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If you're going to argue in favor of mass gun ownership then at least put it context like protection from government (our own and others), the actual reason for the 2nd amendment, that is harder to argue against. Simply lifting your head up and looking at almost every other first world nation that has far stricter gun control laws then ours you'll see societies that are, if not massively safer, just as safe as ours.

Also, if you're going to site numbers try to make sure they are even close to correct so if some one checks them you don't look like a total idiot. Here are the actual average response tmes for priority calls in Seattle http://council.seattle.gov/201... . You're a little off to say the least.

Amazon made $3 billion in profit last year, so $250 million would be about 8%. That's not much of a round-off error, is it? For what it's worth, Seattle's annual budget is about $5.6 billion - almost twice the profit that Amazon makes.

The New York Times, "How a Rising Minimum Wage Affects Jobs in Seattle": https://www.nytimes.com/2017/0...

Washington Post, "Seattle’s higher minimum wage is actually working just fine": https://www.washingtonpost.com...

EPI.org, "The “high road” Seattle labor market and the effects of the minimum wage increase": http://www.epi.org/publication...

Seattle Minimum Wage Policy: http://murray.seattle.gov/mini...

We are mid-2017, and on January 1st, Schedule 1 employers with >500 employees and w/o providing medical benefits, now have a minimum wage of $15.00/hr, up from $13.00/hr (in the period that the UW study most recently concluded on.) Schedule 2 employers (w/ $13.00/hr. So by looking at the data for the next few years, we should get a clearer picture on the effects, since whatever effects there may have been, if they were systematic and attributable to the minimum wage increase, they should deepen and be more visible.

Time will tell.

Your random unattributed internet reference is incorrect. Even where some cities incorrectly try to call possessing a right-of-way "owning" the sidewalk to people, in a legal sense, the property still belongs to the property owner. If you look at the actual recorded deeds and maps in the recorders office, it's very easy to see the distinction. Some cities explain the distinction between owning the property and owning a right-of-way to a portion of the property very well, others fairly well, and some cities not so well, indicating whoever wrote their stuff doesn't actually understand it. For example, Champaign's web site talks about "owning" the right-of-way "property", then a couple of paragraphs later about the responsibilities of the "property owner" in that right-of-way, not meaning them. :)

The closer you get to an actual legal authority and real city or county recorders who deal with property descriptions, plat maps, easements and right-of-ways, the more you find people who actually understand the difference between the owner of the property and what a public right-of-way legally is. What it isn't is ownership of the property itself, it's the right to use the property for a specific purpose. So under various circumstances the property owner can recover the right-of-way from a city, profit from mining oil or minerals underneath it, etc... Pretty standard for a city street, the center of the right-of-way is the actual property line between property owners (they each own half the road) and the right-of-way extends 30 ft. in either direction.

If you ask a random city employee, you may be told the city "owns" the sidewalk, but if you ask a non-profit which exists to give cities and counties legal advice, you're likely to get a much more accurate answer, including legal citations. Let's not even talk about clickbait web sites who exist to get searchers to land on random "articles" like reference.com.

So yes, "It's better to check when you don't know what you're talking about." Wish more city website writers would check a little more thoroughly, but then, that's what lawyers are for, right? To be legally pedantic. ;)

I have a dial-up modem at home that only connects at 26.4k since there a universal SLIC between me and the CO

I know Seattle has had serious problems with home Internet speeds in the past due to some "director's rule" about rights of way that was unfriendly to tenants and neighbors of absentee landlords and neighbors of vacant lots. But I thought the rule was changed at the end of 2014, opening the door for CenturyLink to deploy gigabit fiber. Did it not reach your home?

The quoted "source" is a guest column advocating a particular position; it is not a traffic report. In fact, it misrepresents what was behind the reduction in trips in the Seattle DOT traffic report. The author attributes the reduction to increases in use of alternate forms of transportation, but completely ignores an even bigger for reason for the reduction in the number of trips, the Great Recession, which hit in the middle of the reporting period.

Since 2010, the number of trips has been increasing.

Here is the actual 2015 Seattle DOT traffic report. Here is the 2015 Washington state DOT traffic report. Check the numbers for yourself.

Just based on what I have observed, traffic has increased significantly since 2014, but the data does for 2015 does not seem to be available yet to confirm this.

Just Seattle alone has 100 percent green electricity.

Wrong, though ANY government numbers need to be taken with a boulder of salt, so you can be sure their coal percentage is actually much higher.

