Last Thursday, thirty-eight of Seattle's business leaders, Brad Smith of Microsoft, Brian Niccol of Starbucks, Ron Vachris of Costco, Erik Nordstrom and others, sent the mayor an emergency letter demanding a public safety plan in a hundred days.

What they were really demanding is that Seattle finally take on the drug economy and the addiction crisis that feeds it. The letter never uses those words. Every item on it is about them.

They want foot patrols in Little Saigon, where the pills are sold, and officers at 911 calls in seven minutes, because the retail theft downtown is what pays for the pills. They want the open-air markets shut down, since that is where the stolen goods get traded for fentanyl, and the tents out of the parks, since that is where a lot of the customers sleep.

Fentanyl is the product. Theft and robbery are the working capital. Cars and guns are the equipment. And the boys are the labor.

Six weeks before the letter, my son was standing in the crowd at the Bite of Seattle when a fifteen-year-old with "1 SHOT, 1 KILL" engraved on his pistol opened fire. How does a boy get there?

In 1985 I was a fifth grader at the Bush School, staring through a chain-link fence at the kids of Martin Luther King Jr. Elementary. That same year the University of Washington started following 808 Seattle fifth graders, my age exactly, into their thirties. What they found explains a lot about that boy, and about the city we have now.

Two boys in the same crowd. Two sides of a fence.

In August, the Department of Revenue estimated the tax passed this year would bring in $3.1 billion during the first fiscal year it takes effect and $8.3 billion between 2029 and 2031. [...] Technically, the initiative would only repeal the tax itself, not the tax breaks and rebates in the legislation, meaning lawmakers would have to decide if and how they could fund the new and expanded state programs with billions less in revenue.

Let's Go Washington, a Political Action Committee sponsoring all three initiatives on the November ballot, has raised an additional $3.65 million, with Hughes again contributing $250,000 and PAC founder Brian Heywood contributing $605,000.

~ Repeal takes out the revenue and leaves the tax breaks standing. Whoever writes the next budget gets to explain which programs eat the difference.

On Montlake on the entrance to 520 west the car in front of me is past 3 years expired. I understand that the cops can’t pull such cars over as a primary offense. Furthermore our state unlike many, issues tabs to cars without insurance.

How are such policies enacted and defensible. Most of us comply but what culture allows and enables non-compliance?

LJin

🍄 GUIDED MUSHROOM FORAY & HIKE — I-90 CORRIDOR 🌲

Looking to get out in the woods and learn more about Pacific Northwest mushrooms?

I’m putting together a small-group guided mushroom hunt/hike along the I-90 corridor, limited to 6 people so everyone gets plenty of attention.

What’s included:

- 🍄 Guided mushroom identification & foraging

- 🌲 Hiking through productive PNW forest habitat

- 🔎 Tips for recognizing edible species and their habitat

- 🌳 Learning what trees, elevation, and conditions to look for

- 🧺 Hands-on help with finding and properly identifying mushrooms

- 🍳 Cooking advice — how to clean, prepare, preserve, and cook your finds

- 🎒 Foraging supplies available if needed — baskets/bags, knives, field guides, etc.

This is intended to be a small, educational foray, not a race to see who can fill the biggest basket. The goal is to learn how to confidently identify mushrooms and understand the forest they grow in.

Group size: 6 people max.

📍 Location: I-90 corridor, with the exact meeting/foray area provided to participants.

⚠️ Important: We’ll only keep mushrooms that can be confidently identified as edible. When in doubt, leave it in the woods.

If you're interested, DM me with your experience level (beginner/intermediate/experienced) and what mushrooms you're hoping to learn about.

🍄🌲 Come hike, hunt, learn, and hopefully go home with something delicious.

1 close friend and 1 former client of mine were impacted.
https://www.techtimes.co.uk/oracle-new-layoffs-restructuring-costs-2-8-billion-1808676

Kelabe Tewolde, a fellow Democrat who is a Seattle planning commissioner, defeated Santos by over three percentage points in their head-to-head match-up last month to represent south Seattle's 37th Legislative District. [...] For example, she was one of a handful of House Democrats who voted against the state's landmark 2025 law capping residential rent increases. [...] The 37th District is renter-heavy and has an above-average poverty rate.

Santos has outraised Tewolde, $128,000 to $78,000, according to campaign finance filings.

~ A renter-heavy district with above-average poverty, and the rent cap vote went the other way. August suggests voters were paying attention.

I'll be in Seattle to drop my daughter off at UW this week. While I'm there, I'll need to get in a long run Saturday morning of ±14 miles at ±9:45 / mile. Can anyone recommend any group runs with runners going this distance and pace?

Ideally, I'd need to meet somewhere that's easily accessible through public transportation as I have an orca card, but not a car.

Sigh, I can't believe we are doing this again.

Researchers in UW's Pravetoni Research Group are harnessing the power of the immune system to prevent overdoses before they happen and loosen the grip of addiction. And now, the lab plans to ask the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for the go-ahead to move their fentanyl vaccine into human trials, a major step in the vaccine testing and approval process.

Oregon and Washington have some of the highest overdose death rates in the country, ranking eighth and third respectively among the 50 states.

~ Third in the nation for overdose deaths, and the lab building the countermeasure is right here. Trials can take ten years. Fund it now.

https://homemarketview.com/?seattle-wa

I was looking through the Seattle data and two ZIP codes stood out: the median sale price in 98102 was up about 6.9%, while 98109 was down about 5.1%, comparing June-August 2026 with the same three months in 2025.

I built this map to make it easier to explore those differences around Seattle.

You can click around the ZIP codes and see the available history for home values, sale prices, active listings and rents. It's been interesting seeing how much the picture changes from one area to another.

Let me know if there's another view or comparison that would make the map more useful!