Tag: Ed Murray

Election 2017, Mayor Murray, Morning Crank

Morning Crank: McGinn Again
At least he already has the Twitter handle covered.

Standing in the yard of his single-family home in North Seattle Monday, former mayor Mike McGinn announced he was running for his old position again as a champion of the little guy—the small business getting squeezed out by rising taxes, or “the people who helped make this city what it is [who are] being pushed out by growth.”

Both the setting and the tone were a departure for McGinn, who ran for his first term as a Vulcan-backed advocate for density, urbanism, and—lest it be forgotten—GROWTH.

In a PubliCola endorsement of McGinn in 2009,  my former colleague Josh Feit and I wrote:

Ever since 2004, when Mike McGinn emerged as a Greenwood neighborhood leader and reclaimed the vaunted role of “neighborhood activist” from the anti-urban reactionaries who had dominated local politics for so long, he has been shattering the status quo and pointing Seattle in the right direction. His first victory: Turning the Greenwood Community Council into a platform for green density, pedestrian-oriented streets, and smart development.

Even before he ran for office, McGinn was a friend to developers; for example, his green urbanist organization Great City was bankrolled by companies like Vulcan and Triad Development and advocacy groups like the Master Builders Association. So it was a bit jarring to see the onetime density advocate standing proudly in his single-family yard and denouncing property taxes and growth as the reason for rising rents.

Likewise, it was odd to hear a candidate who was once a passionate advocate for a tax on sugary soda—McGinn’s tax, which Murray did not support, would have paid for parks—speak out against raising revenues through additional taxes, finding savings instead through efficiencies and increasing revenues through a city income tax. (McGinn, an attorney, surely knows a city income tax is unlikely to pass legal muster).

And it was, frankly, jaw-dropping to hear McGinn suggest that the city should reverse the course it has set under Murray (who has worked to involve traditionally underrepresented groups in the Seattle process) and get traditional neighborhood activists more involved in city planning; as mayor, McGinn was never one to pander to lowest-common-denominator NIMBYism, although many on the left (including socialist council member Kshama Sawant and Position 8 candidate Jon Grant) have certainly cozied up to anti-growth homeowner activists since McGinn’s 2013 defeat. By extending an olive branch to density opponents of all stripes, including homeowners who believe new neighbors will harm their ever-rising property values, McGinn may simply be acknowledging the new political reality—candidates who want to flank pro-growth incumbents like Murray from the left have started taking the view that density and affordability are at odds.

On the other hand, it’s entirely possible McGinn hasn’t put together a coherent campaign plan yet. Everything about his announcement—from the slapped together logo to the grammatically confusing slogan (“Keep Seattle” may be 2017’s “Mike Listens“) to the fact that, so far, McGinn’s campaign lacks both a website and an endorsement list—suggests that the former mayor arrived at his decision to run not long after news broke about a sexual abuse lawsuit against Murray.

 

Murray, who beat McGinn 52 to 48 in their initial matchup, obviously considers McGinn a credible threat. Just 12 minutes after McGinn’s morning press conference got underway, Murray’s campaign issued a statement touting what the campaign described as Murray’s accomplishments and McGinn’s failures, and concluding: “We believe that the people of Seattle do not want to return to those bad old days of failed and divisive governance. We look forward to drawing a clear contrast between Mayor Murray’s stellar record effective, progressive leadership and the track records of all of the other candidates in the race.”

“Contrast” usually translates as “negative campaigning,” and indeed, the famously combative current mayor—whose response to a lawsuit alleging he sexually abused a teenage boy was to hand reporters a medical exam that included a description of his genitals—had this to say about his equally pugnacious two-time opponent: “Mike McGinn picked fights with everyone under the sun. He attacked our Democratic governor, calling her a liar. He fought the Obama Dept. of Justice on police reform. He fought with our U.S. Attorney. He fought with our City Attorney. He fought with the City Council.”

