Well-known for skewering the real estate business during the last boom-and-bust cycle, Seattle Bubble’s Tim Ellis has selected Kirkland City Hall as his most recent target in a recent tongue-in-cheek “story” at the Naked Loon Website.

Fashioned after The Onion – a satirical newspaper based loosely on current events – the story “City of Kirkland Outlaws layoffs” appears to poke fun at the city’s recent economic development and business retention efforts.

Writing under the pseudonym of Frigyes Karinthy, Ellis takes after the city’s tony image and official’s efforts to restore business confidence by fiat.

According to Mayor Lauinger, Ellis writes, the mounting problem of layoffs “has done too much to tarnish Kirkland’s near-utopian lifestyle, and therefore must be stopped at all costs.”

“We are committed to doing whatever it takes to legislate away the economic downturn at the local level,” says the fictional Mayor Lauinger. “Whatever. It. Takes.” – echoing comments Lauinger actually made during a recent Council meeting.