Tag: Dan Strauss

City Council, homelessness

Council Supermajority Passes New Licensing Law That Will Gradually Ban RVs in Seattle

By Erica C. Barnett

The Seattle City Council approved a new permitting scheme designed to gradually prohibit RVs from parking for more than two hours inside city limits on a supermajority 6-3 vote yesterday. (Alexis Mercedes Rinck, Dionne Foster, and Eddie Lin—who voted in favor of the legislation in committee—voted no.) The program, sponsor Dan Strauss said, is designed to “center humans,” end the “inappropriate use of public space,” and provide “pathways to housing for people in need.

Under Strauss’ permitting proposal , the city will conduct a one-time count of people currently living in RVs in Seattle and provide temporary “licenses” to eligible RV residents. These licenses will allow RV owners to park in Seattle as long as they obey “all laws,” to participate in services, and eventually accept shelter and leave their RVs behind. Anyone who “turns down” six offers of “appropriate shelter”—an undefined term—will lose their permit, and their right to park in the city.

Separate legislation in Strauss’ five-bill package will allow the city to stand up short-term storage for unoccupied RVs; expand the city’s Unified Care Team to add eight more city outreach workers focused on RVs; and broaden the definition of “junk vehicle” to make it easier for the city to designate a vehicle as “junk” and tow it away.

Under the new permitting system, no one who moves into an RV or arrives in Seattle in an RV after the one-time “census” will be eligible for a license, and if they park in Seattle for more than two hours, their vehicles can be ticketed and towed.

The council approved the most substantive piece of the legislation—the RV permitting program— after hours of public testimony, much of it from RV residents and advocates for homeless people who called the proposal ill-conceived and inhumane.

Dee Powers, a former RV resident who became homeless in 2015, said it took seven years to find a shelter that would allow her to stay with her partner and pets. “I personally know how badly the proposed ban will be for people living in their vehicles,” Powers said. “I would not survive in a tent. I would not survive in a passenger vehicle. A friend of mine ended up amputating a foot because he was living in a smaller car with no room to lay down. It’s inhumane to force people to live in even more substandard conditions for the sake of the city’s curb appeal.”

On Tuesday, the ACLU of Washington and Columbia Legal Services sent letters to the council opposing Strauss’ proposal. In the ACLU letter, the group’s Smart Justice Policy Program Director Jazmyn Clark said the plan relies on “punitive enforcement and impoundment practices that raise constitutional and civil liberties concerns and risk further destabilizing people living in vehicles.” Specifically, the civil-rights group wrote, enforcing the two-hour parking rule could subject people living in their RVs to “the loss of their home, shelter, possessions, and often their primary source of stability,” in possible violation of their constitutional protection against unlawful search and seizure.

Strauss characterized the package of legislation as the first real effort in many years to help people living in RVs get into safe, stable housing. “This legislation is about ensuring people who live in their vehicles are not forgotten, but that they are cared for, and that they have a clear road to a more stable life that we can provide them,  so that they can come inside into housing or shter keep higher to engage in housing or shelter that is appropriate for them, that meets their needs,” Strauss said. 

Councilmember Dionne Foster said the one-time nature of the “census” was a key reason for her vote against the permitting bill. Foster proposed an amendment at a committee meeting in September that would have made it possible to hold another count of RV residents in the future, but it failed.

“With that door not available, unfortunately, I just have too many concerns around people who may become homeless in the future and could be left out of this permanent program,” Foster said. “Homelessness, I know and I think many of us know this isn’t a static experience. We have success in getting people housed every year …  But we struggle to actually meet our goals on solving homelessness, because we also have more neighbors who become homeless every year for a myriad of reasons. All of those folks who become homeless will not end up living in their vehicles, but some of them may, and some of them may need access to different supports.”

The council declined to pass an amendment from Maritza Rivera, which she called a “line in the sand,” that would have excluded people convicted of promoting loitering for purposes of prostitution (a misdemeanor), sex trafficking, or selling any amount of drugs from the registration program. City-funded diversion plans, like Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion, target people engaged in survival crimes, including those sell drugs to support their own addictions, for diversion rather than criminal prosecution, so excluding anyone who sells drugs from homeless services would have been a departure from the city’s current approach.

