Pottis vs. S.D.O.T. (round 1)

The battle against the SDOT continues today, as I gave up a portion of my day off to go to work and hopefully collect more petition signatures. Not very encouraging, as many of the staff haven't even heard about the developments. The SDOT finally posted plans detailing which lots will have which kind of parking meters, (link Here) and I was not surprised to see that our 2 main restaurant lots are going to be marked "Premium Parking", so we will, at the very least, pay a lower rate, and have to park farther away. Now I am shifting my attention to try and make the employees of the area eligible for "RPZ" permits, which would be a 35 dollar rate per year (still ridiculous if you ask me) which would allow us to park in the cheaper zones without paying daily.

The thing that bothers me the most about all this is that nowhere has the city offered information about where the money is going, or why it's nesscessary. They've offered up reasons such as "strive for simplicity" and "Balance a variety of user needs", but no real solid reasons why it needs to be done. For employees of the lake, especially the blue-collars, it's just going to be another expense.

Also, No one is representing the South Lake Union area. The North end of the lake has all the wealthy boat owners, sellers, and marinas (including the live-aboards). The South end houses the restaurants (4 of em), the offices, and more yacht and marina places, as well as the seaplane business. I suspect, (and I don't think i'm wrong in doing so) that the restaurants more than likely have the most vehicles (both employee and customer) out of the other lots on the lake. I almost feel that we are being kept in the dark about most of this on purpose, so there won't be too many voices opposing. 90% of the people at my restaurant hadn't even heard about this, and the other 10% didn't think it was significant enough to worry about.

They know now :)

Anywho, by the time I had turned the petitions in, I had collected 60 signatures from my staff (not too bad considering the main online petition has about 120) I hope there's more petitions out there, as I don't feel that 180 signatures are enough for the city to take notice.

Round 1 is over, the fight still seems slightly decided for the city.

Round 2 starts tommorrow, bright and early in the morning, when I will go down and help with the protest march, which will end up at the city's open house, and hopefully some of my questions will be answered. If nothing else, it will be satisfying to finally meet with the people I've been emailing this week, and discuss our course of action.