When it turned clear that massive enterprise would efficiently purchase a slate of company shills within the 2023 Seattle Metropolis Council election, progressives sorted themselves into two camps. Some wished to offer the newbies an opportunity to pleasantly shock them. Others predicted the brand new council would threaten all of the marginal victories they received beneath the final council.
However after the Metropolis’s unofficial legislative session ended this month, it doesn’t appear to be the council pleasantly shocked any of their progressive constituents. As a substitute, the council steamrolled them, stifled them, betrayed them, belittled them, and arrested them–all within the service of a wealthier, older, and whiter Seattle. The one nice shock got here within the type of the physique’s incompetence and fragility, which delayed a few of its most egregious assaults on working individuals and the poor.
As Metropolis Corridor transitions from its policymaking interval into its funds negotiation interval, The Stranger proudly presents a (in all probability) exhaustive record of the brand new metropolis council’s many, many, many transgressions towards progressives, the working class, and the norms of native democracy.
I. The Queen Ascends
The brand new council actually set the tone for the yr after they elected Council Member Sara Nelson as president of their physique. When Nelson ran for workplace in 2021, she marketed herself as a backlash candidate to these elected within the anti-corporate wave of 2019. She spent her first two years on council advocating for cops, landlords, and large enterprise. Although she discovered common allies in former Council President Debra Juarez and former Council Member Alex Pedersen, Nelson would by no means have received a recognition contest on the final council.
However after allegedly recruiting and publicly supporting a slate of stooges, the conservative outcast went from consuming her lunch within the toilet stall to accepting a sash and crown as promenade queen —metaphorically, in fact.
The function of council president units the council’s agendas, assigns payments to committee, and sits in for the Mayor when he wants a psychological well being day or one thing. Juarez, who held the place earlier than Nelson, took a hands-off strategy to the job. Informal information enjoyers in all probability didn’t even notice Juarez had a particular function as a result of she actually solely flexed her energy to scold lone socialist Council Member Kshama Sawant for calling her and her colleagues “D*mocrats.”
However Nelson has used the function to raise her personal profile and affect, a lot in order that politicos assume she might problem Mayor Bruce Harrell when he’s up for re-election subsequent yr. That mentioned, no reporter has substantiated these rumors. Plus, the transfer might quantity to political suicide, as Nelson enjoys about half the approval score of Harrell, in response to a June survey from the Northwest Progressive Institute.
II. Off With Her Head
In certainly one of Nelson’s first acts as president, she fired the top of central workers, Esther Useful, who had a progressive background, and changed her with the director of the Metropolis’s Workplace of Financial and Income Forecasts (OERF), Ben Noble, a proponent of fiscal austerity.
As council president, Nelson completely can axe the top of central workers, however, as I’ve written earlier than, it’s a very agro, atypical, and possibly ideologically motivated transfer that undermines the supposed objectivity of central workers and the council’s “good governance” messaging.
Many longtime council staffers have left this yr, together with Communications Director Dana Robinson Slote, Deputy Central Workers Director Aly Pennucci, and, most not too long ago, Communications Strategist Joseph Peha.
Earlier this summer time, Nelson changed Robinson Slote with former Metropolis of Bellevue communications director and advisor Brad Harwood. Harwood, as Publicola reported, has a powerful Republican streak. He labored for Republicans, donated to a few of their campaigns (together with these of Democrats), was quoted as a Republican spokesperson in 2006, and included on his LinkedIn his expertise as a board member for an annual Republican retreat. In what could be the clearest show of his city-level political bias, Harwood donated $1,000 to now deputy mayor Tim Burgess’s Individuals for Seattle Political Motion Committee (PAC) in 2019. The PAC spent lots of of 1000’s to elect “good governance” candidates over progressives resembling Council Member Tammy Morales.
III. Woo’s Participation Trophy
At first of its time period, the newly elected metropolis council tabled all different enterprise to conduct an appointment course of for the emptiness former progressive Council Member Teresa Mosequeda left behind when she received a seat on the King County Council. They carried out the entire music and dance simply to choose not too long ago failed metropolis council candidate Tanya Woo, who befriended lots of the new council members when she ran alongside them in Nelson’s pseudo slate.
Not solely did the decide really feel nepotistic, it additionally got here on the command of huge enterprise. Harrell’s right-hand man, advisor, and company PAC-wrangler, Tim Ceis, despatched an electronic mail to his associates within the massive enterprise donor class instructing them to again Woo. He mentioned that the donors’ success in shopping for the current election gave them “the correct” to inform the council who to choose.
Nepotism and company affect apart, selecting Morales’s opponent for the place felt very highschool imply lady. Morales represented the one seat on council not purchased by massive enterprise, so she had already are available for her second time period pegged as an outsider. The council majority’s choice to choose Woo, the candidate who tried to problem Morales, despatched a transparent message about their most well-liked candidate in that race. Lord is aware of if the district seat vote had gone the opposite approach, then they wouldn’t have appointed Morales!