Comcast has a government-granted monopoly over most of Seattle,

No, they don't. They have a non-exclusive franchise agreement. From the actual franchise itself, paragraph 1.4(A) on page 5:

The City reserves the right to grant additional franchises or similar authorizations to provide Video Programming services via Cable Systems or similar wireline systems located in the Right of Way.

And in paragraph 20.6:

20.6 Other Cable Franchises. The City shall not be limited or prevented by any provision in this Franchise from issuing any franchise, permit, license, or other agreement of any kind for all of Grantee's Franchise Area or any portion thereof, to other Cable Operators. This provision shall not alter any rights of Grantee under subsection 1.4 of this Franchise.

Pretty explicit. Not a government-granted monopoly. If someone else wants to come along and meet all the requirements for the franchise, they can get one, too.

but they don't offer service to a lot of Capitol Hill or many poor or mostly minority areas.

Then your city council was remiss in not including a mandatory coverage clause in the franchise.

nobody is going to get in any trouble whatsoever over this, except the luckless couple.

That seems likely, but keep an eye on complaint 2016OPA-0288, filed earlier this week with Seattle Police Department's Office of Professional accountability.

nobody is going to get in any trouble whatsoever over this, except the luckless couple.

That seems likely, but keep an eye on complaint 2016OPA-0288, filed earlier this week with Seattle Police Department's Office of Professional accountability.

The Republicans here created the Director's Rules that prevent Comcast and CenturyLink from providing service in Seattle.

Do you have a link to a specific "director's rule" that includes such a prohibition? I've been using the online search using such terms as "cable", "franchise", "comcast", "centurylink", "network", and "internet" and get zero results. The instructions appear to indicate it is a full-text search ("enter keywords") but perhaps it isn't. I would like to see what rule or rules you are referring to.

A propaganda effort to change how safe drivers are can help a little bit, but what makes cities safer is physical world changes that make it easier to drive safely and harder to hit someone. In Seattle, for example, they redesigned 75th street after an accident and saw a major reduction in the number of collisions. (Things like removing parking, adding bike lanes, etc...)

http://www.seattle.gov/transpo...

Bike lanes are actually useful in that even if not used by bikes, they ensure you can nudge out into a road slightly for better visibility when turning into it if you need to. You also are less likely to intuitively drive as close to the center line as if you are avoiding parked cars.

Bullshit article...

The minimum wage for Seattle isn't $15, it's $10 or $11.

It won't be $15 for several more years (between 2017 to 2021 depending on various thing like size of the company, type of compensation, medical benefits, etc.).

Source: http://murray.seattle.gov/minimumwage/

Comcast is in Seattle. In most of the city, it is illegal for other cable companies to compete.

It is illegal insofar as no other company has obtained the necessary franchise to do so.

Comcast most certainly has a government-granted monopoly here.

No. They have a franchise to operate, which is not really much different than being required to have a business license to conduct business in a city. You would not claim that Joe's Plumbing Shop has been granted a government monopoly just because they got a city-issued business license, so why does a franchise mean a government-granted monopoly? Yes, it is a bit harder to get a franchise, but it can be done. Comcast did it.

You might want to read the franchise agreement. It's online for all to see. Page 1, section 1.4(A): "This franchise is not exclusive." It is not a dejure monopoly. The only thing keeping any competitors out is economic, not legal.

Wave offers much better service, and has good customer satisfaction ratings. Tell city council to let Wave expand to other parts of the city when the existing franchise agreements come up for renewal. Here's a map of the neighborhoods each is currently allowed to serve:

http://www.seattle.gov/cable/f...

Three things can change that map:
Wave paying more to the city coffers.
Wave making campaign contributions.
Voters like you making news.

If I were you I'd be posting all over my councilperson's Facebook page about a year before the current franchises expire.

Good luck with that. The Republicans that rule this city will just find a new way to kill it like they’ve killed every other one before. From:

http://murray.seattle.gov/murr...

”director’s rule” which makes it nearly impossible for internet providers to expand existing services without an unusually high super majority of support from neighbors.

And, that admission is from someone that is very anti-tech! With the low occupancy rate because of foreclosures and rent increases, very few blocks of the city have a high enough occupancy rate to meet the requirements even if every single resident affirmatively agrees to allowing Internet access. A resident that doesn’t affirmatively vote yes is considered to be a vote against. In the building where I live, Comcast wasn’t allowed to offer service because a single home owner diagonally across the street voted no because he didn’t want Comcast to be allowed to put a pedestal in the neighborhood. Yes, they’re ugly, but they’re the price way pay for cable TV and Internet.

