I started writing for Wallyhood this past spring when Jordan took off because I valued a Wallingford community site and wanted to explore writing as a creative outlet. I was also hoping to form constructive relationships with the city in getting good things to happen for Wallingford.
Constructive relationships with the city proved impossible, largely because the city no longer has anyone assigned to support neighborhoods. It’s all downtown meetings based on city functions without visits to neighborhoods when making plans. To be successful with advocacy, you must be like the Seattle Bike Blog or the Seattle Transit Blog and have a city function you’re a cheer leader for, then attend all the meetings on that topic. There’s no city function or bureaucrat assigned to “improve Wallingford”.
I also learned in working with the city that as a member of the press you really have two options- push their press releases and get granted access, or get shut out. There’s no such thing as a second tough interview with SDOT. By the time decisions have been made at the neighborhood level, all you can do is fight or roll over, and I’m really more interested in finding win-win solutions than in fighting the city.
As for being a creative outlet, I’ve tried to avoid just writing up the next pancake breakfast at the senior center, although sometimes that happens. Unfortunately, on a purely “what’s interesting to me” level the posts I’ve had the most fun with have been ones like the congestion pricing post that aren’t even neighborhood specific. The posts I’d like to write are on things like bottom up accountability, or how progressivism is at odds with environmentalism, but they really don’t fit the blog. What really interests me is the very big picture, like this other site I put together.
Much thanks to Jordan for being generous and always knowing what to say and how to say it. A lot of people stepped up to help by writing articles or contributing photos over the past year. Jeremy Dwyer-Lindgren did some great photography work for us, he’s now a photographer at the Woodland Park Zoo. Daranee Oakley wrote some great posts that shared her personal experiences in the neighborhood with the rest of us. Kimberly, Barb, Doug, and Mike Ruby have all contributed good work. I’ve been very appreciative of comments from people like Donn who were clearly smarter than me and probably should have been writing the articles they were commenting on. Much thanks to all of you who indulged my attempts at writing by reading and writing in response.
P.S: Martin Luther King day is particularly special to us as it is coincidentally the day we adopted our African American daughter. As it’s Martin Luther King Day, here’s something cool he wrote that you may not have seen, where he argues for a guaranteed minimum income. It’s remarkable how prescient the man was.
Eric, you have been wonderful in every way. If you are really leaving, I hope you reconsider, at least to the extent to writing a column now and then. You are a marvelous person, an asset to this area, and to everyone who knows you. I look forward to seeing you in the neighborhood. Maybe you will be at the Wallingford Playfield with your daughter!
Martin Luther King was a marvelous man, in all ways.
Thank you for this post and ALL you are doing and have done for our community, and this blog!
hope you will find ways to be involved that inspire you, and perhaps continue to chime in here.
I’m always surprised that you keep coming up with stuff to write about that is interesting! Nice work Eric, we appreciate you keeping our incredible neighborhood communications functioning!
Now I’ll comment on the article:
Unfortunately, when you implement a minimum arbitrary Economic “Floor” to income, you also create a Plateau from which some people never aspire to leave. That is, if they work LESS, or the minimum, they still get the same base income level. We need a good social safety net, not so good though to be a comfy safety mattress.
The root cause of this is the continued gap in income shown in Eric’s graph. We must have a BETTER EDUCATION system to give people skills to decide for themselves if they want to aspire to a better life and income. But, people have to have the skills first to decide that. For instance, we have good schools here in Wallingford, and likely, our neighborhood kids have a good change to continue being that 1%. The majority of kids in America aren’t so lucky to already have parents who are educated enough to recognize the value of education. A great movie to watch on this principle is a favorite of mine, called “Idiocracy”. It’s a comedy with Luke Wilson, done by the creator of “The Office”, and pretty spot on.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BBvIweCIgwk
This same aspiration principle is at work with top marginal tax rates on the very wealthy which just don’t work. My grandfather left Sweden because the harder he worked, the harder he worked. That is, he made VERY little more marginal income for the extra effort. Sweden saw huge capital flight, a debilitating time of economic recession, and reversed course to bring down the huge penalties on wealth creators who are innovators who had fled the country. It seems we don’t learn from other socialist mistakes. While I love the IDEA of someone like Bernie Sanders, his ECONOMIC ideas only work in a perfect fairly tale land where everyone acts like Jesus, all the time. Unfortunately, people are selfish, and NEED incentive to do a great job.
I agree with Jeff’s marginal tax rate argument … up to a point. There is absolutely NO WAY that the hedge fund managers’ exorbitant salaries are anything but a scam. They may be legal, but no single person’s effort can justify those “earnings”. Consequently, those levels of income should be discouraged, or “punished” if we must view it that way, either through laws that somehow make taking that kind of profit illegal or by simply taxing the crap out of it. The money is being siphoned out of profitable and productive enterprise by a few people who do nothing productive themselves. What little they may do to facilitate the use of capital by productive enterprise is dwarfed by the amount of money they pull out and pile up in dangerously large concentrations of wealth, and that rob productive enterprise of its well earned working capital. This means that all of the people working hard in those companies just work harder, for no extra compensation.
Yes, we must recognize that more work, and better work, should result in more take home pay. But this can only be true up to a practical limit, say 1 million per year, ok, ten million dollars per year MAXIMUM. No one can possibly be worth more than that. But these hedge fund managers take home a hundred times more than even that egregious sum: around a billion dollars per year!
Sweden’s top marginal rates may well be assessed at too low a threshold to help spur entrepreneurship at the top. But the reaction should be to adjust the top numerical level, and preserve the high marginal rate, rather than to allow the super rich to rise as they have here in the US to create the oligarchy we now have. I think that Bernie Sanders understands that very well.