IV. Guards, Seize Them!
The council’s anti-progressive energy journey culminated in a gathering that can go down in Seattle Metropolis Council historical past. On February 27, a long-neglected group of asylum-seekers and their lefty allies got here to Metropolis Corridor to ask the Metropolis to fund housing so lots of of Venezuelan, Angolan, and Congolese refugees, together with many youngsters, may cease tenting outdoors after they have been evicted from the lodge that was housing them in Kent.
Nelson didn’t wish to hear it, so she restricted public remark to simply 20 minutes. She mentioned that they need to take up their issues with the County or the State. She additionally took the chance to take a jab at her political enemies. She accused left-wing activists of “craven political opportunism” after seeing a submit on social media calling for individuals to join public remark to amplify the wants of the asylum-seekers whereas additionally talking towards new surveillance know-how for the Seattle Police Division.
After vindictively limiting the general public remark interval, Nelson tried to maneuver on, however then attendees began chanting over her. She referred to as three recesses in an try to manage the group earlier than lastly calling in safety. Ultimately, the cops arrested six individuals who refused to go away council chambers.
By way of streetphotojournalism, here is what it appears to be like like on the scene with a couple of protesters holding it down in Metropolis Corridor pic.twitter.com/C6POaELrFe
— Hannah Krieg (@hannahkrieg) February 27, 2024
Moore turned Chair of the Pearl-Clutcher Committee when she demanded that the cops arrest the individuals who pounded on the window after leaving when Nelson instructed them to. Moore has but to dwell that one down with public remark regulars.
V. These Grasping, Grasping Gig Employees
Nelson used her new clout as president to rehash an previous battle she misplaced on the earlier council over the gig supply drivers’ minimal wage.
Gig supply corporations, who’re identified far and broad for his or her generosity, kicked issues off by spinning up a propaganda marketing campaign asserting that the minimal wage was “backfiring.” Opponents argued that retaliatory charges some app-based supply companies caught on clients may clarify any drop in exercise on the apps. Nonetheless, with out demanding any information from the complaining corporations, Nelson wished to hurry by with a complete repeal or vital rollback crafted by an Uber-backed foyer group.
She was met with crickets. Nobody else on council felt as passionately about reducing wages for gig employees by about 24%, and her loyal topic, Woo, would find yourself having to recuse herself from a vote on the matter resulting from private battle of curiosity. So, regardless of her rise to energy, Nelson loses her first massive political battle.
VI. Really, That Pink Tape Appears Positive Over There
The council didn’t merely attempt to roll again insurance policies handed by the final council, additionally they began simply killing shit. After two years of behind-the-scenes work, Morales proposed an incentives package deal that allowed builders to keep away from some charges, construct taller or wider buildings, and skip the dreaded design evaluation course of in the event that they partnered with group organizations to construct flats with at the least 30% reasonably priced models.
The laws appeared like the precise form of coverage the newbies ran on—mild, reasonably priced density geared toward combating displacement without charge to the Metropolis. However, like, Morales proposed it, so, ew! Solely she and Council Member Dan Strauss supported the invoice.
The council was clearly fairly delicate about their shitty vote. In an unhinged second that her future political opponents ought to clip into an advert, Moore scolded Morales for allegedly calling her and the opposite critics “evil” and “company shills.” No reporter may ever discover proof that Morales mentioned these issues, and Moore by no means substantiated these claims. Discuss projection.
Council Member Cathy Moore scolds her colleague Tammy Morales for “vilifying” opposition to her Related Communities invoice within the media. Professional tip: You do not wish to appear to be you oppose reasonably priced housing, do not vote towards it! pic.twitter.com/qR2YKUtGD0
— Hannah Krieg (@hannahkrieg) April 29, 2024
Morales defended herself on the remaining vote. “I’m not impugning anybody’s motives for the way you vote,” she mentioned. “I am mentioning that we won’t simply say that these items are essential. As policymakers, our actions communicate louder than phrases.”
VII. Accountability, Schmountability
The looming Seattle Police Officers Guild (SPOG) contract ought to have been a defining difficulty of the 2023 election, however the crop of candidates have been both too scared or too pro-police to say something adverse about cops. None of them appeared to have any actual technique to extend accountability measures within the contract.
And so (shock, shock), in Could the council voted 8-1 to approve the brand new cop contract with 24% raises and little in the best way of recent accountability measures. Morales (shock, shock) voted towards it.
“I imagine this contract as bargained doesn’t defend town and the shortage of accountability measures places us in continued violation of the federal consent decree,” Morales mentioned.
