Seattle Forward

Tomorrow is Denim Day

Tomorrow the City Council will wear jeans for #‎denimday, part of Sexual Violence Awareness month. Join us!

Councilmember Godden's office provided the following background on Denim Day:

For the past 16 years, Peace Over Violence has run its Denim Day campaign on a Wednesday in April in honor of Sexual Violence Awareness Month. The campaign was originally triggered by a ruling by the Italian Supreme Court where a rape conviction was overturned because the justices felt that since the victim was wearing tight jeans she must have helped her rapist remove her jeans, thereby implying consent. The following day, the women in the Italian Parliament came to work wearing jeans in solidarity with the victim.

April City Inside/Out: Council Edition

This month I joined Councilmembers Godden and Harrell for Brian Callanan's City Inside/Out Seattle Channel Show. We talked about minimum wage enforcement, filling the Council vacancy, encampments, and other topics. You can watch below:

Transportation Progress

Two separate efforts by the Seattle Department of Transportation that have received attention recently should be celebrated.

First, the Council received an update earlier this month about the School Zone Traffic Safety Cameras. Nine Seattle schools currently have these cameras in place and six more schools will receive them this year. In 2013, I sponsored legislation dedicating money from school zone speed violators to safety improvements around schools. At that time, the City had a long list of physical improvements awaiting funding that could make our children safer on their way to and from school like signals, crosswalks and speed humps. This program has been able to fund 30 projects so far, with many more in the pipeline.

Not only that, but enforcement has reduced speeding dramatically. Citations decreased 34% from 2013 to 2014 for the four school zones where cameras were installed late in 2012. SDOT reports that “this equates to around 10,000 fewer speeding cars per year across all four school zones.”

Second, news articles this week reported that the first “smart” parking pay stations are being installed in Pioneer Square.

Preparing for Preschool

The following article was sent out in my City View Newsletter, which you can sign up to receive here.

Every child in our city deserves a strong and fair start. The Seattle City Council took another step today to provide one.

The Council voted unanimously this afternoon to approve the Seattle Preschool Program Implementation Plan (C.B. 118363). The vote marks the last major milestone before the opening of the first classrooms this September.

Over the next four years, the Seattle Preschool Program will make high-quality preschool available to thousands of our littlest learners.

Why is this important to our city?

Help Wanted: Councilmember

Councilmember Sally J. Clark announced this morning that she will step down from her position on the City Council effective 5:00 p.m. Sunday, April 12, to take on a new challenge at the University of Washington. Here is the statement I issued in response to this news:

Councilmember Clark has been a dedicated, hard-working public official for the people of Seattle. I deeply appreciate her thoughtful approach to policy development,  disarming leadership style, and sharp wit. She tackled projects of incredible complexity with patience, diligence, and grace. She is a trustworthy colleague and a good friend. Sally will be missed at City Hall.

The Council will now conduct a process to appoint someone to fill the upcoming vacancy.