Originally, Strauss proposed using $3.5 million that Mayor Katie Wilson had earmarked for a new RV safe lot and shelter to pay for his RV licensing plan, which will include the new city outreach workers and additional police and parking enforcement hours to enforce the new law. Last week, Strauss accused Wilson of being “uncomfortable” addressing homelessness because she proposed a budget that conflicted with his own RV proposal. This week, however, he changed his tune, saying he would identify $5 million in the budget to pay for a new RV safe lot as well as his own RV permitting proposal.

It’s unclear where Strauss plans to find the money. Shortly after this post went to press, Strauss got back to me to say he is “not taking the shelter money,” which totals $37 million over two years, to fund his plan.

At a press conference where WIlson announced a new citywide, neighborhood-based outreach strategy for resolving homeless encampments, I asked her about Strauss’ RV proposal. “We do have a lot of RVs around our city, and there are some real challenges associated with noise, with garbage, with, in some cases, criminal activity happening in and around those vehicles, and so this is a real problem.” But, she added, “I do have some very serious concerns about a number of aspects of the legislation, from the legal risk to the challenges of implementing this very complicated permit program, the cost of implementing it … about the challenges of actually doing this in practice. And I also have concerns about the human impacts.”

The ACLU and Columbia Legal Services also objected to the expansion of the definition of junk vehicles, which requires a vehicle to meet at least three criteria on a list. That list currently includes having a value of less than $500, being on a public street for more than 24 hours, having a broken window, and failing to have an up-to-date registration. Strauss’ junk vehicle legislation expands that list to make it easier for the city to declare a vehicle “junk”; now, if someone’s license or registration is missing or not fully visible, that will count toward the three criteria that the city can use to justify taking it. The new list also now includes vehicles that need repairs to “side or back windows, wheels, tires, lights, body panels, or seats”—items that can be expensive to repair.

“For people with limited financial resources, these conditions may reflect an inability to afford registration, repairs, or other costs, not abandonment of a vehicle,” the ACLU’s Clark wrote. “When that vehicle is also someone’s home, the consequences of an expanded definition are particularly severe.”

The legislation gives the city until July 2027 to come up a plan to implement the legislation, which could include changes to the underlying program—although the 6-3 supermajority that supported the proposal as written suggests there won’t be the kind of fundamental changes opponents have asked for, like allowing amnesty for unregistered RV residents to participate in the program after the one-time cutoff in the legislation.

City Council, Mayor Wilson, Police

Councilmembers Blame Mayor For Delayed SPD Press Conference, Criticize Removal of Former Chief Barnes

By Erica C. Barnett

When interim police chief Andre Sayles, mayoral public safety director Alison Holcomb, and SPD Captain Randy Hunt came to this week’s City Council public safety committee meeting to provide a “quick look” at the city’s response to the  recent shooting at Seattle Center, the briefing was scheduled for 15 minutes. It ended up taking well over an hour, as council members grilled Holcomb about why a press conference on July 26 didn’t happen until almost five hours after the shooting.

The meeting—which began with Rob Saka repeatedly bellowing, “Is there a killer on the loose?”—was largely political theater: The council wants the public to see them as tough and concerned with public safety.

But the tense session also revealed how eager some council members are to blame the mayor for any P.R. screwups on the night of the shooting—and absolve the police, including former chief Shon Barnes, who was out of town when gunfire broke out at the Bite of Seattle, as were Sayles and his fellow deputy chief Yvonne Underwood.

Debora Juarez, who was appointed to Cathy Moore’s seat after Moore quit the council last year, hammered away at Holcomb in a Court TV-style interrogation.

