Senate and House Democrats unveiled their operating budget proposals for the 2021-23 biennium late last week. Both budgets included the capital gains tax (SB 5096), signaling that Democrats expect the House to pass the dramatic bill and Gov. Inslee to sign it.
Senators passed the capital gains tax on March 6. The House Finance committee has held a public hearing for the bill, but has yet to pass it out of committee and send it to the House floor. The lead budget writer, Senator Christine Rolfes (D-23, Bainbridge Island), said Democrats included the tax in the budget because the bill had, for the first time, passed the Senate, and “it’s the Senate’s practice to book [earmark] revenue that we passed.”
Representative Noel Frame (D-36, Seattle) said she’s confident the House will pass the bill which she said is why it is included in the House’s proposal. “We booked it in the budget in years past,” Rep. Frame said, “we built it into the budget this year and we are confident it will continue to move.”
Legislators in the House and Senate expect the 7 percent tax on capital gains of more than $250,000, which takes effect in July 2022, to generate more than $350 million a year beginning in 2023. Rolfes said the revenue generated from the tax in the senate’s proposal would eventually help fund the Taxpayer Fairness account, which provides funding for the working families tax exemption for low-income Washingtonians (HB 1297).
1. In a report released on Thursday afternoon, Seattle’s Office of Police Accountability (OPA) ruled that Seattle Police Department SWAT officer Noah Zech acted within policy when he shot and killed 24-year-old Shaun Fuhr in South Seattle last April.
On the afternoon of April 29, a woman called 911 to report that Fuhr, while drunk, had violated a protection order, beaten her, and abducted their 1-year-old daughter at gunpoint from Rainier Playfield in Columbia City. When police arrived on the scene, the woman told the officers that her daughter’s life was in danger.
A SWAT team and patrol officers from the South Precinct mounted a search for Fuhr in the nearby Mount Baker neighborhood, following civilian tips and Fuhr’s cell phone location. After a brief chase, during which Fuhr ran with his daughter tucked under his arm, the officers cornered him in a fenced backyard, still carrying his daughter.
Within seconds, Zech shot Fuhr in the head; he collapsed and dropped his daughter, who was uninjured. According to the OPA report, the officers then discovered that Fuhr had abandoned his gun during the pursuit; he was unarmed when Zehr shot and killed him.
Based on body-worn video footage of the incident, the OPA’s investigators concluded that Zech could not see Fuhr’s right hand and believed he was still carrying a gun. For that reason, and because of Fuhr’s “prior violence, repeated non-compliance, and dangerous physical handling of the child,” SPD investigators and OPA director Andrew Myerberg decided that “no further de-escalation was safe or feasible.”
SPD leadership has since maintained that Zech acted primarily out of concern for the child’s safety. Brandy Grant, the executive director of Seattle’s Community Police Commission, argued otherwise on Thursday afternoon, writing in a press release that “in no world should it be acceptable to shoot someone when they have their baby in their arms.”
According to the OPA’s report, when an SPD detective contacted Fuhr’s former partner about the shooting, she, too, expressed anger that an officer fired at Fuhr while he held their child. She also asserted that Zech, who is white, shot Fuhr because he was Black.
Additionally, the woman—who remains anonymous—alleged that SPD’s victim support advocate offered her a $100 gift card and “advised her to stay out of Seattle” to avoid retaliation from Fuhr’s family, who she said were harassing her. PubliCola has contacted SPD to confirm the details of that interaction.
While she declined to give a formal statement to the OPA, Fuhr’s former partner told the OPA that she intended to file a lawsuit against SPD. Though “she did not believe the officers were completely at fault,” she told OPA investigators that she “wanted the police to help [Fuhr], not kill him.”
2. Kate Martin, a neighborhood activist who is well on her way to perennial-candidate status, could fall afoul of Seattle’s rules for collecting democracy vouchers if she continues to pursue separate campaigns for mayor and City Council Position 8. (PubliCola first reported on Martin’s dual-campaign strategy—she actually filed to run for Position 8 twice—a couple of weeks ago). On her campaign page (“Mandate tidiness”; “Prosecute radical rioters”), Martin encourages supporters to donate to one or both of her campaigns, and says she’ll decide which one to move forward with before the filing deadline of May 21.
