Tag: tammy morales

City Council, Elections, Equity, Transportation, Uncategorized

It’s Decision Day for the Seattle Transportation Levy
Photo by Joe Mabel, CC BY-SA 4.0 license, via Wikimedia Commons

By Erica C. Barnett

The city council’s transportation levy committee will approve the final version of the 2024 levy proposal on Tuesday— one of the final steps before it heads to the November ballot.

The proposal currently on the table is a $1.55 billion levy that would cost the median Seattle homeowner $499 a year, up from about $275 a year under the levy passed in 2015, which expires this year. So far, the council has added $100 million to the plan Mayor Bruce Harrell sent down in May.

Councilmember Tammy Morales has proposed boosting that number to $1.7 billion, a level polling has suggested voters would support, to restore funding for equitable, community-created projects and add funding for sidewalks, bike lanes, and road maintenance, among other projects.

Last week, transportation committee chair Rob Saka (D1, West Seattle) released a version of the plan that includes both changes he announced two weeks ago as well as amendments that the council will discuss publicly for the first time on Tuesday. They include:

• A proposal from Dan Strauss (District 6, Northwest Seattle) to reduce bike safety funding by $500,000 to fund a feasibility study for using private funds to build a lid over I-5 through the Roosevelt neighborhood and near the North 130th Street light rail station;

• An amendment from Saka to create a new $7 million fund for “neighborhood scale traffic safety programs.” This new category would be separate and distinct from both the new “district funds” council members could direct to projects in their district and the new, grassroots “neighborhood-initiated  safety partnership” program proposed by Mayor Bruce Harrell and slashed under Saka’s plan.

Councilmember Cathy Moore  (D5, North Seattle) proposed eliminating the entire program, developed by a transportation equity work group charged with recommending ways to make city transportation funds more accessible to marginalized groups. The latest version of the plan would still cut $15.5 million, or 38 percent, from Harrell’s $41 million proposal.

• An amendment from Tammy Morales (District 2, Southeast Seattle) to stipulate that the city will spend the $6 million previously added for transit security “in coordination with” transit agencies, rather than unilaterally putting more officers on buses and trains.

• A formal guarantee that at least 36 percent of new sidewalks funded by the plan will be in North Seattle’s District 5; 22 percent will be in West Seattle’s District 1; and 17 percent will be in Southeast Seattle’s District 2. Districts 3, 4, 6, and 7 would split up the remaining 25 percent.

• $20 million in new spending, proposed by Strauss (D6, Northwest Seattle and Magnolia), on improvements to freight mobility in Interbay, SoDo, and elsewhere.

• An amendment from Saka increasing the minimum number of sidewalks the levy would build from 280 to 320, on top of 30 new blocks of sidewalks onAurora Ave. N.

• Amendments from Moore that would fund “auditing and professional services” for the Move Seattle Levy Oversight Committee, which would also expand to include the transportation committee chair, currently Saka. The committee provides oversight and is supposed to hold the city accountable to spend levy funds according to the language of the levy; the amendment would also expand the volunteer group’s responsibilities to include auditing and performance evaluations of levy programs under a new “Good Governance and Equitable Implementation Initiative.”

• Another amendment from Moore adding $5 million to “investigate and propose a comprehensive strategy” to dramatically improve the state of the city’s bridges and arterial streets, and consider transportation impact fees—fees on new multifamily housing, based on the idea that apartments have a negative impact that requires mitigation—as a strategy for funding sidewalks.

• Amendments to the nonbinding “recitals” section of the legislation—in theory, the place to establish whatever problem a new law attempts to solve—have swelled the number of “whereas” clauses from 15 to 41, increasing the length of the proposal by several pages; additions include new clauses supporting electric vehicles, asserting that traffic safety measures shouldn’t unduly slow down emergency responders, and establishing that Seattle wants to “create and maintain a safe, efficient and reliable transportation system.”

• Amendments from Strauss to spend $5 million turning Ballard Ave. into a “curbless street” by reducing funding for sidewalk spot repairs and sidewalk construction and to spend $20 million completing the Burke-Gilman trail through Ballard by cutting funds for arterial street maintenance.

The transportation levy committee meets on Tuesday at 9:30.

 

City Council, Development, Equity

Council Imposes New Reporting Requirements on Community-Led Development Projects

“Please don’t characterize us as misinformed. We are very informed about the work that needs to happen with our projects.”

