Tag: Equitable Development Initiative

City Council, Equity

Councilmember Rivera Questions 2026 Funding for CARE Team, LEAD Diversion, and Equitable Development Initiative

 

By Erica C. Barnett

At the city council’s first meetings on Mayor Bruce Harrell’s proposed budget this week, Councilmember Maritza Rivera repeatedly suggested that she has not gotten sufficient information, since joining the council last year, about several programs the city funds that are designed to help people living unsheltered or in crisis. Rivera has opposed some of the

On Thursday morning, Rivera suggested it might be premature to expand the city’s CARE Department, which responds to 911 calls, and the related CARE Team, which responds to a limited subset of emergency calls alongside police and can take over those calls once police sign off. As we’ve reported, the CARE Team is set to sign a new agreement with SPD that will allow it to respond to calls without police in tow, and expand the types of calls team members, who are social workers, are allowed to respond to.

The city expanded CARE to 24 people last year, the maximum allowed under the agreement with SPD that expires at the end of this year. A proposed 0.1 cent sales tax would increase that number to 48, on the assumption that the new agreement will allow the expansion.

“I don’t know how well that expansion is going,” Rivera said. “I know there are issues underlying all of that. Nevertheless, we are not done with this full year and  the proposal in this budget is to go from 24 to 48… and I have not seen any information about the work that CARE is doing that warrants the expansion,” given that the 2025 budget year isn’t over yet.

Largely in response to council questions, CARE launched a detailed data dashboard, currently accessible only the city’s internal network (to which Rivera has access) earlier this year. CARE has also repeatedly presented data and results to the council and publicly answered their questions.

Rivera did not raise similar concerns about a lack of data when the council approved an expansion of live police cameras into several new neighborhoods earlier this month. The council started discussing that expansion in late July, just weeks after SPD turned on new surveillance cameras in three initial “pilot” neighborhoods. The pilot program added almost $6 million to the 2025-2026 budget along with 21 new positions at SPD; the new budget anticipates SPD will need to hire another nine people to staff the surveillance center, and cost around $500,000 on cameras alone. A majority of the council, including Rivera, green-lit the surveillance expansion without any data showing that the cameras helped SPD solve or stop crimes that would have gone unaddressed without the cameras.

Later in the day, Rivera said she also didn’t have enough information to know whether LEAD and CoLEAD, two programs run by the nonprofit Purpose Dignity Action, were worth the funding provided in the mayor’s budget, which includes about $15 million for LEAD pre-booking diversion and $5 million for the CoLEAD encampment resolution program. That money, Rivera observed, is enough to “fund an actual department,” like the Office of Arts and Culture.

“I just want to make sure I understand how well we’re doing with diversion services,” Rivera said. “I just don’t feel, since I got here last year, that I have that information that I can really speak to. How really are we helping people? I understand there’s a lot more people in the system. Ideally we’d be people should be going into recovery, and then we’re taking up new people. I don’t necessarily think that’s happening, but I don’t want to be unfair, so I just need more information.”

Andrew Myerberg, Harrell’s chief of staff, said the people LEAD and CoLEAD work with, who are often homeless and involved in the criminal legal system, don’t just “go into recovery” and cycle out; their complex needs can take years to address, and relapse is common. LEAD, founded in 2021, is an internationally renowned diversion model that has been implemented around the world, while CoLEAD has been widely praised as the most successful approach to addressing unsanctioned encampments by permanently housing people living in state-owned rights-of way.

Speaking more broadly, Rivera said she was not “supportive of Housing First”—programs based on the premise that housing is a necessary, if not sufficient, condition for long-term stability, health, and recovery—because “I don’t think it’s fair. … They’re not going to be able to stay housed if they don’t have the treatment services.” This reflects a misunderstanding that has become a talking point among the right across the country—that “housing first” means “housing only,” and that programs like LEAD simply dump people in empty houses and leave them there to rot.

On Friday, Rivera appeared eager to reignite her efforts last year to gut the city’s Equitable Development initiative, which helps fund community-based efforts by small, often first-time, developers to help their projects get off the ground. Last year, Rivera proposed legislation that would have frozen all new funding for the program and required the community groups it funded to spend down every penny they received from EDI by the end of the year or lose all their funding—a virtual impossibility for long-term capital projects that typically take five to seven years to complete.

