Tag: bike lanes

City Council, criminal justice, homelessness, Mayor Durkan, Morning Crank, Transportation

“Eastlake Is Moving Forward,” Herbold to Pay Ethics Fine, and an Impasse on LEAD

1. During a Monday-morning “celebration” of the 14 miles of new bike infrastructure the city built last year, Mayor Jenny Durkan said that she was committed to building a protected bike lane on Eastlake Ave. a, rather than acceding to demands from neighborhood activists that the city ditch the bike lane for an unspecified neighborhood greenway somewhere else. “We need that bike lane,”  Durkan said. “We can’t have a connected [route] if people can’t get from the north end to downtown Seattle. … Eastlake is moving forward.”

The bike lane is included in plans for the Roosevelt RapidRide bus route that will replace King County Metro’s Route 70 bus; the Seattle Department of Transportation released an environmental assessment of the proposal last month. Neighborhood activists have protested that the bike lane will require the removal of parking along Eastlake, and city council member Alex Pedersen said last week that he would prefer to have cyclists use unspecified parallel “neighborhood greenways” for at least some of the route.

Neither Durkan nor SDOT director Sam Zimbabwe would commit to a specific timeline to complete the most contentious portion of the center city bike network—a long-delayed protected bike lane on Fourth Avenue. Durkan decided to press pause on the bike lane in anticipation of “mega traffic” downtown during demolition of the Alaskan Way Viaduct and a number of other major construction projects downtown. Although Carmageddon failed, once again, to materialize, the Fourth Avenue bike lane remains delayed until 2021, and was scaled back last year from a two-way protected on the east side of the street to a one-way northbound lane on the west side, in the same spot as an existing unprotected lane.

Vicky Clarke, the policy director of Cascade Bicycle Club, made a point of mentioning “gaps in the system” repeatedly in her remarks, and noted pointedly that bike advocates are looking forward to the city “funding and building a two-way bike lane on Fourth Avenue next year.”

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2.City council member Lisa Herbold will pay a $500 fine for violating the city’s ethics code when she contacted Police Chief Carmen Best over a trailer that was parked in front of her house last year, on the grounds that she was using, or appeared to be using, her elected position for “private benefit” or a non-city purpose. The Seattle Ethics and Elections Commission will take up  the case at its meeting on Wednesday afternoon.

The case stems from an incident last year in which KIRO radio host Dori Monson and conservative activist Ari Hoffman had encouraged listeners of Monson’s show to buy up derelict RVs and park them in front of council members’ houses to protest the presence of “drug RVs” in Seattle. When a trailer showed up in front of Herbold’s home in West Seattle, Monson assumed someone had taken him up on his idea, and encouraged listeners to show up and join the “protest.”

In response to the trailer and the crowd of people outside her home, Herbold texted police chief Carmen Best and asked her to look into whether the U-Haul that brought the RV to her street had been rented by Hoffman and, if so, to consider charging Hoffman with theft. Best declined to investigate and suggested that Herbold call SPD’s non-emergency number.

“If someone has reported a trailer stolen, one has been delivered to the street in front of my house,” Herbold wrote. “I’m not complaining, I want to ensure the property is returned to its owner.” In a followup, Herbold continued, “I’m not asking you to move it. Ari [Hoffman] will twist that as [a] special SPD response for a Councilmember. I would like to find out if 1. anyone has reported it stolen, 2. Give you the license plate number of the uhaul so you can confirm from Uhaul that Ari rented the uhaul & towed it there and you can consider whether it’s appropriate to charge him with theft.”

As it turned out, the trailer was owned by a homeless woman and her family, who had planned to tow it away later that week and did not know that they had parked it near a council member’s house. They returned to the trailer to find that random people, including a reporter for KIRO Radio, had entered the trailer and rummaged through it without permission, and that the outside of the trailer had been covered in graffiti, including the words “DORI MONSON FOR PRESIDENT” across one side. The woman who owned the trailer, who was pregnant, was reportedly threatened with a knife by one of the “protesters.”

Monson never apologized for encouraging his listeners to show up and vandalize the trailer (an act he called “pretty great!!” on Twitter), though he did put give the woman and her family a “hunski” from his money clip on the air the following day. The reporter who entered the trailer, Carolyn Ossario, was reportedly fired over the stunt.