By Erica C. Barnett

Supporters of the city’s Equitable Development Initiative, which helps fund organizations by and for communities of color, held a press conference at City Hall on Tuesday morning to oppose a budget amendment from Councilmember Maritza Rivera that will require the city’s Office of Planning and Development to create a detailed report on all EDI-funded projects by September 24.  This report, according to the new amendment, must include a “status update” on all EDI projects, and include, “where knowable, potential future funding requests for the identified projects.”

The council passed the amendment 8-1 this afternoon, with Councilmember Tammy Morales voting no.

At the press conference before the vote, Morales said the council was subjecting the EDI program to a greater level of scrutiny than other city-funded projects, and requiring first-time developers and small community nonprofits to complete large capital projects faster than private-market developers.

“We are staring down the barrel of an austerity budget,” Morales added. “And what we learned this past week is that when budget cuts are discussed, programs that support Black and brown communities are always first on the chopping block, and that’s not going to stand.”

As we’ve reported, the amendment the council adopted Tuesday was a significant downgrade from a proposal that could have yanked funding for existing and new EDI projects, from Interim Community Development’s ongoing renovation of Chinatown/International District community hub Bush Gardens to a child care center at El Centro de la Raza’s Four Amigos affordable housing development in Columbia City.

Originally, Rivera proposed placing a freeze on all of this year’s EDI funding—around $25 million—unless the city spent all of the funds previously allocated to projects funded by EDI, but still unspent, by September 24—more than $53 million. As the leaders of many organizations that are currently building EDI-funded projects have pointed out, this would have been an essentially impossible feat, given that the initiative funds dozens of multi-year projects that are in various stages of development.

If the programs failed to meet this goal, according to the text of Rivera’s original amendment, “the $25.3 million appropriation will lapse at year-end and become part of the 2025 beginning fund balance” and “could be reallocated in the 2025 budget.”

Explaining the need for a new reporting requirement, Rivera said she was concerned that the Office of Planning and Community Development, where EDI is housed, “has not shown an appropriate level of accountability or transparency regarding the EDI program and its ability to track and complete these important projects in community.”

In addition, Rivera suggested, the city is sitting on funding it needs to get out the door right away. “OPCD has spent, on average, only 25 percent of EDI’s total budget every year for the last five years,” Rivera said, holding up a chart suggesting that if this trend continues, the program will have $90 million in unspent funds by 2026.

Development projects have been delayed across the board since the beginning of 2020 due to supply-chain issues, higher construction, materials, and labor costs, and other factors that are not limited to community-based developers.

Community groups, including some who helped develop the EDI program, have spent the week and a half since Rivera put her original amendment online trying to explain to her how it would impact them. Rivera has responded by accusing unnamed forces of running a “disinformation” campaign that had “misinformed” community groups into thinking their funding was at risk.

Rivera’s colleague Bob Kettle backed her up on Tuesday. “At no time were the carryforward dollars or this year’s budget at risk, but the emails and the communication [council members received] had that point front and center,” Kettle said. “So where does this miscommunication or disinformation originate from or how does it get pushed? I don’t know. Some may say this is politics, but I think it contributes to the lack of civility and the ability to have a full public discourse.”

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Karen Toering, representing the EDI-funded Black and Tan Hall in Hillman City, said the council members were incorrect when they said community groups didn’t understand Rivera’s original legislation. “Please don’t characterize us as misinformed, because we are very informed about the work that needs to happen with our projects,” Toering said. Instead of imposing additional reporting requirements, she added, “What you could do is build more capacity for EDI to do the work that you’re asking them to do.”

Representatives from groups that have completed, or are in the process of developing, capital projects that received funding from the eight-year-old program said EDI is being subject to far more scrutiny than other items that carry forward in the city’s budget from year to year, such as funding for police positions that SPD acknowledges it can’t fill but for which funding carries over into the following year’s budget every year.

“The city continues to allocate $41.3 million to the Seattle Police Department for police positions that have not and cannot be filled,” Puget Sound SAGE director Aretha Basu said at Tuesday’s press conference. “And this money is allowed to carry over year after year after year. So explain to me how our communities and our programs are getting nickeled and dimed while the police department’s budget grows in the midst of such a massive budget deficit. How is that equity?”

