Tweeting for Parking Ticket Amnesty and More News

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Help for parking woes. According to GeekWire, a new promotion by on-demand valet service Luxe is offering “Parking ticket amnesty,” which means the company will match the price of your parking ticket (through February 2) up to $100 in Luxe credits when you tweet a picture of your parking ticket to @luxevalet using #ParkingProblems. But be creative parking offendors. Luxe says it will award credits to Twitter users with the most original posts.

A UW study sought to find out just how many Seattle residents can, in fact, live off of produce grown exclusively within the city. The answer? Only a meager 1 in 25 residents can really eat locally. According to the study, urban crops in Seattle could only feed between 1 and 4 percent of the city’s population. This number comes from information gathered about Seattle’s current land use, light availability and national nutritional guidelines to determine the city’s carrying capacity for feeding its population. Jeff Richardson, a postdoctoral researcher in the UW’s School of Environmental and Forest Sciences, told UWToday, that “we really need a regional solution to food sustainability in the Seattle area,” and that “it’s not going to come from Seattle and it’s not even going to come from King County. We’re going to need the entire region and all these food-producing areas to help achieve food security.”

If you’re planning on traveling internationally this year, don’t be surprised if you happen to see a 70-foot yacht sporting the phrase “Visit Seattle.” The Puget Sound Business Journal reports that this yacht, a participant in the “Clipper Round the World Yacht Race,” is helping to bring international tourism to Seattle while benefiting charity. The endeavor to join this competitive race, which benefits UNICEF and consists of 12 teams that will travel 40,000 nautical miles, was spearheaded by the non-profit marketing organization Visit Seattle.The yacht has already been spotted in ports such as London, Rio De Janeiro and several ports in Australia and the next stop on the global tour is China. Tom Norwalk, president and ceo of Visit Seattle told the Puget Sound Business Journal that “the race gives us a great opportunity to take the iconic image of our skyline across the globe and helps to position our city as an exciting, international destination.”

As reported by KING 5 news, Washington residents may be entitled to free community college. Democratic lawmakers have brought forward new legislation called the “Washington promise program,” which would make community college and technical college free for residents without a Bachelor’s degree. According to KING 5, the creation of this program may be in response to a proposition made last year by President Obama to make community college free. Washington is not the first to propose such a program. Oregon, Minnesota and Tennessee already have programs in place while, reportedly, at least 11 other states are considering similar legislation.