To be truthful, not each council member will get to see or take part within the SPOG negotiations, however they’ll reject the contract and ship it again to the bargaining desk in the event that they discover it unacceptable.
VIII. Cop Amount Over Cop High quality
Because of its lengthy record of misadventures, the brand new council has earned a fame because the “Do-Nothing Council.” Lots of their very own legislative endeavors failed, and many of the payments they acquired throughout the end line got here immediately from the mayor’s workplace, such because the vacant constructing abatement coverage, the transportation levy, the housing levy, and the SPOG contract.
And certainly one of its first legislative successes impartial of the Mayor acquired neutered anyway. In Could, the council accepted a invoice that aimed to hurry up the hiring course of for cops. The conservative majority ran on a promise to beef up SPD rolls to 1,400 officers regardless of a nationwide hiring scarcity.
Inside that package deal, Council Members Bob Kettle and Nelson tried to require the Public Security Civil Service Fee (PSCSC) to modify to a police hiring check with a 90% cross price. As Publicola reported, Kettle mentioned Seattle didn’t have the “luxurious” to be choosy with police check scores. It is finally as much as PSCSC if the Metropolis switches assessments.
Nevertheless, state regulation requires PSCSC to make its personal guidelines with out councilmanic affect. Nelson heeded a warning from the fee and finally whittled the invoice right down to a imprecise advice that PSCSC “ought to search to make use of” a check that, typically, “conforms to the extent potential to all Metropolis of Seattle insurance policies that handle recruiting, hiring, and retention.”
PSCSC has but to vary their check.
IX. “Racist,” “Discriminatory,” “Ridiculous,” “Preposterous,” “Outrageous,” “Appalling,” “Tone-Deaf,” “Quick-Sighted,” “Misguided,” and “Ugly” to Say the Least
I wouldn’t be shocked if Council Member Maritza Rivera needed to unpack the disgrace of this second in remedy for a number of, a number of weeks. On a Friday afternoon in Could forward of a vacation weekend, Rivera proposed a last-minute, rug-pull modification to freeze funding for the Equitable Improvement Initiative that empowers BIPOC-led group teams to construct reasonably priced housing, group facilities, and different capital initiatives.
Rivera’s modification would have given the Workplace of Group Planning and Improvement (OCPD) three months to spend greater than $50 million or else return it to the final fund, the place it could presumably assist fill the looming $260 million funds deficit.
For greater than three-and-a-half hours, BIPOC-led group organizations completely humiliated Rivera and her supportive colleagues. The council voted to delay a vote on Rivera’s shock modification.
Rivera partially discovered her lesson. She scrapped the proviso however handed an modification calling for OCPD to provide a report on the EDI program and its initiatives, so communities stay on edge.
X. Cop Metropolis
In June, town council voted 6-0 to develop SPD’s automated license plate reader (ALPR) know-how to its total fleet. Council Members Morales, Strauss, and Rivera have been absent.
SPD began lobbying the Metropolis for such an growth final yr. Privateness advocates frightened about scaling up each SPD’s and the general public’s means to surveil drivers, as the data can be accessible by public document requests.
XI. The “Consensus” Transportation Levy
The council voted 6-2 to reject Morales’s proposal so as to add $150 million to the $1.55 billion transportation proposal from the mayor, which, she argued, would have created a safer, extra related Metropolis for many who don’t drive.
The Chamber of Commerce and the Downtown Seattle Affiliation argued towards Morales’s bolder levy as a result of they frightened the voters would reject the elevated tax burden. Nevertheless, polling by the Seattle Division of Transportation confirmed that 56% of surveyed voters would help a $1.7 billion levy. Northwest Progressive Institute polling discovered that about 54% of voters would really choose a $1.9 billion levy.
As a substitute, the council accepted Council Member Rob Saka’s $1.55 billion package deal, which he referred to as a “consensus” levy. If the polling is any indication, the consensus seems to be between the council and their company donors.
XII. Dangerous Bosses Unite
In what former SEIU 775 President David Rolf referred to as “political suicide,” Council Member Pleasure Hollingsworth tried to completely enshrine a subminimum wage for tipped employees at “small” companies–those that make use of fewer than 500 employees.
The restaurant trade spent months lobbying behind the scenes to interrupt a 10-year compromise between labor and enterprise to permit “small” companies to work as much as the usual minimal wage over time. Restaurant homeowners mentioned they couldn’t afford the actual minimal wage due to the pandemic, however they failed to acknowledge that their employees couldn’t afford for them to not pay them the actual minimal wage.
After making an enemy of each tipped employee on the town, Hollingsworth retracted her invoice and determined to work on a possible compromise behind the scenes.
