BURNHAM CIVIC

Each project below is an active operation. Headlines tell you what we found, tags tell you the domain, descriptions tell you what we're doing about it. MEMBERS items are live operations visible only to intelligence subscribers. This page updates as we move.

War & Defense

⚔ MEMBERS High Ross ENERGY OID-007 Energy sovereignty, treaty leverage, dam operations.
⚔ MEMBERS Federal Levers FEDERAL OID-013 Consent decree and federal infrastructure control.
⚔ MEMBERS Washington State Packaging Fab Project MANUFACTURING OID-008
⚔ MEMBERS 47 Shifts OPERATIONS OID-001 Seattle Unsheltered Response. 4 crew chiefs, 47 shifts, live operations map. Data from Seattle APIs.
⚔ A Committee of Correspondence for Washington NETWORK OID-014 In 1772 Sam Adams started a network of town committees that became the working government of the thirteen colonies in sixteen months. Washington's 39 counties answer to the same state housing mandates, the same Department of Revenue, and the same Olympia agencies, and they answer alone. They should not.

Infrastructure

⚒ 87 Times a Year CSO OID-012 Seattle dumps raw sewage into Puget Sound 87 times a year. The feds already control the fix through a consent decree and $706M in WIFIA loans. We mapped every outfall.
⚒ The Standard Seattle Forgot CONSTRUCTION There used to be rules about what public buildings had to look like, and then the rules went away and nobody noticed for 30 years.
⚒ The Year Seattle Built a City in a Forest 1909 Seattle hosted a world's fair the same year Burnham published the Plan of Chicago. One city got a century-long plan. The other got 138 days.
⚒ The Bogue Plan HISTORY In 1911 Seattle had a master plan for transit, parks, and a civic center. Voters killed it. The city has been improvising ever since.
⚒ Wacker's Manual for Seattle PLANNING Chicago gave every 8th grader a book about how their city worked and why it mattered. Seattle has never had anything like it.
⚒ Who's Building What DATA OID-011 Every active building permit in Seattle, who filed it, what it costs, and where it stands. Updated continuously.
⚒ Build the Second Bridge BRIDGES OID-015 The most-opened drawbridge in America carries a million bike rides a year on six-foot sidewalks, and the only idea on the table is rationing it. Build its twin instead: a bike and pedestrian bascule on the east side of the Fremont Bridge, same 1917 style, same blue and orange.

Accountability

Seattle

⚖ Economic Taking Tracker LEDGER Every policy failure has a cost. Business closures, 911 property damage, graffiti, encampment violations, and foreclosures quantified as a running liability the city owes its residents. Five categories sourced from public APIs, updated continuously.
⚖ The Permit Machine SDCI It takes 18 months to get a building permit in Seattle. Inspectors don't show up. Contractors leave. We pulled the data on how SDCI broke the building pipeline.
⚖ SDOT Accountability Package SDOT Six deliverables holding SDOT accountable on budget, bike lane usage, business impact, parking removal, advocacy influence, and emergency access.
⚖ Seattle Police and the World's Fair Standard SPD OPORD-S2 Washington State ranks dead last in police staffing for the 15th year. Here is what Tokyo, Singapore, and Dubai do differently, and what it would take to get there.
⚖ MEMBERS Seattle Public Utilities SPU OPORD-E2 Combined sewer overflows, infrastructure neglect.
⚖ MEMBERS Seattle City Council COUNCIL OPORD-C1 Budget oversight and legislative accountability.

King County

⚖ MEMBERS Pierce County Prosecutorial Accountability PIERCE A framework for grand jury petitions and sheriff-led accountability coalitions in Washington State.