Rivera’s proposal resulted in an outcry from communities that were slated to benefit from EDI projects (which are concentrated in Southeast Seattle) as well as panicked EDI recipients, who begged the council not to withdraw city funding for their projects. (Eventually, Rivera withdrew her amendment and replaced it with new reporting requirements for EDI projects.) Rivera suggested Friday that she still thinks EDI is completing projects too slowly, noting that 20 of 75 EDI projects that have received funding at some point in the last 10 years, through 2025, are finished.

“You know, ideology is great, but what is really great is when we [take] action and these projects actually open to help community,” Rivera said. “Just talking about it, that’s great, but we have to do it. And so this was my concern, as you know last year, is a lot of these projects are not not moving along fast enough where they’re actually going to benefit community, and that’s a concern.”

Rob Saka backed Rivera up, saying that while he didn’t “remember all the ins and outs and twists and turns of that… [I] remember there being a fair amount of confusion around the original purpose and goals of that underlying effort. And I also remember my colleague being unfairly attacked, in some cases based off of race, which, you know, check your privilege! White saviorism in the city of Seattle is particularly real.”

Saka did not give any examples of anyone making a racist argument against Rivera’s proposal to gut the Equitable Development Initiative, which is explicitly designed to benefit underserved communities of color. The original EDI initiative was sponsored by former councilmember Tammy Morales, who, like Rivera, is Latina.

PubliCola’s own coverage at the time showed that the overwhelming majority of those who asked the council to allow EDI projects to keep moving forward were people of color who worked on or whose communities directly benefited from these grassroots community projects.

City Council, Development, Equity, housing

Maritza Rivera Said She Never Intended to Gut the Equitable Development Initiative. Records Tell a Different Story.

 

Records also show that Rivera, who blamed the city’s planning director for delaying a meeting “for months,” was chiefly responsible for the delays.

By Erica C. Barnett

In late May, City Councilmember Maritza Rivera proposed freezing 2024 funds intended for the Office of Planning and Community Development’s Equitable Development Initiative, the city’s largest anti-displacement program, prompting outrage from community-based organizations and residents across the city.

She backed down after thousands of people flooded council members’ inboxes with objections to her proposal, which would have frozen about $24 million in 2024 funding for EDI projects unless OPCD spent all the funds that were currently available for the program, around $53.5 million, by September. Because it can take many years to spend capital funds, the measure would have effectively halted all projects planned for 2024 as well as future projects, putting a halt to the program.

EDI provides partial funding, such as startup capital costs, to community groups and nonprofits doing projects that benefit low-income people and communities of color, largely in Southeast Seattle. Freezing the 2024 funds would have opened up a path for the council to spend these targeted dollars closing the general-fund budget, at the expense of dozens of projects lined up to get EDI funds this year.

Rivera insisted at the time that she wasn’t trying to kill the initiative, and said she never intended to vote against the budget “carryforward” ordinance that would have preserved funding for projects that are already under contract.

But documents obtained through a records request show that Rivera was scoffing at EDI well before she began raising questions publicly, and that as late as May 15, she was suggesting that she might vote to kill the $53.5 million in projects as well, telling OPCD director Rico Quirindongo in an email, “At $50.5 million dollars and given the $250 million budget deficit, I need to have information that will give me confidence in voting for the proposed carryforward and in general, by which to show my constituents the accountability we are giving to OPCD’s programs.”

Even earlier, in March—shortly after OPCD did a lengthy presentation on EDI— Rivera texted Councilmember Cathy Moore, saying, “I could not disagree more that EDI has addressed housing displacement across the city and for low income families.”

In May, Rivera defended her proposal after three hours of public comment against it, accusing her colleague Tammy Morales of spreading “disinformation” and confusing people into believing that her bill would cut funding for projects that were already funded.

A review of thousands of emails that poured in opposing Rivera’s proposal, however, suggests the opposite—community groups, including many that have received EDI funds, understood exactly what her bill would do.

For instance, Wa Na Wari, the Black arts and culture organization, noted in their email that their plans to purchase a permanent home include future EDI funding that would be at risk under Rivera’s proposal. The director of the Church Council of Greater Seattle wrote, “It is imperative to the flourishing of our city that you do not pass any amendment which would freeze funding for the Equitable Development Initiative.” And even a mass email, which referred to the more than 50 organizations whose EDI funding was secured prior to 2024, noted that the proposal would harm ongoing and upcoming projects by halting the program.

Rivera also mischaracterized her attempts to get information from OPCD about the program. During a May council meeting,  for example, Rivera complained that she had repeatedly sought meetings with OPCD, but the department had “consistently rescheduled and delayed.”