Historically, funding for SPD’s “ghost” positions has been used to pay for other SPD priorities, such as a (recently scuttled) acoustic gunshot surveillance system and overtime for officers to provide traffic control at events. In 2022, the council eliminated 80 of these vacant positions (out of 240 at the time), a move now-Council President Sara Nelson claimed would discourage people from applying for jobs as police.

As community advocates, including Toering, pointed out on Tuesday, the city has already effectively frozen EDI funding this year. When Mayor Bruce Harrell imposed a partial hiring freeze in January, he also directed city departments to hold off on issuing requests for proposals (part of the application process for city funds) for projects above $1 million, including those funded through EDI.

At the time, mayoral spokesman Jamie Housen told PubliCola the mayor’s office was “seeking to review these in context of all projects and programs and to provide a complete understanding of upcoming financial commitments – this does not mean these dollars will not go out the door.”

Nearly five months later, the city’s planning department has not received the go-ahead to spend the money. We have asked the mayor’s office for more information about the status of this year’s $24 million in EDI funding and will update this post when we hear back.

City Council, Mayor Harrell, Police

Police Contract Gives Big Raises to Officers, Still Fails to Meet Baseline Set in 2017 Accountability Law

By Andrew Engelson

On Tuesday afternoon, a little more than two weeks after Mayor Bruce Harrell’s office publicly announced a new three-year retroactive contract with the Seattle Police Officers Guild, the Seattle City Council ratified the agreement 8 to 1, with councilmember Tammy Morales casting the lone dissenting vote. Almost immediately after the vote, Harrell signed the contract, calling it a needed step to advance “our vision for a city where everyone, in every neighborhood, is safe and feels secure.”

Morales, in an amendment that failed, moved to delay the Tuesday vote, noting that the contract was fast-tracked directly to the full council without any public hearings and after just twenty minutes of public comment—nearly all of it in opposition.

 “The community deserves a chance to make their voice heard before we vote on it. We shouldn’t be rushing this,” Morales said.

Before the vote, Morales noted that the new contract offers almost no changes to accountability measures for police officers. “I believe this contract as bargained does not protect the city and the lack of accountability measures puts us in continued violation of the federal consent decree,” she said, referring to the 2012 federal agreement between SPD and the US Department of Justice.

In 2023, US District Judge James Robart modified the consent decree to lift most restrictions on SPD, but on the condition that the department make additional reforms to its accountability and crowd control.

Speaking in defense of the new contract, Council President Sara Nelson said, “We have to attack our staffing crisis from both retention and recruitment and hiring angles, and this is an important piece of legislation to accomplish both of those goals – because it will also help attract new officers to the force and facilitate our recruitment efforts as well.”

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The contract, which PubliCola acquired and published in early April, retroactively gives police officers a 24 percent raise – broken down to 1.3 percent in 2021, 6.4 percent in 2022, and 15.3 percent in 2023. The raises will boost SPD’s starting pay, before overtime, to $103,000, making Seattle officers the highest-paid in the region.

According to an economic briefing before the vote by Ben Noble, director of the city’s Office of Economic and Revenue Forecasts, the contract adds $39 million annually to the existing annual SPD salary budget of $170 million. In sum, the retroactive cost over three years totals $57 million, and adds $9.2 million to the city’s existing budget deficit, because the city didn’t put enough in reserve to account for the total cost of the raises.

Councilmember Bob Kettle, chair of the Public Safety committee, said before the vote, “Yes, it is expensive. Yes, it is a challenge for our budget. But if we don’t compete in this labor market, we won’t accomplish our goal of achieving a safe base in our city.” T

After signing the bill, Harrell said the agreement “will make meaningful improvements to officer pay and staffing, to accountability so misconduct is investigated, and to new efficiencies through diversified response options.”

However, critics point out that the contract offers only minor changes to accountability for police officers. It allows a 60-day extension of Office of Police Accountability’s (OPA) 180-day deadline for completing investigations into the most serious misconduct; tells arbitrators tasked with reviewing officer firings to “give deference” to the police chief’s decisions; adds just two more civilian investigators at OPA, bringing the total to four; and increases the amount of time OPA has to inform an officer of an investigation from five days to 30. Continue reading “Police Contract Gives Big Raises to Officers, Still Fails to Meet Baseline Set in 2017 Accountability Law” →

City Council, Density, homelessness, labor, Mayor Harrell, Transportation

This Week on PubliCola: May 4, 2024

A roundup of this week’s news.