No doubt, the mayoral campaign just got a lot more interesting—Murray and McGinn are worthy combatants, and McGinn, at least, is clearly raring for a rematch. But with two big-egoed men who like to hear themselves talk thumping their chests in the foreground, will other voices—like Nikkita Oliver, who previously occupied the campaign’s lefty spot, or a second female candidate (perhaps activist Cary Moon?), who is rumored to be announcing Wednesday—get drowned out?

If you enjoy the work I do here at The C Is for Crank, please consider becoming a sustaining supporter of the site! For just $5, $10, or $20 a month (or whatever you can give), you can help keep this site going, and help me continue to dedicate the many hours it takes to bring you stories like this one every week. This site is funded entirely by contributions from readers, which pay for the substantial time I put into reporting and writing for this blog and on social media, as well as costs like transportation, equipment, travel costs, website maintenance, and other expenses associated with my reporting. Thank you for reading, and I’m truly grateful for your support.

City Council, City Hall, Election 2017, Elections, homelessness, Mayor Murray, Media, Morning Crank

Afternoon Crank: I’m Shocked At the Scale of That

1. The city auditor has completed his investigation into the implementation of a new joint billing system for Seattle City Light and Seattle Public Utilities customers (memorably known as the New Customer Information System, or NCIS), and concluded that the reason the NCIS went $34 million over budget is that … the system ended up being more complicated than anyone had anticipated, and took more time and manpower to implement.

Or, as assistant city auditor Jane Dunkel put it during a briefing before the council utilities committee Tuesday, “The simple answer is that it took … ten months longer than anticipated,” and the extra cost “was in labor—city labor and consultants.” Specifically, the city spent $10.8 million more than budgeted on consultants, and $20.6 million over budget on city staffing, in the 10 extra months it took to complete the new billing system.

Mike O’Brien, a former CFO himself, seemed incredulous at those figures. “When I look at $20 million over 10 months—so, $2 million a month— if a city employee is costing us $10,000 a month, that means 200 employees were on this project,” O’Brien said. “I’m shocked at the scale of that.” Dunkel said that many of those employees had probably been reassigned from other tasks, but acknowledged that 200 employees is a lot of city workers to dedicate full-time to a single project. (The city calculates costs in full-time equivalent employees, or FTEs, so 200 full-time workers is just a proxy for the total cost.) And, Dunkel said, the city decided to “prioritize quality over timeliness.”

That brought O’Brien to his second question: Why, if project leaders knew they were slipping over budget and behind schedule, did they not inform the council sooner? (Committee chair Lisa Herbold had the same question.) Dunkel acknowledged that the trend toward being over budget and late was obvious “in retrospect,” but said the people working on the project may have thought they could make up the money and time. “Is it just well-intentioned people who are optimistic and thinking, ‘If we just keep working harder and faster, we’re going to make it’? Or is it people saying, ‘Wait a minute, we’re not going to make it and we need to let someone know that,'” Dunkel said.

“There were vacations and leaves, there was mandatory overtime—there wasn’t a point when they said, ‘Let’s stop and recalibrate.’ And part of it is that it’s hard to come back and report on that. You don’t want to do that until you’re really certain that you can’t make that date.”

You can read the auditors’ recommendations—which include requiring the city’s Chief Technology Office, Michael Matmiller, to report back to the council monthly on the status of the city’s IT projects—as well as the auditor’s presentation and a report on best practices by an outside consultant—on the city’s website.

2. On Wednesday, Mayor Ed Murray’s Human Services Department announced the location of a new, 24/7, low-barrier homeless shelter on First Hill. The shelter, which will accommodate about 100 men and women, will be located at First Presybterian Church, at 1013 8th Avenue. The city will hold one community meeting on the shelter at the church, on May 22 and 6pm, and hopes to open the shelter in June or July. If opposition to a methadone clinic in the neighborhood is any sort of guide, expect protests.