If you look at:

Seattle demographics

in combination with the article you will see that the city is in fact more colored now than in 2000. The original poster is cherry picking statistics to prove his/her point. Seattle is less white now than in 2000. You could say that after a prolonged browning of the city it is now whitening slightly. The long term trend is however not clear.

I am also a bit confused by the article. It seems like Amazon is only hiring from Seattle itself and not the suburbs. Otherwise they would not employ 5-7% of the city population. Is that really true or is it another one of the authors mind tricks?

A vital detail that those outside the city (and many within it) don't know - and of course won't get from the inflammatory OMG! NANNY STATE! headline/summary - is that the City of Seattle doesn't have a local landfill. Hasn't for many years; there's no nearby space. Instead, all garbage is loaded onto train cars - hundreds of them a day - and sent by rail to a landfill in rural Oregon, about 250 miles away. That was the cheapest alternative for the city, even though it involves paying twice (once to transport it, and again to the landfill operator). But it's still expensive. Given that it's in the best interest of the City _and_ its ratepayers to reduce the amount of landfillable waste (aka number of train cars) in favor of more economic alternatives; specifically, recycling and composting, both of which are able to be handled within a few dozen miles of the city, at much lower cost than the landfill trains. The alternative is to have even more and longer trains and higher rates for garbage for everyone. Kind of the opposite of a nanny state; this is pure and simple economics. If the spectre of a few $1 fines for the few residents who can't be bothered to separate their greasy pizza boxes into another bin makes everyone's garbage rates lower, then I'm all for it.

Thats BS. Seattle has no landfill because it doesn't want one. Not because there is no space. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seattle_City_Light
http://faculty.georgetown.edu/...
http://www.economist.com/node/...
(from 2007) http://seattletimes.com/.../20...
(2012) http://your.kingcounty.gov/sol...
OP is referencing this: http://www.seattle.gov/finance...
That's the problem: wastefull goverment mismanagement when they could make a deal with those nearby.

The two warnings is the current law. Under the new law there is no provision for warnings;

C. Required Recycling of Food Waste and Compostable Paper.

1. As of January 1, 2015, all commercial establishments, including those hauling their own waste, shall separate food waste and compostable paper for recycling, and no food waste or compostable paper shall be deposited in garbage containers or drop boxes or disposed as garbage at the City's transfer stations. All commercial establishments that generate food waste or compostable paper shall subscribe to a composting service, process their food waste onsite or self-haul their food waste for processing. All building owners shall provide composting service for their tenants or provide space for tenants' own food waste containers. The Director of Seattle Public Utilities is authorized to promulgate rules, in accordance with the provisions of the Administrative Code, SMC Chapter 3.02, for purposes of interpreting and clarifying the requirements of this subsection.

2. Enforcement.

a. As of October 1, 2014, the Director of Seattle Public Utilities shall begin a program of customer outreach and assistance regarding these new recycling requirements.

b. As of January 1, 2015, the Director of Seattle Public Utilities shall monitor commercial containers and provide educational notices or tags for containers with significant amounts food waste and compostable paper.

c. As of July 1, 2015, any violation of this section shall result in an additional collection fee of $50 per collection.

That is the entire section pertaining to commercial establishments. I see no mention of warnings.

Yes, but the city generally isn't collecting the trash itself. It's just bidding it out to a contractor anyways (e.g. Seattle contracts with Waste Managent and Cleanscapes), so you get all the contractor overhead anyways, plus the government overhead on top of it.

http://www.seattle.gov/Util/My...

Seattle collect compostable material from residents using a separate bin from the garbage bin. They in fact collect 3 kinds of bins; garbage, compostable, and recyclable.

Even recent stuff tends not to be recorded in a nice way, like a computerized 3d model that can be used to keep all the data in one place and plan excavations.

This incident is more than a little surprising given the proliferation of geospatial information systems, which Seattle has. Of course it doesn't matter if the data exists if you don't use it.

What is Geospatial Information?

Geospatial information is information describing the location and names of features beneath, on or above the earth's surface. At its simplest this can mean the basic topographical information found on a map, but also includes different location-related datasets combined into complex layers that show information such as land use and population density.