NEW: Hollingsworth withdraws her assault on minimal wage and can work with small biz, unions, and the Mayor’s to discover a “balanced resolution.” pic.twitter.com/37psDr34EA
— Hannah Krieg (@hannahkrieg) August 2, 2024
XIII. How Classic
Moore needs to strive one thing new on Aurora—and by new, I imply previous, prudish, anti-worker, racist, classist, sexist, and transphobic. In August, she proposed a invoice to make prostitution loitering a misdemeanor crime once more, a reverse of the council’s historic repeal in 2020. However there’s a twist! Moore additionally wished to banish anybody arrested for participating in intercourse work from a seven-mile “Keep Out of Space Prostitution zone (SOAP)” alongside Aurora Avenue, stretching from eighty fifth Avenue North to 145th Avenue North.
After plenty of pushback from intercourse employees, who argued that Moore’s regulation would make their jobs much less protected, she softened up and determined to amend her invoice to solely banish pimps and johns from the SOAP zone. As Republican Metropolis Legal professional Ann Davison readily admit, the invoice will doubtless push intercourse work to different areas of city, and do nothing to develop companies for many who wish to depart the intercourse commerce. Furthermore, intercourse employees say the laws will nonetheless solely foster mistrust between intercourse employees and the Metropolis and its legal justice system.
However Moore doesn’t need individuals to consider the results of her invoice. She tell us that by ordering central workers to take away an inventory of issues from their impartial invoice evaluation.
XIV. One Easy Trick to Suppress Dissent
Talking of suppressing dissent, the council ran a kooky little gambit to each suppress the general public vote on a tax on massive enterprise that will fund social housing and stifle public remark over a contract with SCORE, a jail run by some south King County cities.
In a gathering earlier this month, Nelson shortened the general public remark interval—which all the time goes so effectively for her—in order that the council may vote on Initiative 137–the social housing funding initiative–by the deadline to get it on the November poll fairly than on a lower-turnout February poll. However then the council ended up deciding to delay the vote on the social housing initiative anyway, needlessly stifling public touch upon the jail contract. Outrage ensued.
However these the council pissed off that assembly acquired the final giggle. Later that night time, King County Elections launched the preliminary outcomes of the 2024 major. Woo confronted a “brutal” defeat by the hands of her progressive challenger, Alexis Mercedes Rinck, who would finally safe greater than 50% of the vote.
XV. Be Grateful, Kids!
To wrap up the unofficial legislative session, town council sacrificed $7.75 million beforehand promised to fund psychological well being counselors in Seattle Public Colleges following a taking pictures at Ingraham Excessive College. The clawback labored in accordance with the Mayor’s obvious plot to fill the Metropolis’s looming funds shortfall with out taxing massive enterprise.
In 2023, town council hiked the JumpStart Payroll Expense Tax to boost an extra $20 million for counselors in colleges. The Metropolis began elevating the cash however couldn’t spend it till the council modified the foundations for JumpStart spending, which is legally earmarked just for reasonably priced housing, Inexperienced New Deal initiatives, and financial growth.
Whereas the Metropolis sat on the cash, one other youngster was shot and killed at a Seattle college. College students started advocating for the Metropolis to launch the $20 million, however as a substitute Harrell proposed a plan to launch simply $10 million, which amounted to a minimize in funding within the wake of tragedy.
Morales launched an modification to revive the funding within the Metropolis’s mid-year supplemental funds, however the council didn’t play ball. Most egregiously, Rivera, who mentioned the taking pictures at Ingraham impressed her run for workplace, didn’t wish to restore the cash.
Then Strauss proposed an modification so as to add $2.25 million to the mayor’s $10 million proposal. Now $7.75 million in JumpStart funds that have been initially promised to college students will doubtless go to filling the deficit.
The Worst Is But to Come
After their recess, the Seattle Metropolis Council could have a couple of extra weeks to cross insurance policies which can be already within the works–a “September Squeeze,” as I’ve referred to as this era earlier than. On the finish of September, the Mayor will transmit his draft funds, the place he’ll try to stability a $260 million funds shortfall. The Metropolis should then approve a balanced funds. To do this, the Metropolis could make cuts to workers or to packages throughout the basic fund, raid the JumpStart fund, or elevate taxes.
To date, the council has not proven any curiosity in levying new, progressive taxes on massive enterprise. Meaning packages that profit employees, renters, the poor–principally anybody who isn’t a cop–might be in massive bother throughout funds negotiations.
However this doesn’t finish after the funds. After this yr, the council will nonetheless have three extra years on the dais to rollback gig employee protections, completely enshrine a subminimum wage, assault renters’ rights, subsidize housing for cops, sicc the nationwide guard on Downtown, and ignore the disaster on the library, to call a couple of gadgets the Council left lingering.
However the metropolis council may additionally get a brand new member in Rinck, who may be part of Morales in defending the progressive agenda in November. And Nelson may lose her crown in 2025. So don’t despair. Arrange.
