The Aegis issue
Like dog parks and bicycle lanes, land-use affairs tend to be blood pressure-raising events like few others. The upper Queen Anne Aegis debate is no exception.
Martin Kaplan’s letter to the editor on Page 5 in this edition of the News, written in response to the Feb. 27 article “Queen Anne Residents Battle Aegis in Continued Hearings,” is well worth reading.
Kaplan calls foul on the way the Feb. 27 article injected the notion, by quoting an anonymous source, that those who testified in favor of the Aegis project were somehow compromised by conflict of interest. He is right to call foul.
In reporting public meetings, the news media too often feels it has done its job by quoting what people say and leave it at that. Mostly, that’s fine, even if some of the comments are over-the-top — it gives readers who weren’t there a sense of what the meeting was like and what emotions were running high.
Quoting an anonymous source that raises integrity issues is another matter. It’s not enough to quote such condemnatory comments and call it a day.
We believe honorable people can support the Aegis project, and honorable people can oppose it.
We know some of those who testified in support of Aegis. We want to be very clear: Their integrity is beyond question. We regret the story painted a different picture.
We feel compelled to add: The Queen Anne Community Council is not a rubber stamp for land-use projects, as Kaplan’s letter makes clear. The council is made up of community volunteers who aim to represent all of Queen Anne. These people work hard. There’s nothing in it for them personally. And they’re not there to do anyone’s bidding.
Richard McIver
It is with sadness we note the death of former Seattle City Councilmember Richard McIver, 71, who died Saturday night at Swedish Medical Center.
For a long time, Mr. McIver was the only African American on the council, where he served for more than two decades before stepping down in 2009 due to health problems.
McIver’s is a mixed legacy.
We salute him for serving as a steadfast voice for the marginalized in a city ramping up with new developments, rapid transit and a rising cost-of-living.
McIver’s work in helping to make the $50 million Rainier Valley Community Development Fund happen was a critical piece, in the name of fairness, in the city’s overall development puzzle.
But he also stumbled on the high road. A domestic-violence charge, which was later dropped, and the use of $1,000 in city funds to pay for a violation of the city’s conflict-of-interest law, which he later paid out of his own pocket, taint his legacy.
But he never forgot the disenfranchised — this is no small thing.