Jet City Journal

Fixing Aurora Avenue North

Thunderbird Motel, originally uploaded by Kevin Pedraja.

If you live within a quarter mile of Aurora Avenue North, you're probably familiar with the problems highlighted in a recent Seattle Times story.

"About 20 motels operate now from North 40th to North 145th, the Seattle city limits, and peeling facades, burned-out neon signs and buckled asphalt lots hint to conditions inside."

[...]

"The density of cheap digs has fueled Aurora's reputation as a magnet for drugs and prostitution. An average room goes for $50 a night."

[...]

"'Crime on Aurora has been a deeply ingrained problem that's lasted for decades," said Seattle police Capt. Mike Washburn, commander of the North Precinct. "Aurora is a state highway, it's easy to get in and out of ... and the motels are certainly a piece of this.'"

While the article points out that many of the hotels on Aurora are well-managed and not contributing to the area's crime problem, there are clearly some landlords who permit illegal activities to take place on their premises.

I'm probably not alone in wishing that the motels would just go away. But advocates for low-income and homeless families insist that the motels are a necessary evil, as they provide much-needed housing for the city's less fortunate. That's a fair point, but many of the motels charge outrageous sums for rooms that are, in a word, horrible. Even worse, the city, state and Federal government are actually paying for this squalor through various housing assistance programs. Put another way, you and I are keeping slum lords in business through our tax dollars.

So, here is a modest proposal to address the problems of Aurora Avenue. The city and state should start a program to acquire the offending motels through eminent domain, refurbish them, manage them and rent them out to low-income residents at reasonable rates.  Couple that with the establishment of a Seattle Police storefront station on Aurora somewhere between 85th and 120th streets and the initiation of regular foot patrols. Clean, well-managed motels and a stepped up police presence would do much to eliminate the underlying problems that have made Aurora Avenue a boulevard of broken dreams.

As long as Aurora Avenue continues to be a haven for petty crime, drugs and prostitution, there is no hope that it can rise above its current seedy circumstances. Respectable businesses won't want any part of a neighborhood where potential customers fear to walk.

Simple thought for the day

The economy, she is crappy.

It's a matter of professional pride

Glenn Greenwald now admits that he was wrong about Sarah Palin.  She is not, as he first thought, devilishly smart and prepared to take on the media.  Quite the opposite, in fact.  Vis:

Watch CBS Videos Online

Now I'm a professional PR person and I've media-trained more than a few people during my career. Some of them were absolutely horrible speakers to begin with. But after a few hours or, at worst, days of work, it was almost always possible to make them sound credible, even if they were talking about topics that were not their primary area of expertise. Seeing Palin flail in these interviews, unable to answer even the most obvious and likely questions, leads me to conclude that either she has the worst media trainers EVAR or (and I think this is more likely) she is a complete and total moron.  There is simply NO WAY she wasn't given better talking points for the foreign policy experience question.  None.  Or, for that matter, the question about the financial crisis and John McCain's record of reform from the previous interview with Couric. After all of the time and effort invested in making Palin sound like something else, in the end her true self shines through: and that is an unserious and shallow person.

Simple thought for the day

If you think President Bush's speech last night shows that he understands the intricacies and implications of the financial crisis, then ask yourself this: if he knew what was happening, why didn't he do something about it sooner?  Like, say, BEFORE it became a crisis?

Building a logic model for handling the financial crisis

A company called Austhink has developed a graphical logic model for evaluating the Paulson and Dodd proposals for handling the financial crisis.  It's a really interesting way to look at the problem. 

Simple thought for the day

The federal bailout of financial institutions should include a requirement that said institutions rescind all golden parachutes for their executives as a precondition for receiving any taxpayer money.  If they truly need the help, that shouldn't be too much to ask in return.

Cindy McCain: The gift that keeps on giving

Really, how does she do it? How can any self-respecting spouse be expected to get by in a tough economy when she can only charge $500,000 on her American Express card?  In a month.  And what's a mother to do when the kids plant themselves in your $2+ million beach condo in Coronado?  Why, buy another one, of course.  Isn't that what you would do?  That Cindy McCain, she's a trooper...  Naturally, now that your hubby is running for President of the United States, you need stop wearing those $3000 suits made by some poncy, terrorist-loving monkey-touching European designer (Escada) and start wearing $3000 "freedom suits" made by a good, patriotic American designer (Carolina Herrera Ralph Lauren).  (I have no idea what the last bit really means or who those people are.  Gretta? Please to 'splain...)  In any event, the McCains are the embodiment of American values.  They understand the tough choices and sacrifices that ordinary people have to make and the struggle of figuring out where to buy the cheapest gas.  Yes, John and the CinBot are just like you and me...

(h/t to Tapped)

Update:  Gretta provides fashion corrections. 

"Taxes are for little people."

It took a call from Newsweek to get Cindy McCain to pay four years worth of back taxes on a condo in La Jolla, California.

"When you're poor, it can be hard to pay the bills. When you're rich, it's hard to keep track of all the bills that need paying." 

Wait, who's the elitist candidate?

When good people do bad things...

In this case, it's Barack Obama and his ties to the corn-based ethanol industry.  Sure, he's from Illinois, so he's representing the farmers of his home state.  But shouldn't we expect our leaders to stand up and oppose ideas that aren't sound, even when it's against their self-interest?  Supporting corn-based ethanol is bad environmental policy, bad energy policy and not even very good farm policy.  So here's hoping Obama will start thinking like the President instead of a Senator from Illinois and say, "enough is enough."

He probably won't be invited to the Christmas party

Scott McClellan, President Bush's former press secretary, has some choice things to say about the administration and the media that covers it.

“History appears poised to confirm what most Americans today have decided: that the decision to invade Iraq was a serious strategic blunder. No one, including me, can know with absolute certainty how the war will be viewed decades from now when we can more fully understand its impact. What I do know is that war should only be waged when necessary, and the Iraq war was not necessary.”

...and...

“The collapse of the administration’s rationales for war, which became apparent months after our invasion, should never have come as such a surprise. … In this case, the ‘liberal media’ didn’t live up to its reputation. If it had, the country would have been better served.”

Ouch.