3. Last week, the members of the city council’s public safety committee, led by Herbold, sent a letter to Mayor Durkan asking her to release the full $3.5 million allocated in the city’s 2020 budget for the Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion program by March 1, and to affirm that LEAD—which offers alternatives to arrest for people suspected of committing low-level crimes—is a crime prevention program, not a homelessness program. The letter requested a response no later than last Friday.

Durkan’s office did get back to Herbold’s office on Friday, but they did not agree to fully fund LEAD by March, and they had no response to the committee’s request that the mayor acknowledge that LEAD is not a homelessness program. Supporters of LEAD consider this an important distinction, because the city requires homeless services to focus on moving clients into permanent housing, whereas LEAD is focused on keeping them out of the criminal justice system.

Last year, the council added $3.5 million to LEAD’s budget in an effort to reduce caseloads and allow the program to take on new clients. Instead, Durkan reduced LEAD’s approved budget to the $2.6 million she had proposed in her initial budget, and made the rest of the funding contingent on the findings of a consultant hired to review and craft new performance metrics for the program. As a result, LEAD has delayed expansion plans and is considering cutbacks. A compromise plan the mayor’s office proposed last week would provide enough funding for LEAD to reduce caseloads and take care of a backlog of low-priority cases, but program director Lisa Daugaard says this defeats the purpose of the program, which is to reduce crime by working with individuals who have the greatest impact on neighborhoods.

The response from the mayor’s office is signed by Tess Colby, Durkan’s homelessness advisor. On the issue of funding, Colby wrote: “The split of the contract budget into two phases will not impede LEAD’s ability to staff in accordance with its needs. LEAD is not proposing to hire 52 case managers in the first quarter of 2020, but rather over the course of the year. I note this because the budget we have requested from LEAD will cover expenses associated with the addition of new case managers to right-size their case management ratios. This is consistent with LEAD’s plan to grow in response to referrals and intakes. Thus, the pace of hiring will not be slowed during the first phase of the contract.”

Daugaard said LEAD has no plans to expand until they know they can actually retain the new case managers for the rest of the year; it makes no sense, she told me, to hire people and start ramping up their client base now if the funding might run out in the middle of the year. For now, it seems that the council, LEAD, and the mayor are at an impasse: Durkan says LEAD can proceed as normal, LEAD says they can’t move forward without a guarantee of funding, and the council can do little except register their protest, since the mayor holds the purse strings.

City Council, criminal justice, Drugs, human services, Mayor Durkan, Morning Crank, Transit, Transportation

Cyclists Pack Pedersen Forum, Libraries Still Lack Narcan, and an Update on LEAD

1. Bike and bus advocates showed up in force for a “town hall” meeting featuring District 4 city council member Alex Pedersen in Eastlake last night, but many said afterward that the moderators who chose the questions from a stack of cards submitted by the public—a representative from the Eastlake Community Council and a Pedersen staffer—rejected or ignored their questions.

I was live-tweeting the forum, and noticed early on that most of the questions seemed to be from people opposed to a planned protected bike lane on Eastlake, rather than the dozens of bike lane supporters in the audience. For example, early questions centered on how businesses were supposed to deal with the loss of hundreds of parking spaces directly on Eastlake Avenue; why cyclists couldn’t just ride on a parallel greenway somewhere near, but not on, Eastlake’s business district; and what can still be done to prevent King County Metro from replacing the milk-run Route 70 with a RapidRide bus route that will be faster and more frequent but won’t have as many stops.

During the meeting, I noticed that a pile of questions had been set aside, and that the moderator seemed to be favoring questions from people who opposed bike lanes and RapidRide over questions from the bike lane supporters who packed the room. So I asked via Twitter: If you were at the forum and asked a question that didn’t get answered, what was it?

Pedersen was fairly circumspect in his responses, suggesting repeatedly that people contact his office and promising he would get back to them by email. He did, however, say he supported changing the Eastlake bike lane plan—which has been debated, studied, and affirmed repeatedly over a period of several years—so that cyclists would have to shift back and forth between the arterial and short stretches of “greenway” on unnamed parallel streets. “I think [the Seattle Department of Transportation] should look harder at a combination of protected bike lanes on some part of it and greenways on some of it,” Pedersen said.

Invoking the specter of 35th Ave. NE, where a long-planned bike lane was scuttled after neighborhood activists complained that the loss of on-street parking would destroy local businesses, Pedersen added: “There was a lack of transparency” about the proposed bike lane, which he opposed. “People were just trying to figure out what was going on with it.”

