News For Reasonable People

Has Seattle’s office worker traffic peaked? That’s one potential takeaway from the surprise closure of PCC Community Markets’ downtown grocery store and reports of a stalling return-to-office trend. The store, in the heart of downtown Seattle at 1320 4th Ave., opened just last year following pandemic-related delays. It will close Jan. 31. PCC CEO Krish Srinivasan, a former Remitly and Amazon exec,...

Purchased for $2.94 million in April of 2006, which was $310,000 “below asking” at the time, the 2,770-square-foot, full-floor cooperative unit #1 in the boutique 7-unit Russian Hill building at 2222 Hyde Street, which offers sweeping panoramic views from every floor, returned to the market priced at $3.395 million at the beginning of this year, a sale at which would have represented net appreciat...

A member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors compared the city’s government to Spirit Airlines , as the local leaders battled over an amendment to fund the San Francisco Police Department, on Monday. Supervisor Matt Dorsey proposed a change to San Francisco's charter that would create minimum staffing requirements for the SFPD, according to SFGate . Other members of the Board raised obj...

Tuesday was the grand opening of Ritz-Carlton in downtown Portland. The highly anticipated hotel and restaurant held a ribbon cutting with Mayor Ted Wheeler. The 35-story hotel with 251 rooms took 4.5 years to build. That included designers from Dallas to study Oregon’s natural beauty. The new site incorporates Oregon’s landscapes throughout the interior design. Forest Hall and Meadowrue, the new...

The city of Chicago and Democrat Mayor Brandon Johnson is calling on city authorities to give black residents fewer parking tickets in an effort to push “racial equity.” “Chicago has a long history of racial disparities and social inequities, especially on the South and West Sides. As a longtime resident of Chicago’s West Side, I see the devastating impact systemic inequality can have on a neighbo...

A Seattle Fire Department crew was inside the Ballard Fred Meyer when a security guard rushed to warn them about people rummaging through their fire truck in the parking lot. The firefighters noted the guard was "shaking" as he told them he had just been chased by a group of men after yelling at them in an attempt to interrupt the theft. By the time the crew got back to their ladder truc...

The City of Portland will begin to enforce a daytime camping ban, which had been passed earlier this year, in two weeks, officials announced on Monday. The ban officially starts on Nov. 13. The announcement came during a press conference with Mayor Ted Wheeler and interim Portland Police Bureau Chief Bob Day also announced an increase in foot patrols in the city’s downtown for the upcoming holiday...

Residents near Dr. Jose Rizal Dog Park in the Beacon Hill neighborhood of Seattle were frustrated after a man in a stolen excavator ripped through the park knocking down trees and destroying plants. Witnesses said it took police a while to respond and add it wasn’t the first time they’ve seen that man around there. Genevive Courtney, who claims to have witnesses the whole incident, said she notice...

The work laptop belonging to Alameda County, Calif. District Attorney Pamela Price was stolen from a security team SUV last week, ABC 7 news reported. The alleged theft occurred outside the Family Justice Center where the SUV was parked just after 3:00 p.m. Price was there attending a domestic violence event. Security personnel returned to the $90,000 SUV to find the windows smashed. Several items...

If you're concerned about the disarray of the law and order situation in places like Oakland and San Francisco, you're not alone. You might find it rather "interesting" that the Oakland interim police chief recently admitted they're no longer prioritizing car thefts or "bipping" crimes. This apparent nonchalance stems from a change in law—Prop 47—which recategori...

A Republican lawmaker wants San Francisco’s main federal office building — named after former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi — closed down until the “threat to public safety” has passed following an explosion of crime outside the facility. In early August, the Department of Health and Human Services warned workers to steer clear of the Speaker Nancy Pelosi Federal Building “for the foreseeable future”...

Colorado judge chided a welding company that tried to pay off a $23,500 settlement with a subcontractor by sending the money in loose coins that weighed 3 tons. Judge Joseph Findley ruled Monday that JMF Enterprises “acted maliciously and in bad faith” by delivering a custom made metal box containing the coins that was too heavy to be carried in the freight elevator at the offices for Fired Up Fab...

