Stay…a little bit longer
The waiting game for Lt. Ehren Watada drags on, now that an area judge has extended the officer’s court martial stay until Nov. 9. On Oct. 19, a U.S. District Judge in Tacoma ruled to delay proceedings until early next month, to provide time for a sufficient review of legal records.
Watada has been in limbo since June 2006, when he informed Army superiors he wanted to resign from the military due to his belief that the Iraq War was illegal and immoral. Instead of accepting his resignation, the Army held a court martial. That trial, which took place last February, resulted in a mistrial. Unwilling to discharge Watada after that ruling, the military initiated a second court martial, which some advocates see as a case of double jeopardy. The recently issued stay means the officer will be bound to his Ft. Lewis desk job for at least another three weeks.
— Rosette Royale
Gone on short notice
A longtime North End secondhand store closed Sunday, Oct. 21 after just three days’ notice, leaving tons of unsold goods and a handful of employees with unforeseen free time.
The ThriftKo was already in flight: it had moved to the Parkwood Plaza shopping complex on Aurora Ave. and 155th St. last year to make way for a mixed-use housing and retail development at its old location in the Greenwood neighborhood. It ran into problems at the new location, too; according to store workers, when the owner fell behind in rent landlord Panos Properties offered repayment terms he couldn’t meet. Last Thursday came a three-day notice to pay the rent or get out.
Panos took possession of the 28-year-old store’s estimated $70,000 worth of used clothing, furniture, and housewares on Sunday.
Assistant manager Jean Morris, 57, says she doesn’t know what she’ll do for work now. She posits another reason for the business’s demise: adjacent businesses expressed concern about the kind of people who were coming in. Ours, she says, “might not be the type of clientele they prefer to see in the shopping center,” which also hosts a Shari’s Restaurant and a Jo-Ann Fabrics store.
Code for industry
With a public hearing on Monday, Oct. 22, legislation restricting non-industrial uses in parts of Ballard, Interbay, and Sodo is still drawing attention before Seattle City Council. On Friday the Port of Seattle issued a letter stating that its taxpayer-financed investments in rails, roadways, cranes, and docks on Seattle’s waterfront, from Salmon to Elliott bays, merited greater land-use protection in those areas. Now, either councilmember Peter Steinbrueck makes rapid changes to the land-use code before his tenure is up, or a revised slate of councilmembers takes up the issue next year.
—Adam Hyla