Washington State

⚖ The Five Seats That Decide the Income Tax SUPREME COURT Five of nine Washington Supreme Court seats are on the November 2026 ballot. The court reads seven to two against the 1933 Culliton rule that blocks an income tax. Three seats decide whether the wall stands. The slate to keep it: Bloom, O'Donnell, Larson, Edwards, Stevens. Burnham Civic is building a Committee of Correspondence to rally turnout. Research at culliton2026.org.
⚖ Washington Department of Revenue DOR The agency that would collect the new 9.9% income tax on AGI over $1M, if Culliton falls. Full brief on its history, structure, and the legislative paper trail behind ESSB 6346. Password preview: saveseattle.
⚖ MEMBERS Department of Ecology ECOLOGY OPORD-E1 Fines Seattle $402 per sewage overflow, lost track of 7.4 million tons of carbon reductions, and distributing $2.1B with rules it hasn't finished writing.

Housing

✺ MEMBERS King County Regional Homelessness Authority KCRHA OPORD-K1 $230M budget, three CEOs in three years, a $10M initiative that produced nothing, and the pass-through that funds every organization we've investigated.
✺ MEMBERS Homelessness Authority De-Designation FEDERAL OID-002 They spent the money. We have the receipts.
✺ MEMBERS Housing Power Play POLICY OID-002 Authority de-designation and service delivery reform.
✺ MEMBERS Seattle Housing Authority SHA OPORD-S1 Public housing operations and oversight.
✺ MEMBERS Housing Development Consortium LOBBY OPORD-K6 A $1.6M trade group that lobbied $350M in public housing funds toward its own 215 members. Nobody asked whether any of it worked.
✺ Catholic Community Services CCS OPORD-K5 $332M in revenue. Largest KCRHA recipient. Governed entirely by the Archdiocese of Seattle. Almost nobody has looked at the numbers.
✺ People's Harm Reduction Alliance PHRA OPORD-K6 $3M in revenue, 99.9% grant-funded. The first US organization to distribute meth pipes openly. One direct federal award in 18 years - a $7K SBA COVID grant. The other $3M comes through pass-throughs. Books are kept by a small private bookkeeper.
✺ Low Income Housing Institute LIHI OPORD-K4 $108M in revenue, $490M in assets, a 33-year executive director earning $338K, and tiny house villages where people die and the reports don't get filed on time.
✺ Plymouth Housing HOUSING OPORD-K2 $69.5M in revenue, a $22.4M deficit, and a Bellevue facility that went from 5 police calls to 148 in one year.
✺ Downtown Emergency Service Center DESC OPORD-K3 $103M organization whose deputy director sits on the state Appropriations Committee that funds her own employer. Plus 600 police calls at one shelter.

Development

✑ MEMBERS Seahawks Civic Integration FRANCHISE OID-005 The franchise is for sale. The next owner inherits a city that needs 250 hours of work before the World Cup. TBC has the playbook and 600+ decision makers ready to execute.
✑ MEMBERS Lake City Corridor MIXED-USE OID-004 Mixed-use development along NE 125th. 10 phases.
✑ MEMBERS Capitol Hill Expansion Zone URBAN VILLAGE OID-003

Architecture

☩ The Gap in the Skyline SKYLINE OID-016 From the two places Seattle actually sees itself, I-5 at SeaTac and the crest of the Ship Canal Bridge, the skyline has a hole between Columbia Center and Rainier Square. The next tallest building in Seattle goes exactly there.
☩ The Busan Standard SUBURBS OID-017 Busan put a 101-story tower on the beach in Haeundae. Redmond headquarters Microsoft, just opened light rail, holds 640 acres of parkland on Lake Sammamish, and caps its downtown at 144 feet. Redmond's tallest building is the opening move in the doctrine of beautiful suburban architecture.
☩ MEMBERS Century Gate Design Standard DESIGN OID-006 What Seattle's public buildings should look like.
☩ MEMBERS TBC Parcel Map INTEL An evaluation of Seattle's building owners, the quality of what they've built, and their responsibility for the long-term viability of the city.
☩ MEMBERS Bloedel Reserve LANDSCAPE 150-acre estate on Bainbridge Island. One of the finest public gardens in the Pacific Northwest. TBC is developing a preservation and programming strategy.