3. HSD and the mayor’s homelessness director, George Scarola, came to the council’s human services committee yesterday armed with numbers that they say demonstrate the success of the city’s new Navigation Team. The eight-member team, which includes both police and outreach workers, notifies residents of homeless encampments when the city plans to remove them from public property, and provides information on services and shelter, including other, authorized encampments. Scott Lindsay, the mayor’s special assistant on public safety, said that of 291 homeless people the team has contacted since it formed in February, 116 went into “alternative living arrangements”—about 70 to traditional shelters, and 46 to authorized encampments. “That’s more than just a referral—that’s actually a connection,” Lindsay said. “Those are people who were weeks or days or months ago living on streets unsheltered, who are now living inside or at an authorized encampment.”

But how big of a victory is that, really? People who live in camps tend to do so for many reasons: Shelters tend to be dirty and crowded, and most don’t allow people to come in with partners, possessions, or pets. Major addiction problems and mental illnesses that make it difficult to sleep in close quarters with hundreds of other people can also be issues. And sanctioned encampments fill up as fast as the city opens them—a point HSD deputy director Jason Johnson acknowledged.

Tuesday’s sweep of the encampment under the Spokane Street Viaduct, which the city said was necessary because of an RV fire at the site last week, was less successful by the city’s standards. Of 38 “total contacts,” Lindsay said, 15 “declined any form of services,” and 8 agreed to go to shelter or an authorized encampment. The rest took referrals to employment, case management, and other services, Lindsay said.

4. Chris Potter, director of operations for the Department of Finance and Administrative Services, updated council members on the city’s new delivery service, which allows people to retrieve  belongings confiscated from encampments without busing all the way down to the city’s storage facility on Airport Way. So far, Potter said, two people have asked for the belongings back, and one has gotten their “materials” returned. Pressed by council member Tim Burgess to explain why this was good news—given that the city has hundreds of bins full of unclaimed stuff taken from homeless encampments—Potter said, “Getting two calls represents a dramatic increase in the number of people who have reached out to us and said, ‘Hey, can I get my things back?'” But, he acknowledged, “It’s difficult to have a conversation with somebody whose material you’ve gotten and who hasn’t made a phone call to try to recover it from us.”

5. The Seattle Times ran a breathtakingly solipsistic, question-begging editorial this week calling on Mayor Ed Murray not to run for reelection. Their argument: Someone under such a “cloud” of “sordid” allegations can’t possibly win reelection, but could divide the electorate, leaving the city stuck with “Mayor Kshama Sawant, or some other extreme left-wing ideologue.” First of all, Kshama Sawant has repeatedly and explicitly said she does not plan to run for mayor—a minor detail the Times omits. (Obviously, people can change their minds, but this seems a somewhat crucial point.) Second, and more glaring: The Times itself is the publication that decided to publish all the sordid details about the allegations in the first place, including detailed allegations about rough sex and a mole on Murray’s genitals, so if anyone has created an environment of “sordid theater,” it’s them.

Finally, it requires a truly special sort of arrogance for a newspaper to first declare that its own story is “the biggest political scandal in Seattle in generation,” then claim that the subject of that story has been “transformed [by that story] from the bold big-city mayor into one who defers to his defense lawyer when he is invited to speak to The Seattle Times editorial board,” and then use that entirely reasonable deferral—which no one was aware of until the paper reported it, making the story about itself—as a justification for demanding his resignation.  Traditionally, a newspaper that wants a public official to step aside cites public opinion or some other outside evidence to shore up such a demand; the Times cites only itself, and its own declaration that its own reporters have uncovered the biggest scandal in generations.

As I said on Twitter:

If you enjoy the work I do here at The C Is for Crank, please consider becoming a sustaining supporter of the site! For just $5, $10, or $20 a month (or whatever you can give), you can help keep this site going, and help me continue to dedicate the many hours it takes to bring you stories like this one every week. This site is funded entirely by contributions from readers, which pay for the substantial time I put into reporting and writing for this blog and on social media, as well as costs like transportation, equipment, travel costs, website maintenance, and other expenses associated with my reporting. Thank you for reading, and I’m truly grateful for your support.