No one has attempted to run for more than one office in the same election cycle under Seattle’s public campaign-finance rules, which allow voters to allocate public campaign funds to candidates who collect a qualifying number of contributions, with signatures, from Seattle residents. (For mayoral candidates, the qualifying number is 600; for at-large races, it’s 400).
But a similar hypothetical did come before the Seattle Ethics and Elections Commission last year, when SEEC director Wayne Barnett wrote a memo titled “Musical Chairs” posing the question: What would happen if a city council member collected contributions for a reelection bid, then decided at the last minute she wanted to run for mayor?
Asked about the potential conundrum Martin’s run poses, Barnett said only, “I suspect this will end up before the full Commission.” And while Martin’s race(s) present mostly a theoretical dilemma (she has raised no money so far, and raised less than $10,000 in her last race for mayor, in 2013), her decision to seek two races at once raises questions the ethics commission will need to resolve.
3. One quote raised the hopes of progressives Thursday and one raised their ire.
Senator June Robinson told reporters Thursday she would pass whatever amended version of the capital gains tax (SB 5096) the House sends back to the Senate—a possible message to House Democrats that she was open to restoring the emergency clause.
As we’ve reported, the emergency clause would make the legislation invulnerable to a voter referendum, although it could still be canceled by initiative.
The look on mayoral candidate Bruce Harrell’s face when KOMO TV’s Jonathan Choe asked how he felt about Black-on-Asian crime, given that “you’re biracial, your mother is Japanese American and your dad’s Black”
1. After months of will-he-won’t-he speculation, three-term former city council member Bruce Harrell announced Tuesday that he’s running for mayor. As a well-known political figure who will likely have support from the Seattle business community, Harrell joins the ranks of instant frontrunners in the race, which also includes current city council president Lorena González, Chief Seattle Club director Colleen Echohawk, South East Effective Development director Lance Randall, and city council aide Andrew Grant Houston.
At a press conference outside Garfield High School, his alma mater, Harrell said he would seek public-private partnerships to fund investments in solutions to homelessness, clean up city parks where unsheltered people have taken long-term refuge during the pandemic, and work to “reimagine” the city’s police force rather than defunding it.
In a conversation with Fizz after the announcement, Harrell said the biggest problem at city hall, Harrell said, is a “lack of relationships”—between the mayor and council, the council and departments, and with outside organizations like Seattle Public Schools.
True to his past campaigns (in addition to serving three terms on the council, Harrell ran for mayor in 2013, receiving 15 percent of the primary vote), Harrell focused on style, more than policy, in our conversation. “Quite honestly, I am attracted to a situation that requires rebuilding,” Harrell said. “It’s sort of easy to hop into a leadership position when an organization is going smoothly and is high-performing. It’s a different skill set for someone to consciously jump into a situation that is plagued with dysfunction, and that doesn’t bother me.”
But he did have a few specific policy prescriptions. He said he would work to revitalize neighborhoods including, but not limited to, downtown, by promoting not just brick and mortar businesses but partnerships between small businesses (particularly women- and minority-owned) and larger ones—a kind of “business-to-business on steroids” approach to saving local businesses. “The first thing we must learn how to do is recycle our money within the economy by making sure the relationship between small businesses and big business is intact,” Harrell said.
He also said he would propose divvying up $10 million between the seven council districts so that the council member from each geographic area could determine, through conversations in that community, what local priorities should be funded. Asked how this would differ from the ongoing participatory budgeting process, which is supposed to determine how the city will spend $30 million set aside for alternatives to policing last year, Harrell said, “I think participatory budgeting is a step in the right direction, but what it still doesn’t do, I think, is have each council member directly accountable to their particular constituents in their community.”
Harrell, who grew up in the Central District and often talks about his deep roots in Seattle, provided more details about his platform in an “open letter” Tuesday morning.
2. Another former city council member, Tim Burgess, is preparing to propose a ballot measure that would change Seattle’s constitution (known as the city charter) by directing the city’s Human Services Department to fund mental health and substance abuse disorder treatment, expand access to shelter, and “collaboratively work with other City departments to ensure that City parks, playgrounds, sports fields, public spaces and sidewalks and streets (“public spaces”) remain open and clear of unauthorized encampments.”
