The Official Seattle Area Chat Thread (Edmonds, Pacific: unemployed, prices, retired)

[SonicsFan93]

Business & Technology | Bristol-Myers Squibb buying ZymoGenetics | Seattle Times Newspaper

That's two Seattle-based, publicly listed biotech companies bought out in under a month (Trubion Pharmaceuticals was the other). Yikes.

[Inkpoe]

Could someone explain what the deal is with McGinn in RE: the MOHI? I am trying to convince myself that its not a bonehead (on McGinn) move, that there must be a valid reason/action...

[Ira500]

Originally Posted by Inkpoe

Could someone explain what the deal is with McGinn in RE: the MOHI? I am trying to convince myself that its not a bonehead (on McGinn) move, that there must be a valid reason/action...

Here's the deal, and all I know on this: McGinn does have this tendency to blurt, and make proposals without a lot of thought, but he's not entirely wrong on this one.
MOHAI knew it would have to move as a result of the 520 bridge expansion, and were preparing to move downtown, when the city proposed that they take over the armory at South Lake Union. It would be good for the city, because the museum would spend a lot of money on renovating a dilapidated unused building and draw people to an area that the city has invested heavily in. It would be good for MOHAI because they'd get the building for very little money, although they'd have to spend extensively to renovate it, and it would be in a popular, and increasingly popular area.
Fast forward, and the city suggested that MOHAI do the negotiating in Olympia with the state legislature over how much the state would compensate the city for taking the space where MOHAI is, and the city preferred MOHAI do the negotiating since a lot of legislators hate the city of Seattle. The city and MOHAI made an agreement that whatever money MOHAI negotiated from the state, MOHAI would keep 40% of that, and the city would throw in an extra seven million dollars.
As it turns out, MOHAI did a fabulous job of negotiating, getting something like 40 million dollars instead of the expected 15.
Meanwhile, the city's revenues are way down, they're laying people off and reducing park maintenance and library hours, cutting money to feed poor children etc.
So since MOHAI is getting all this extra $, McGinn figured that they don't need the extra seven million, it could go to people who really need it, direct it to the truly needy. But the city and MOHAI made this agreement for MOHAI to get this extra seven million dollars. That's when MOHAI basically said that they could take their marbles and go home, shut down if they don't get that money.
I think both sides are wrong. McGinn needs to keep his mouth shut, and actually try to work with the city council instead of striking out on his own blurting crap.
MOHAI needs to not threaten. They will be getting millions of dollars from this deal, even without the seven million extra, and they're sounding like pro sports franchises threatening cities that they will leave.
As far as museums go, I really like MOHAI. It's a cool place. I hope they don't leave.

[Inkpoe]

Thank you.

McGinn doesn't seem to endear himself well to the community.

[Ira500]

Originally Posted by Inkpoe

Thank you.

McGinn doesn't seem to endear himself well to the community.

No, he comes off as a buffoon. Very unlike Greg Nickels. Nothing Nickels said appeared to be spontaneous, everything seemed calculated to see what would gain him the most politically. That didn't help him get re-elected, but it was probably the snowstorm that did him in.
Still, if I were a betting man, I'd say McGinn is a one termer.

[Inkpoe]

Nickels had the Mak. Think Robert Mak will become an actual politician?

Anyhow, in the news today: Local News | Seattle council takes step to raise parking, car-tab taxes | Seattle Times Newspaper

Boo! They mentioned that they have immediate plans to increase car tabs $20 dollars by next Spring.

[IrisMGOK]

Originally Posted by Foreverking

Well...if your buying tickets you sorta are...sorta. Try to understand how sad YOUR would be if someone Stole the Sooners (althought that would be most likely impossible). Oh well, your Sonics sucked anyway when they lived in Seattle.

Well, I still don't understand the whole "stolen" storyline. My understanding is that they were sold, and they couldn't have been sold unless they were put up for sale by someone who didn't want them. At least that's how MY logic works.

At any rate, I have yet to even buy a ticket to see the Thunder. That may change though after last winter's excellent season. I want to support them all I can now. Not quite sure how they can "suck" so badly in one city, and be playoff contenders only one or two seasons later in another, but they gave the citizenry here something to be proud of.

I can't tell you why they left and were so easily acquired by Oklahoma. I could suggest, though, that if maybe they were given the same standing ovations up there that their appreciative fans down here gave them after a season well played, it might have been hard to have sold them at any price.

I guess it's like that Joni Mitchell song, "don't it always seem to go that you don't know what you've got 'til it's gone".

[eskercurve]

Be on the lookout - there's two guys that are wanted by the SPD for hate crimes. Local News | 2 charged with hate crime in assault on West Seattle teen | Seattle Times Newspaper

A black man and a Filipino are wanted for beating up a white guy pretty bad.

I always cringe when I see this sort of lunacy going on in Seattle, a place that's vaunted as a place of reason and where the races aren't at each others' throats.

[Foreverking]

Originally Posted by IrisMGOK

Well, I still don't understand the whole "stolen" storyline. My understanding is that they were sold, and they couldn't have been sold unless they were put up for sale by someone who didn't want them. At least that's how MY logic works.

At any rate, I have yet to even buy a ticket to see the Thunder. That may change though after last winter's excellent season. I want to support them all I can now. Not quite sure how they can "suck" so badly in one city, and be playoff contenders only one or two seasons later in another, but they gave the citizenry here something to be proud of.

I can't tell you why they left and were so easily acquired by Oklahoma. I could suggest, though, that if maybe they were given the same standing ovations up there that their appreciative fans down here gave them after a season well played, it might have been hard to have sold them at any price.

I guess it's like that Joni Mitchell song, "don't it always seem to go that you don't know what you've got 'til it's gone".

thought that was Poison, but Im sure you know your music better than me. Keep the Sonics...they continued to be Portlands b.... for years and years and....well we still have the Blazers...if they have to listen to Mariner games in Portland, we get to listen to Blazer games in Seattle...seems fair.

[VeronikaW]

Oh man, after moving back to CA, my husband and I CANNOT wait to move back to the Seattle area. For all the things I disliked about WA, CA sucks exponentially worse. My husband is still working for Amazon, and he plans on staying with his current project until 2012, at which point, he's going to try to transfer to a team back in South Lake Union. That ray of light is what's getting us through the next year and a half in CA.