“In a little-noticed modification to town funds, the Seattle Metropolis Council asserted new and stunning management over transportation spending within the $1.55 billion, eight-year levy handed by voters in November.”
Thus begins a Seattle Instances article that ran final week. The modification in query is a funds proviso—the “mechanism that the Council makes use of to impose restrictions on appropriations within the Metropolis’s funds,” based on the council’s funds glossary. This specific proviso prohibits the manager department from spending absolutely half of the $177 million in levy funds supposed for 2025 till the council evaluations and approves the expenditure.
The concern? This transfer introduces uncertainty that would hinder SDOT’s skill to ship levy tasks effectively. Within the worst case, councilmembers might use their leverage to kill particular tasks they don’t like, or to privilege ones they do. On this rating, the saga of proviso co-sponsor and Transportation Committee Chair Rob Saka’s “border wall” doesn’t precisely encourage confidence.
To say the modification was little-noticed is a stretch: Seattle Neighborhood Greenways and the Solidarity Price range coalition each sounded the alarm about this modification in the course of the funds course of, Ryan Packer at The Urbanist was masking it as early as Nov. 6, Amy Sundberg included it in her funds wrap-up, and on Dec. 6, Packer additionally wrote in regards to the Transfer Seattle Levy Oversight Committee letter that underlies final week’s story.
Past giving credit score the place it’s due, although, I don’t wish to be too exhausting on The Seattle Instances or reporter Nicholas Deshais. I’m glad they’re shining a brighter highlight on this proviso, and for a wider viewers. If readers have to really feel like they’re in on a giant scoop to concentrate to this metropolis council’s shenanigans, I’m right here for it.
Nonetheless, it’s price dwelling a bit on the query of how “new and stunning” this type of council management actually is, particularly as transportation advocates and the voters who accredited the levycontemplate how a lot we must be freaking out, or not.
It’s not unprecedented for a council to make use of funds provisos to place a maintain on transportation spending. Again in 2010, for instance, councilmembers skeptical of then-Mayor Mike McGinn’s ambitions for Seattle rail enlargement withheld funds for finishing the Transit Grasp Plan. With the assistance of advocates pushing from the surface, McGinn was ultimately capable of go the plan he wished. (A lot of its elements — streetcars to Ballard and the U-District, the Heart Metropolis Connector — fell away or had been stalled throughout subsequent administrations. However hey, Madison BRT lastly got here to fruition in 2024 as RapidRide G!)
After all, McGinn was elected as a champion for multimodal transportation. It’s a lot much less clear that present Mayor Bruce “I received’t lead with bikes” Harrell will go to bat to defend the levy priorities that advocates fought for and voters accredited. And Tim Burgess, one of many councilmembers who clashed with McGinn, is now Harrell’s deputy. The chief department did have a heartfelt transportation progressive in SDOT director Greg Spotts, however he’s resigning, ostensibly to maneuver nearer to his household. Positive, possibly. Nevertheless it’s a well known rationalization that’s used to gloss over battle, or at the very least insecurity, between a division head and his boss.
If the mayor and SDOT aren’t prepared to struggle again towards council meddling,we might have an issue on our arms. Transportation enhancements that repurpose area now occupied by vehicles—be it highway lanes or parking— inevitably generate controversy. If such tasks, already greenlit by the April passage of the Seattle Transportation Plan and voters’ enthusiastic approval of the levy, may be relitigated one after the other by way of this council, you may guess opponents will seize the chance.
Inga Manskopf, a member of the Levy Oversight Committee, mentioned the alarm bells started ringing for her way back to June, when the committee acquired a memorandum summarizing a companion decision that Transportation Committee Chair Saka wished to accompany the levy proposal. Amongst different issues, it said the council’s intent to “consider the Metropolis’s present insurance policies governing the planning, design, and implementation of paving tasks, together with Full Streets… and… discover how the Council approves funding for particular person tasks.”
Seattle’s Full Streets ordinance ensures that when the Metropolis undertakes a serious paving challenge, it additionally makes investments that enhance the road for all customers. That might imply repairing sidewalks or including crosswalks, lighting, bike lanes, or transit stops.
“In my expertise, when individuals say they wish to take a more in-depth have a look at the Full Streets ordinance, it’s normally to not make it stronger,” Manskopf instructed me. She mentioned the committee requested
Saka’s employees one that attended their assembly for extra data, however by no means obtained a response. “Then the following factor we hear is that there’s a proviso” on the levy funds that would allow council scrutiny of particular person tasks — the alarm bells obtained louder.
For a sharply contrasting angle, we are able to look again to the transportation chairdom of Mike O’Brien, who held that position from 2016 by way of 2019. O’Brien had loads of opinions about transportation the entire time, he mentioned, “however it takes about ten minutes to seek out out that, hey, I’m not the skilled right here. There are a ton of individuals on the Metropolis, and a ton of advocates, who’ve far more experience than me.” His position, he mentioned, was to form the general framework and values, “be sure that the division understands that these are [expert] voices to be listened to, after which get out of the best way.”
Is the present council open to studying that lesson? Time will inform.
