a $50,000 hiring bonus when he was hired, as did a new deputy chief and assistant chief he hired from Beloit, Wisconsin, and New Orleans, respectively. According to SPD, all three chiefs were eligible for the bonuses under legislation, passed in 2022 and amended two years later, that authorized $50,000 “lateral” hiring bonuses for police officers with existing job experience.

As we also reported, the sponsors of the legislation never intended for the bonuses to go to command staff, and the legislation itself says it applies only to police officers in the civil service, not management or executive-level staff.

SPD told us the city “offered as part of [Barnes’] compensation a ‘hiring incentive’ of $50,000 under the City’s 2024 legislation, which is related to the recruitment and retention of police officers at the understaffed Seattle Police Department. Asked about this, Mayor Bruce Harrell’s office gave a somewhat contradictory response.

“Chief Barnes is a nationally recognized leader in the field and the inclusion of the $50,000 was negotiated as part of his offer letter,” a spokesperson said, adding that the mayor was “not involved” in the other two $50,000 bonuses. This suggests that Barnes’ bonus was not actually a standard “lateral” incentive—as SPD has said—but was something the mayor’s office offered him on top of his $360,000 salary and other perks. The two contradictory explanations for Barnes’ hiring bonus leave the true origin of this unusual hiring bonus unclear.

Harrell’s office said Barnes’ “negotiated compensation makes his package consistent with the West Coast Seven (Long Beach, Portland, Sacramento, San Francisco, San Diego, San Jose, and Seattle), where in 2023 the median salary for police chiefs was $476,454 and the average salary was $424,712.” the spokesperson said.

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3. The Burien City Council, which in recent years has adopted a series of increasingly onerous laws targeting homeless people, could soon take a more progressive turn. Progressives (including incumbents Sarah Moore and Hugo Garcia, plus Sam Méndez, a progressive running to replace Jimmy Matta, who’s leaving the council) hold commanding leads in all three council races on the August primary ballot.

That bodes poorly for Stephanie Mora, the council’s most conservative member, who’s being challenged by progressive Rocco DeVito; their race wasn’t on the August ballot because they were the only two candidates. Mora, a staunch opponent of allowing homeless shelters or authorized encampments anywhere in Burien, has argued that the government has no role to play in addressing homelessness.

Kevin Schilling, the council member who currently serves as mayor of Burien, isn’t doing so well in his own race to defeat 33rd District state Rep. Edwin Obras, either. With the election certified, Obras has 48.2 percent of the vote to Schilling’s 34.6 percent. Schilling lost by the highest margin in the city where he’s mayor, trailing Obras by 15 points in Burien.

4. PubliCola obtained a copy of the permit for a controversial “Revive in ’25” rally in Gas Works Park. As PubliCola was first to report, the contentious event was relocated from Cal Anderson Park on Capitol Hill after negotiations between its anti-LGBTQ organizers and city officials, including City Councilmember Joy Hollingsworth and Mayor Harrell.

The permit reveals few details about the event, except that the group, led by Christian nationalist minister Sean Feucht, expects 350 people to attend—less than a similar “Mayday USA” rally at Cal Anderson earlier this year.

Although the permit goes from 9 am to 9 pm, the rally and concert is scheduled for 5 pm—leaving organizers plenty of time to hold a planned “Jesus March” in the streets around Cal Anderson before heading over to Fremont for the main event. Organizers have removed references to this march from their Facebook page, but have not publicly said they won’t be marching. According to city officials, Feucht’s group did not apply for a street use or special event permit for a march.

LGBTQ+

Christian Nationalist Rally, Planned for Cal Anderson Park, Will Move to Gas Works Park
Aerial view of Gas Works Park.

By Erica C. Barnett

On Tuesday, PubliCola exclusively reported (via Bluesky) that the anti-LGBTQ organizers of the August 30 “Revive in ’25” event planned for Cal Anderson Park, in the heart of Seattle’s historic LGBTQ neighborhood, agreed to move the event to Gas Works Park. The city’s Parks Department issued a permit on Tuesday afternoon that will allow Sean Feucht’s “Let Us Worship” group to use Gas Works from 9 am to 9 pm.

The group’s voluntary relocation to a less provocative (and transit-accessible) location came after the city effectively threw up its hands, determining that Parks did not have the legal authority, under the First Amendment, to deny the permit or move the event to another location that Feucht hadn’t requested.

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The city has denied a permit to a similar group in the past—telling Pursuit NW Pastor Russell Johnson’s Mayday USA group they couldn’t rally at a site near Pike Place Market earlier this year—but the reasons were logistical, not content-based: According to emails discussing the event, the city’s special events office rejected the permit because of overcrowding and complaints about access and notification from residents and businesses.

As we reported last week (original story here), the city, on the advice of City Attorney Ann Davison, decided it couldn’t legally justify denying the permit to Feucht’s group, or did not want to take on the risk of a potentially precedent-setting First Amendment lawsuit.

PubliCola has requested a copy of the permit.

Update: About two hours after PubliCola reported on the new permit, the city announced the relocation of Feucht’s event.

Mayor Bruce Harrell and Joy Hollingsworth, who represents the council district (3) that includes Capitol Hill and negotiated with its organizers to move it away from Cal Anderson, said in a joint statement, “Recognizing that Cal Anderson Park is an important gathering space for our LGBTQ+ residents and receiving their feedback on the event location, we worked with the organizers to suggest alternative park locations. After that conversation, the organizers have agreed to move their event to Gas Works Park. We are grateful that they were receptive to our recommendation.”

Feucht’s group posted on Facebook that they still plan to hold a “Jesus March” on Capitol Hill starting at 3:30 pm before the event officially kicks off at Gas Works at 5pm. It’s unclear whether the group needs, or has sought, a permit to hold its march.

Update August 20: The Seattle Department of Transportation said Feucht’s group had not sought a street use permit from them for the Jesus March, and directed us to the city’s Special Events Office. Asked if the group had applied for a special events permit, the office referred us to the mayor’s office. A spokesperson for the mayor’s office said, “We are not aware of a planned ‘Jesus March,’ and the organizers have not submitted an application to hold a march in or around Cal Anderson Park.”

Editor’s note: In a concession to the many Fremont residents who wrote to complain that Gas Works Park is not in Fremont but in Wallingford, I took “Fremont” out of the headline and story. Although this debate is tangential to the subject at hand, I remember this debate springing up a while back—is it “East Fremont” or “South Wallingford”?—and I don’t consider it settled law. But in the interest of peace, I’ve removed all references to the park’s location.