A government watchdog group uncovered that well over 65,000 substantial lottery winners since 2019 continued collecting food stamps, even when they were over the federal income threshold for the program.  The Foundation for Government Accountability’s survey of data from thirteen states shows recipients of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), commonly known as food stamps, took ho...

The National Retail Federation put Sacramento and other California cities on the top 10 list of metropolitan areas in the United States most affected by organized retail crime. The National Retail Federation (NRF) is the world’s largest retail trade association, according to its website. Members of the federation include department stores, specialty, discount, catalog, internet, and independent re...

The Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office has launched an investigation into the working conditions at several hotels where workers are on strike. The investigation was sparked by claims that migrant workers are being underpaid off the books, and that children may also be part of the workforce being used to replace those striking workers. District Attorney George Gascón on Monday made...

San Francisco is cracking down on hot dog vendors and urging people living on the street to seek shelter as it races to prepare for a major international summit and reverse its image as a city in decline. Officials are looking at cosmetic cleanups such as scrubbing sidewalks and repainting fire hydrants ahead of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit Nov. 15-18, according to emails obtained...

The FBI has handed Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis a fresh talking point in his upcoming debate with left-wing California Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom. Fighting crime. Earlier this week, the FBI released the national violent crime statistics for 2022. Since 2019, the year that both DeSantis and Newsom were elected the leaders of their respective states, violent crime in Florida has plunged 31.5%; in Cal...

In the wake of escalating violent crime, some cities across the nation that previously cut police funding are reconsidering their stance. In the wake of George Floyd's murder by Minneapolis police officers in 2020, activists across the country called for cuts in funding to increasingly militarized police departments, with the funds then being redistributed to other public safety programs like...

Seattle City Councilmember Kshama Sawant said the city should not add police resources to the Central District neighborhood after a day-time shooting sent bullets into a day care this week. The owner of the day care called out Sawant after the drive-by shooting on Oct. 16, which involved 24 children crawling to the bathroom for safety. “Show your face because your presence is needed to support us....

Downtown San Francisco is set to lose its third Walgreens in under two years. A store at 500 Geary St., at the intersection with Taylor Street, will close on Nov. 15. That corner, at the northern edge of San Francisco's low-income Tenderloin neighborhood, is less than three blocks west of tourist-heavy Union Square, the city's prime Downtown retail district. Joann, a Walgreens associate...

Most cities have homeless problems and lots of vacant housing units, but everything is magnified in San Francisco. Last year, there were 7,700 people living in shelters or on the street in the city by the bay, according to city figures. Meanwhile, there were more than 60,000 vacant units at the end of 2021, according to a policy analysis from last fall, although that figure included newly built ap...

A battle over homelessness is heating up between a tenant and landlord in Denver’s Lower Downtown (LoDo) neighborhood. In September 2021, Seattle-based Unico bought the five-story building on the corner of 18th and Blake streets. 7-Eleven had been a tenant of that building for more than a decade. Shortly after the purchase, according to 7-Eleven, Unico claimed the convenience store on the ground f...

Democratic leaders in El Paso, Texas have sent 178 busloads of migrants to New York, Chicago and Denver in less than a month, but only the state's Republican governor is under fire for transporting migrants to sanctuary cities. More than 7,700 migrants have been transported from West Texas since the city started its busing program on Sept. 22, the city told the DailyMail.com. Chicago has rece...

San Francisco city employees tasked with enforcing the city’s street vending rules have received so many death threats, they have been issued bulletproof vests. Public Works inspectors, who check food carts and whether street vendors have proper permits, have been subjected to an increased number of threats and assaults, prompting the safety measure, according to the San Francisco Chronicle. Publi...

Oregon high school students won’t have to prove basic mastery of reading, writing or math to graduate from high school until at least 2029, the state Board of Education decided unanimously on Thursday, extending the pause on the controversial graduation requirement that began in 2020. The vote went against the desires of dozens of Oregonians who submitted public comments insisting the standards sh...