Geospatial information supports a wide range of business, government and community activities, and the use and re-use of this information has significant productivity-related benefits.

The terms "geospatial information", "spatial information" and "location-based information" are often used interchangeably.

1. Buy Green Up (which is about $12 a month)

Which goes to subsidize a small portion of small green energy project but most go to renewable energy credits for existing installations.

2. Buy GreenPower (another program)

Green Power is a donation program to support education and local demonstration projects. How much did you donate?

DIRECTLY BOUGHT 1 unit of the Seattle Aquarium solar cell array - cost me $150, reduces my bill by $46 a year on average, so that means (wait for it)

Which is subsidized by the Green Up and Washington State to the tune of $1.15/Kw. The Aquarium project only opened in July so you have no real output figures to work with. According to you you will make $46/year. According to Seattle Power you should make about $28/year. I will go with the supplier's numbers.

5. PROFIT!

You also need a little help with math. $29 solar credit - ($12/month * 12 months) = 29 - 144 = -115. That makes it a loss to you of $115 and a loss to the taxpayers of Washington State of $26.30.

Now realize that the BASELINE is 89.8 plus 4.4. I am ABOVE THE BASELINE.

You are 5% above baseline. That is only double the gains you slagged in the original post and it cost you over $115/year to do it..

If you want to donate money to do those things then go right ahead but touting it as buying green electricity is just a cover up.

Most of the Green up money goes to by Renewable Energy Credits to support existing producers.

You just hate modern energy sources. Stick a fork in you, you're last century's dead weight.

If you want to donate money to do those things then go right ahead but touting it as buying green electricity is just a cover up.

Most of the Green up money goes to by Renewable Energy Credits to support existing producers.

Guess you didn't read my other comment. According to this Seattle uses 89.8% Hydroelectric. Wind, solar, tidal and geothermal make up, at most, another 4.4%. I do not believe that 4.4% is much to crow about.

According to this it is a bit lower than that at about 94.2%. It is also a bit skewed by the fact that Seattle is close to mountain ranges with lots of valleys that can produce hydroelectric power. If you remove the hydroelectric, 89.8% the percentage drops to 4.4%.

Not everyone lives in an area that has plentiful hydroelectric generation. It is like Arizona touting how much solar based electricity they are generating and slagging Seattle for falling behind.

Meanwhile, I just shelled out $150 to buy one unit of the Seattle Aquarium solar panel array, which will reduce my annual already green electric bill by about $46 until around 2035.

That is only because you are getting credited for $1.15/KWh when electricity sells locally for $0,0672. You are being paid over 17 times the going rate. Making money due to tax incentives really skews the picture.
By the way according to Seattle Power the credits amount to "an estimated annual credit of almost $29 per solar unit"
I really don't think comparing a highly subsidizes small , 49 kW, project with al large commercial project is very valid at all.

According to this it is a bit lower than that at about 94.2%. It is also a bit skewed by the fact that Seattle is close to mountain ranges with lots of valleys that can produce hydroelectric power. If you remove the hydroelectric, 89.8% the percentage drops to 4.4%.

Not everyone lives in an area that has plentiful hydroelectric generation. It is like Arizona touting how much solar based electricity they are generating and slagging Seattle for falling behind.

Meanwhile, I just shelled out $150 to buy one unit of the Seattle Aquarium solar panel array, which will reduce my annual already green electric bill by about $46 until around 2035.

That is only because you are getting credited for $1.15/KWh when electricity sells locally for $0,0672. You are being paid over 17 times the going rate. Making money due to tax incentives really skews the picture.
By the way according to Seattle Power the credits amount to "an estimated annual credit of almost $29 per solar unit"
I really don't think comparing a highly subsidizes small , 49 kW, project with al large commercial project is very valid at all.

Why is sidewalk repair my responsibility?

Seattle Municipal Code, Title 15.72 requires that property owners keep the sidewalk adjacent to their property fit and safe for the purposes of public travel. As such, property owners must repair cracks and other damage to the sidewalk as well as ensure that snow and ice do not pose a hazard to pedestrians. If the sidewalk is determined to be unfit or unsafe, the Municipal Code requires SDOT to direct the abutting property owner to fix their sidewalk. The property owner of record is notified by the district Street Use inspector of the repairs or action needed. If there is an unsafe condition and you need to repair the sidewalk, apply for a Street Use sidewalk repair permit.