"Make no little plans; they have no magic to stir men's blood."

Daniel H. Burnham, 1907

National-scale operations. Same format: headlines tell you what we found, tags tell you the domain, descriptions tell you what we're doing about it. MEMBERS items are live operations visible only to intelligence subscribers.

War & Defense

⚔ MEMBERS The Centralia Fab CHIPS ACT Washington State has the workforce, the power, and the land for semiconductor packaging. Nobody's filed the application yet.

City Planning

☩ The Columbian Exposition BURNHAM In 1893 Burnham built a city of 200 buildings on a Chicago swamp in 26 months and drew 27 million visits. Most of it burned in 1894. It is the founding event of American civic architecture.
☩ The Plan of Chicago BURNHAM Daniel Burnham's 1909 plan built the lakefront, the parks, and the boulevard system. It is the most successful city plan in American history. We are pushing to finish it.
☩ The Burnham Plan for San Francisco BURNHAM Burnham delivered a plan for San Francisco in 1905. The earthquake killed it. The bones are still visible. We are making the case to revive it.
☩ The Plan of Manila BURNHAM In 1905 Burnham planned Manila for the Taft administration. Most of what got built was destroyed in the 1945 Battle of Manila. The plan is still on the public record.
☩ The Plan of Baguio BURNHAM Burnham's hill town for 25,000 on a Cordillera plateau, drawn in ten days, mostly built. Yamashita's last HQ in 1945. The 1990 earthquake leveled the center. Still the summer capital of the Republic.
⚒ Wacker's Manual: The Deep Dive PLANNING In 1911 Chicago gave every 8th grader a book about how their city worked. It's the reason the Burnham Plan got built. Full analysis of the original manual and what a national rollout looks like.

Infrastructure

⚒ MEMBERS Twin Tunnels CASCADES Snoqualmie Pass is the only highway connection between Seattle and the rest of the country east of the mountains, and it closes more than 200 times a winter. Twin mega-bores through the Cascades along I-90 give the Pacific Northwest a year-round freight and rail link to Boise, Spokane, the Tri-Cities, and the national network. The Swiss did it through the Alps with the Gotthard. The Robbins Company that builds the machines is in Auburn.

Accountability

⚖ MEMBERS The American Revolution Playbook PLAYBOOK An eleven-year information operation. Twelve documents. Five thousand committee members across thirteen colonies. The Founders did not start with a war. They started with a mailing list. We are running the same playbook today.
⚖ Task Force to Eliminate Fraud FEDERAL The White House established a fraud task force chaired by VP Vance targeting federal benefit programs. TBC sent the letter with the comprehensive accountability package on Seattle's homelessness spending, plus a Washington State companion section covering Bob Ferguson childcare grants, CCS IT waste, Sound Transit bonuses, and Cascade Bicycle Club policy capture.
⚖ Viva Voce: How Voting Publicly Built America CIVIC MEMORY Citizens used to vote out loud, in front of their neighbors. The Athenian Assembly voted by show of hands on the Pnyx hill. Rome voted aloud for three and a half centuries before Cicero spent his career fighting the ballot laws of 139 BC. John Stuart Mill, of all people, argued against the secret ballot in Victorian Britain. Jefferson and Madison voted that way at the Virginia courthouse. The last Americans to do it were Kentuckians in 1891. We should consider bringing it back.
⚖ MEMBERS Athens to America: Architecture and Democracy DIPLOMACY EO 14344 formally declares American democracy descends from Athens. 139 antiquities returned to Greece in 2025. The diplomatic and architectural implications are enormous.
⚖ MEMBERS Cultural Heritage Agreement TREATY The U.S.-Greece cultural property agreement expires November 2026. What happens next determines whether the Parthenon Marbles conversation changes permanently.

