Hats off to almost a dozen, 11 to be exact, great people who took time out of their weekends and money from their budgets to get together on Seahawks Super Bowl Saturday for the inaugural meetup of the Seattle & Puget Sound Kossacks.
We shared some great beers, strong coffee, and decent bar food and most importantly our stories and passions.
First some business. Our initial organizer, yours truly, may be relocating later this year, so the call was put out for additional admins on the DKos group. We had a volunteer as an admin, and remaining attendees were promoted to editors on the blog too. Thanks everyone! As discussed, we hope you all feel empowered to dig up those Washington State stories and republish them on Seattle & Puget Sound Kossacks. That is how we will provide the best service and focus on issues and campaigns where our writing and action can make an impact.
Later, we agreed to schedule our next meetup on the first Saturday of the month again, 2 months from now. So our next meetup would be Saturday, April 5th, 12-3 pm at Pyramid Brewery on 1st Ave in Seattle. I have confirmed the Mariners and the Sounders are both AWAY that day, so we should have free parking at the Pyramid lots again.
After the fold, see some photos and random thoughts from today.
Attendees: Bleeding blue, John Crapper & Spouse, MLharges, doingbusinessas, Regina in Sears Kit House & Spouse, N in Seattle, TBone Apollo, FlamingoGrrl, EagleofFreedom.
- Discussion of goals of the group. Senator Rodney Tom (
R D Unreal) was the target of much ire at the table after he broke ranks and got himself appointed Senate Majority leaders in a coalition with the GOP. THIS is a good thing for Seattle DKos folks to act on and write about.
- A show of hands was asked for in support or against the statement "More and better Progressives." Unanimous result. Can you guess which side won?
- More and better Democrats is an easy goal in the Seattle area because we have so many good Dems here. But we have to stay vigilant for the rest and vest politicians.
- Lots of discussion about Kshama Sawant, our new "Socialist Alternative" party candidate who won a seat on the non-partisan Seattle City Council. Reportedly lots of dems supported her, both party people and Kossacks. People felt like Richard Conlin may have overstayed his welcome by running for his 5th term.
- District elections for the City Council were generally thought to be a good thing for accountability, and many of us are looking forward to it's implementation!
- People generally like the Pyramid location. Free parking, as long as there is not an event at one of the stadiums is a nice bonus. Also proximity to Bremerton and Bainbridge ferry makes it doable for Peninsula peeps.
- There was a recurring discussion of how to keep focus as bloggers, with a suggestion that bloggers can be most productive and impactful by sticking to one or two deeper areas such as the environment, economic justice, labor rights, etc. Of course, there is a lot of overlap. Having local Kossacks with diverse interests only makes our coalition and contribution stronger.
- General mockery of Seattle's big dig, State Route 99 replacement that's tunnel boring machine has lost a couple months due to obstructions they the State DOT should have known about and had removed. So much for those cost overruns McGinn was warning us about.
- A fair amount of Seahawks Super Bowl smack talk.
- Big thumbs up from me for Robert Reich's movie Inequality for All
- Rant about the plans to extend State Route 520 through the Montlake/UW area and put yet another park in a neighborhood surrounded by parks. This will be a huge missed opportunity if density and affordable housing are not considered as priorities.
- Lots of other conversations I am certainly forgetting or was not a party to. When I arrived first yesterday, they put together a few table with 8 chairs. By the end of the event, we pulled up an extra table and had every chair filled. A big personal thanks to everyone who showed up and made this a great event.
Mike, our photographer for the day, did a really great job taking some portrait type shots of folks. These came out so nice, I'd feel ashamed not to share them.
N in Seattle
Regina in a Sears Kit House
bleeding blue
doingbusinessas
EagleOfFreedom
Sat Feb 08, 2014 at 11:46 AM PT: Note: I will happily add captions to photos of anyone who lets me know that it's OK to associate your screen name with your photo. Tagged a few today.