 

Affordability, City Council, City Hall, Density, homelessness, Mayor Murray, Morning Crank

Morning Crank: An Excuse to Remove Us Immediately

1. The city council’s approval of the HALA upzone in South Lake Union and downtown yesterday—which requires developers to make between 2 and 5 percent of their new units affordable, or pay a fee of up to $13.50 per square foot into an affordable-housing fund—played out pretty much as everybody expected it would. aAnti-development activists booed loudly and shouted “Shame!” when council members Rob Johnson and Tim Burgess spoke in favor of the legislation, the Raging Grannies sang, and Lisa Herbold proposed an amendment that would have required developers to contribute more to affordable housing, which lost.

Oh, and Kshama Sawant gave a speech.

But there were some familiar faces who were missing from today’s HALA hearing—namely, the single-family homeowners and erstwhile affordable housing advocates who turn out in droves (and even sue the city) when a proposed upzone threatens to allow apartments (or cottages) in their North Seattle backyards. When the U District upzone was up before the council, for example, homeowners from across North Seattle filled council chambers, decrying developers as heartless opportunists and demanding greater concessions in the form of large affordable housing mandates that would have made the upzone unworkable. And yet, when an upzone that actually constitutes more of a giveaway to developers, because it will require them to build less affordable housing than in any other upzoned part of the city, came up, they were nowhere to be found.

Weird. It’s almost as if they care more about preserving exclusive single-family zoning in their own neighborhoods than they do about making sure developers provide affordable housing in every part of the city.

2. Homeless residents of the West Seattle bridge encampment where an RV caught fire last week said they have been informed that the city will sweep their camp tomorrow morning at 9. The fire destroyed two RVs at the camp, which has been home to dozens of people in recent months. It was ruled an accident.

Rebecca Massey, who has lived at the encampment for the last eight months, told the council yesterday morning that the city was using the fire as “an excuse to remove us immediately.

“They’re offering a few individuals places to go, but most of the people that live there are not being told where to go—they’re just being told you have to leave,” Massey said. “The housing solution for the homeless is great, [but] it’s a long-term solution—it’s an eventual solution—and there’s people living under the bridge in my community that have been on the waiting list for housing for years.”

3. Council president Bruce Harrell, who would become mayor if Mayor Ed Murray were to resign in the wake of a lawsuit alleging he molested a teenage boy in the 1980s, said yesterday that the council would have no comment on the allegations, then went on to comment:

“Our city cannot afford to be distracted. There is a judicial process that will address the serious allegations that this situation has presented, and we will respect that process and the rights of all parties involved. All accusations of abuse require a thorough investigation. It is in our human nature to immediately want answers, but I ask we not cast aspersions to the parties involved before we have all the facts through the legal process. I am confident that through this process, truth and justice will prevail.”

Murray isn’t hiding from public view. Yesterday, he attended a naturalization ceremony at the downtown library (where he was trailed by multiple TV cameras) and went to the Mariners’ opening game.

If you enjoy the work I do here at The C Is for Crank, please consider becoming a sustaining supporter of the site! For just $5, $10, or $20 a month (or whatever you can give), you can help keep this site going, and help me continue to dedicate the many hours it takes to bring you stories like this one every week. This site is funded entirely by contributions from readers, which pay for the substantial time I put into reporting and writing for this blog and on social media, as well as costs like transportation, equipment, travel costs, website maintenance, and other expenses associated with my reporting. Thank you for reading, and I’m truly grateful for your support.