Housing

✺ MEMBERS HUD CoC Reform FEDERAL 24 CFR 578.11(b) allows HUD to de-designate a Continuum of Care lead agency for cause. KCRHA meets every trigger. If Seattle proves the model, it works in every city with a failing CoC.

Development

✑ Coming soon. Members only.

Architecture

☩ USDOT Beautify Transportation Challenge COMPETITION $650K in prizes for transportation infrastructure design concepts. Bridges, transit hubs, corridors, rural features. Professional tier: $250K first place. Deadline May 13, 2026. TBC is submitting.
☩ MEMBERS EO 14344 and the Parthenon CLASSICAL The White House issued an executive order declaring American democracy descends from Athens. Then mandated Greek architecture for federal buildings. Nobody connected this to the Parthenon Marbles sitting in London. We did.
☩ MEMBERS Federal Architecture Audit NATIONWIDE A building-by-building assessment of whether U.S. federal courthouses and agency headquarters comply with EO 14344's classical architecture mandate.

Latest

Dates are first-publish dates pulled from the live repository.

✉ Viva Voce: How Voting Publicly Built America
Citizens used to vote out loud, in front of their neighbors. Athens, Rome, Jefferson's Virginia, Kentucky until 1891. Cicero spent his career fighting the secret ballot. So did John Stuart Mill. Jun 4, 2026

✉ The Five Seats That Decide the Income Tax
Five of nine WA Supreme Court seats are on the 2026 ballot. The court reads seven to two against the 1933 Culliton rule. Bloom, O'Donnell, Larson, Edwards, Stevens. May 25, 2026

✉ Trump Tunnels: A Cascades Mega-Bore for the Pacific Northwest
Snoqualmie Pass closes 200+ times a winter. Twin mega-bores along I-90 give the PNW a year-round freight and rail link. The Robbins Company that builds the machines is in Auburn. May 25, 2026

✉ The Century Gate
A federal classical arch for the American 250th. Restoring civic ambition to federal architecture. May 25, 2026

✉ Athens to America: Architecture and Democracy
EO 14344 formally declares American democracy descends from Athens. The diplomatic and architectural implications are enormous. May 25, 2026

✉ EO 14344 and the Parthenon Marbles
The White House declared American democracy descends from Athens, then mandated Greek architecture for federal buildings. Nobody connected this to the Parthenon Marbles sitting in London. May 25, 2026

✉ The Heritage Materials Standard
If you mandate classical architecture without mandating materials, you get fiberglass columns. Stone, marble, brass, copper. The materials half of EO 14344. May 25, 2026

✉ The Lewis and Clark Argonath
A pair of monumental statues at the Gates of the Mountains on the Missouri River. Civic ambition that reaches the scale of the landscape. 1.3M+ views on X. May 24, 2026

✉ A Committee of Correspondence for Washington
The Stamp Act crisis was solved when towns started writing each other. We are building the same network across Washington for the 2026 court vote. May 6, 2026

✉ The Federal Money Behind Seattle's Free-Drug Operation
$3.08M budget. 99.9% federal pass-through. SAMHSA SP-22-001. The paper trail nobody else followed. May 6, 2026

✉ 440-Foot Eyesores
What downtown Seattle built in the boom years, and what should have been built instead. May 6, 2026

✉ The Columbian Exposition
In 1893 Burnham built a city of 200 buildings on a Chicago swamp in 26 months and drew 27 million visits. The founding event of American civic architecture. May 6, 2026

✉ The Plan of Manila
In 1905 Burnham planned Manila for the Taft administration. Most of it was destroyed in the 1945 Battle of Manila. The plan is still on the public record. May 6, 2026

✉ The Plan of Baguio
Burnham's hill town for 25,000 on a Cordillera plateau, drawn in ten days, mostly built. Still the summer capital of the Republic. May 6, 2026

✉ The American Revolution Playbook
An eleven-year information operation. Twelve documents. Five thousand committee members across thirteen colonies. The Founders did not start with a war. They started with a mailing list. Apr 30, 2026

