[This] is a thank you from a 20-plus year reader for publishing the John V. Fox/Carolee Colter op/eds. It is strange but wonderful that I get the only really insightful news about city planning and the commissioners on housing issues from these periodic columns in your paper.
Yes, often Real Change and sometimes the two other alternate papers provide information. But I can’t count on them to provide the under-the-radar information provided by Mr. Fox and Ms. Colter and which I and others need to know about Seattle’s elected and unelected decision makers. Our city’s primary newspaper certainly doesn’t provide it, opting to avoid such controversies to its readers’ detriment.
It may seem strange that your limited geographical publication — especially with the presumed image of we Magnolians — would run columns that explore how private interests are assisted by government to enhance their interests, rather than those experiencing real and threatened homelessness. In fact, it is quite likely that some of the Queen Anne and Magnolia residents may, in fact, be the recipients of such largesse.
Still, I really don’t think you would run these columns if the staff of your paper thought we readers lacked interest. So I’d like to believe that your running these columns is, in fact, a clear indication of the concerns the Queen Anne and Magnolia communities have for Seattle Displacement Coalition’s beneficiaries.
Kudos to you for this column and, in fact, a damn-fine paper.
-Tom Lucas, Magnolia