City Hall, Election 2017, Mayor Murray, Morning Crank, Police

Morning Crank: A Political Motivation

1. Well, god damn.

I’m reserving judgment on the sex abuse allegations against Mayor Ed Murray until all facts are out, because I don’t know a whole lot more than anybody else who’s reading the Times report and watching the statements that come out of the mayor’s office, but I will say this: the victim-blaming strategy Murray’s team has taken so far isn’t a good look. Moreover, it seems sure to backfire. A person’s criminal history (which was related to both addiction and homelessness) has no bearing on whether an accuser is telling the truth. Likewise, the amount of time that has elapsed between an alleged incident and when the alleged victim reports that incident to authorities has no bearing on its veracity, and suggesting a political motivation or saying “why did he wait so long to come forward?” is inexcusable (and, incidentally, also detracts from Murray’s defense). I would like to think that, in the post-Cosby era, we were beyond requiring accusers to be “perfect victims” and questioning their motives when they come forward, but if the statements made by Murray’s attorney Robert Sulkin in his defense yesterday are any indication, apparently we are not.

It’s unclear how Murray plans to proceed (so far, he has said through his attorney that he will vigorously defend himself against the charges) but if he continues to seek reelection, contributions are bound to dry up and candidates who had been holding back because of Murray’s apparent invincibility won’t hold back any more. If Murray resigns before the end of his term, the city charter mandates that the city council president take his place; currently, that’s Bruce Harrell, who ran for mayor (against Murray and incumbent Mike McGinn). If Harrell declined to serve as mayor, the council would elect a mayor to serve out Murray’s term from among its members.

2. James Toomey, a private security guard who worked for a company hired by Magnolia homeowners to protect their property last year, was already on probation when he pepper-sprayed Andrew Harris, a homeless man who had been sleeping in his car. Toomey was put on probation after being charged with assault for pepper-spraying two teenagers and slamming one of the teens’ head on the ground in Tacoma in 2014. In that case, as in the Harris case, Toomey justified his aggressive actions by saying the teens were “doing drugs.” In the Harris case, Toomey also claimed he was “in complete fear for my life” from the homeless Harris, who was attempting to record Toomey with his cell phone when the security guard hit him with pepper spray. “I was scared for my life. I have four kids and a wife,” Toomey said later by way of explanation.

Turns out that wasn’t the only time Toomey had claimed to be afraid for his life from an unarmed pepper-spraying victim. Earlier this month, Pierce County prosecuting attorney Pedro Chou unsuccessfully attempted to convince a judge to revoke Toomey’s parole in the 2014 head-slamming and pepper-spraying incident by introducing a security video from 2011, as a way of demonstrating a pattern of violent behavior by Toomey that would, along with the incident in which he pepper-sprayed Harris, justify revoking his parole and punishing him for the 2014 assaults. (Toomey has convictions on his record for felony forgery and violating a no-contact order in a case related to domestic violence charges by his ex-wife and required to take anger-management and domestic-violence classes.)

In the video, Toomey can be seen gesticulating and yelling at a woman who is trying to enter the Latitude 84 nightclub in Tacoma. The woman is turned away by Toomey (who later reports that she pulled out her ID “in a very threatening way”), and argues with him briefly before walking away and yelling at him from several yards away. A moment later, the woman begins walking toward Toomey again and is restrained by a bouncer, who pushes her woman against the wall and holds her arms; at that point, Toomey can be seen approaching and pepper spraying the restrained woman in the face several times.

toomey-video

In the police report and in his recorded testimony, Toomey struck a familiar refrain: He was afraid the woman planned to hurt or kill him. In the report, Toomey describes the woman, who is black and considerably smaller than Toomey, as almost superhumanly strong and powerful, claiming that she was trying to “smash through” the bouncer who stood between her and Toomey to get at him. In addition, “she kept on making verbal threats, saying stuff like, ‘I’m going to have my homies do this and do that,'” Toomey said. “You see how powerful she was.”

In his statement to police, Toomey writes, “Thank you so much for filling these charges against them, it is hard enough to run a security company as it is, and it makes are job a little less stressful knowing that these type of people are in jail and have to face charges for their criminal actions!” (The prosecuting attorney’s office never pursued charges against the woman, but they did consider charging Toomey, according to Harris’ attorney, Mike Maxwell).