Monday, April 29

Planning Commission: Harrell’s Growth Plan Will Worsen Inequities and Keep Housing Unaffordable

The Seattle Planning commission weighed in on Mayor Bruce Harrell’s proposed comprehensive plan update, which proposes a continuation of thepr “urban village” strategy developed to preserve single-family enclaves in the 1990s, calling it unrealistic and inadequate. ““In order to ensure everyone has a home they can afford in the neighborhood of their choice, we need to plan to increase, not reduce, our current rate of housing production” to allow “five to eight story multifamily housing in many more areas of the city,” the commission wrote.

Burien Moves Forward on Tiny House Village as Mayor Vilifies Police Chief for Not Enforcing Camping Ban

The city of Burien tentatively approved a zoning change that could help advance a long-planned tiny house village on property owned by Seattle City Light (see below, though, for an update). Meanwhile, Burien Mayor Kevin Schilling claimed the city is selectively paying the King County Sheriff’s Office for police service except for what they would owe the county for enforcing the city’s homeless ban—a claim the sheriff’s office couldn’t verify, since the city doesn’t owe them a payment until next month.

Tuesday, April 30

“I’m Losing My Temper”: Moore Accuses Morales of Calling Her Council Colleagues “Evil… Corporate Shills”

In comments that rattled some of her colleagues, Cathy Moore accused her fellow council member Tammy Morales of “vilifying” Moore and other council members in the media, saying she had called them “evil… corporate shills” who “don’t care about our fellow human beings” because they voted against an affordable-housing pilot Morales had been working on for years. Morales did express disappointment in the vote, but there is no evidence for Moore’s specific accusations. Moore also threatened to use council rules to silence Morales if she failed to be “civil.”

Labor Fizz: City Reduces Delay for Workers’ Retro Pay; Harrell Praises SPOG Contract for “Enhancing Accountability”

City workers learned this week that they’ll get retroactive pay increases in July, rather than October. Last month, the city told employees working under a new contract that the city would have to delay paying back wages because they’re implementing a new payroll system later this year. Also, Mayor Bruce Harrell released a tentative police contract that would make Seattle police the highest-paid in the region, boosting their starting pay, before overtime and bonuses, into six figures.

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Wednesday, May 1

Council Kills Morales’ Affordable Housing Bill, Arguing for More Process and Delay

The Seattle City Council voted 7-2 to kill legislation aimed at helping community organizations with “limited development experience” build small-scale affordable housing developments. Morales had been working on the program, called the “Connected Communities Pilot,” since 2022. Council members called the legislation premature, saying such proposals should get in line behind the 2024 housing levy and what will likely be the 2025 comprehensive plan.

Thursday, May 2

Officer Who Joked About Pedestrian Death Will Speak on Traffic Safety at Conference; Moore Calls for “More Vice Squads”

Daniel Auderer, the Seattle Police Officers Guild vice president who laughed and joked about a fellow officer’s killing of pedestrian Jaahnavi Kandula, will speak at a prestigious conference on traffic safety later this year. The conference program says Auderer will be representing SPD, although SPD denies this and says they aren’t paying for him to attend. And: At a meeting on public safety, Councilmember Cathy Moore said that in addition to bringing back an old prostitution loitering law, she wants to see “more vice squads” on Aurora Ave. N.

Friday, May 3

Harrell’s Transportation Levy Proposal Boosts Tax Measure to $1.45 Million, Front-Loads Sidewalk Construction

After advocacy groups expressed disappointment that the proposed transportation levy renewal backed off on bike, pedestrian, and transit projects, the mayor proposed a revised version that adds $100 million to the ballot measure and pushes sidewalk construction to the first four years of the eight-year levy proposal, which now heads to the city council for amendments.

Harrell Discusses Gig Worker Minimum Wage Repeal, Burien Restrictions Could Prohibit Tiny House Village

Remember what we said about Burien’s tiny house village vote? Well, it turns out the zoning legislation they’re considering on Monday will prohibit a proposed tiny house village unless the council amends it, because it restricts transitional housing to parcels much smaller than the one where the village is supposed to go. And: Will Harrell come out against Sara Nelson’s proposal to repeal the current minimum wage and labor protections for delivery drivers? Organized labor seems to be banking on it.

