State Rep. Sharon Tomiko Santos (D-Seattle) isn’t waiting to find out what more development will do in her district. So earlier this year, she sponsored a bill—signed by the governor May 15—to create a Pioneer Square-International District Community Preservation and Development Authority that will be the first of its kind in the state.

Unlike existing PDAs that manage properties in Chinatown and the Pike Place Market, the new and larger CPDA is designed to help stop the effects of publicly funded projects, be it light rail construction or stadium traffic, from pushing out longtime residents and businesses. The agency will start with $350,000 from the Legislature.

“Without this legislation, these neighborhood communities could eventually disappear,” Santos says, “as we have seen in so many other cities where Chinatowns, Japantowns, Manilatowns, and Little Saigons are little more than tourist attractions.”

Wild Sky on the way

The five-year push to protect 106,000 acres of wilderness in Washington state has outlasted Richard Pombo.

Pombo was the Republican representative from California who, for years, blocked a bill sponsored by Rep. Rick Larsen (D-Lake Stevens) and Sen. Patty Murray (D-Washington) to create a Wild Sky Wilderness Area in the Mount Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest. But in last fall’s Democratic rout, Pombo lost his seat, setting the stage for the House’s passage of the bill in April.

In a unanimous vote last week, the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee sent the bill to the Senate floor, where it’s expected to pass shortly.

—Cydney Gillis

Hugging Saint’s Organization embraced in Hilton LAX Snafu

Over the past 36 years, Amma, the Hugging Saint of India, has hugged more than 26 million people. When asked why she hugs, she replied, “This is like asking a river, ‘Why do you flow?’”

Each year, she channels millions of dollars to house the poor, educate children, provide medicine, and for tsunami relief.

Her yearly American tour will stop at the Hilton at Los Angeles International Airport. The hotel faces possible sanctions by National Labor Relations Board for allegedly aggressive — twice violent — anti-union tactics.

Hilton workers and organizers from Unite Here! Local 11 have been contacting Amma’s organization since last summer to help boycott the Hilton, to no avail. Los Angeles organizers told Local 11’s Lisa Maldonado that the decision was up to Amma, as any action would be taking a side. “Just staying at this hotel is taking the management’s side,” says Maldonado.

Rob Sidon, Amma’s stateside spokesman, says Amma feels uncomfortable getting involved in a labor dispute while a guest in the US.

—Christopher Miller