“I can call you Alison? Thank you,” Juarez began. “Because I want to be clear, I don’t want to do a gotcha moment. I’m not trying to humiliate anybody. I just want to understand.” Juarez then attempted to get Holcomb to agree that “the communication problem was between the mayor’s office and SPD,” that Wilson was “not allowing” an SPD public information officer, Brian Pritchard, to testify before the council, and that Wilson’s office “was not communicating with Seattle City Council” on the night of the shooting.

A timeline Kettle released this week shows that Wilson’s office was in touch with the council within less than a hour. That timeline also includes a text from Barnes saying he was working to get a conference call together shortly after 8, followed by a conference call that ended around 9:23, more than three hours after the shooting.

“I’m going to submit to you, Alison, and we both know how this works: I don’t think we need an investigation,” Juarez said. “I think you could tell us right now why there was a five-hour delay.”

Juarez also suggested that no one had any idea where Wilson even was, because she had her camera off during a Teams call the night of the shooting. “I’m not trying to create some cloak and dagger, but if I were the mayor, I would have [turned my camera on],” Juarez said. Then she suggested that Wilson asked the city’s Office of Inspector General to review the events of July 26 as a distraction from the fact that Wilson herself delayed the press conference five hours so that “dignitaries”—Senator Pramila Jayapal and Governor Bob Ferguson—could get there.

“We’re hearing… that some of the people in the mayor’s office didn’t know the difference between a mass hysteria, ‘we need a press conference now to calm people down’… and then later on you do the fancy political press conference and wait for dignitaries to arrive,” Juarez said.

PubliCola’s own reporting on the incident suggests the delay had multiple causes. Initially, SPD still considered the area an active crime scene with a potential shooter at large. Barnes, who was at a conference in Dallas, reportedly wanted a full briefing before he would allow SPD officials on the ground to address the press. Several of SPD’s media relations staffers were out of town, leaving one detective, Brian Pritchard, to answer questions at the scene. And finally, Ferguson and Jayapal wanted to be at the press conference, even if—as both have said—they did not ask the city to wait for them to get there. The balance of these forces, and any other reasons for the delay, will be among the subjects of the OIG’s report and a more detailed committee briefing on September 22.

Holcomb said the mayor’s office and public were less interested in why a press conference was delayed than “why didn’t the public receive more information sooner. … That’s a very different question about why didn’t a press conference happen on site at a certain time. Which, frankly, because you and I both know what’s happening here, is a political question. We’re concerned about public safety right now, and that’s what we’re focused on.”

PubliCola is supported entirely by readers like you.
CLICK BELOW to become a one-time or monthly contributor.

Support PubliCola

Councilmember Dan Strauss then jumped on the anti-Wilson bandwagon, echoing Juarez’ claim that Holcomb could easily tell the council what happened the night of the shooting if she really wanted to. “We don’t need to have an OIG investigation. We could answer those questions right now,” Strauss said.

“No, we can’t, because in fact I don’t know the answer to that question, and as I indicated in my answers to Councilmember Juarez, there were dozens of people who were texting and calling each other with lots of information that evening,” Holcomb responded.

A casual observer might wonder why the city council is making such a big deal out of a press conference that took place more than two weeks ago. After all, both SPD and the mayor put out information about the shooting on social media and via press release prior to the press conference and kept Kettle in the loop in real time.

But as the council monologues went on, it was clear that the council believes the mayor isn’t communicating sufficiently  with them before she makes major decisions, including executive decisions like firing the head of city departments.

“I’m going to talk now about the police chief being asked to resign, because it was similar in the way that [former Seattle City Light director] Dawn Lindell was asked, was fired, was asked to resign,” Strauss said as the brief passed the one-hour mark. “That same set of experiences that I had with Dawn Lindell being let go from the city occurred with Chief Barnes last week.”

As far as he could tell, Strauss continued, Wilson asked Barnes to step down as a fall guy for communication issues after the shooting. “The mayor asked the police chief to resign with very little information, and so the best that I can do is surmise that because there was some communication difference or difficulty, that the chief was asked to resign,” Strauss said.

Wilson signed a settlement agreement with Barnes that included a mutual nondisparagement clause, which almost certainly limits the extent to which she can badmouth the former chief’s performance. Instead, she has said that she has more insight into what’s going on at SPD, an executive department, than the council and outside observers.