We live in a world where we have seen both sides: failure to motivate by taking away all possibility of profit (communism), and the rise of robber barons who are able to write the laws governing their greedy enterprise (unbridled capitalism). We need to guard against political systems that promote either extreme under the guise of freedom or power to the people.
PS Sorry to see Eric go!
This is a huge loss for Wallyhood and Lake Union! Don’t go!
Thank you and God speed.
Don’t let the political correctness police get you down. Please reconsider, and continue to write about neighborhood activities, city politics and liberal values. Most of those who comment on any blog are negative by nature. You’ve got to take that into account and discount them. One supportive comment is worth at least ten negative ones. You’ve learned a lesson. Now stay the course! Keep writing for Wally kog.
Thanks tbear- like Jordan said, my screw up on Friday was really just a nudge to consider next steps. I was prepared to continue, he wasn’t. I’m not prepared right now to invest the energy to launch an entirely new site. As you can imagine, writing for a blog like this does not pay minimum wage, so you’ve always got to consider how much you want to personally invest in it.
You’ve done terrific work for the blog Eric, thank you! It’s a shame when negativism suppresses other voices. I know your intentions have never been anything but the best.
I am very sad to hear this. It’s because of you (and Bill Bradburd) that I’m starting to understand what goes on in our neighborhood. (I’ve lived here 30 years.) Please reconsider!
I know first-hand how much time, energy and talent go into the making of this blog and I want you and Jordan to know I’ve appreciated every bit of it. It’s done for personal enjoyment, I know, but also to genuinely benefit the community.
And here I was hoping this article would be about Led Zeppelin… Eric, you will be sorely missed! I’ve never felt so plugged into what is happening in my community, from whimsical bits through in-depth analysis and even history. Thank you for all you’ve done for us! Best of luck and Happy MLK Day!
Thanks for your work, Eric.
Many thanks, Eric! Outstanding work and much appreciated.
Thanks for the work on the blog Eric. Best of luck.
Eric, I’ve always found your articles informative; and while I had a different outlook on a number of the issues you discussed, I always found them enjoyable (and often illuminating.)
Best of luck on your next activities, and thank you for all your hard work.
Eric, I am sad to hear that you are leaving Wallyhood. The level of reporting you brought to the blog was invaluable, especially during the campaigns for city council positions. It was one of the few opportunities I had as a candidate to answer focused questions in a thoughtful and expansive way. You elevated the debate to something more meaningful than soundbites or slogans. Also, throughout all of last year, you raised local and citywide topics that showed a deeper understanding of issues and problems, and you introduced a number of thought-provoking approaches or solutions. I, for one, was impressed with your practical solution for a bike/pedestrian crossing on NE 45th Street over I-5. It was something that deserved to be advanced as a short-term, cost-effective solution to safely linking Wallingford to the University District. I appreciate all that I have learned and all that I was prodded to consider by reading your posts. Hope to read your work again soon.
All the best to you!
Thanks Tony! It was fun to have a role in the election, even if virtually everyone I supported didn’t make it 🙂 It’s great that you elevated neighborhood issues, too bad that not enough people vote on those issues. The ideologues at the times / stranger have their litmus tests, and if you have a message that isn’t all one way or all the other then it’s hard to break through.
Eric – I second what Tony said. Wallingford is poorer without Wallyhood and I will miss your tongue in cheek commentary. You addressed a number of important issues with real information as well as a sense of humor. It didn’t bother me that your opinion often came through loud and clear. It takes courage to put yourself out there. Sometimes I agreed with you, sometimes I didn’t, but I really appreciated having a conversation started. Thanks for all your hard work.
Thanks Erika! I should have given you a shout out in the post, you were hugely helpful as well. Much thanks for the kind thoughts. And I’m not dead, I’ll probably see you Wednesday?
Thanks Eric for your contributions. The blog became even better when you joined. I still can’t believe you got our politicians to walk around I-5 with you for the bike master plan. Your voters guide was extremely well-researched.
I really don’t understand why people would want to read something that didn’t challenge their assumptions about something. Even when I disagreed I enjoyed the posts.
It’s a shame that it’s taken this announcement to bring out a stream of well-deserved thanks and appreciation, but I guess it falls into the same general category as no good deed going unpunished. I’ve very much enjoyed the analysis and writing style you’ve brought to the blog, and it’s made me a better informed and better connected Wallinghoodian (Wallinghooder? Wallinghoodlum? Is there a word for us?). Also, are there any sources that you’ll now be looking to for neighborhood information?
In short, thanks, and wishing you very best of luck on your future involvements–we’re all better for your effort.
NextDoor is a trying to be the facebook for neighborhoods and seems to be having some success, so that’s one option. Wallyhood always had a by Wallingford for Wallingford vibe that’s gone, so that’s sad. Like getting your media from a local farmer instead of some agribusiness.
Thank you so much for your posts and comments, Eric. As someone who has way too often made mistakes and gone on too long and too emotionally about stuff, I have great sympathy for what you have gone through the past few days. Please do not be discouraged from sharing your reasonable voice and astute observations. Best wishes.
Thank you, Eric for taking the risk of putting yourself out there, responding to comments with grace and intelligence and generally all around adding to our Wallyhood experience in postitive ways. Most of all, thank you for keeping Wallyhood going when it could have foundered. I, for one, had no idea this has been such a rough eperience for you. Appreciate your post today.
Eric, an appreciation post meant for you I mistakenly posted at the end of Jordan’s article. thanks again.
Eric – thank you for all that you’ve done for your community. It was a pleasure working with you over the past year. I hope this is until next time.
Will Wallyhood “happen” every now and then?? There is so much going on in W’ford. Wish we could copy all Nextdoor items to this site..But there are a lot of them right now.
I miss Wallyhood SO SO MUCH! AND miss Eric and Wally. I hope I find you at the playfield.