“I think [the Seattle Department of Transportation] should look harder at a combination of protected bike lanes on some part of [Eastlake] and greenways on some of it.” — City council member Alex Pedersen

During the meeting, I noticed that a pile of questions had been set aside, and that the moderator seemed to be favoring questions from people who opposed bike lanes and RapidRide over questions from the bike lane supporters who packed the room. So I asked via Twitter: If you were at the forum and asked a question that didn’t get answered, what was it? Here are some of their (slightly edited) answers:

• Given that every study shows bike lanes make streets safer for everyone and are good for business (and that cyclists spend more than drivers), what data are you paying attention to? How will you incorporate the data that already exists about protected bike lanes around the world?

• Have you seen any analysis of the percentage of people who are NOT in Eastlake that commute to Eastlake for any of the businesses that are afraid of losing 320 parking spots? Do people drive to 14 Carrots from other parts of the city?

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• Have you seen any research about the actual impact of bike lanes on businesses?

• What options are you prioritizing to help my whole family get around without using a car?

• Many people bus and bike through Eastlake, but don’t stop because traffic is so dangerous. What can be done to make Eastlake more welcoming to visitors and encourage fewer single occupancy vehicles, supporting the goal of Vision Zero?

• When will the city consider a residential parking zone in Eastlake (which prevents people from commuting in by car and parking all day in neighborhoods)?

• Why is the RapidRide and bike lane project important for Eastlake and the surrounding area?

Jessica Westgren from Welcoming Wallingford, a group that supports housing density and alternatives to driving, asked Pedersen verbally why he wouldn’t return calls and emails from her organization. Pedersen responded that she should send him an email, ideally including specific information such as “I’m having this issue on my block.”

 

Mayor Jenny Durkan, flanked by parents who lost their son to an opioid overdose and local officials

2. Mayor Jenny Durkan announced that the city will be distributing 700 doses of naloxone (Narcan), a drug that can reverse opioid overdoses, in response to a surge in overdoses from fentanyl in counterfeit oxycodone pills—and, in particular, an increase in the number of teenagers who have died of fentanyl overdoses. Fentanyl is especially deadly, and overdoses happen quickly; an overdosing person can die long before first responders arrive, which is why having Narcan on hand (and knowing how to use it) is so critical.

Durkan said that kits will be distributed in schools, bars, and nightclubs—”any place where it is likely that someone might overdose.” The city is also planning 25 Narcan training workshops.

Since Seattle public libraries are among the places people use opioids—and are, because staff are always present, safer consumption sites than alleys or parks—I asked if the libraries would also start stocking Narcan, and if library workers would be trained to use it. (The library system has been slow to adopt harm reduction policies, and only added sharps containers in restrooms after I published several stories on the issue last year.) Durkan said “we’d like them in the libraries,” but her staff added later that this would be an issue for the library union to negotiate.

Library spokeswoman Andra Addison later confirmed that the library does not have current plans to stock Narcan or train library workers to use it. “The Library currently uses 911 for all medical emergencies. Use of Narcan in our libraries would involve union representatives, and those discussions are just under way,” Addison says. Asked to clarify what the issue would be for the library union, Addison said, “working conditions and the impact on working conditions.”

3. City council member Lisa Herbold has released a copy of the letter I mentioned on Wednesday, urging Durkan to confirm that she will release all the funding the council provided for the Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion program in its adopted budget no later than March 1, and to affirm that LEAD—which offers alternatives to arrest for people suspected of committing low-level crimes—is a crime prevention program, not a homelessness program. Durkan has hired a consultant to look at LEAD’s performance and to determine performance metrics for the program; currently, LEAD is classified as a homelessness intervention and required to meet housing goals, even though more than a quarter of its clients are not homeless. Continue reading “Cyclists Pack Pedersen Forum, Libraries Still Lack Narcan, and an Update on LEAD” →

City Council, criminal justice, homelessness, housing, human services, Mayor Durkan, public safety

City Budget Hunger Games: Mercer Megablock Money Grab, Probation Expansion Skeptics, Homelessness, “High-Barrier Offenders,” and More

With literally hundreds of budget amendments in play during the final weeks of city council budget deliberations, it’s almost impossible to cover every issue that’s currently in contention: From the way the police department responds to sex workers to how the proceeds of the Mercer Megablock should be spent, nearly every aspect of Mayor Jenny Durkan’s proposed budget has been the subject of debate among a council that will say goodbye to at least four of its current members at the end of the year. What follows is a highly selective list of some of the proposals and policies that were in contention this past week.