The proposal would mandate (but not fund) new shelter and services and reinstate sweeps, including the removal of encampments that pose a “public health or safety risk,” a term that is not defined and would be subject to interpretation.
The proposal does not appear to include a funding plan.
The charter amendment would require HSD to create a plan to provide services to people living unsheltered (along with individual written “service plans” for every person living unsheltered in the city) and would “require the cleaning and removal of unauthorized encampments in public spaces as these services are available.” In addition, any encampment that poses “a public health or safety risk may be immediately removed,” the proposed amendment says.
In plain language, the proposal would mandate (but not fund) new shelter and services and reinstate sweeps, including the removal of encampments that pose a “public health or safety risk,” a term that is not defined and would be subject to interpretation.
It also directs HSD to work with prosecutors, police, and public defenders to create new “diversion” programs for people who commit non-violent offenses; these programs would include unspecificed “treatment programs as an alternative to incarceration.”
Burgess did not respond to a request for comment.
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To place a charter amendment on the ballot, proponents must get signatures from as many registered voters as 15 percent of the turnout in the most recent mayoral election, or about 33,000 people. After that, the city council can choose to enact the amendment, put it on the ballot, or add their own alternative to the mix. This last scenario played out in 2014, when the council proposed an alternative to a preschool initiative that opponents said gave too much power to unions. The council’s winning alternative was sponsored by Tim Burgess.
3. Despite claiming the Democrats’ capital gains tax legislation (SB-5096) would put an unconstitutional law in place, Republicans are worried that if it passes, taking the law to the Supreme Court will backfire and open the door for an income tax.
Luckily for the Republicans, moderate Democratic Senator Steve Hobbs (D-44, Lake Stevens) added an amendment to the capital gains tax during the Senate vote that stripped the bill of its emergency clause and took out language saying that the revenue from the legislation is tied to government functions. Legislation with an emergency clause, or legislation that includes language saying it’s necessary to support the functioning of state government, can’t be overturned by voter referendum. The removal of both sections clearly signals that opponents prefer to leave the bill open to a statewide referendum, rather than battling over its legality in court. Continue reading “Ballot Measure Would Reinstate Sweeps, Harrell Joins Mayor’s Race, and Republicans Hedge Bets on Capital Gains”→
On Monday morning, the House Finance Committee took up Sen. June Robinson’s (D-38, Everett) historic capital gains tax legislation, which the Democratic-controlled Senate passed two weekends ago on March 6.
During the committee meeting, tech industry lobbyists and conservatives tried to slow the bill’s momentum. Tech lobbyists said the legislation, which calls for a 7 percent tax on capital gains of more than $250,000, would cause small tech startups to flee the state. Republicans chimed in, saying the tax wouldn’t merely drive away business, but it would drive away wealthy people and even the tech industry as a whole.
Specifically, the Washington Technology Industry Association (WTIA) testified that the tax will harm small tech-startups’ ability to recruit employees because stock options (which count as capital gains) would likely be taxed when the employee sells them.
According to the WTIA, stock options are a “primary compensation strategy” for startups. By offering stock options, startups can pay their employees lower salaries while allowing them to buy shares of their employer’s company at a low fixed price. Employees can then sell their shares when the company goes public or is bought out.
Molly Jones, vice president of government affairs for WTIA, implied that tech startups would pack up and head out of Washington if the tax passed. “We are concerned that passage of the capital gains tax will further drive founders, startups, jobs and future drivers of employment and economic growth out of our state,” she said. Her association polled startup members and found, she said somewhat obliquely, that 32 percent were “evaluating whether to relocate their headquarters.” She did say specifically that over 10 percent had already begun looking outside of Washington.
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Republicans piled on, saying the bill will drive the state’s wealthiest to uproot and live elsewhere. They also said the tax will eventually start to affect more than the minuscule 0.23 percent of Washington residents the Democrats estimate would be impacted by the tax.
Republicans also foreshadowed their strategy going forward if the Washington State Supreme Court eventually takes up the bill, by labeling it an unconstitutional “income tax” and comparing it to previously failed income and graduated income tax bills.
House Finance Committee Chair Rep. Noel Frame (D-36, Seattle), who told PubliCola last week that the bill is a priority, kept the discussion moving; 100 people signed up to testify, though only 28 spoke. Nearly 4,000 people signed their names into the legislative record, with more than half, 2,380, signing in support.