City Council, Density, housing

Council Kills Morales’ Affordable Housing Bill, Arguing for More Process and Delay

By Erica C. Barnett

The Seattle City Council voted 7-2 to kill legislation sponsored by Councilmember Tammy Morales aimed at helping community organizations with “limited development experience” build small-scale affordable housing developments and “equitable development” projects, such as health clinics, day care, and retail space.

Morales had been working on the program, called the “Connected Communities Pilot,” since 2022. The five-year pilot would have helped as many as 35 community organizations build larger, taller buildings, as long as they preserved a third of their rental units for people making 60 percent or less of the Seattle’s area median income (AMI), or built homeownership units for people making 100 percent of Seattle AMI or less.

It would have also allowed community groups to build apartments in areas of the city that have historically been reserved for single-family houses, and exempted certain projects in historically redlined areas from design review and parking minimums, two requirements that can add significant time and cost to projects.

The council’s land use committee, which Morales chairs, voted against her bill last week, citing vague concerns that the bill had been rushed and that there were more appropriate avenues for building affordable housing.

At Tuesday’s meeting, Morales’ new colleagues repeated those claims, suggesting that the city should instead provide affordable housing through the comprehensive plan, the housing levy, or some unspecified future legislative route.

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“After the comp plan process is finalized, we can determine if additional legislation is needed to achieve our housing goals,” Councilmember Maritza Rivera said on Tuesday. “In addition, the city just passed a nearly $1 billion [housing levy] and we do not yet know how these funds will be implemented. … Finally, given our housing shortage and the slowing down of recent development, we need to consider how to incentivize all development, rather than singling out some investments over others.”

In fact, as Morales pointed out, the city does know how the Housing Levy funds will be spent. And the comprehensive plan update is a set of policy guidelines, not legislation—the city can still pass housing legislation and incentives before finalizing the update, which might not happen until next year. “This is just another tool to help us meet our housing shortage, which we all acknowledge we have,” she said. Continue reading “Council Kills Morales’ Affordable Housing Bill, Arguing for More Process and Delay” →

City Council, Development, housing

“I’m Losing My Temper”: Moore Accuses Morales of Calling Her Council Colleagues “Evil… Corporate Shills”

By Erica C. Barnett

City Councilmember Cathy Moore accused her colleague Tammy Morales of “vilifying” her colleagues, calling them “evil… corporate shills,” and being less than “civil” after a council committee voted down Morales’ bill to reduce red tape for affordable housing developers last week. The bill, which Morales has been working on for the last two years, would provide density bonuses and zoning flexibility to developers who partner with community groups to build low-income housing.

“I’m gonna have to stay very calm,” Moore said Monday. “I just wanted to give a heads up that I will be carefully reading the council rules to utilize tomorrow, if I feel that there are any ad hominem attacks being made on fellow council members who chose not to vote this bill out.”

Then, addressing Morales directly, Moore continued: “This vilification of your fellow council members in the media—it is uncalled for, it is unprofessional. We can have a respectful difference of opinion without [saying] that we are evil or corporate shills or we have no concern for our fellow human beings or we’re opposed to affordable housing. None of that is the case, and I am tired of that being the narrative that I hear coming [from you]. And so I’m just—again, I’m going to stop because I’m losing my temper. But I want this to be a respectful conversation tomorrow based on policy, not personality and no impugning of my or my fellow colleagues’ motivations.”

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Morales told PubliCola she never called colleagues corporate shills or evil. She has expressed frustration with the sudden opposition to her bill, telling reporters she was “disappointed” in the decision. According to the Seattle Times, Morales said, “Despite the fact that everybody’s talking about the need for more affordable housing, when it comes down to it, there’s either no understanding of how we actually get there, or no willingness to really take action.”

PubliCola was unable to find any evidence that Morales has ever personally vilified her colleagues, called them corporate shills or anything remotely similar, or said they were evil or did not care about humanity. Former councilmember Kshama Sawant did say things like this, but (despite being a brown, progressive woman) she is not Morales—and is no longer on the council.

This isn’t the first time Moore has said she feels threatened by people who disagree with her, but it does seem to be the first time she’s directly threatened to use council rules to silence a colleague for a purported lack of civility. Earlier this year, Moore said she felt “physically threatened” by advocates for refugees who banged on windows after being ejected from council chambers, suggesting that, if left to their own devices, the demonstrators would smash through the windows and violently storm the dais.

The council will discuss and vote on Morales’ proposal at its 2:00 full council meeting this afternoon.