That comment rubbed some councilmembers the wrong way. “When the mayor says, “You know, we have I have a better window” into the police chief’s performance, Kettle said, “what’s clear here is that she does not have a better window. She does not have a better window than I do. She does not have a better window than probably the majority of the council.”

As we’ve reported, there are many potential reasons Wilson may have let Barnes go, beyond his frequent trips to his family home in Chicago or his inappropriate response to a question about his travel schedule.

City Council, homelessness

Strauss Legislation Would Require RV Residents to Get Permits, Accept “Appropriate” Shelter

RV residents who violate the permit terms— for example, by declining shelter too many times or failing to “comply with all laws”—would permanently forfeit their right to park overnight in Seattle. 

By Erica C. Barnett

City Councilmember Dan Strauss is proposing legislation that will prohibit people from parking RVs on Seattle streets for more than two hours at a time without a permit, including in the industrial areas that are currently the only place RVs can be legally parked overnight.

The legislation would require everyone living in an RV or “fifth wheel” trailer to apply for a permit with the city; only people who are the registered owners of RVs with up-to-date registration would be eligible to apply, and only people counted in a one-time “census” of every RV in the city would be eligible for a permit, which would cap the program at an estimated 400 to 500 people citywide.

As a condition of the permits, RV residents would be required to enroll in case management and eventually go into housing or shelter. Under the legislation, if an RV resident violates any of the permit requirements or “turns down offers of appropriate shelter” more than five times, they will lose their permit and forfeit their right to park inside the city.

“Appropriate” is not defined in the legislation, and it’s unclear who will decide what counts as appropriate. It’s a truism among homeless service providers that people don’t generally turn down shelter that works for their needs, so by definition, a housing or shelter offer that someone turns down is inappropriate for that person at that time.

The goal, Strauss told PubliCola on Monday, is to get everyone currently living in RVs to move to a sanctioned “safe lot,” a shelter, or permanent housing, and to eliminate RVs from city streets.

“Through this framework, we are being really clear about what is and is not going to be an option,” Strauss said. “If you live in the city of Seattle in your RV while we get additional safe lots stood up, you’ll need to have a permit, and when we have safe lots stood up, you need to live in a safe lot if you want to live in an RV.”

“We want to be able to say, in a year from now, ‘We are no longer allowing motor homes and fifth wheels on our streets.'”

Permitted RV residents would have to park in the geographic area where they receive their permits. Strauss said this provision ensures outreach workers can locate their clients; however, no similar provision applies to people living in tents, on the street, or in other types of vehicles, who can move freely about the city.

Strauss’ plan would provide funding for a new safe lot for RVs whose owners are ready to move into shelter or housing; a separate RV storage lot for those want the ability to go back to their vehicles if shelter doesn’t work out; and seven more Unified Care Team members to coordinate with outreach workers who work with vehicle residents.

The Unified Care Team is a team of city employees, vastly expanded under Bruce Harrell, that removes encampments and, in some cases, refers their displaced residents to available shelter beds.

Strauss’ plan to expand RV parking and shelter would cost $3.5 million a year on an ongoing basis, with a funding boost of $1.5 million at the beginning of implementation to get the program going. The money has already been set aside in the budget, thanks to previous actions by Strauss, but could be spent on other purposes if the council decided not to use it for the RV residence program.

PubliCola is supported entirely by readers like you.
CLICK BELOW to become a one-time or monthly contributor.

Support PubliCola

 

A spokesman for Mayor Katie Wilson’s office said Wilson is “supportive in principle of new safe lots, storage and additional outreach.” However, he added, Wilson’s office “has shared operational and policy concerns about the details of the permit program, and continue[s] to review the current legislation.”

Strauss worked with Vehicle Resident Outreach, a project run by the University Heights Center, on the legislation. Jen Manlief, the VRO program manager, called the legislation “a step in the right direction” that provides “places for people to be. It’s not just hiring people to put bandaids on things.”