One Seattle tech worker, Kevin Litwack, who has received stock options in the past, contradicted the spokespeople for his industry by testifying in support of the bill. “Of course, the tech industry pays well,” he said, “but we don’t need a vast fortune.” Litwack said his peers who view taxes as an obstacle to amassing huge amounts of wealth may “take their money and run,” but “even more will come to replace them, drawn by the values of community and shared responsibility that our state embodies. We, not those purely chasing wealth, are the ones you should want here to build Washington’s future.”
None of the Democratic legislators on the committee spoke to the removal of an emergency clause from the bill that would have put the tax in place immediately and protected the bill from voter referendum. Moderate Sen. Steve Hobbs (D-44, Lake Stevens) sponsored and passed an amendment on the Senate side that removed the clause, irking progressives such as Seattle State Sen. Joe Nguyen (D-34, Seattle).
The bill will head to a finance committee executive session for a vote “soon,” Rep. Frame’s office told PubliCola. The Democrats have an 11-6 majority on the committee. From there it would go to the House floor, where the Democrats are also in control.
For the first time in Washington state history, state legislators had a floor vote on a long-proposed capital gains tax. Even more novel: They passed it.
As expected, on Saturday, March 6, the Senate Democrats, led by Sen. June Robinson (D-38, Everett) pushed SB 5096 through the senate. The bill passed 25 to 24 with most of the Democratic majority, including all of Seattle’s delegation, voting for it. The entire Republican caucus, along with moderate Democratic Senators Steve Hobbs (D-44, Lake Stevens), Mark Mullet (D-5, Issaquah), Annette Cleveland (D-49, Vancouver) and Tim Sheldon (D-35, Potlatch), voted against the bill. A capital gains tax has been part of Governor Jay Inslee’s biennial budget proposals since 2014 and has appeared in every biennial budget proposal since.
The bill proposes a 7 percent tax on capital gains—profits from the sale of stocks, bonds and other long-term assets—over $250,000; the Washington State Department of Revenue estimates that fewer than 20,000 people statewide will be subject to the tax. The bill would take effect in 2022 and an amendment adopted Saturday requires the threshold amount to be adjusted for inflation annually.
The tax excludes capital gains from the sale of real estate, farming and ranching livestock, certain agricultural land sales, timber and timberlands and retirement accounts.
After debating 19 amendments, the senate adopted three, including one that irks progressives; the amendment, inserted in the bill by centrist Sen. Steve Hobbs, struck down the emergency clause that would have protected the bill against a voter referendum.
The other two amendments were proposed by bill sponsor Robinson and another by Sen. Marko Liias (D-21, Lynnwood), respectively.
At most 18,000 people or, roughly 0.24 percent of Washingtonians, will have to pay this tax.
Robinson’s amendment directs the first $350 million collected per fiscal year from the tax to go into the state’s Education Legacy Trust account with the following $100 million going into the state’s general fund. Any more collected would go into a “Taxpayer Relief Account,” which will fund tax breaks for low-income Washingtonians.
Democrats are using the revenue from the capital gains tax to fund another bill the Democratic senate recently passed, a child care bill aimed at expanding affordable child care and early childhood development programs in the state. Democrats say the pandemic has illuminated and exacerbated the issue of unaffordable child care.
That’s certainly good scripting from the Democrats, especially if the legislation goes to a referendum. And there’s no question the pandemic has dramatized inequities in child care. But the pandemic has highlighted all kinds of systemic inequities.
Sen. Liias’ amendment stops people from being taxed twice on real estate sales. Washington’s real estate excise tax (REET) taxes the sale of all real property. To prevent the taxes from stacking, the amendment specifies transactions subject to REET would not also be subject to the capital gains tax.
The most significant amendment, however, was Hobbs’ amendment to strip the emergency clause out of the bill. Hobbs, a moderate Democrat who emerged a decade ago as a sometimes GOP ally during the Republicans’ successful efforts to wrest control from the majority Democrats, said there was no need for an emergency clause; the clause would have put the tax into effect immediately.
As another major cutoff date in the Washington State Legislature approaches, the once-controversial capital gains tax appears to have more momentum this year than it has since the idea was introduced nearly a decade ago.
The bill, which is headed for a likely Senate vote today, would impose a 7 percent tax on capital gains—profits on the sale of assets such as stocks—over $250,000.
