Seattle Forward

Seattle Needs A Vision Reset . . . Quickly

Seattle needs a vision reset.

The mayor is not seeking re-election. The school superintendent has resigned. The police chief was pushed aside by the city council. The coronavirus pandemic has left us isolated. Downtown is desolate. Where and how we work is being transformed. Many essential workers are struggling mightily to keep up and pay the bills. Our infrastructure systems are inadequately maintained. First responders are overloaded and stretched thin. Campers have taken over many of our parks, greenspaces and sidewalks, preventing others from accessing them safely. Ideological and political divides are pushing us further and further into our dogmatic corners. Herein, opportunity presents itself.  

The urban theorist Richard Florida argues cities and surrounding regions will thrive as we move beyond the pandemic, just as they have following previous calamities: “Covid-19 is a once-in-a-century catastrophe, but it also hands us a once-in-a-century opportunity to rebuild communities to be

The Power of Books

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

Wednesday I traveled to Emerson Elementary in the Rainier Beach neighborhood because they have partnered with Page Ahead to provide free book fairs to kindergartners, 1st and 2nd graders. Excited students got to browse a collection of picture and chapter books and choose their 12 favorites to take home at the end of the school year. It was a lot of fun.

Students participate in this program for three consecutive years, ensuring three full summers of reading.

It is a great program because it is so simple: summer reading prevents summer learning loss. Kids will read when they have easy access to books they’re interested in. But too many low-income households don’t have this access. A recent report from Stanford found that, by age 2, children from low-income families are six months behind kids in higher-income families when it comes to vocabulary knowledge.

Black History Month in Seattle

February is Black History Month and I encourage you to recognize it by taking time to read stories about Seattle’s African American community on HistoryLink. This is a great resource for biographies of local figures and local history. Here are a few articles I’ve picked out, but there are many others to choose from:

Sam Smith, the first African American elected to the Seattle City Council. He sponsored an ordinance to end discriminatory housing practices in the city, which the Council passed in 1968.

Thelma Dewitty, the first African American teacher in Seattle Public Schools. She shook up the Laurelhurst Elementary school teacher’s lounge by sitting in a different seat each day, forcing others out of their usual routine.

Edwin Pratt, the former director of the Urban League. He was assassinated on his doorstep in 1969.

Tyree Scott, the civil rights and labor leader. He led local organizing efforts against discrimination in the construction industry.

Bertha Pitts Campbell, the civil rights worker and a founder of the Christian Friends for Racial Equality. Her oral history discusses snapshots of her 67 years in Seattle.

 

This year, the City government held its own event commemorating Martin Luther King, Jr. Day at which the Mayor and several councilmembers spoke. You can watch a video of my remarks.

Thank You Voters for Choosing the Seattle Preschool Program

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

Seattle voters had a clear choice on how to benefit the future generations of Seattle. I am very happy they selected the Seattle Preschool Program (Proposition 1B) crafted by Mayor Ed Murray, the City Council, early learning experts, and a wide variety of local stakeholders.

Yesterday’s vote means we will take a strong first step toward universal, voluntary, high-quality and affordable preschool for Seattle’s children. It is one of the best investments we can make.

The Seattle Preschool Program is based on extensive research on how to best prepare children for kindergarten and a life of learning. We reviewed the evidence of what works, we visited preschools throughout Seattle, we talked with teachers and parents, and we visited other cities to see how they provide universal preschool. At every step in development of the program, we were keenly committed to a critical principle: Quality.

Only quality benefits children for a lifetime. Only quality delivers an impressive return on investment for taxpayers. Only quality will enable our city to leverage dollars from the State and federal governments to provide even more preschool options for Seattle families.

Night Out Against Crime

Tomorrow night is the annual Night Out Against Crime, where block parties around the city bring neighbors together and strengthen community efforts to prevent crime. The police department reports that more than 1,400 neighborhood groups organized for Night Out last year.

You can register or see where there are events in your neighborhood here. 

Go Hawks!

Yesterday's Super Bowl was amazing. What a complete team effort by the Seahawks! They proved without a doubt that they're the best team in the NFL.

The Council and the Mayor signed a proclamation today designating Wednesday as Seattle Seahawks Day and urging all you 12s to come to Wednesday's victory parade, which starts at 11 a.m.

Full text of the resolution is below the jump.

Seattle Night Out

Tonight is the annual Seattle Night Out, a chance to close down streets, connect more with your neighbors and enjoy potluck food. These informal block parties help tremendously with community building and crime prevention.

I will be stopping by a couple events in my neighborhood this evening and encourage you to do the same. You can check out the facebook page or this map put together by the police department to find events near you. Last year Seattle neighbors hosted more than 1,300 events, so even if you can’t find one on the map there’s a good chance one is happening close by.

Seattle Public Library Sets World Record

To kick off the Seattle Public Library's summer reading program, two college students worked with the Library to set a world record for the longest book domino chain: 2,131 books! The three-minute video is a must watch.

Oh, Yeah! Here Come the Sonics

Chris Hansen's announcement this morning is fantastic news and a huge win for Seattle and our entire region. Throughout our Council work to improve the proposal, Chris Hansen negotiated fairly and has kept his word. He is doing exactly what he told us he would do—working to return NBA basketball to Seattle. There is more work ahead, but this is a giant leap toward bringing the Sonics back home to Seattle.

I was privileged to lead the Council's review of the Mayor's initial arena proposal and insisted on significant changes in the agreement to improve public benefits, including:

• Stronger legal and financial protections for the city and county governments.
• Reduction in the inherent risks of this type of public-private partnership.
• Creation of a transportation fund with $40 million in initial funding for SODO freight and pedestrian mobility improvements.

After the Council committee negotiated a revised memorandum of agreement with Hansen, the full City Council approved it by a 7-2 vote on October 12, 2012 (Ordinance 124019).

Read my previous posts on the SODO arena and Sonics here.

Survey Says . . . Public Safety, Education, Transportation

Correction: the survey summary as originally posted contained an error in calculations on the chart and graph of per capita respondents by zip code on pages 14 and 15. The information has now been corrected.

Last Wednesday we closed our online, non-scientific survey of residents about the 2013-2014 City budget. We’ve spent the last few days compiling the results into a summary presentation, which you can view here. 

The survey asked 19 questions regarding priorities for city spending, what residents value most about their neighborhoods and how they feel about city services.

The results show that people want to be safe, they want good schools and they want to be able to get around town in a variety of ways. Respondents gave public safety, public schools and transportation the highest ranks when asked to order the “most important” local government services and, separately, the priorities “local government should focus on.”