Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels' staffed briefed the City Council today on about $6 million in budget cuts to make up for a drop in projected real estate excise tax revenue this year.

There is no source of money to cover this loss, said Dwight Dively, the city's budget director. The 2009 budget was passed during much more prosperous times -- last year. While REET revenue has been averaging about $40 million annually, it's now at about $20 million.

After years of planning, the demolition of buildings on the corner of Broadway and East John hails the start of construction of the Capitol Hill light rail station, and yesterday, City Council members met to debate the still incomplete plans for a $140 million streetcar serving First Hill and Capitol Hill.

"I really question the financial wisdom of building a streetcar network when we could expand metro transit significantly for far less," Councilmember Tom Rasmussen said as he entered the meeting.

Well the Seattle City Council is back to where they were two months ago regarding the Mercer Corridor project money, well, sort of.

If you remember, in late February the City Council voted to lift the spending restriction, called a proviso, on the Mercer project funding, even though the city didn't have enough cash to complete the South Lake Union transportation, or depending on who you talk to, beautification project.

The purpose of the proviso is to prevent the city from starting a project that it can't complete.

In a special meeting today, the Seattle City Council Transportation committee approved a measure to reverse a council vote last month to release the money to get started on the Mercer Corridor project.

Prostitution and the Mercer Corridor project will be up for debate this week in the Seattle City Council.

Councilmember Tim Burgess wants anyone busted for patronizing a prostitute charged an additional $150 fee to cover the cost of john school to educate johns on the evils of prostitution.

After weeks of delays and public testimony, the Seattle City Council voted Monday to approve changes to the city's noise ordinance.

"The whole goal of the legislation is to strengthen enforcement of the ordinance," Councilmember Sally Clark, chair of the Planning, Land Use and Neighborhoods committee, explained as she introduced the council bill.

Microsoft billionaire Paul Allen has lots of friends in Seattle. Why wouldn't he, he's a billionaire? Council member Jan Drago has been Allen's point-person in the City Council, and Mayor Greg Nickels his goto-guy in the executive. To see the results, just look at South Lake Union, where Allen's Vulcan Inc is redeveloping 60 acres of commercial and residential real estate.

So what really happened? Did Mayor Greg Nickels and Seattle Councilmember Jan Drago know that the Mercer Project was not on the list to receive federal funding before the City Council voted on Monday to remove the spending restriction, releasing the available funds to get the two year project going? Or were Nickels and Drago as dumbfounded as everyone else when the Mercer Project didn't make the cut?