Currently, Manlief said, “there’s a lot of RVs and there’s nowhere for them to be. What we’re doing now as outreach workers is chasing them around the city and not solving anything.”

But other homeless advocates have expressed concern about the more punitive elements of the proposal, which could result in vehicle impoundments that lead to an increase in street homelessness. For example, one of the ordinances expresses an “intent” to give unpermitted RV owners up to three warnings before towing away their homes, but explicitly allows “impounding of motor homes and travel trailers without notice.”

Alison Eisinger, director of the Seattle/King County Coalition on Homelessness, said, “We appreciate Councilmember Strauss’ proposal to assist people living in RVs through additional dedicated safe parking, skilled outreach, and the idea of a vehicle storage program.”

However, she added, “we have significant concerns about his suggested permit program, which as written is punitive and likely unworkable. What would happen to people who miss the one-time opportunity to get a permit, whose circumstances change, or who start living in an RV after the permitting process is closed?”

It’s also unclear what will happen if there’s insufficient shelter for people who do get the permits. In San Francisco, a similar temporary RV permit system had to be extended because there weren’t enough places for people living in RVs to go.

Strauss said he believes people who want to live in their vehicles, rather than coming into shelter, will figure out a way to comply with the law, possibly by moving into smaller vehicles. “Humans are very smart, and if they’re certain they need to live in their vehicle in the city of Seattle, they will likely find a vehicle that is not as unique as an RV, in terms of size, space, and hazardous materials, where they can continue to live in their vehicle,” Strauss said.

Strauss’ legislation anticipates that RV residents will get direct, dedicated access to tiny houses, a model that has worked well at Salmon Bay Village—a now-dismantled safe lot with 11 tiny houses operated by the Low Institute Housing Institute in Interbay. The village was replaced by an indoor pickleball complex; LIHI plans to open a larger safe lot in West Seattle, the Glassyard Commons, in November, with space for 72 vehicles and 20 tiny houses.

LIHI director Sharon Lee said 60 percent of the 87 people who lived in Salmon Bay Village over 18 months went on to permanent housing; according to one-pager on the village, LIHI was able to permanently dispose of 67 RVs.

“Salmon Bay showed that people are happy to get out of their rundown RVs and into a clean, habitable, nice tiny house with a kitchen and hygiene and all of the amenities,” Lee said.

Currently, Lee noted, many RVs get reused after they’re impounded by the city, showing back up on city streets in worse condition than before. “You can’t just keep people living in their rundown RV,” Lee said. “The important thing is that rundown RVs should be destroyed and not reused.”

The legislation sets up many pitfalls that could make RV residents ineligible for permits or cause them to lose a permit after it’s issued, including expired tags, visible trash, or leaving a pet tied up outside and “unattended.” The bill also requires RV residents to “comply with all laws,” a vague but all-encompassing directive. It also stipulates that the only people who will be eligible for permits are those counted in a one-time “census” by the city’s Human Services Department; any vehicle residents who aren’t included in that count, including those who arrive in Seattle or starts living in an RV later, would be violating the law.

Permit holders would be allowed to park in industrial areas for up to 72 hours, the time limit that applies to all on-street parking in the city. They’d still risk losing their vehicles if they break down and can’t be moved, just like today.

A resolution accompanying the five ordinances Strauss is proposing expresses the city’s commitment to “removing eco-blocks currently placed in City right-of-way” within six months. These large concrete blocks have proliferated all over industrial parts of Ballard, which Strauss represents, as well as parts of SoDo, West Seattle, other neighborhoods—placed illegally in city rights-of-way by businesses who don’t want RVs parking outside.

“Removing the eco-blocks gives the RVs a place to be, which is something we’ve been fighting for for the last five years,” Manlief said. However, the resolution does not say who would be responsible for removing eco-blocks or identify any enforcement mechanism to ensure it actually happens.

Lee says the proposal strikes a good balance between providing new places for people living in RVs to relocate and getting RVs off the streets of Seattle. “I think it creates an incentive for long-term RV dwellers to move into shelter and tiny houses or housing—or, for that matter, to be receiving help to reunite with family or friends,” Lee said.