Toomey remains on probation. (The judge in Pierce County was unconvinced that Toomey had demonstrated a pattern of unjustified attacks, and seemed very disturbed by Harris’ use of profanity during his statement.) Harris, meanwhile, continues to pursue his civil case against Toomey and Central Protection, the company that employed him. Harris, who is seeking about $300,000, remains homeless; he says he is working two jobs and hopes to have an apartment soon.

3. Two interesting items from Wednesday night’s meeting of the North Precinct Advisory Council, where the three North End city council members—Debora Juarez, Rob Johnson, and Mike O’Brien—spoke briefly and took questions, mostly about the delayed North Precinct police station replacement, from a roomful of North Seattle residents and business owners. (O’Brien walked in late after racing up to North Seattle College from the Ballard Library, where his monthly “office hours” with constituents were dominated by a group of Green Lake Community Center and Evans Pool users who wanted his assurance that he wouldn’t support “privatizing” the pool and community center.)

First, O’Brien said he expected that the city would begin taking concrete actions to bring the once-controversial, now-wildly-popular Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion program, a pre-arrest diversion program for low-level offenders that started in Belltown, citywide.

Second, council member Deborah Juarez announced that she would be introducing an amendment to police accountability legislation that would require that seven members of 15-member Community Police Commission be appointed by districts. At the council’s public safety committee meeting Thursday morning, Juarez announced rather abruptly that she had gotten pushback to her idea of district representation by CPC members, who suggested that district appointments “would limit the available pool of applicants to those living in the districts … when there might be an ideal candidate living elsewhere. The translation for me,” Juarez continued, “is that there is an assumption—an unfair assumption and a bias—that there will be no qualified applicants [in each district.] … That’s a false narrative.”

Enrique Gonzalez, a CPC member who was at the previous night’s meeting in North Seattle, countered that the current system doesn’t prohibit the CPC from having members from all across the city, but that there may be times when it makes sense for some communities with acute public safety and police accountability concerns (say, South Seattle) might need more representation on the police-oversight board than other areas with fewer concerns (say, North Seattle).

 

 

 

Dow-Ed-Claudia
City Hall, Election 2017, Elections, homelessness, King County, Mayor Murray

Mayor: Just Kidding About That $275 Million Property Tax for Homelessness

Dow-Ed-Claudia

Just three weeks after rolling out a proposal to increase Seattle residents’ property taxes about $135 a year to raise $275 million for homelessness over the next five years, Mayor Ed Murray, joined by King County Executive Dow Constantine and other county officials, announced today that he was scrapping that proposal in favor of a countywide 0.1-percent sales tax, which will go on the ballot in 2018. The measure would raise $68.6 million in the first year, according to the city, rising to $91.1 million in year 10. (Murray’s original proposal would have raised about $45 million a year, but the new, higher figure will have to be spread across the county and its 39 cities).

Standing in a room filled with many of the same city and nonprofit agency staffers who flanked him at the last announcement, Murray called the new-look homelessness plan a “regional approach” that unites the county and city in fighting what Murray called a “regional problem” that impacts cities across the county, from Seattle to Bellevue to Enumclaw.

It was a remarkable, and remarkably abrupt, turnaround for a mayor who had touted his earlier proposal as a data-driven, results-oriented approach to homelessness, mental health care and addiction. Based on last year’s Pathways Home report from Ohio consultant Barb Poppe, the proposal would have invested heavily in short-, medium-, and long-term “rapid rehousing” vouchers, and would have gotten the city into “new lines of business,” in Murray’s term, such as mental health care and opioid addiction treatment. Signature gathers have been out in force over the past two weeks, collecting tens of thousands of names to qualify the measure for the August 2017 ballot—a path Murray chose for his measure, at least in part, because it would allow him to circumvent the red pens of the city council. All reports are that the measure, known as Initiative 126, was polling well, but not great, and with the mayor facing election in November, the prospect of fighting a pitched battle over property taxes with homeowners disinclined to like him anyway couldn’t have been appealing. (A handout provided by the mayor’s office included several data points about Seattle’s relatively low property taxes that would be non sequiturs if they didn’t come from a mayor who tends to get defensive when criticized about property taxes.)