The caveat for this entire post, of course, is that the city will have to completely retool its budget if Tim Eyman’s I-976, which would decimate funding for local transit, road, bridge, and transportation maintenance projects, passes on Tuesday.

• Mercer Megablock proceeds

A number of proposals would redirect or restrict funding from the sale of the Mercer Megablock property away from Durkan’s spending priorities toward other projects. Among the changes council members have proposed:

– Adding $15 million to the Office of Housing’s budget to fund low-income housing projects that are shovel-ready but unfunded under the city’s annual Notice of Funding Availability, which is perennially unable to fund all the projects that are ready to go. The funds would come from Durkan’s proposed Strategic Acquisition Fund (intended to buy land for future projects near transit) and homeownership and accessory dwelling unit loan programs that are aimed at helping moderate-income home buyers and existing homeowners get loans.

– Spending $2.45 million originally earmarked for that same fund to build a four-room child care center serving between 58 and 69 children in the basement of City Hall. Durkan, sponsor Sally Bagshaw noted, has proposed sidelining the City Hall facility and funding existing child care centers elsewhere, but “I do think that King County has solved this problem in the building right next door to us,” which has a child care center, so the city should be able to do the same thing.

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– Redirecting $2.5 million of the sale proceeds to pay for protected bike lanes in South Seattle, for a total of $10.9 million dedicated to bike facilities in the area. South Seattle—particularly Southeast Seattle—has been historically neglected in the city’s bike infrastructure spending, a fact the city’s Bicycle Advisory Board acknowledged when it recommended prioritizing projects in southeast Seattle neighborhoods in the scaled-back spending plan for the Move Seattle levy. The Seattle Department of Transportation’s implementation plan for the levy basically ignored the board’s recommendations, leaving south Seattle without a single complete connection to downtown. The $2.5 million, O’Brien said, would allow the city to either build a full protected bike lane along Martin Luther King Jr. Way South, or finish out a bike lane on Beacon Hill and connect the South Park and Georgetown neighborhoods.

The current bike master plan map, which includes huge gaps in South Seattle.

• “High-barrier offenders”

The council has been generally skeptical of Durkan’s proposal—based on controversial report by former city attorney candidate Scott Lindsay— to expand programs inside the criminal justice system to address people with severe addiction or mental illness who repeatedly commit low-level crimes. Durkan’s plan would expand probation and add funding for several still largely undefined programs such as “case conferencing” (in which cops and prosecutors discuss how to deal with “high-impact” individuals) and a jail-based “connector” program to direct people leaving jail after short stays to shelter and services.

Several proposals from the council would require that the city auditor take a look at how the mayor’s entire “high-barrier offender” plan would impact low-income people and people of color. Public safety committee chair Lorena Gonzalez, who also proposed zeroing out Durkan’s $170,000 proposal to expand probation, said that when she has asked judges what they’re doing to determine whether probation disproportionately harms people of color, “they have been unable to answer that question.” As for the case conferencing and “connector” pilots, Gonzalez said, “we need a concrete, developed plan from the executive and the law department before we agree to just give them the money… in a hope and prayer that they’re going to structure it appropriately.”

Bagshaw, who supports the mayor’s plan, suggested that the city auditor might not have the “expertise” to determine whether the proposal would harm people of color, and said she would prefer to set up a “roundtable” including judges and prosecutors, who generally support the proposal, and “get moving on it.” Gonzalez responded that the mayor’s plan was “admittedly a half-baked idea, and I think if we are serious about meeting some of the public safety and harm reduction strategies we have as a city, then we have to be serious about creating concrete plans with specific outcomes.” Advocates for harm reduction and pre-arrest diversion programs say the proposal simply throws more money at strategies that aren’t working.

In several related items, Gonzalez proposed funding arrest-diversion options for sex workers (who’ve been targeted by recent stings from the Seattle Police Department) and requiring SPD to work on correctly identifying people by race, including Latinx/Hispanic people. Currently, SPD doesn’t consistently track the ethnicity of the people it arrests, making it difficult to determine how Seattle’s criminal justice system impacts Latinx people.

• Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion

As I’ve reported, LEAD—a successful pre-arrest diversion program that provides case management and services to people committing low-level crimes in certain parts of the city—says it needs an additional $4.7 million a year in additional funding to keep up with growing caseloads. (Durkan’s budget essentially held LEAD’s funding steady at previous levels even though the program’s caseloads and geographic reach have been vastly expanded in recent years). The council seems poised to split the baby, partially funding LEAD with $3.5 million in new spending and directing the program’s backers to come up with private funding to pay for the rest.

“I have every bit of faith in Ms. [Lisa] Daugaard [the director of the Public Defender Association, which runs LEAD]  and the rest of us to be picking up the phone and talking to the private sector” to fund the remaining $1.2 million, Bagshaw said. Gonzalez, one of the co-sponsors (along with Kshama Sawant and Like O’Brien O’Brien) of proposals to fund the full $4.7 million with city dollars, said she had some “anxiety” about the restrictions that might apply to the private funding.

Image via Low-Income Housing Institute

• Tiny house villages

Council member Teresa Mosqueda, who’s on maternity leave (so this item was introduced by Bagshaw), proposed adding $900,000 for 100 new “tiny house village” encampment spots, which Bagshaw said she would like to earmark in some way for LEAD participants. This item, which had the support of all seven council members present, was notable mostly because of Gonzalez’ comments criticizing the so-called “Poppe Report,” which (along with a related report from Focus Strategies) suggested that the city has enough funding for homelessness and opposed tiny house villages and other kinds of interim encampments. The city and King County are about to release another series of reports, including one by Focus Strategies, as part of the Regional Action Plan that will inform the planned consolidation of the city and county’s homelessness agencies.

“One of the most unfortunate things that came out of that Poppe report was her absolute expression of disdain for tiny villages, [which] has hurt our city’s efforts to really provide meaningful solutions,” Gonzalez said. “I have really appreciated the fact that as city leadership we have, in a lot of ways, bucked that predisposition or ideology that she expressed in her report and really have committed to the tiny house village concept.”

• The Navigation Team

Durkan’s budget (like last year’s) seeks permanent funding for two new Navigation Team members (out of four added outside the normal budget process this year), both of whom were funded this year with one-time funds. Sawant’s proposal to eliminate the team—the subject of much hand-wringing among right-wing and even mainstream media last month—predictably received no support, while Lisa Herbold’s extension of a proviso that requires the team to report on what it’s doing appears poised to pass. The biggest debate last week was actually over a proposal, from Debora Juarez, to expand the team yet again to include two new members dedicated specifically to her North Seattle district, which Juarez says is overrun with dangerous encampments that need to be removed. Continue reading “City Budget Hunger Games: Mercer Megablock Money Grab, Probation Expansion Skeptics, Homelessness, “High-Barrier Offenders,” and More” →

City Council, criminal justice, human services, Transportation

As Council Seeks Funding for Successful Arrest Diversion Program, Mayor Proposes “Doubling Down on Probation”
Mayor Jenny Durkan began rolling out her public-safety budget in mid-September.

Several council members expressed skepticism at Mayor Jenny Durkan’s plan to deal with so-called “prolific offenders” Monday, wondering aloud why the proposals were still so ill-defined and expressing concern that they contradicted an earlier work group’s recommendations to focus spending on things like prevention and restorative justice rather than traditional criminal-justice responses like probation.

As I reported last month, Durkan’s plan—which came out of a work group that was made up almost entirely of elected officials, judges, prosecutors, and government staffers—would create a number of new programs inside the criminal justice system, including expanded probation and a new “rapid-reentry connector” who would refer people leaving jail after short periods to shelter and services. The work group that came up with last year’s recommendations, in contrast, was led by the Office for Civil Rights and “centered the voices and leadership of those who have lived experience of incarceration.”

Council member Lorena Gonzalez, who chairs the council’s public safety committee, said she had “concerns about the mayor’s proposal to continue to double down on probation, particularly for this population. I continue to believe that [probation] is not the best use of our dollars, nor that it will actually address the needs of individuals who have many complex co-morbidities”—issues like addiction and mental illness. Council members Bruce Harrell and Sally Bagshaw defended Durkan’s plan, particularly the “enhanced probation” proposal, noting that several municipal court judges had endorsed the proposal. “I’m hearing from judges that it’s in alignment with restorative justice, not a very penalizing probation system,” Harrell said. Bagshaw invited Seattle Municipal Court Judge Damon Shadid to the microphone to defend the current probation system—he called Gonzalez’s description of probation “simply not accurate—prompting Kshama Sawant to complain that advocates for alternatives to probation weren’t given any time to speak.