The council’s public safety committee discussed Strauss’ proposal for the first time on Tuesday. Strauss has said he plans to bring the bills back to committee on September 22, after the council’s annual August recess. It’s an ambitious timeline. Homeless advocates will likely push the council to spend time making the bill less punitive toward RV residents, and the council will be working by then on next year’s budget, which generally occupies most of their attention through November.

City Council, Density, housing, Utilities

Seattle May Actually Limit Anti-Housing Land Use Appeals; More People Will be Eligible for Utility Discounts

 

1. The Seattle City Council’s land use committee will vote tomorrow on a proposal, from Councilmember Eddie Lin, to eliminate an appeals process that allows activists to halt pro-density legislation before it becomes law. Currently, anyone can stop or delay city land use decisions by filing an appeal with the city hearing examiner under the State Environmental Policy Act, arguing that the city hasn’t done enough environmental review before proposing legislation that would change city land use law.

Speaking to PubliCola on Tuesday, Lin said the vast majority of appeals are filed by a relatively small group of activists and attorneys with long experience appealing  complicated land use laws.

“The fact that we often see the same people appeal  again and again shows that 99 percent of Seattleites, if not 99.9 percent, do not find [hearing examiner appeals] a way to engage” on land use issues, Lin said. “This is a small number of people engagnig who have the resources” to file complex legal appeals.

Lin’s legislation would remove the right to appeal land use decisions to a hearing examiner, requiring opponents of land use legislation to appeal directly to the state Growth Management Hearings Board or King County Superior Court. Eliminating the local appeals process allows legislation to go into effect while the activists and lawyers appeal through the other two available avenues. Had the legislation been in place when the council took up the remaining parts of the long-overdue Comprehensive Plan update, the council would have spent the last few months meeting to discuss important amendments to the plan; instead, it’s stalled until next year at the earliest.

“I’ve never been a big fan of our SEPA appeals process,” Lin said. “I’ve seen the decades-long delays [it caused] to Fort Lawton housing and the Burke-Gilman Trail,” two projects that have been stalled for years by a seemingly endless series of environmental appeals. (Opponents argue that it’s better for the environment to move cyclists next to a busy arterial roadway rather than the current path where, it just so happens, a lot of industrial businesses like to drive their trucks.)

Activists lined up earlier this month to denounce the legislation as a reckless giveaway to developers that would allow them to “clearcut” Seattle, sacrificing trees, orcas and birds to apartments in Seattle’s suburban-style single-family neighborhoods. The land use committee will discuss Lin’s proposal tomorrow at 9:30; so far, there’s just one amendment, from Council President Joy Hollingsworth. It would add a 30-day public comment period to every land use decision that would be exempted from hearing examiner appeals by Lin’s legislation.

PubliCola is supported entirely by readers like you.
CLICK BELOW to become a one-time or monthly contributor.

Support PubliCola

 

2. On Tuesday, the council approved legislation PubliCola covered last month that aims to increase participation in the city’s Utility Discount Program by increasing the threshold for eligibility from 70 percent of the state median income to 60 percent of Seattle’s muchhigher median income next year, with two more bumps—to 70 percent  of Seattle median in 2027 and 80 percent in 2028. Both those increases will require separate legislation.

The bill’s sponsor, Dan Strauss, initially seemed surprised at the lack of controversy surrounding the proposal, which would result in slight utility rate increases and would make UDP one of the easiest income-based programs to apply for. A press availability to discuss the bill (and other topics) enticed just one reporter (me), and the vote on Tuesday was unanimous—and even followed by a rare burst of applause for every council member.

One challenge the program has faced is getting more eligible people to sign up; at the end of last year, only about 36 percent of eligible Seattle residents were participating in the program. To apply, visit the city’s Utility Discount Program page.

