Urban Sketchers (USk) is a network of artists around the world who draw the cities where they live and travel to. We have this blog, which is by invitation, and a Flickr group where anyone can share their location drawings. USk was started by Seattle journalist and illustrator Gabriel Campanario.

The [Not This MAPS] group is opposing the $777 million, seven-year, penny sales tax issue mainly because of what the package of capital improvement projects doesn’t have: more emergency response personnel, said Phil Sipe, president-elect of the International Association of Firefighters Local 157 and chairman of the coalition. Not This Maps Coalition otherwise supports MAPS 3.
But if the issue is passed by voters Dec. 8, he said, the likelihood of securing additional funding to hire firefighters and police officers any time in the next several years severely decreases. So the group is trying to convince city leaders to postpone the question to allow for more consideration.

“We still hold out hope that we can come to some kind of last-minute resolution of the staffing issues that we have,” Sipe said. “So we’re not entirely resigned about running a campaign against it…