But emails and scheduling records only show one instance in which OPCD rescheduled a meeting, moving a one-hour sit-down with Rivera from Friday, May 17 to Monday, May 20 so that Mayor Bruce Harrell’s chief operating officer, Marco Lowe, could be there. (OPCD met with Rivera a second time later that week.) “As a consequence” of this schedule change, Rivera told a council central staffer on May 15, she was pulling EDI program out of “carryforward” legislation for a separate vote, setting up her proposal to freeze funding for the program.

Ironically, the May meeting would have happened a month earlier if Rivera herself had not rescheduled it, after Quirindongo said he had COVID and would need to meet virtually instead of at Rivera’s office.  “I think we should reschedule and give you time to recover,” Rivera wrote. “Feel better soon.”

Quirindongo did meet briefly with Rivera on May 8, but only after Rivera moved the meeting at least twice, according to scheduling records, prompting his assistant to ask Rivera’s legislative aide, “Are you able to clarify about the delay in this meeting getting scheduled? You had said she would be available today, then Monday morning, but now not until midday Wednesday, and I’d like to better understand if there are special steps we need to take in the future to get on her calendar if we have time-sensitive requests.”

Despite being chiefly responsible for putting off the meeting with OPCD, Rivera sent multiple emails to Quirindongo excoriating him for delaying their meeting “for over two months.” Quirindongo responded that, in the case of the May meeting that OPCD bumped from Friday to the following Monday, Lowe was invited to help answer some of Rivera’s questions—including a list she sent Thursday night, just hours before the meeting was scheduled.

Rivera responded, “I have always been clear on the request. Not sure where the disconnect is on OPCD’s end. Looking forward to the set of briefings occurring before next Tuesday,” which was the deadline for council members to amend the budget legislation. Rivera didn’t introduce her amendment to freeze EDI funding until three days after the deadline, filing it late in the afternoon on May 24, the Friday before the long Memorial Day weekend.

City Council, Development, Equity

Council Imposes New Reporting Requirements on Community-Led Development Projects

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

By Erica C. Barnett

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

City Council, Equity

Rivera Backs Off on Amendment That Threatened Dozens of Anti-Displacement Programs

By Erica C. Barnett

In a late-afternoon announcement Friday, Seattle City Councilmember Maritza Rivera announced she is pulling a proposed budget proviso that threatened the future of dozens of projects funded by the city’s Equitable Development Initiative, the city’s largest anti-displacement program. Rivera’s new amendment “requests that the Office of Planning and Community Development submit a status report for the Equitable Development Initiative (EDI) grant program in the 2024 Adopted Budget.”

On Tuesday, advocates for EDI-funded programs filled council chambers to capacity as they waited to testify against Rivera’s proposal. EDI funds help community groups that have not previously developed projects with funding for site acquisition, capacity building, and other costs; since 2016, when the program started, EDI has funded mixed-use housing developments, supported arts organizations, and helped small businesses expand and stay in their communities.

Although Rivera claimed her proviso—a freeze on funding until a later council vote—wouldn’t defund any current EDI projects, that would almost certainly be its impact. In addition to requiring a report from OPCD, Rivera’s original amendment would have required OPCD to spend all the money allocated to the program in previous years, a total of $53.5 million, by September 24—a virtually impossible task, given that capital projects take years, not weeks or months. If any of the funds remained unspent, this year’s funding, more than $25 million, would be absorbed back into the city’s budget.

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Specifically, Rivera’s original amendment “impose[d] a proviso1 on $25.3 million allocated for the Equitable Development Initiative (EDI) program in the 2024 Adopted Budget. … Council would consider lifting the proviso via ordinance after the Office of Planning and Community Development (OPCD) accomplishes the following: (1) expends the proposed 2023 carryforward amount of $53.5 million; and (2) provides a status update report to the City Council on the existing list of projects.” The “transmittal of legislation to lift the proviso,” the original proposal continues, “should occur no later than September 24, when the Council anticipates transmittal of the Executive’s proposed 2024 Year-End Supplemental Budget Ordinance.”

If the conditions aren’t met in time, Rivera’s original proposal says, “the $25.3 million appropriation will lapse at year-end and become part of the 2025 beginning fund balance.”