City Council, housing

“We’re Gonna Throw It Away.” Dan Strauss, on Losing End of Stadium Housing Vote, Predicts Disaster for Industrial Seattle

By Erica C. Barnett

On a 6-3 vote yesterday, the Seattle City Council approved legislation sponsored by Council President Sara Nelson to allow new apartments in the area immediately south of Seattle’s two stadiums, after weeks of often acrimonious debate between supporters of the bill (including affordable housing developers, community groups, small manufacturers, and the Building Trades union) and opponents (representatives from maritime industries, the Port, and housing advocates who argue it’s unhealthy to allow apartments on arterial streets near an industrial zone.)

Councilmember Rob Saka, considered the swing vote, voted “yes,” as did Councilmember Joy Hollingsworth, who voted against the bill in committee.

The new law will allow a maximum of 990 apartments, half of them affordable to people making less than 90 percent of median income (smaller units would lower income limits). Under amendments adopted yesterday, renters would have to affirm in their lease that they know they’re living in a “geologic hazard” area that’s vulnerable during earthquakes; building owners would have to post several prominent warning signs saying the same; and housing would be prohibited along the west side of First Ave. S., the main artery through the area. The amendments also prohibit building owners from seeking any public subsidy at any point, including for future environmental remediation.

Without belaboring the five-hour meeting (which I covered in real time over on Bluesky), one key dynamic jumped out: Councilmember Dan Strauss, who opposed Nelson’s legislation from the jump, dominated yesterday’s meeting, first by attempting repeatedly to delay the vote, and then by reiterating his arguments against the proposal long after it was clear that the vote wasn’t going to go his way. In about three and a half hours of deliberation, which included nine amendments by other councilmembers, Strauss spoke for well over an hour, returning to the same points again and again and suggesting repeatedly that if his colleagues had only done their homework, they would be voting with him.

It’s common for city councilmembers to speak out in vociferously when they know they’re going to lose (as Bob Kettle, who also opposed the bill from the beginning, did yesterday, even accusing his colleagues of being “aligned with the Trump administration” by voting to put housing near a polluted area). It’s unusual, with the notable exception of former councilmember Kshama Sawant, for a council member to use every opportunity for comment to make the same repetitive points long after it’s clear they’ve lost.

Strauss returned more than a dozen times to the fact that hotels are already allowed around the stadiums, suggesting at one point that his colleagues probably weren’t even aware of that. (There’s a Silver Cloud Inn right next to the stadiums, so it’s hard to imagine they aren’t). Strausswas chair of the land use committee when the city adopted an updated industrial lands policy that was changed at the last minute to allow hotels and offices in the stadium district, but not housing, a decision Strauss characterized as a maximalist and permanent compromise. (Proponents of housing in the area have argued that the deal was actually the opposite—the city would approve industrial lands without the contentious housing element, then revisit the housing question later.)

“Again, say it with me now,” Strauss intoned, some four hours in. “This proposal could be built today, if the units were hotels.” Since one of the main arguments against housing in the area is that renters’ cars would jam up traffic to and from the Port’s freight terminals, it’s hard to see how hotels would be much better—unless the idea is that tourists would use transit and renters would not, a conclusion that isn’t borne out by Seattle’s own experience with parking mandates, which have shown that renters in areas served by transit are far less likely to own cars than other Seattle residents.

As the meeting neared its 7pm conclusion, Strauss went so far as to imply that the 990 proposed apartments would actually obliterate the city’s maritime and industrial industry. Gesturing toward the “orange cranes” on the waterfront outside City Hall, he wondered aloud, “how much training does it take to get a skilled operator? How much investment does it take? And we’re gonna throw it away. We’ll keep the picture of it, though, in the conference room.”

Strauss repeatedly suggested shadowy forces were at play in some of his colleagues’ yes votes, fixating on a comment from Cathy Moore about a walking tour she and Maritza Rivera took at which, they said, a neighborhood group member suggested vacating South Occidental Street near the stadiums so it could become a pedestrian-only zone.. “The package of amendments today clearly demonstrates that council members have good intent, and that they know that housing in this area is a bad idea, but feel compelled to vote on this proposal or for this proposal,” Strauss said. “Today, for even me, new information has come to light, which further leads me to believe there were commitments or things shared in private.”