Part of the problem is that it’s unclear what, exactly, the $532,000 Durkan has proposed spending on three new programs—expanded probation, the jail referral staffer, and a new case conferencing pilot that would bring law enforcement officials together to discuss “high-barrier” clients’ cases—will buy. All three programs are still in the planning phase, and have not been analyzed for race and social justice impacts or for effectiveness. For example, Gonzalez asked, what it saved more money and produced better outcomes to simply not jail people for very short periods instead of providing them “reentry” services when they get out?

“I have concerns about the mayor’s proposal to continue to double down on probation, particularly for this population”—Council public safety chair Lorena Gonzalez

As for the probation program, Gonzalez said, “We have no idea what this is other than the adjective that it will be ‘enhanced.’ I don’t know what that means. It has not been clearly defined. We have no performance metrics.”

All of the mayor’s proposals are pilot programs, which means they won’t cost much money (the biggest-ticket item in Durkan’s “high-barrier individuals” bucket, funding for a new enhanced shelter in the decommissioned west wing of the county jail, is uncontroversial) and are unlikely have a major impact if the council does decide to fund them. (The council could also place the proposals under a budget proviso—essentially, a funding hold—until the mayor provides more information about the programs.)

The discussion of the mayor’s proposal came directly before a separate, but related, conversation about funding for a program that approaches low-level crimes from a completely different perspective ]—Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion, a pre-arrest diversion program that provides case management and services to people caught committing misdemeanor crimes in certain parts of the city. Continue reading “As Council Seeks Funding for Successful Arrest Diversion Program, Mayor Proposes “Doubling Down on Probation”” →

City Council, Density, homelessness, Mayor Durkan, Morning Crank, Transportation

Planning Director Seeks Job In Boulder, More Details on Derelict RVs, and Throwing Cold Water on Bike Lane Praise
Image via City of Seattle

As the city council goes on its annual summer recess (and I return from a quick vacation), some notes on what’s been happening in the city over the past couple of weeks:

• Seattle Office of Planning and Development director Sam Assefa is a finalist for a job as head of the planning department in Boulder, CO, where he served as senior urban designer for six years. Assefa, a holdover from the Ed Murray administration whose standing in the Durkan administration has been in question for a while, has presided over the passage and implementation of the Housing Affordability and Livability Agenda (HALA), which included upzones in neighborhoods across Seattle, as well as the implementation of new rules designed to allow more density in single-family neighborhoods. Durkan has not made land use and zoning a top priority during her first two years in office, and many at the city have expressed surprise that Assefa has managed to stick around so long.

At the same time, the city is hiring a chief of staff for the department. (A similar position was recently created in the Human Services Department’s homelessness division, whose former director, Tiffany Washington, has moved to a position in the Department of Education and Early Learning.) The department is small—about 40 employees—prompting some to wonder whether this position is necessary, and to whom the new chief of staff will be accountable—the director, or the mayor.

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• Council members continued to question Mayor Jenny Durkan’s legislation aimed at curbing abuse by RV “landlords” who buy up “extensively damaged vehicles” and rent them out to people who would otherwise be unsheltered. The legislation would create new penalties, including fines and restitution requirements, for anyone who “allows” another person to live in an RV that meets two or more criteria, including cracked windows, visible trash, and leaks. The restitution—up to $2,000—would be paid directly by the RV owner, not the city. A companion administrative action by the mayor’s office authorizes the city to impound derelict RVs and destroy them along with their contents.

Durkan’s staffers didn’t appear in person at last Wednesday’s finance and neighborhoods committee hearing, but her office did provide a memo answering some of the questions the council posed earlier this month, including how common the problem of predatory RV rental really is.

Continue reading “Planning Director Seeks Job In Boulder, More Details on Derelict RVs, and Throwing Cold Water on Bike Lane Praise” →

Affordability, City Council, Density, housing, Mayor Durkan, Morning Crank, Transportation

Afternoon Crank: Bike Lanes and Backyard Cottages
A backyard cottage in Ballard
Image via City of Seattle.

1. City council member Abel Pacheco, who is filling out former District 4 representative Rob Johnson’s term,  did some political calculus before deciding to seek the temporary appointment rather than staying in the crowded race for a four-year term, but urbanists are probably wishing they could have him longer.

