Final yr was a way more harmless time for this Metropolis Corridor reporter. I hadn’t needed to be so intimately conversant in the Metropolis’s Code of Ethics, I might by no means heard Council Member Rob Saka passionately rant concerning the energy of the Finnish individuals, and Council Member Sara Nelson was simply somebody to roll your eyes at in conferences, not the one working the present. I can’t moderately element each goof, gaff, and grave determination the council made this yr, however I can borrow the Rose, Thorn, and Bud framework to extra neatly bundle all of the shit that unfolded at Metropolis Corridor in 2024.
🌹Rose🌹
The Stranger has not written too positively concerning the Metropolis Council this yr, so I’ll change issues up and begin by highlighting the three greatest moments in Metropolis Corridor in 2024. And be joyful I may give you three.
Disgrace Works: After large enterprise purchased itself a shiny new Metropolis Council within the 2023 election, progressives shortly realized they’d not discover many allies in Metropolis Corridor. So as an alternative of combating for insurance policies that make the town work higher for working individuals, advocates spent a lot of the yr enjoying protection in opposition to the brand new physique’s most egregious actions. Surprisingly, wanting again, progressive advocates truly managed to kill a couple of payments regardless of their sudden lack of affect. For instance, Council President Sara Nelson seems to have given up on her makes an attempt to rollback gig employees’ minimal wage, thanks partially to the organized labor, rank-and-file employees, and different advocates’ marketing campaign in opposition to it. Equally, employees and their unions successfully tanked Council Member Pleasure Hollingsworth’s invoice to completely enshrine a subminimum wage for tipped employees earlier than it even received a listening to. In the meantime, in probably the most spectacular shows of public shaming, group teams spent greater than three hours in public remark berating Council Member Maritza Rivera for her “racist,” “discriminatory,” “ridiculous,” “preposterous,” “outrageous,” “appalling,” “tone-deaf,” “short-sighted,” “misguided,” and “ugly” try to freeze funding for the Equitable Growth Initiative in a final minute modification. Rivera swiftly backtracked, passing an modification calling for extra reporting with out holding {dollars} hostage.
Comrade Cathy: However the left stays largely on the defensive. However, on the plus aspect, the council majority could also be extra fractured going ahead. Council Member Cathy Moore not too long ago broke ranks on a couple of key points (this, nonetheless, comes after she championed racist, classist loitering legal guidelines and publicly scolded her colleague over actually nothing). In the course of the funds negotiations, Moore proposed an area enlargement of the statewide capital positive aspects tax and delivered a multi-minute monologue that struck down each argument in opposition to progressive income effortlessly. She additionally popped off in a latest Public Security Committee assembly, slamming the potential repeal of Seattle’s present restrictions on cops’ use of “less-lethal” crowd-control weapons. Moore plans to deliver a number of amendments that would assist enhance oversight of using these weapons.
Biblically Wanted: In maybe the best win for space progressives in Metropolis Corridor this yr, Alexis Mercedes Rinck unseated Seattle’s fail daughter, appointee Tanya Woo, in a decisive particular election for the place 8 citywide seat left vacant by former Council Member Teresa Mosqueda. Rinck campaigned as a defender of the working class, providing a essential counterpoint to the corporatists who spent a lot of their yr quibbling over a failed try to repeal the gig employee minimal wage. As simply certainly one of 9 council members (extra on that later), Rinck’s not empowered to cross very daring laws, and solely time will inform if she will be able to resist the conservative majority’s gravitational pull. However she’s already making performs. In her first full council assembly, she introduced ahead an modification to point the Metropolis’s assist for brand new, state-level progressive income of their state legislative agenda. And it handed! Good for her!
🥀 Thorn 🥀
Okay, sufficient of that! Again to my aspect—what did we hate?
Can I say the complete yr? If you wish to know all of the methods the Metropolis Council sucked this yr, I may refer you to each single factor I’ve written in 2024, however I perceive that you just’re right here for a neatly packaged abstract. Glad to oblige!