If a property owner installs a new concrete sidewalk, the owner or the contractor must obtain a Street Use Permit to make sure the walkway meets the City's current standards, including wheelchair ramps at street corners and proper drainage of the street area.

The Government can ignore this just like they ignore a sovereign States authority (See DIA raids in CA on marijuana shops and farms). In fairness, the town must abide by State law which may invalidate the City law.

Until more people wake up and shake off the cobwebs, the police state will continue to grow. I hope like hell we catch it in time, but looking at media and education I have strong doubts.

Well, they may not be able to prevent Federal Drones, but State and County drones may be banned, especially if this City has a home-rule charter (giving them local law enforcement authority).

In Seattle, there is currently an uproar over drone use by Seattle PD. The Police have them, but haven't used them yet. They want to put them into use, but the public is pretty much opposed, and SPD hasn't made a convincing use case, or even cited any recent incident where these might have been useful. (They carry small cameras, and by the looks of them do not provide any telemetry.)

The idea is to prevent your own law enforcement units from wasting their time peeping into back yards and windows. By the time State Authorities and the Feds arrive, the situation is totally out of hand anyway. The demand on state and fed resources is probably such that their arrival with drones in hand is less likely.

So just keeping your local PD/Sheriff from acquiring invasive tools goes a long way.

We might be stoners here in Seattle, but we aren't stupid. The Police is likely to abuse the usage of Drones, and we know it.

The Government can ignore this just like they ignore a sovereign States authority (See DIA raids in CA on marijuana shops and farms). In fairness, the town must abide by State law which may invalidate the City law.

Until more people wake up and shake off the cobwebs, the police state will continue to grow. I hope like hell we catch it in time, but looking at media and education I have strong doubts.

Well, they may not be able to prevent Federal Drones, but State and County drones may be banned, especially if this City has a home-rule charter (giving them local law enforcement authority).

In Seattle, there is currently an uproar over drone use by Seattle PD. The Police have them, but haven't used them yet. They want to put them into use, but the public is pretty much opposed, and SPD hasn't made a convincing use case, or even cited any recent incident where these might have been useful. (They carry small cameras, and by the looks of them do not provide any telemetry.)

The idea is to prevent your own law enforcement units from wasting their time peeping into back yards and windows. By the time State Authorities and the Feds arrive, the situation is totally out of hand anyway. The demand on state and fed resources is probably such that their arrival with drones in hand is less likely.

So just keeping your local PD/Sheriff from acquiring invasive tools goes a long way.

The map you're looking for is here. If I remember correctly, yellow is Millenium/Broadstripe/Wave, everything else is Comcast. In shaded areas of the Comcast section, Millenium can wire individual apartment or condo buildings. For example, I live in a Comcast area of Capitol Hill but we only have Millenium in my building, most likely because they offered either the building management or the builder an incentive (e.g., wired the building for cable for free in exchange for a multiyear contract).

Every time somebody complains about their Comcast internet in Seattle, I want to smack them upside the head. Try living in an area or building that only has Millenium/Broadstrap/Wave for cable service. I dream of going back to Comcast after dealing with CenturyLink's reliable and cheap but extremely slow (usually 35Kb up, 2-3Mb down) DSL. Millenium is a non-starter with their higher prices and shitty service.

Seattle has enacted mandatory sick time and paid time off. For me this puts my combined vacation time, sick time and personal time cap at around 216 hours (though, I'm not sure what the accrual rate is anymore). Combined with very flexible WFH policies, I haven't seen a sick person at work in quite some time.

Washington had decriminalized marijuana by deprioritizing prosecution down to near-but-not-total nonexistence. Medical marijuana is also legal [t]here. That said, when Washington voted to legalize pot for recreational use, over a hundred possession cases were immediately dropped, even though the law doesn't go into effect until December 6. There's a pretty significant difference.

As the FAQ on the Seattle PD blotter site states, though, they're not planning on giving back any of the pot they've confiscated. Bummer, dude.

One of the things that you may have observed about fire drills is that they are widely advertized in advance, specifically to prevent the panic response which will cause injuries.

No, quite the opposite. I have observed that they are not advertised in advance. This may be a difference between the countries we live in, or just of individual experience. The approach I'm familiar with is that in neither the practice nor a real fire should people have a panic response because when the alarm goes it is something they're used to through regular unannounced practices in a variety of venues and they simply follow the established routine - I imagine that's oversimplified and in a real fire people will tend to notice the smoke and flames and their reactions will change accordingly :) but still, fire practices in my experience are not announced in advance.

