Seattle Bike Blog

Text message cover-up shows Mayor Durkan is unfit for office

By

Tom Fucoloro

| Posted

May 17, 2021

A letter to Mayor Durkan from the Seattle Ethics and Elections Commission (Full Letter PDF).

Mayor Jenny Durkan, then-Police Chief Carmen Best and Seattle Fire Chief Harold Scoggins all deleted or otherwise lost their text messages from the midst of one of the most tumultuous times in Seattle history. The mayor has hidden the loss of these texts from the public since at least August in an apparent attempt to cover-up her breach of public disclosure laws, and one whistle-blowing public records officer resigned out of fear of retaliation while another has been placed on unpaid leave after they bravely informed the public about the cover-up. Our city owes Kim Ferreiro and Stacy Irwin a debt of gratitude (and probably compensation, too).

Jenny Durkan has destroyed whatever trust the public might still have in her, and she is not fit to be Mayor of this great city.

Though she denies it, the deletion of these texts looks like an attempt to hide damning information from the public. Perhaps those texts include the answer a gigantic, extremely consequential question Durkan and Best have continually dodged: Who ordered police to abandon the East Precinct? Or maybe those texts could shine a light on who was ordering police officers to gas people protesting police brutality and the murder of George Floyd every day for more than a week. The mayor publicly ordered SPD to stop using tear gas, yet the practice continued. Did she lose control of the department, or did she lie to the public? One of those must be true, though neither is good.

Mayor Durkan’s failures of leadership last June were so egregious that Seattle Bike Blog joined many other groups in calling for her resignation or removal from office. Seattle Bike Blog has not changed that stance.

She has refused to answer the public’s questions about these decisions, and now key records that could have provided insight have been deleted not just from her phone, but also the phones of the public officials in the relevant chain of command. This stinks of possible criminal activity and must be investigated as many elected officials and candidates have demanded.

But even if the public were to accept her dubious defense that she accidentally set her phone to auto-delete texts thinking they were saved in the cloud somewhere, her fully conscious and purposeful cover-up of the missing public information is more than enough reason for her to leave office and should also be investigated. The Seattle Ethics and Elections Commission (“SEEC”) has already found her Legal Counsel Michelle Chen in violation of the Public Records Act (PDF) for failing to disclose the missing texts and trying to conceal that they were missing. But the SEEC finding raises more questions than it answers, and should be just the beginning.

When Mayor Durkan is conducting public business, her texts do not belong to her. They belong to the people. Every city employee whose communications quality for public disclosure are trained in how to preserve their records including their texts. Durkan, who was a U.S. Attorney before running for mayor, is very familiar with public disclosure laws. It is vital to the integrity of our democracy that we have the ability to observe how our elected officials are conducting city business in our names. We must know who ordered the precinct to be abandoned, for example, because we need that information to make better electoral choices in the future. That’s how democracy works. Mayor Durkan deleting the texts and then covering it up is nothing short of an attack on our democracy.

tags: carmen best, Ethics and Elections Commission, harold scoggins, jenny durkan, michelle chen

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Saturday: Memorial walk and ride for Mike Colmant near Seward Park

By

Tom Fucoloro

| Posted

May 14, 2021

From the event listing.

A ghost bike in memory of Mike Colmant near the site of the collision.

Mike Colmant was a father, grandfather, triathlete, and Deputy Director at Boeing Field. He was biking on Seward Park Ave S just north of Wilson Ave S when someone drove on the wrong side of the road and struck him, killing him before fleeing the scene. Police have not posted any updates in the case. Colmant was 63.

His death April 11 led to an outpouring of love from friends, family and colleagues. A white ghost bike memorial sits near the location of the fatal collision, overflowing with flowers, a Clif Bar, a small airplane, mementos from Boeing Field, a photo of him cycling in a race, Hawaiian leis, and a photo of him holding a child after completing the 2000 Hawiian Ironman competition. Someone wrote “We love you Mike” on the telephone pole.

Just over a month after his death, friends and family will join Seattle Neighborhood Greenways for a memorial walk and ride 2 p.m. Saturday that is open to the public. The walk will start at Seward Park and the bike ride will start at Be’er Sheva Park. Both will meet at the site of the ghost bike, where friends and family will speak. You can also contribute to a GoFundMe set up to help his family in British Columbia with all their costs, including the added difficulty of crossing the border during the pandemic.

More details from Seattle Neighborhood Greenways: (more…)

tags: deaths, memorial rides, mike colmant, seattle neighborhood greenways

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Last chance to tell the Feds: Make our national road standards safer

By

Tom Fucoloro

| Posted

May 13, 2021

This very boring-looking book has had a huge impact on the way our communities look and function (or not).

There is a book that gives traffic engineers across the nation guidelines for how to design streets and highways, and the Federal Highway Administration is updating it right now. Unfortunately, the current draft of the Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices (“MUTCD”) is backwards, limiting safety innovations while defending the same dangerous road designs that contribute to the deaths of tens of thousands of people every year.

Preliminary counts show that about 42,000 people died in U.S. traffic collisions in 2020, the highest count since 2006 and a figure on par with the 1980s. We will not see the amount of carnage change until we change the designs of the roadways to encourage safer travel for every person. The status quo is not working, and our faulty national road-building standards are largely to blame.

