​Upon announcing his proposal earlier this week to get rid of last call and allow bars and clubs to serve liquor around the clock, Mayor McGinn released a consultant's report [pdf] that finds Seattle to be "a model city" for such a plan.

We all know that consultants are happy to arrive at whatever conclusions their paying client wishes to hear. But the enthusiasm of the Responsible Hospitality Institute is doubly suspect, given who underwrites them.

Robin Laananen

​Zion Preparatory Academy, acclaimed for years as one of the city's most successful schools serving low-income African American children, is scaling back to just a few grades next year due to a precipitous drop in funds. The private, Christian school in the Rainier Valley is still figuring out what grades it will offer, but at this point can only say for certain that it will teach pre-K, kindergarten and 1st grade, according to co-founder and head of school Doug Wheeler (pictured at right), who expects to announce the changes on the school Web site this week.

Less work for this guy.

​Forget the Dow Jones Industrial Average. If you want to know how the economy is doing, go root around in city dumps. And bring a scale. Because one thing this recession has taught us is that the amount of garbage we produce is directly tied to how much money we collectively have.

Consequently, Seattle Public Utilities manager Hans Van Dusen tells Seattle Weekly, the amount of garbage Seattle sent to the landfill over the last two years dropped 20 percent --from approximately 440,000 tons in 2007 to 360,000 last year. This year, the city's garbage output is on track to shrink by another 8 or 9 percent.

The reduction has been most dramatic in the commercial sector, as more and more businesses stopped generating trash simply because they shut down, says Van Dusen. Increased recycling played a role in the trash downsizing too, he says.

Call it the recession's silver lining, one that is not only good for the environment but the city's pocketbook.

Waste Management needed weeks to train replacement workers to drive one of these.

​It took less than a week after a two-day strike by garbage workers for a deal to be struck between Teamsters Local 174 and Waste Management. Last night, both sides announced that they had reached a tentative contract agreement, to be voted on by union members this Sunday.

Neither side is revealing specifics of the proposed contract, so it's impossible to say if there is a clear winner. "There were concessions on both sides" is all Teamsters Local 174 spokesperson Michael Gonzales will say.

But given the upper hand that Waste Management seemed to have, one might have thought that the company would have let the union sweat a little longer before coming to an agreement. After all, Waste Management let it be known that more than 2,000 people had responded to its ads for replacement workers. That's on top of the workers it had flown in from out of town.

Turns out, however, that the company's hardball tactics had some soft spots.

You may not see a truck like this around for days.

​Waste Management spokesperson Jackie Lang tells SW that it will likely take until "early next week" before most households and businesses will get their trash hauled away.

Early next week? Why not today? As Waste Management played hardball during the past tense weeks of contract negotiations, the company gave every indication of being ready to go with new workers if necessary. Not only did Waste Management fly in drivers from other parts of the country weeks ago, but it took out huge help wanted ads in local media, then announced that it was inundated by the response. As of this morning, Lang says, 2,100 people have applied.

So why isn't the company sending all those people out right now?

Kerry Killinger blames "clubby" Wall Street leaders for WaMu's demise.

​Pity poor Kerry Killinger. The onetime Washington Mutual CEO made $25 million in 2008, the year he was ousted and the thrift imploded, but he still wasn't part of the Wall Street club.

That, at least, is his view, one he is presenting today at a U.S. Senate subcommittee hearing investigating WaMu's collapse. His 28-page testimony--notably obtained in advance by the Puget Sound Business Journal, revealed yesterday to be a Pulitzer finalist for its WaMu coverage--is striking for its utter lack of remorse.

WaMu was the victim, Killinger repeatedly tells us, and a few of his remarks are bound to become infamous.

The future of Mariners post-game entertainment.

​Déjà Vu's Dream Girls, the controversial new Roger Forbes-owned strip club located a stone's throw from Safeco Field, aims to keep a high moral standard as it opens this week, stating in its agreements with the Mariners that everything that could taint our youth will be kept behind closed doors. Now that the club has sorted out its legal issues with the ballclub, customers are welcome to the soft opening today, and the hard opening on Monday--the same day the Mariners play their home opener against the Oakland A's.

As was on display during a Thursday afternoon open house for press (all dudes save for a pair of chicks), the new club includes the latest and greatest in strip club technology. Supervisor Matt Teasley boasts that Dream Girls will be the "finest club the state of Washington has ever seen".

Happier days: The SEIU endorses Gregoire before clashing with the union over raises.

​The state Supreme Court today essentially told 25,000 home health care workers to suck it up.

In a 5-4 decision, the court rejected a plea by the workers union, SEIU Healthcare 775NW, to make the governor pay out $87 million in salaries and benefits that an arbitrator had awarded in 2008. The workers contract with the state to provide care to Medicaid patients.

Governor Chris Gregoire, citing the state's financial woes, had left out money for the raises in the budget she proposed for the 2009-2011 biennium. The court could have ordered Gregoire to reverse course. (The union was asking for a "writ of mandamus," used to compel state officials to do their job correctly.)

But Justice James Johnson, writing the majority opinion, showed not the slightest inclination to do that.

Some people would rather be a pooper-scooper than do this work.

​Seattle Times columnist Danny Westneat recently reminded us of just how desperate people are in this recession. In a particularly poignant column, he wrote about a onetime TV producer who applied--and was rejected--for a job as a kennel pooper-scooper.

So one might have thought that there isn't any job now considered too demeaning for your average American. In fact, there is.

Also comes in peach, mint and blonde

​Consumer alert: Back in January, Daily Weekly observed that it was probably an exaggeration for other publications to call a California medical marijuana seller the "Amazon.com of Pot." The "Craigslist of Weed" seemed more accurate, based on the seller's marketing techniques. But, as Caleb Hannan noted, Amazon's pot moniker "may still one day find a proper, more literal, use. As soon as Jeff Bezos finds a way to sell the sticky-icky."

Which he has. OK, it's synthetic and legal pot, known as K2. But, in the words of one of many satisfied customers (apparently including pro athletes), "It is very comparable to some above average illegal smoke, just doesn't last as long. Still the effects are between an hour or two, so you can't ask for much more out of a legal herb blend. Keep up the good work and you guys have a customer for life or until it becomes illegal."