On the other hand, the political calculus also includes King County Executive Dow Constantine, who is trying to pass his own taxes this year—one old, a levy that funds programs for health care and human services for veterans and other county residents, and one new, a sales tax for arts, science, and cultural education. Speculation at city hall today was that Constantine didn’t want all three measures to be on the ballot in the same year—arts and culture and homelessness in August, and veterans and human services in November.

Neither Constantine nor Murray would directly answer questions about what changed between three weeks ago and today, instead falling back on boilerplate about realizing the need for a regional approach to homelessness. “The conversation got started with the city about how we can team up and do a better job to do a comprehensive approach, and really put together a plan that involves all of the stakeholders in the community,” Constantine said. “If you don’t plan, if you don’t take into account where you can get the most value, you end up measuring success by the amount of money you’re putting in and that is not the right way to do it.”

While Constantine was throwing gentle shade at the mayor’s abandoned proposal, two of the men who helped craft that measure were openly disappointed that the plan on which they both collaborated was headed for the shredder. Nick Hanauer, the lefty billionaire whose entrepreneurial expertise was supposedly key to the original proposal, said he felt “a little sad to not be moving forward with our city initiative,” and Downtown Emergency Service Center director Daniel Malone said that “giving that up isn’t something that any of us were ready to do lightly. But,” he added, we’ve settled on something that is even better, bigger, and bolder … and still has the same key emphasis, which is to house people.”

Murray (and Hanauer) also carefully sidestepped questions about whether opposition from property owners helped sink the proposal, and whether a sales tax, which is more regressive (that is, it falls harder on the poor) than a tax on property, was the right way to fund services for homeless people (who don’t pay property taxes but do pay sales tax. Hanauer seemed to deny that the sales tax is particularly burdensome, with an ill-conceived comment that “I pay way more” in sales taxes than a homeless person, “because I buy way more stuff!” Murray launched into a verbal assault on the state’s tax system, which doesn’t allow an income tax. Gesturing at the officials around him, many of whom were state legislators once themselves, Murray said, “Washington State doesn’t have progressive taxes. There’s just no way around it. … Because of our state tax structure, we don’t have the tools here to try and change that.” A fact sheet passed out by Murray staffers at the end of the conference said the average household would pay $30 more in sales taxes per year, and a person making around $11,000 a year (the median low-income person’s annual pay, according to the mayor’s office) would pay an extra $9.

If you enjoy the work I do here at The C Is for Crank, please consider becoming a sustaining supporter of the site! For just $5, $10, or $20 a month (or whatever you can give), you can help keep this site going, and help me continue to dedicate the many hours it takes to bring you stories like this one every week. This site is funded entirely by contributions from readers, which pay for the substantial time I put into reporting and writing for this blog and on social media, as well as costs like transportation, equipment, travel costs, website maintenance, and other expenses associated with my reporting. Thank you for reading, and I’m truly grateful for your support.

City Hall, Density, Development, Mayor Murray

Murray: “I Did Give In to Single-Family Pressure.”

Screen shot 2015-08-02 at 8.46.49 PM

Last week, Mayor Ed Murray reversed his position on a key portion of the Housing Affordability and Livability Agenda committee’s recommendations, which would have allowed a small amount of housing diversity (duplexes, triplexes, and townhomes) inside the 65 percent of Seattle’s land that is currently zoned exclusively for detached single-family houses. Citing significant “blowback” from the same neighborhood activists who had opposed HALA and portrayed it as a conspiracy between developers and the political elite since its inception, Murray said he was abandoning both the recommendation to allow more housing forms (not density) in single-family areas and a separate proposal that would have made it easier for homeowners to build secondary units (detached or attached apartments) on their property.