You have until tomorrow evening (9 p.m. 5/14) to submit a comment on the updated guide. The League of American Bicyclists has a handy online tool you can use.

The MUTCD does not make the laws exactly, but it does constrain the design decisions traffic engineers feel comfortable making. The guide encourages car-prioritized streets with many lanes, high speeds, wide turns and long crosswalks, conditions we know are dangerous and lead to deaths and injuries. But if someone dies in a crash on a new roadway, it’s very difficult to win a lawsuit against the agency responsible if the design follows the national standards outlined in the guide. The guide gives agencies and engineers cover to repeat the same dangerous design mistakes over and over and over again in communities all across the nation. (more…)

tags: league of american bicyclists, mutcd

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Now streaming at NW Film Forum: Phoebe’s Father, a family drama with lots of Seattle biking scenes

By

Tom Fucoloro

| Posted

May 12, 2021

You have until Sunday (5/16) to stream Phoebe’s Father from the Northwest Film Forum website. And you should! Tickets are sliding scale $5–$25 ($10 suggested) for a 48-hour streaming rental.

We wrote about the film back in 2015 when it first came out. It’s a family drama centering about Phoebe’s (Marie Lazzaro) strained relationship with her father (the late Lawrason Driscoll). Meanwhile, she discovers cycling and starts training to race. So she processes a lot of what’s going on while biking around Seattle. That is extremely relatable to me, because that’s what I do!

There are many scenes inside Recycled Cycles in the U District and along various trails and bike routes. Locals Jessica Cutler (then a pro cyclist, now founder of the Northwest Women’s Cyclocross Project) and longtime racer David Friedt were cycling consultants on the film.

Oh, and its a good movie, too. Very character-driven with excellent acting.

American films are notoriously bad at representing transportation cycling (people biking just to get around). It’s practically a rule that if a character rides a bike in a movie, they will be hit by a car. That or a character riding a bike is a symbol of them being poor or unlucky or juvenile.

But Phoebe’s Father is different. Her biking around town is never scoffed at, and it feels realistic to watch her go from a new rider to someone who discovers that riding is a great way to get out and process everything that’s going on in her life. When she gets overwhelmed by a heavy family issue, she gets on her bike. Partly, it is about escaping from difficult feelings, but it becomes a way for her to exert some control over her life rather than letting the decisions and desires of others control her. It’s a lovely metaphor that also generates many opportunities for scenic shots. They aren’t fast action shots, they just show biking around Seattle for what it is, creating space for her to work through her emotions. I hope other filmmakers take some lessons from director John Helde here. (more…)

tags: david friedt, jessica cutler, john helde, lawrason driscoll, marie lazzaro, nw film forum, phoebe’s father

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Bike lanes coming to Eastlake Ave between Stewart and Fairview, work starts this summer

By

Tom Fucoloro

| Posted

May 11, 2021

SDOT and King County Metro are getting ready to redesign a significant stretch of Eastlake Ave E from Stewart Street in South Lake Union (near REI) to Fairview Ave N in Eastlake. The changes will happen in two phases with work on the north phase from Fairview to Roy beginning this summer.

The project will construct high-priority protected bike lanes and build more layover space for Metro buses. It also includes a new “comfort station” with restrooms, break area and a small office for Metro bus operators. The comfort station won’t be open to the public.

Construction on the north segment will be timed with reopening of the Fairview Ave N Bridge, which has been under construction since fall 2019. Since then, Eastlake Ave has been the construction detour route. So this work can’t really begin until Fairview is open, which is expected during the summer.

The north segment’s design will look something like this:

From SDOT.

There will be bike lanes on both sides of the street as there are today. However, where there is on-street parking, the bike lane will be protected by the line of cars.

The big changes will come in 2022 when Metro’s layover project is complete and the south segment opens. That project includes all-new, sorely-needed bike lanes between Roy and Stewart Streets. And for most of the length, the bike lanes will be protected by either on-street parking or parked buses.

The biggest change will be at the south end of the Lakeview Boulevard Bridge over I-5. Here, the bike lane will hop up onto a new sidewalk separating the street from a new larger space for more bus layovers.

From Metro.

(more…)

tags: eastlake, king county metro, lakeview boulevard, sdot

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Support Ryan Packer’s reporting

By

Tom Fucoloro

| Posted

May 10, 2021

Ryan Packer was the Temporary Editor of Seattle Bike Blog for the entire winter as I worked on completing the first draft of a book. During that time, they reported many important stories such as this report about an internal SDOT policy that would all but dismantle the Bicycle Master Plan. We spoke more about their time as Editor in a recap video back in April.

Ryan has since continued reporting for The Urbanist, but has also expanded to cover state transportation news, such as watching the reboot of the expanded I-5 Columbia River crossing between Vancouver, Washington, and Portland. Bike Portland has started publishing that work.

You can now support Ryan’s journalism work directly via their brand new Patreon. The independent journalism economy is broken, and getting direct support from readers is vital for enabling this work to continue. Reader support is what keeps Seattle Bike Blog going, for example. Ryan’s work is definitely worth funding.

Hello everyone! This morning I am officially launching my Patreon. If you like the reporting I do here, at @UrbanistOrg and elsewhere, I would be honored to have your support in continuing my work. https://t.co/PccsfY9V2p

— Ryan Packer (@typewriteralley) May 10, 2021

tags: ryan packer

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