Legislators have until March 9 to pass the proposed capital gains legislation out of the Senate where it was originally introduced. A variety of factors have changed the prospects for a capital gains tax since similar measures were initially floated in 2015.
The most obvious factor: the global COVID-19 pandemic.
Senate Majority Leader Andy Billig (D-3, Spokane), tacking to Democrats’ agenda, told PubliCola the bill has more momentum this year than he has seen in previous years for two reasons: uneven economic recovery and a child care crisis that has been “revealed and exacerbated” by the pandemic.
In order to deal with those issues, Billig said, legislators have two goals in mind. First make the tax system more fair. And second: “increase support for families and workers with child care expenses.”
Each year, the first $350 million in revenues from the tax would go into the Education Legacy Trust Account, which would help support schools and access to education. The rest of the anticipated revenue would be put into a new Taxpayer Relief Account.
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An updated fiscal note issued by the Office of Financial Management reported that only about 8,000 taxpayers would pay capital gains taxes. Those who would owe the tax would have their first taxes due in 2023, producing estimated revenues of more than $522 million, with revenues expected to climb to more than $609 million by 2027.
There could be other reasons the bill has more support now than in the past.
A staffer for the Senate Democrats believes there’s been a shift in narrative. The pandemic has laid bare the class divide in the state, the Democratic source said, and Washington state residents have begun to realize the upside-down tax structure is unfair for the working and middle class.
Small business owners are speaking up. During a press conference earlier in the week, Karla Esquivel, owner of the Andaluz boutique in Columbia City, added that the tax would help customers because fixing the regressive tax code would allow them to ultimately have more spending money, which in turn would be beneficial to local businesses.
Another reason the bill actually has a chance to pass the Senate—historically, the place where it hits the skids—is because Democrats have control of the chamber, which was not the case until 2017. Moreover, in the past, some Democrats such as Sen. Steve Hobbs (D-44, Lake Stevens) have been against the capital gains tax. The balance appears to have shifted somewhat, although not entirely. With the debate front and center, some of those Democrats who still find themselves on the fence may have a harder time avoiding the issue. Continue reading “Capital Gains Tax, Stalled in Previous Sessions, Moves Forward”→
Founders and CEOs from more than 120 Washington businesses that are members of the Washington Technology Industry Association recently sent a letter to state senators encouraging a “no” vote on SB 5096, a bill that would impose a 7 percent tax on the sale of long-term capital assets such as stocks, bonds and mutual funds valued at over $250,000.
While rejecting ideas for raising progressive revenue on a state level, at least 58 of the companies whose leaders signed the letter received taxpayer-funded benefits through the Federal Paycheck Protection Program.
Public records reveal that at least 58 of those companies who signed the letter received nearly $34 million in funding from PPP loans, a program established by the federal CARES Act meant to help small businesses stay afloat during the pandemic.
Public records reveal that companies such as ExtraHop Networks, FlyHomes, Widenet, and Neal Analytics received more than $1 million each from the program. Software publisher ExtraHop, which is headquartered in Seattle, received nearly $10 million in assistance, for example. ExtraHop did not respond to an email seeking comment. Several other companies whose leaders signed the anti-capital gains tax letter received over $1 million in loans, although many recipients were under that threshold.
Another corporation that benefited from the federal loans also held a public fundraiser that raised $7.6 million. AstrumU, a Kirkland business that specializes in custom computer programming services, received nearly $600,000 from the PPP prior to the multi-million dollar fundraiser.
Businesses that use their PPP loans as outlined by the Small Business Administration can have their loans forgiven.
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The WTIA argued in their letter to the senate that “a capital gains tax would penalize founders and their employees during an already unprecedented period.” Additionally, they added, “taxing those gains penalizes employees and encourages founders to form their companies in other states, or to relocate to states that do not have a capital gains tax.”
Only nine states including Washington do not have a capital gains tax.
Political think tank Civic Ventures argued in a response letter to the WTIA that their argument is “absurd,” stating that “California has the highest capital gains tax rate of any state in the country, vastly higher than what SB 5096 proposes, and has more tech start-ups than any other state.” (Full disclosure: Civic Ventures is one of PubliCola’s financial supporters).