✉ Federal Levers
The consent decree, the federal grants, and the infrastructure control points where Washington's accountability fight actually moves. Apr 26, 2026

✉ The Washington Department of Revenue and the Stamp Act Parallel
The agency that would collect the new 9.9% income tax on AGI over $1M, if Culliton falls. The legislative paper trail behind ESSB 6346, framed as the modern Stamp Act. Mar 29, 2026

✉ Gasworks
The park, the contamination, and the civic argument over what the lakefront should become. Mar 22, 2026

✉ SDOT Accountability Package
Six deliverables holding SDOT accountable on budget, bike lane usage, business impact, parking removal, advocacy influence, and emergency access. Mar 21, 2026

✉ Economic Taking Tracker
Every policy failure has a cost. Business closures, 911 property damage, graffiti, encampment violations, foreclosures, quantified as a running liability the city owes its residents. Mar 21, 2026

✉ Pierce County Prosecutorial Accountability
A framework for grand jury petitions and sheriff-led accountability coalitions in Washington State. Mar 21, 2026

✉ The Bogue Plan: Deep Dive
Full analysis of Virgil Bogue's 1911 plan of Seattle, what got built, what didn't, and what the city looks like now if it had. Mar 20, 2026

✉ Wacker's Manual: Deep Dive
In 1911 Chicago gave every 8th grader a book about how their city worked. Full analysis of the original manual and what a national rollout looks like. Mar 20, 2026

✉ TBC Requests Seat at Vance Fraud Task Force
The White House established a Task Force to Eliminate Fraud targeting federal benefit programs. TBC sent its KCRHA/SHA accountability package to the VP and FTC Chairman. Mar 16, 2026

✉ What 60 Datasets Tell Us About Seattle's Homelessness Response
A data inventory of the King County Regional Homelessness Authority. 9 public records requests filed. Mar 16, 2026

✉ The Permit Machine
It takes 18 months to get a building permit in Seattle. Inspectors don't show up. Contractors leave. The data on how SDCI broke the building pipeline. Mar 16, 2026

✉ 87 Times a Year: Seattle's $1.4 Billion Sewer Problem
Raw sewage, federal leverage, and the tunnel nobody audited. Mar 16, 2026

✉ The 1909 Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition
Seattle's World's Fair moment. The standard the rest of this site is benchmarked against. Mar 16, 2026

✉ The Bogue Plan
Seattle's 1911 city plan. Voted down. The bones of what got built later are all from it. Mar 16, 2026

✉ Seattle Police and the World's Fair Standard
Washington State ranks dead last in police staffing for the 15th year. Here is what Tokyo, Singapore, and Dubai do differently, and what it would take to get there. Mar 16, 2026

ID	Initiative	Category	Weight	Access	Status
W-01	47 Shifts	War & Defense	15%	Members	● Planning
W-02	High Ross	War & Defense	5%	Members	● Research
W-03	Federal Levers	War & Defense	5%	Members	● Research
I-01	Combined Sewer Outfall Map	Infrastructure	10%	Public	● Active
I-02	EPA / Water Infrastructure Finance	Infrastructure	10%	Public	● Research
I-03	Material Standard	Infrastructure	5%	Public	● Research
A-01	Permitting Accountability	Accountability	10%	Public	● Active
A-02	Homelessness Authority	Accountability	5%	Members	● Active
E-01	Five Seats / Culliton 2026 Slate	Electoral	15%	Public	● Active
E-02	Committee of Correspondence	Electoral	10%	Public	● Active
H-01	Housing Power Play	Housing	5%	Members	● Planning
D-01	Lake City Corridor	Development	10%	Members	● Planning
D-02	Capitol Hill Expansion	Development	5%	Members	● Research
R-01	TBC 3D Intelligence Map	Architecture	10%	Members	● Active
R-02	Century Gate Design Standard	Architecture	5%	Members	● Research