Single-family exclusionists–those who argue that all of Seattle’s non-property-owning class should be segregated into a small portion of the city’s developable land area and live in towers there–like Danny Westneat at the Seattle Times–applauded the decision. Westneat, who owns a $700,000 house in Madrona and was one of the most prominent voices against the 28-member committee’s recommendations, crowed disingenuously that the real reason Murray had lost is that he didn’t open HALA’s heated and lengthy negotiations up to the public (a process that would have likely sunk another large, closed-door committee compromise, the $15 minimum wage), like Danny Westneat had told him to in the first place.  (Not to dwell on one smug, self-interested writer, but it’s worth pointing that Westneat smirks, dishonestly and with zero evidence, that if only Murray had played nice and given him and the single-family protectionists what they wanted–apparently, transparency–then maybe they wouldn’t have forced him to throw his committee under the bus.)

Westneat and the Times, in a separate editorial praising Murray’s cave on Sunday, claim that Murray blamed the media for killing his plan. That strikes me as the kind of self-centered echo chamber that happens in hidebound editorial boards that don’t know much about the majority of Seattle that doesn’t match the Times’ white, wealthy, land-owning demographic. My sense was that Murray has been caught in the headlights, with no clear idea of who to blame. At times, he did blame the media;  at others, it was that (totally, 100% predictable) NIMBY “blowback”; at  other times, it was erstwhile HALA allies like city council president (and current candidate) Tim Burgess. And sometimes, as it was when I talked to him last week, Murray blamed himself. (He did also kinda blame the media.)

I talked to Murray on Thursday night, and at that point, he was taking the line that he didn’t do enough to promote the single-family changes as a positive development and soothe neighborhood activists’ fears. Once he saw how much opposition there was to housing diversity, he had to abandon it, essentially, to save the rest of HALA from a similar fate. Losing mandatory inclusionary zoning for the sake of a few duplexes and townhomes would be a far worse fate than jettisoning that political ballast and keeping the rest of the plan intact.

I’m not sure I buy that. For one thing, there’s always the possibility that single-family changes were an intentional distraction in the first place. For another, Murray is usually very careful about how he rolls out plans like this “grand bargain.” Even if a disgruntled committee member (and at this point, I think which member that was is an open secret) hadn’t leaked the document to Westneat before it was ready for release, Murray’s a savvy enough guy to know that the self-appointed “neighborhood representatives” (those with the time and money and motivation to spend hours crafting battle plans and showing up at daytime meetings and lodging their complaints via letter-writing campaigns) would have a fit. For now, though, that’s his line and he’s sticking to it.

Here’s what Murray had to say late last week.

I don’t disagree with what you’ve written.  [I wrote: “Murray Gives In to Bullying, Abandons Housing Diversity Plan.”] I did give in to single-family pressure. [Single-family] isn’t where the numbers are for creating affordable housing and low-income housing. It helps, but the numbers aren’t there. It helps provide what we we’re talking about. Look at Portland or Vancouver. It does provide a lot of options for people who are buying their first home, or for people who are elderly and looking to downsize.

But I didn’t want to see [mandatory inclusionary zoning] lose over a proposal we weren’t even proposing. We weren’t going to turn every single-family house into a duplex or a triplex, but that’s what people were saying. We weren’t making the case. Perhaps if we were not in the middle of the first district elections in the city’s history, we would have had the time to explain to people who were saying we were proposing something we were not proposing. But unfortunately, there are a lot of council members running for election who are flipping on what they said they supported.

I feel like we’ve made our job to get to a grand bargain much harder. Because people have conflated this proposal with a plan to destroy single family [zones]. The blame lies with me. We didn’t do a good job of explaining the plan. I don’t believe we would get inclusionary zoning if we continued to have a confusing argument about a proposal we actually didn’t make, because we couldn’t explain to people about Portland or other models. The only thing we were able to talk about was the issue of single-family.

Murray also noted that, in Portland, just 3 percent of the land area is zoned the same way as Seattle’s single-family zones, which cover two-thirds of the city’s land mass. What that tells me is that we’ve got a long way to go.