Sponsored by Sen. June Robinson (D-38, Everett), the first $350 million in revenue raised by the tax would be put into the Education Legacy Trust Account to fund education in the state, while the remainder would be added to a new Taxpayer Relief Account. The highly debated bill is currently awaiting a floor vote in the Senate.
Democrats have proposed several bills this session aimed at taxing the richest Washingtonians, and they passed one of them, a capital gains tax, out of the Senate Ways & Means Committee on Feb. 16, meeting an early session deadline. You can never count out fiscal bills in the state legislature, so some of the other bills, including a wealth tax, could factor in later in the session, but the capital gains tax, SB 5096, now has some momentum.
The bill is being sponsored by Sen. June Robinson (D-38, Everett), at the request of the state Office of Financial Management. Robinson is the Vice Chair of the Senate Ways & Means Committee.
The bill would impose a 7 percent tax on profits of more than $250,000 that result from the sale of certain assets, including stocks, bonds and mutual funds. Unlike a similar capital gains tax that was introduced in the House, Robinson’s version would exclude real estate sales. Other types of capital assets including retirement accounts, timber and certain types of agricultural land would be excluded as well.
Wealthy households in the state currently only pay about 3 percent of their income in taxes, while the poorest pay more than 17 percent.
Scott Merriman, a legislative liaison for OFM, noted that the measure is a way to balance Washington’s tax code, which is one of the most regressive in the country. In addition to having no state income tax, Washington is one of just nine states that does not have a capital gains tax. Because revenue in the state is heavily dependent on property tax and sales tax, wealthy households in the state currently only pay about 3 percent of their income in taxes, while the poorest pay more than 17 percent, according to a 2018 report by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy.
“This bill is a key part of helping to provide the resources to support the proposed expenditures in the budget for your consideration,” Merriman told the committee.
In Robinson’s bill, $350 million of the yearly revenue from the capital gains tax would go towards the state Education Legacy Trust Account, which would help fund education. The rest, an estimated $200 million, would be put into a new account called the Taxpayer Relief Account, whose exact purpose legislators have not determined. Continue reading “Democrats’ Capital Gains Tax Passes First Legislative Hurdle”→
1. Seattle city council member Kshama Sawant learned the hard way yesterday that the standard for decorum in the state legislature is not the same as the standard in city council chambers, when state Rep. Noel Frame (D-36, Seattle) cut her off during a hearing on a proposed state capital gains tax yesterday. Frame is a cosponsor of the legislation, and the prime sponsor on a separate proposal to impose a wealth tax on the richest Washington state residents.
Legislative committees typically hold no more than one public hearing for each bill, and commenters are supposed to restrict their remarks to the legislation on the agenda during the meeting at which they’re testifying.
In her testimony, Sawant mentioned the bill number that was on the agenda before launching into testimony about wealth and income taxes in general, focusing on a theoretical preemption clause in a different bill that hasn’t even been proposed yet—a potential state payroll tax, which some advocates worry could could preempt Seattle’s own JumpStart payroll tax. After about a minute. Frame interrupted, asking Sawant to “keep your comments focused on the bill at hand, please?”
Sawant responded, “It is focused on the bill at hand” and continued reading from her speech about the payroll tax. Frame interrupted two more times as Sawant quoted from a Crosscut article about the payroll tax proposal, accused Frame of “completely suborning the Constitution,” and insisted she had a “Constitutional right” to testify on “every bill that you will talk about focusing on the wealthy and big business.” At that point, Frame cut Sawant’s mic and moved on to the next public commenter.
“She was coming to the committee during a hearing on a capital gains bill to talk about a payroll tax that hasn’t even been dropped yet. It’s just a matter of speaking to the bill. It’s the same type of decorum we try to follow on the floor, and if we don’t focus on the bill at hand, we get gaveled.” — Washington State Rep. Noel Frame
Sawant posted her remarks later in the day, broken up by a large pink box reading “[Censored from this point on].” The charge of censorship prompted Sawant’s fans to dogpile Frame on social media, calling her a “corporate shill” and worse. (Frame, a Bernie delegate in 2016, does not accept corporate contributions—and, again, is sponsoring measures to tax capital gains and personal wealth.)
Ironically, the city council’s own rules require that people testifying before the council limit their comments to items on the council’s agenda, a rule that admittedly tends to be more honored in the breach.