Rivera, who has never acknowledged that her proposal amounted to anything more than a request for information, has said the people who opposed her original amendment were victims of “disinformation” from unspecified sources. In her statement today, she continued to insist that her proposal would not have put EDI programs at any risk. “As I said earlier this week, the ongoing projects were never at risk, but I understand that stakeholders needed a strong message of support for the EDI program. I look forward to continued engagement with community,” Rivera said.

City Council, Development, Equity

Blaming Blowback on “Disinformation,” Rivera Postpones Vote on Future of Equitable Development Initiative for One Week
Dian Ferguson, director of the Central Area Senior Center, was one of more than 150 people who testified on Tuesday.

By Erica C. Barnett

On Tuesday, the Seattle City Council voted to postpone a vote on Councilmember Maritza Rivera’s last-minute amendment to freeze 2024 funding for the city’s largest anti-displacement program, the seven-year-old Equitable Development Initiative, until next week, ostensibly so that Rivera can “correct disinformation that was irresponsibly given to community about the proposed amendment.”

“I am deeply disappointed that the objective of this amendment has been grossly mischaracterized,” Rivera said, describing her proposal as a mere request for a “status report” from the city’s Office of Planning and Community Development on projects funded by the initiative, which helps pay (among other things) for early-stage development costs and technical assistance for projects proposed by community groups that have limited development experience.

Although Rivera claimed her proviso—a freeze on funding until a later council vote—wouldn’t defund any current EDI projects, she failed to acknowledge the most impactful element of the legislation: In addition to requesting a report on current projects, Rivera’s amendment would require OPCD to spend all the money allocated to the program in previous years, a total of $53.5 million, by September 24.

If that doesn’t happen, according to the text of Rivera’s amendment (below) and the staff analysis attached to the proposal, the council could not hold a vote to lift the proviso and the money for the EDI projects would go back into the general fund, where it could be used to close an estimated $250 million budget deficit.

Because capital projects take years, not months, the effect of the amendment would be to cripple projects that are already underway. “Development projects take time, and if you’re not an experienced developer, it takes longer,” Councilmember Tammy Morales, a longtime EDI supporter, said. “But that doesn’t mean that we withhold funding from your program, so that you can’t continue to execute on your program. It means that we make sure you get what you need to do it right.”

Rivera’s proposal went up online the Friday afternoon before the long Memorial Day weekend, giving representatives from the dozens of community groups that would be impacted by the loss of funding just three days to mobilize against the proposal. On Tuesday, they turned out in numbers, spilling out of council chambers and into the Bertha Knight Landes room on the first floor of City Hall while they waited to speak.

Supporters of EDI, many of them from organizations that participate in the program, made up a large majority of those who testified (the remainder were mostly gig workers who came to ask the council not to cut their wages, a decision the council also decided to punt to a later date.) Speakers described how the program had enabled their organizations to buy property for a future mixed-use development (Quynh Pham, Friends of Little Saigon), make progress toward reopening a legendary International District institution (Karen Akada Sakata, Bush Garden), and renovate a building that serves as an important community gathering space in the Central District (Dian Ferguson, Central Area Senior Center.)

“I actually see the amendment close to being redlining, and we don’t need to go back to times when things were redlined,” Ferguson said. With the help of an EDI grant, she said, her organization “has helped African American communities, BIPOC communities, young people. What we are trying to avoid is displacement.”

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During public comment, Rivera rarely looked up from her computer, even when local elected officials—four members of the Duwamish Tribal Council, including Chairwoman Cecile Hanson—spoke against the proposal.

In a statement after the meeting, Rivera claimed the hundreds of people who wrote emails and testified simply didn’t understand her legislation.  proposal “The amendment does not cut the Equitable Development Initiative (EDI) program.does not cut the Equitable Development Initiative (EDI) program,” Rivera said. “I am deeply disappointed that the objective of this amendment has been grossly mischaracterized.”

Morales, whose Southeast Seattle district includes the majority of the projects that receive EDI funding, tried to shoot down the delay. “Frankly, if you want to propose legislation that rolls back commitments made to black and brown communities, at least have the courage to stand by your legislation and vote on it, or acknowledge that you made a mistake and withdraw it,” Morales said.

Noting that it can take six or more years for even experienced developers to put together funding to buy a site and build a project, Morales added that she was not surprised that many EDI projects take years. ” Development projects take time, and if you’re not an experienced developer, it takes longer. But that doesn’t mean that we withhold funding from your program so that you can’t continue to execute on your program. It means that we make sure you get what you need to do it right.