Earlier than the council started funds negotiations, I rattled off the 15 worst moments of the Metropolis Council’s unofficial legislative session. Fortunately, the council’s incompetence received the yr off to a reasonably gradual begin, and many of the council’s egregious conduct boiled right down to political theater. As for what they really achieved, the council handed a couple of pro-cop measures—throwing 24 % raises on the Seattle Police Division (SPD), passing a coverage suite aimed to hurry up the division’s hiring course of, increasing SPD’s automated license plate reader (ALPR) know-how, recriminalizing loitering, and establishing banishment zones round city.
JumpStart JumpStall: Y’all keep in mind the housing disaster? Nonetheless taking place! Based on the Seattle Workplace of Housing, Seattle nonetheless wants 112,000 new houses by 2044, together with 42,000 backed models like those funded by the JumpStart payroll expense tax and the Housing Levy. The funds the council handed does none of this. The Mayor and the Metropolis Council raided JumpStart’s income, as soon as legally obligated to pay for inexpensive housing and some different choose priorities. The Mayor and his council additionally modified the JumpStart spend plan to permit the chief to bastardize the fund ceaselessly. This yr, they determined to siphon off $300 million, depriving the Metropolis of probably hundreds of models of inexpensive housing and placing the Metropolis behind on its targets to unravel the housing disaster.
Gone Too Quickly: After enduring a yr of each interpersonal and political bullshit because the council’s sole progressive, Council Member Tammy Morales introduced earlier this month that she would resign efficient Jan. 6. Progressives felt illustration strengthening as Rinck joined Morales and challengers lined up for Nelson’s re-election marketing campaign. However until the council picks a progressive (they gained’t) then her departure places the steadiness of energy in just about the very same place it was earlier than November. And it completely kills any hope of a capital positive aspects tax, which for a fleeting second appeared in attain.
🌷Bud🌷
However wait, there’s extra! The conservative slate that took over final January nonetheless has three years left in Metropolis Corridor. Right here’s what we’re dreading.
The Complete Plan: The Metropolis is late in passing its once-in-a-decade Complete Plan, which can decide Seattle’s development for the subsequent 20 years. Morales, who has precise planning expertise, was purported to run the method, however now that she’s out, the job falls to Hollingsworth. This shall be an arduous course of no matter who’s in cost, however Hollingsworth did not have one of the best monitor report on supporting density earlier than she joined council. And if we solely decide by her actions on council, she’s not precisely advocating for density with a watchful eye to displacement, regardless of her claims. She voted in opposition to a standard sense and completely free developer incentive that may have elevated inexpensive density for initiatives that concerned group teams.
Ethics Shmethics: As The Stranger uncovered, Nelson appears poised to weaken the Metropolis’s ethics requirements after they curtailed her tyrannical marketing campaign in opposition to the working class. Nelson beforehand tried to rollback protections for gig employees, together with the minimal wage ordinance. However the Seattle Ethics and Elections Fee foiled her plan when Govt Director Wayne Barnett suggested then Council Member Woo to recuse herself from voting on the difficulty since she claimed the legislation would have an effect on the gross sales at her household’s restaurant. Emails between Nelson, Barnett, and the council’s authorized counsel recommend that she’s gearing as much as change the usual. As an alternative of requiring council members to recuse themselves from votes involving their monetary pursuits, the brand new method would merely require them to reveal the battle earlier than voting.
Landlord Wishlist: Renters ought to begin gearing up for an enormous combat in early 2025. The owner foyer, particularly the Housing Growth Consortium, desires to rollback a ton of tenant rights, in keeping with a leaked slide deck outlining their legislative priorities. The “coverage matrix” seeks to considerably restrict the safety of the winter and faculty yr eviction moratoriums, increase the $10 late price cap to $50, repeal the 2019 roommate legislation, reduce the six-month rental enhance discover requirement to 4 months and simply two in some circumstances, and implement different insurance policies that profit landlords.
As you mirror by yourself 2024, keep in mind you possibly can have finished lots worse. You might have been within the conservative majority of the Metropolis Council.