“She was coming to the committee during a hearing on a capital gains bill to talk about a payroll tax that hasn’t even been dropped yet, and she kept referencing wealth, and I was like, ‘The wealth tax hearing was last week,'” Frame told PubliCola. “It’s just a matter of speaking to the bill. It’s the same type of decorum we try to follow on the floor, and if we don’t focus on the bill at hand, we get gaveled.”
As for the issue of preemption: The capital gains tax proposal includes a clause explicitly stating that it does not preempt any other taxes.
2. The city opened two cold-weather shelters on Thursday in anticipation of freezing temperatures, bringing the city’s winter-shelter capacity to about 165 beds. (King County opened a men’s only shelter downtown that will serve another 25.)
Emergency shelter unquestionably saves lives, but it’s worth putting these temporary beds into context: The city lags far behind its own revised schedule to open up 300 federally-funded hotel rooms to people experiencing homelessness, a plan the mayor’s office unveiled before cold weather had even set in last fall. Those 300 rooms are supposed to serve as a temporary way station for 600 or more unsheltered people, who the city plans to move swiftly into permanent supportive or market-rate housing, freeing up rooms for more unsheltered people.
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The mayor’s office and the Human Services Department have been reluctant to release any details about the hotel proposals or even confirm the locations of the hotels, which we’ve reported several times and which the city council has begun discussing openly. The city rejected the Public Defender Association’s proposal to use the Executive Pacific Hotel downtown for an expansion of its successful JustCare hotel-based shelter model because, according to Mayor Jenny Durkan’s office, the PDA’s proposal was too expensive; the city is now reportedly in conversations with the Low-Income Housing Institute, which also responded to the city’s request for qualifications for hotel-based shelters last year.
So what, exactly, is the holdup? I asked Durkan this during a press conference on the winter weather shelters, and she responded by making a hard pivot back to the winter shelters and responding as if I had asked about them—an odd dodge, in my view, since the context for my question was the fact that 300 more people would be inside and warm right now if the hotel shelters had been opened according to the city’s original schedule.
In response to a followup question, Durkan spokeswoman Kamaria Hightower said, “the City is working to implement the shelter surge program and is in active negotiations with hotels and service providers.” (In addition to the Executive Pacific and potentially LIHI, the Chief Seattle Club plans to open a shelter at King’s Inn in Belltown.) “The significant change in weather had us redirect some resources towards emergency weather response but we plan to announce our new partnerships soon.”
Neither council member backed down or gave ground when neighborhood activists tried to goad them (“I can already hear the snarky comments about how it’s called the HOPE Team because you hope they’ll do something!” one man guffawed) and both stayed on message
The delay, which was going on long before yesterday’s cold snap, likely comes down to two issues: Cost and capacity. Every provider who submitted a bid to operate a hotel-based shelter proposed a plan more expensive than the city’s original $17,000-per-bed spending cap. And every provider in the city is stretched thin, as HSD interim director Helen Howell noted in her remarks at Wednesday’s press conference— for example, the city is relying on groups that don’t ordinarily operate emergency shelters, like LIHI, to staff the winter-weather shelters. To run a successful hotel-based shelter program, agencies will either have to hire more staff (which increases) or spread themselves even thinner (which can decrease service quality.)
The Downtown Emergency Service Center’s hotel plan would have entailed moving existing DESC clients from a congregate shelter at Seattle Center rather than taking on a whole new group of residents. The city rejected it as non-responsive because, according to DESC director Daniel Malone, it did not bring a new set of unsheltered people into the shelter system. Continue reading “Rules Aren’t Censorship, Activists Aren’t Policymakers, and Solutions to Homelessness Aren’t Cheap”→
On the afternoon of April 29, a woman called 911 to report that Fuhr, while drunk, had violated a protection order, beaten her, and abducted their 1-year-old daughter at gunpoint from Rainier Playfield in Columbia City. When police arrived on the scene, the woman told the officers that her daughter’s life was in danger.
At a press conference outside Garfield High School, his alma mater, Harrell said he would seek public-private partnerships to fund investments in solutions to homelessness, clean up city parks where unsheltered people have taken long-term refuge during the pandemic, and work to “reimagine” the city’s police force rather than defunding it.
By Shauna Sowersby 