Seattle Forward

Letters from Second Grade

This week I visited a 2^nd grade classroom in my neighborhood to talk to them about life in the city. They each wrote letters to me expressing their concerns. Here are a few of them:

Dear Councilman Burgess, I am concerned about car break-ins. One day my family went out for dinner. When we came back, there was a big hole in the car window. My dad was upset that he lost his work backpack. I was so scared.

Dear Councilmen Burgess, Hi! I am 7 years old. And I am concerned about drugs. This year I have been seeing a lot of drugs. I HATE DRUGS! And I also am concerned about cars and speeding. We almost got in an accident a couple of days ago. Also, I hate trash. It can make animals sick. I am worried about animals especially the ones in the water. Can the city help?

A Strong and Sensible Step for Affordable Housing

This week the City Council took another strong and sensible step toward creating more affordable housing in Seattle. The Council passed a Resolution that should lead to a significant increase in resources for affordable housing.

Rents are increasing rapidly. Our skyline is speckled with cranes constructing new office space and market-rate housing to meet the demands of an improving economy which, in turn, spur demand for services. The lower wage workers who provide these services need a place they can afford to call home. The closer they can live to their jobs, the less air pollution and traffic congestion for everyone and the more time they can spend with their families.

We have debated affordable housing policies ever since I joined the Council in 2008. We have implemented incentive zoning policies to encourage affordable housing in South Lake Union, downtown, and elsewhere. But such policies are limited to areas being “up-zoned” to greater heights. We clearly need to do more.

Justice for Our Youth

The City Council voted Monday to pass a land use amendment that will allow the County more flexibility in designing a new Children and Family Justice Center on 12^th Avenue in the Central District. (In 2012, King County voters approved a nine-year, $210 million levy to replace the deteriorating facility.)

While a text amendment to the land use code initiated the Council’s process, the public discussion wasn’t really about a land use decision. It was a discussion about the nature of our juvenile justice system. Many community advocates gave eloquent and passionate testimony about how the current system fails youth – particularly youth of color who are disproportionately represented among those detained. They don’t want more money spent on a system that perpetuates these inequities.

While King County has made admirable progress reducing the use of juvenile detention over the last 15-20 years, continuing high levels of racial disparities show that we have not escaped the nationwide scourge of mass incarceration. We know that detention is not a good place for our youth and yet we struggle with how to balance that reality while keeping the broader community safe.

Boiled down, the juvenile justice system centers on a few important desires:

• The desire to help our youth in difficult situations;
• The desire to have a fair justice system free from racial disproportionality; and
• The desire to keep our communities safe.

I believe everyone involved in the discussion to date – members of the community, City government, and King County government – shares these desires. At the same time, I think those working within the system sometimes feel that community advocates ignore hard realities about public safety, while the advocates sometimes feel that individuals in the system lack imagination and motivation to try alternative methods of justice.

If we move past these initial feelings, there is space for a very productive dialogue that leads to action.

Budget Time

It’s budget time again. The Council received an overview of the Mayor’s proposed 2015-2016 budget this morning from the City Budget Director. You can look at the presentation here and the video here.

The Council takes two months to review the Mayor’s proposal with the goal of passing a final budget just before Thanksgiving. Opportunities for public comment exist throughout the process, including two evening public hearings this month:

• October 7, 2014, 5:30 p.m. (4:30 p.m. sign up begins), Garfield Community Center
• October 23, 2014, 5:30 p.m. (4:30 p.m. sign up begins), Council Chambers, Seattle City Hall

You can find more links to information – and a short Budget 101 video from Budget Chair Nick Licata – on the Council’s budget homepage here.