Yesterday, Pacheco was instrumental in shooting down two amendments from council member Lisa Herbold that would have, respectively, barred homeowners who build accessory dwelling units (such as a basement apartment) from renting them out on a short-term basis through a platform like Airbnb, and required a homeowner to live on the property for at least a year before building a second accessory unit (such as a backyard cottage.)

Herbold said banning Airbnbs in ADUs would prevent the construction of ADUs for the purpose of providing short-term rentals rather than as “rental housing” for Seattle residents. Pacheco countered that in his district (which includes the University of Washington and Children’s Hospital) a high percentage of renters only need housing during the school year or a short-term residency, and that Herbold’s amendment would make it impossible for them to rent their units during off seasons. (City law limits Airbnb operators to two units—one inside their primary residence and one offsite).

“Having lived in two ADUs, I know how great an opportunity it is to provide for folks not just in my district but around the city,” Pacheco said. Mike O’Brien, who sponsored the legislation and has shepherded it through the council through years of legal challenges, added that if Herbold’s amendment passed, it would put ADUs in a separate category from all other types of rentals, so that someone who owned two houses side by side could rent out the second house as a short-term rental, but someone who owned a house and built a garage apartment on the same lot could not. “I don’t think that’s necessarily fair,” O’Brien said.

The legislation, which passed out of committee 5-0 (council member Kshama Sawant, who might have voted with Herbold on her amendments, was excused to go to a labor rally), will move forward to the full council on Monday, July 1.

“We don’t have constructable plans [for a two-way Fourth Ave. bike lane] right now.” — SDOT director Sam Zimbabwe

2. Pacheco also asked some blunt questions of Seattle Department of Transportation director Sam Zimbabwe during a committee discussion about the diminished Bicycle Master Plan, which SDOT is now describing as an “accountability document” that only promises what the city can actually pay for. (The bike plan was scaled back in response to higher cost estimates on a number of projects that were supposed to be funded by the Move Seattle Levy. After bike advocates protested that the bulk of the projects that got cut were top-priority projects in Southeast Seattle and downtown, SDOT updated the plan by putting some of those projects back in as areas for “study,” while also scaling back a long-planned, and already delayed, protected bike lane on Fourth Ave. downtown). Pacheco asked Zimbabwe why the latest version of the Fourth Avenue bike lane is only northbound, rather than the two-way bike lane that has been in every previous version of the plan.

Zimbabwe said that SDOT has every intention of “designing a two-way facility, but the traffic impacts of that, and frankly the costs of that, have never been fully studied,” including the cost of signal infrastructure to allow left-hand turns across the bike lanes from Fourth Avenue. “That wasn’t part of the planning process previously,” he said. “We are committed to designing [it] to better understand what the cost implications are.”

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After the meeting, I asked Zimbabwe how it was possible that there was no design yet for Fourth Ave., given that it was originally supposed to open at the beginning of 2018. He said that his understanding was that the two-way bike lane was “designed to about 30 percent [without] a full budget development. … We don’t have constructable plans right now.” SDOT’s previous reasons for delaying the two-way bike lane have included costs, impacts on transit during the “period of maximum constraint” downtown, traffic impacts during major traffic incidents such as when a fish truck overturned on SR 99 in 2015, and (most recently) “parking impacts.”

I also asked Zimbabwe about whether SDOT planned to revisit its decision to eliminate another long-planned bike lane on 35th Ave. NE in light of two recent collisions between drivers and vulnerable users (a cyclist and a motorcyclist, who was killed by a driver in a pickup truck turning left into his path). On Monday, as I first reported on Twitter, council member Sally Bagshaw said she was horrified by videos showing drivers zooming past cyclists at close range, using a newly added turn lane as a passing lane.

Zimbabwe said there were no plans to revive the protected bike lane—which was included in earlier versions of the Bike Master Plan but killed by Mayor Jenny Durkan after “concerns … from the community” —but that SDOT was “making some tweaks to make sure pedestrian crossings are safe” and adding flexible barriers to create “turn pockets at the intersections to keep [drivers] from overtaking” cyclists. In a statement to KING 5, SDOT spokesman Ethan Bergserson said that the upcoming changes, “as well as any others, should not be viewed as an indication of shortcomings but as part of SDOT’s ongoing data-driven approach to roadway improvements.”