From a quick web search:

Have at least one unannounced fire drill in the house every three to six months

There will also be unannounced practice fire drills periodically throughout the year

Emergency evacuation drills may be pre-announced to building staff or occupants, or that may be unannounced.

But I have no basis for saying those are especially representative and I haven't tried to find fire practice policy for theatres in particular, but it does not look to me as though unannounced fire practices are unusual.

Man, I don't know what you're talking about. Chickens make for delicious pets! As a bonus, you can compost the leftovers. Really.

The Department of Ecology says otherwise. Seattle Public Utilities even has a whole site devoted to helping people use rain water.

If he had marked you as a troll, his posting would have undone the moderation. Someone else marked you as a troll. Take off the tinfoil.

Seattle also has government run electricity. link I think you'll find its a bit more common than you think.

http://www.seattle.gov/wtocommittee/history.htm

That's what happened in Seattle. I was there.

And the facts contradict your claimed experience.

The videos are still available. Check YouTube for them.

Below is my forwarded email to the Seattle Fire Dept. http://www.seattle.gov/fire/contact/contactForm.as p Maybe you can get the pull to get more concerned residents to do the same?

Thanks for the info, and I hope you have a great week! Ken

Subject: New .jpg emergency data

As a resident of Seattle, a veteran of the Iraqi war, a citizen of this country and an educated man, I am completely appalled and disgusted to this new format change of emergency data to "stop terrorists from using Seattle911.com's services."

In fact THIS IS ILLEGAL under RCW 42.56.030! I am informing you that if this action continues to prevent the collection of public data to be used in public interest, I will file a class action lawsuit against the city of Seattle for evading the RCW.

Sincerely, Kenneth Herrington

I live in Seattle. The 911 calls are not crime calls, they are ONLY fire and aid car calls, so your scenario simply does not work. Hmmm... I am a kidnap victim, fond a cell phone and I call 911 for a fire truck? NOT --The 911 calls are still not available to the public except by scanner. Check it our yourself: http://www2.seattle.gov/fire/realTime911/showIncid ents.htm

http://www2.seattle.gov/fire/realtime911/showIncid ents.htm

While state government websites are not required to conform to Section 508, Section 504 applies to all Federal grantees and contractors as well as to as the Federal government itself. If John Eberly wants, or any Seattle resident can file a complaint to the Seattle Office for Civil Rights.

ADA/City Service Complaint Section 504
The Office for Civil Rights works to ensure that members of the public who have disabilities can use City services and facilities. The Disability Compliance Specialist coordinates accessibility evaluation of City programs and services, offers training to City departments on disability awareness and compliance with laws, staffs the City's 504/ADA Advisory Committee (TBA) and handles 504/ADA grievances alleging discrimination in City programs and facilities.

It seems the image version is for current day data only, everything else is available in plain HTML, is still searchable, etc. There is a vast database going back to 1992!

Check out http://www2.seattle.gov/fire/realTime911/getDatePu bTab.asp

cheers,
alex

I live in seattle. I used to live in california and I'm actually very surprised by the amount of sun here considering seattle's reputation. My mother is adding onto her house (more like rebuilding) and she's interested in solar power so I just started researching it.

The northwest solar center(http://www.northwestsolarcenter.org/Faq/faq .html) says:"It is the sun that makes Seattle the "Emerald City". When the long days of summer are making our trees grow, we have a great solar resource. Net metering allows us to "store" that summer sun for the rains of winter by spinning our meters backwards. During the three summer months Seattle gets 97% as much sun as San Diego. On an annual basis, Seattle gets about 1/3 less than San Diego. Seattle recieves about 3.5 average peak sun hours per year. so a 1Kw solar array will generate about 1000 kWh's per year.

I'm not one to take these figures at face value but these figures are pretty darn good. I've seen in the 2 1/2 years I've been here that we have a couple of months of rain, couple of months of too much sun and then moderate california conditions most of the time.

Also I saw a figure of 6.6 Kwh posted as average from the mayor's figure (who of course has NO interest in skewing the figure). But investigating Seattle city light
I see an average of 8.39 cents Kwh at http://www.seattle.gov/light/accounts/rates/ac5_er ps12.htm
can't access my bill right now though.

The city of Seattle gets about 90% of its power from hydro and wind with rates of about 6.6c/kwh. See here. It's not just small towns that are getting the vast majority of their power from these kinds of sources.