This Week on PubliCola: March 1, 2025
Debates erupted this week over trees, housing, and whether Elon Musk and Peter Thiel are "some of the smartest innovators around."
By Erica C. Barnett
Monday, February 24
A group of neighbors and tree activists protested the removal of a tree on private property in Ravenna, claiming the late owner of the property “cherished” the tree and cared for it lovingly. Her family tells a different story—they say their mother “hated” the tree because it was so much work to maintain, and argue that after owning the house for more than 70 years, the family has the right to sell it to the highest bidder.
Tuesday, February 25
Opponents of Stadium-Area Housing Say “Core Tenet” is “No Net Loss of Industrial Lands”
After critics complained that Council President Sara Nelson, who’s sponsoring legislation that would allow affordable “workforce” housing near the city’s two stadiums, only included supporters on a panel about the bill, she convened a second panel of opponents. The group, predictably, blasted the proposal, saying it abandoned a “deal” with maritime businesses and the Port to keep industrial land industrial forever.
Protesters prevented a tree crew from entering the street to remove the cedar at the center of the dispute PubliCola covered earlier this week, occupying the site and blocking the crew’s truck until police arrived. We spoke to several people who were at the protest the night before and remained on site Tuesday as the tree came down.
Wednesday, February 26
Two stories in Wednesday’s Morning Fizz: First, Mayor Bruce Harrell continued to tout a questionable metric for progress on homelessness—the number of people who were told about available shelter beds during or leading up to sweeps—in his “Seattle On the Rise” state of the city speech. And the city of Burien continues to rack up legal fees for outside counsel, this time suing the campaign for a higher minimum wage in an effort to stop the new pay standard from going into effect.
Thursday, February 27
In a speech to downtown business leaders, Mayor Bruce Harrell appeared to praise the tech bros who are currently dismantling the federal government, calling Elon Musk, Peter Thiel, Marc Andreessen, and David Sacks “some of the smartest innovators around.” His spokesman claims Harrell was actually criticizing Trump byr “referencing they have an objective reputation as leaders in technology and innovation, and that it is a danger they are in the president’s orbit.”
Friday, February 28
Seattle Nice: IS Elon a “Smart Innovator”? And: More About that Tree Story
On this week’s Seattle Nice podcast, we talked more about the tree story (read this post to find out why I’m frustrated by people who focus all their activism on solitary trees in their immediate vicinity). And we debated whether Harrell was right—is Elon Musk, whose Swasticar B called “one of the most unreliable EVs made yet,” a genius, or a reckless ketamine abuser who used Twitter a a test case for running the government into the ground?