WWW . THESKANNER . COM
J ANUARY 8, 2014
S EATTLE , W ASHINGTON
V OLUME XXXVI, N O . 14
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C HALLENGING P EOPLE TO S HAPE A B ETTER F UTURE N OW
NEW MAYOR
Get Flu
Shots
Now
Officials say healthy,
young people seem
to be most at risk
By Helen Silvis and Lisa Loving
Of The Skanner News
PHOTO BY SUSAN FRIED
S
Newly elected Seattle Mayor Ed Murray is swarmed by the media before being sworn in on Jan. 6 in front of the
largest crowd ever to attend a Seattle inauguration ceremony.
Socialist Takes Office at Council
Kshama Sawant first of her party to win office in a major city in years
By Manuel Valdes
Associated Press
S
eattle City Council mem-
ber Kshama Sawant was
sworn-in to office Jan. 6.
A former community college
professor who won a surprising
citywide election was sworn in
Monday as the first socialist
City Council member in Seat-
tle’s modern history.
Kshama Sawant of the Social-
ist Alternative party took her
oath and served in her first hear-
ing, then gave a speech to
throngs of supporters in a cere-
monial swearing-in at a packed
City Hall.
“I will do my utmost to repre-
sent the disenfranchised and the
excluded, the poor and the
oppressed, by fighting for a
$15-an-hour minimum wage,
affordable housing, and taxing
the super-rich for a massive
expansion of public transit and
education,” said Sawant, 41.
Even in this liberal city,
Sawant’s win surprised many.
The incumbent, Richard Conlin,
was backed by the political
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establishment. But bolstered by
a grass-roots campaign that
harped on economic inequality,
Sawant toppled the 16-year
incumbent.
“Here in Seattle, political pun-
dits are asking about me: Will
she compromise? Can she work
with others? Of course, I will
meet and discuss with represen-
tatives of the establishment. But
when I do, I will bring the needs
and aspirations of working-class
people to every table I sit at, no
matter who is seated across
from me,” she said.
But just days into the new
year, Seattle’s new mayor, Ed
Murray, has already had a pub-
lic spat with Sawant. Last week,
Murray issued an executive
order to raise the minimum
wage for city workers to $15 an
hour, a move that would affect
about 600 workers. Sawant was
quoted in The Seattle Times as
saying she that Murray’s move
“shows the mayor’s office is
feeling the pressure from below
to act on the rhetoric from the
campaign.”
See SOCIAL on page 3
ome 16 people in Oregon and Wash-
ington are thought to have died from
the H1N1 flu so far this season, and
health officials say almost everyone should
get a flu shot to avoid the worst effects.
While many people remember the vaccine
shortage of 2009, which caused higher
infection rates as states struggled to obtain
the necessary number of doses, this season
there is no shortage.
In fact, the number of young people who
are being hospitalized and even dying – in
Bothell, WA., the virus claimed the life of a
healthy 30-year-old woman, and a young
boy in Oregon who had already been vacci-
nated – has health officials urging younger
people to get a flu shot.
Jennifer Vines MD, deputy health officer
for Multnomah and Clackamas Counties
and health officer for Washington County,
says despite the widespread concern there is
no evidence that this year’s flu season is
worse than any other.
“Flu seasons are notoriously unpre-
dictable. How many people get sick and
how many people get severely ill depends
on how many people are vaccinated or have
pre-existing immunity, the general health of
the population (individuals with underlying
health conditions are more likely to have flu
complications), and how good of a match
the vaccine is for circulating strains in a
given year,” she said this week.
“So I don’t think we can say the flu is
more virulent this year. Rather, this year is a
reminder that flu can strike all ages and in
some cases cause severe illness and compli-
cations even in otherwise healthy people.
The flu vaccine is not perfect but is by far
the most important thing people can do to
protect themselves and their loved ones.”
The number of people affected is hard to
track for a variety of reasons, but all juris-
dictions reported an escalating number of
See FLU on page 3
Going to the Game? Look for Fakes
Great deal on Seahawks tickets may be too good to be true
Lisa Loving
Of The Skanner News
S
eahawks fans heading to the Super-
bowl game in New Jersey on Feb. 2
might need to put a second mortgage
on the house to afford prices already as high
as $12,000 a seat.
The cheapest tickets on the resale market
for this weekend’s playoff in Seattle are
hovering around $200, considered the most
expensive in the country.
But the Better Business Bureau says no
matter how much you are willing to spend,
you need to watch out for fakes and rip-offs.
Be especially careful of online deals, BBB
spokesman David Quinlan says, and make
absolute sure you can see and touch the tick-
ets before forking over thousands of dollars
for them.
He says that any deal that looks too good
to be true probably is.
“That’s why if you’re going to make a
deal with someone, obviously meet them in
public, look at the tickets, inspect them;
know what a real ticket feels like – it’s kind
of that hard cardboard,” Quinlan says.
“Make sure the ink doesn’t smear.
See TICKETS on page 3