“If the next step from here as an alley vacation, this isn’t about affordable housing or union-built anything—this is back to 2016 about a whole different conversation,” Strauss said. The apparent implication was that the owner of much of the property rezoned for housing yesterday, Chris Hansen, had cut a side deal with other council members to bring back his 2016 stadium proposal without Strauss’ knowledge; that proposal died after the council narrowly rejected a proposal to vacate Occidental. Rivera and Moore denied this and said they regretted bringing it up.

Strauss said the zoning change, if approved, would “possibly be the first decision before this council that cannot be taken back.” While it’s true that once a building goes up, the council doesn’t have the power to tear it down, the city does change zoning laws all the time. It seemed like what Strauss wanted to say is that he didn’t like the way his colleagues were voting. But that’s sometimes just part of the job.

City Council, Crime, Elections, public safety, Transportation

Transportation Levy Funds Leary Bypass of Burke-Gilman Trail; Council Escalates Street Racing Rhetoric (and Fines)

1. The Seattle City Council voted Tuesday to approve a $1.55 billion, eight-year transportation levy for the November ballot, and Mayor Bruce Harrell signed the legislation Wednesday.

In a reversal from its previous position, the council decided Tuesday to earmark $20 million to “complete” the long-disputed Burke-Gilman Trail by rerouting cyclists and pedestrians off the current route and onto new path next to busy Leary Way NW. Cycling advocates and industrial businesses have spent decades locked in a legal battle over the “missing link” of the trail along Shilshole Ave. NW, with business groups opposed to a straightforward link between two sections of the trail through Ballard.

By explicitly funding the Leary detour, Strauss said his amendment will finally settle that debate, “putting this 30-year problem to rest.” But the debate is likely to continue, even assuming voters approve the transportation levy and secure the $20 million for the Leary option. The proposed route, as we’ve reported previously, would require cyclists to cross 13 active intersections, the most of any alternative the city has studied, plus 33 driveways and loading docks—each presenting its own opportunities for collisions.

Three council members—Sara Nelson, Bob Kettle, and Maritza Rivera—voted against Strauss’ proposal, with Cathy Moore and Rob Saka reversing their previous “no” votes. Rivera said she supported completing the Missing Link, but that she didn’t support earmarking so much money for a specific option when there would be more opportunities to discuss the alternatives and finalize the details later; Nelson said she was concerned about stripping all but $6 million from an arterial maintenance fund that was supposed to help leverage millions of dollars in other investments.

Model T speedster photo via ModelTPix.com.

2. Also this week, the council’s public safety committee, chaired by Kettle, approved legislation that will allow police to issue tickets to anyone engaged in illegal street racing in Seattle.

The new ordinance (much like last year’s controversial drug law, which incorporated an existing state law into a local ordinance) imposes a fine of $500 for the first infraction and, thanks to an amendment added by Councilmember Rob Saka, escalating fines that top out at $1,500 per infraction. Another Saka amendment, modeled on a law in Kent, makes it a civil infraction for people to be “spectators” at street races.

“Many of these races are occurring because they’re putting on a sideshow. They’re putting on a show for people,” Saka said, adding that spectators can number in the “hundreds—hundreds!” The “key delta” between the Kent law and Seattle’s proposal, Saka added, is that Seattle’s only imposes a civil fine, while Kent’s allows criminal penalties.

“We can’t be afraid of taking risks and taking strong action to solve this problem that has plagued our city over and over again,” Saka said.

A council spokesperson said it “will ultimately be up to SPD” how to enforce the ban on watching street races, which could include issuing tickets on site or using footage from nearby surveillance cameras to track down and ticket people after the fact.

None of these measures are likely to end street racing, which has been illegal in Washington state since the age of the Model T. State law has banned street racing since at least 1915, suggesting it has been a perennial problem. The original law banning street races allowed officers to arrest drivers for “racing on the public highways,” except when local authorities set aside time for “speed trials or speed contests.”