Seattle Forward

Sound Transit 3 - Time for Feedback

The City Council received a briefing this morning about the proposed Sound Transit 3 expansion of our regional light rail and bus network. The draft includes several large projects in Seattle, including lines to Ballard and West Seattle and a second transit tunnel through downtown.

The light rail has gotten a lot of positive press recently with the opening of the Capitol Hill and UW stations and the resulting large uptick in ridership. A front-page Seattle Times story this morning highlighted our city as having the fastest growing bus ridership in the nation.

Put simply, transit matters and it is important that our local leaders get this plan right. To do that, we need robust public engagement.

Lowrise Multifamily Code Updates: Balancing Design and Density

Legislation a Council committee discussed earlier this week has been characterized by one side as a dramatic giveaway to developers and, by the other side, an unnecessary and dangerous downzone. Both characterizations are false.

The Council’s land use committee considered code adjustments to the city’s Lowrise residential zones. The multifamily Lowrise zoning category, which makes up about 10% of city land, is designed for a range of moderately dense housing types, from townhouses and rowhouses to apartment buildings.

Even though many Lowrise zones contain older single family houses, these zones are designed to be denser multifamily—not single family—zones.

Lowrise zones are often found in the City’s Urban Centers and Urban Villages, where we focus our efforts to concentrate density. Concentrating density is good for the environment, good for the economy, and good for our communities. When people live closer to work and have easier access to mass transit systems, it creates a better city for all of us. It also allows us to protect the character of single family zoned neighborhoods.

The Rapid Evolution of Transportation

New technologies are revolutionizing transportation in Seattle and elsewhere. It is becoming easier and easier to live, work, shop, learn and play in the city without owning a car, a change that makes Seattle more affordable as car ownership carries many obvious (and not-so-obvious) costs. Nearly 17% of Seattle households do not own a vehicle, according to a recent study. Seattle ranks 10^th in the nation in the percentage of non-vehicle households.

Of course, a critical piece of this dramatic change is ensuring a functional and flourishing public transit system. On Thursday, councilmembers will review funding proposals to lessen cuts to Metro bus service throughout the city next year.

This past Monday afternoon, the Council voted 8-1 to advance the transportation evolution by approving a 117-page bill that contains many solid improvements for the City’s regulation of the “for hire” industry, including companies like Uber, Lyft and Sidecar.

Public Campaign Finance Statement

Consistent with my earlier blog post on this topic, I shared the following statement at the Full Council meeting this afternoon explaining my vote to not move forward a public campaign finance system this year:

We face a tough choice today as we consider this motion, but that’s what we are called to do.

We gather facts. We listen to various perspectives. We weigh the pros and cons of various arguments and then we decide. Sometimes our decisions are simple. Other times, like today, they are not easy; they’re complicated and require a balancing of various interests.

In the end, we make our decisions based on what’s best for the common good; what will benefit our city and region; and, in Seattle, with a special emphasis on what’s best for the most vulnerable among us.

Seattle has a strong and well-regulated campaign finance system, with individual contribution limits less than half those for King County and the State of Washington. Public financing of elections is a solid, progressive and important policy to pursue. We studied this issue extensively last year and asked the voters of Seattle to approve public financing of City Council campaigns. The voters said “no.”

Now we’re being asked to do a repeat this year. The easiest decision would be to put it back on the ballot and say, “let the voters decide again.” But, at what cost and at what risk? That’s where the decision gets difficult.

Public Campaign Finance: Right Idea, Wrong Time

There has been news coverage recently about how as City Council President I won’t introduce legislation that would send a measure to establish public financing of political campaigns back again to the voters in November.* The Stranger has a story about this in this week’s edition.

Public financing of campaigns is a good idea. Seattle established a system for partial public financing of campaigns in 1978. I helped oversee the later years of that program as a commissioner on the City’s Ethics and Elections Commission. In 1992 a statewide initiative put an end to this practice, but in 2008 the State Legislature allowed local jurisdictions to establish programs through a public vote.

Last year I voted to let Seattle decide if they wanted public campaign financing. The proposed system would have incentivized candidates to reach out to a wider segment of the population by providing matching public funds to small campaign donations; a property tax provided the funds. The voters said “no” by a narrow margin.

This November’s election ballot will have many candidates, issues, and multiple tax measures (including a resurrection of a tax for the monorail!). There’s always risk, however slight, that voters will experience “tax fatigue” and overreact by voting no on measures they might have otherwise supported, such as universal preschool or public transit funding.

At a time when frustration with government is running so high, I want the City to show voters that local government is focused on what’s most important. Maintaining and improving transit service and expanding high-quality preschool for our children top my list of priorities.

*In case you’re wondering, the Council President decides what legislation will be put before the Council and when, but this power is by no means absolute. Any councilmember can make a motion to introduce legislation during a Full Council meeting; councilmembers who favor placing a public finance tax measure on this November’s ballot have not done so. If a majority of the Council wanted to hold further discussions on public campaign finance legislation, that motion would succeed and the legislation would be introduced and referred to committee.

Why I’m Sponsoring the Minimum Wage Legislation

I am cosponsoring Mayor Murray’s minimum wage legislation because it’s time for cities to demonstrate bold and necessary leadership to address the stagnation of wages that has plagued our country for decades.

Why does this matter?

An economy where the wealthiest grow exceedingly richer while the poor and middle class experience a real decline in earning power rips apart our social fabric. The growing income and wealth inequality in our country is a dangerous trend.

As someone who started and grew a business for 20 years, I want to see individuals and businesses achieve success, provide meaningful work to their employees and produce goods and services that benefit their communities. I cringe at some of the rhetoric that demeans and disparages those who have achieved such success. But I also believe everyone should have a shot at that success and, today, for many reasons, a lot of people are being left out.

City Inside/Out: Preschool, Police, Waterfront and More

The January edition of the Seattle Channel's City Inside/Out program airs at 7:30 p.m. tonight. This month, Councilmembers O'Brien, Bagshaw and myself joined host Brian Callanan to talk about preschool for all, the police department, the tunnel, potential Metro service cuts, the minimum wage and more. Take a look below:

City Inside/Out: Marijuana, Waterfront, Taxis and More

I joined Councilmembers Sally Bagshaw and Jean Godden on the latest edition of the Seattle Channel's City Inside/Out. You can watch the video below:

Meeting Immediate Traffic Safety and Mobility Needs

The City Council authorized funding for immediate traffic safety improvements and improved transit mobility today through supplemental budget legislation. Street maintenance, bus corridor improvements and new crosswalks are included in the Council’s adopted transportation package.

We added and reallocated $3 million from the Mayor's proposal to fund important safety improvements and backlogged maintenance. As I’ve said consistently, we must use our limited transportation dollars to fix what we have, finish what we've started and plan wisely for the future for all transportation modes.

Legislature's Failure Raises Questions about Future Transit Service

In a major blow for the significant transportation challenges we face in Washington, the State Legislature adjourned over the weekend without acting on a statewide transportation revenue package; the House passed it, the Republican-dominated Majority Coalition Caucus in the Senate refused to take it up for consideration.

The impact—or more accurately, disaster— for Seattle and the rest of King County will be felt next year when Metro will be forced to eliminate 17% of its current transit service due to lack of funds. Losing this much transit service will create congestion chaos on city streets (even worse than what we see today).

The City and County pushed for local authority to impose an increase in the motor vehicle excise tax (a sales tax on automobiles) to fund transit service. Now that the Legislature failed to provide this level of local control, we may need to find other creative solutions.

Stepping back, the Legislature’s failure points to an even greater challenge for our region.