Moments of hope and possibility are not to be squandered.

Last month, with his veto of the Downtown Seattle Association-backed "aggressive panhandling" legislation, Mayor Mike McGinn sent a clear message to the downtown interests that the civil rights of Seattle's most poor would not be sacrificed to the insatiable god of urban fear.

The proposed legislation was panned 9-0 by the Seattle Human Right Commission, and would have allowed police to issue $50 citations to those who invoke fear or a "compulsion to give" among those whose tolerance for the misery of others has, after nearly four decades of widening inequality, worn too thin.

The law was written with awareness that these tickets, targeted to the city's most indigent, would not be paid. They would become missed court dates and almost surely default to warrants. These warrants would mean that any offense