Shell Protest Coverage, Seattle Named 10th Most Expensive City to Rent
The top Seattle news stories you should be reading today
By Lauren Mang May 18, 2015
The rent is really, really (like seriously) too damn high. Seattle is listed at number 10 on Zumper’s National Rent Report, joining the likes of San Francisco, Boston and New York for U.S. cities with the highest rent. Curbed Seattle reports that this is the third consecutive month Seattle has been at number 10, despite the median 1-BR rent increase of 2.5 percent to $1,640/month and the median 2-BR rent increase of 11.7 percent to $2,290/month.
Shell protests: The Stranger has live coverage of all the #ShellNo protests happening near The Port of Seattle’s Terminal 5, which is the temporary home for the controversial Polar Pioneer oil rig that’s slated to start its Arctic drilling excursion this summer. Demonstrators marched across the lower Spokane Street bridge this morning toward Terminal 5. And on Saturday afternoon, a group of around 200 kayaktavists gathered in the Duwamish to surround and protest the rig. The Polar Pioneer hasn’t remained mum during the hullabaloo: Last Friday, we reported on the fake Twitter account that someone started for the giant, unwelcome oil rig.
More protests planned: Local teachers in multiple districts are scheduled to walk out this week “to protest the Legislature’s failure to fully fund K-12 public school sand increase teacher pay, reports King 5 News.
And even more protests planned: The U.S. Open kicks off next month at Chambers Bay Golf Course, which according to MyNorthwest, takes place near train tracks that are “connected to one of the most deadly railway corridors in Washington.” Given that the tracks are also used by oil trains, The People’s Climate Action Fleet has announced it will take to kayaks “and other watercraft” to protest the trains on June 21. “We have a deep concern knowing that the railroad is running these bomb trains near congested areas, but not just this golf course at this particular time,” Rod Tharp of the Olympia Fellowship of Reconciliation told MyNorthwest. Read more about the protests here.
Internet for all: Starting today, The Seattle Public Library will offer mobile Wi-Fi hotspots to anyone with a library card. Residents can reserve a mobile Wi-Fi device that will provide broadband access at home, work or out in the community. The program was made possible because of a grant from Google and is intended to “give some of the most underserved in the city a powerful way to connect to the Internet.”
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