Rivera said she plans to reintroduce her amendment at next Monday’s full city council meeting.

Affordability, City Council, Development, Equity

Last-Minute Proposal Could Gut City’s Largest Anti-Displacement Program

By Erica C. Barnett

An anti-displacement program designed to help BIPOC-led community groups develop housing and other projects is on the chopping block.

Late last Friday afternoon, Seattle City Councilmember Maritza Rivera proposed a budget proviso—a restriction on funding—that would prevent the city’s Office of Community Planning and Development (OPCD) from spending $25.3 million allocated for the Equitable Development Initiative in 2024 unless it allocates all the funds that are currently available for the program, around $53.5 million, by September, and provides the council with a detailed analysis of every project funded through EDI.

If those two things don’t happen by the September deadline, the money—most of it ($19.8 million) from the JumpStart payroll tax—would go back into the general fund and could be used to address the projected $250 million 2025 budget shortfall. About 9 percent of JumpStart—a tax on paid by the city’s largest companies on the salaries of their highest-compensated employees—is allocated by law to EDI.

Because it is unlikely that OPCD can allocate all the funds to dozens of projects in various stages of development over the next few months, Rivera’s proviso would effectively gut the program.

The EDI program provides funds to help community groups that have little or no capital development experience with site acquisition or other capital costs that are part of the larger “capital stack” used to fund complex projects, including affordable housing, child care, and community centers; in some cases, the funds help organizations that don’t have a permanent home build capacity and stability so they can grow. If the EDI funds go away, dozens of projects could collapse.

Tammy Morales, who heads the council’s land use committee and , said supporters of EDI were “surprised that there would be such a potentially huge impact on dozens of organizations and projects without notification to anybody. … I don’t know what’s motivating this. All I know is that this would be hugely destabilizing for dozens of projects.”

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Advocates for the anti-displacement initiative have noted that development projects don’t happen in a year; particularly for community groups that may be developing projects for the first time, they can take months or years, which is why the funding for EDI carries forward from year to year. “The nature of development is that sometimes it takes two or three years to get all the financing together,” Morales said.

It’s probably unreasonable, in other words, to expect a community group with no history developing major capital projects–like the Ethiopian Community in Seattle, which has been working for years to develop senior housing on the site of its existing community center on Rainier Ave. S.—to spend its entire EDI allocation right away.

At a meeting of the council’s budget committee earlier this month, Rivera characterized EDI projects as “one-time funding” that might pay for programs that need ongoing funds in future years, creating a funding cliff. “I have questions about what this one-time funding will cover and whether there were any programs being contemplated  this money that would need ongoing funding,” Rivera said.

However, a detailed EDI project list shows that these are generally capital projects, and that the initiative pays for things like site acquisition, planning for capital projects, and construction, as opposed to ongoing programs that require annual funding.

Because EDI is designed to fund projects that address displacement in communities of color, the vast majority of the projects are in Morales’ District 2, which includes all of Southeast Seattle, the most diverse part of the city. There are also a large number of projects in Joy Hollingsworth’s District 3, which includes the historically Black Central District, and Rob Saka’s District 1, which includes all of West Seattle.

Rivera’s district is one of just two council districts (the other is Bob Kettle’s District 1, which includes downtown, Magnolia, and Queen Anne), that does not include a single EDI project.

During the same budget meeting, Rivera complained that OPCD had “consistently rescheduled and delayed” meeting with her to explain EDI. In fact, OPCD director Rico Quirindongo briefed Rivera on EDI individually in her council office on at least two occasions in May, council sign-in sheets confirm. The department also did a full briefing on EDI for the the council’s land use committee, on which Rivera sits, in March. All three of these briefings occurred before last Friday, when Rivera introduced her proviso.

Earlier this year, the council killed another program designed to help community groups prevent displacement by providing density incentives for community groups that develop affordable housing. At the time, Rivera said the city should not provide new housing incentives until the city adopts a final comprehensive plan in the coming year, and suggested (incorrectly) that the city does not know what’s in the housing levy Seattle voters adopted earlier this year.

Mayor Bruce Harrell has been supportive of the EDI program in the past, saying last year that the program “embodies our One Seattle vision, bringing to the forefront innovative community-based programs that increase affordable housing and economic opportunity, and ensure vibrant cultural spaces find permanence in our city.” PubliCola has reached out to the mayor’s office for comment and will update this post if we hear back.

The council is scheduled to vote on Rivera’s amendment at its meeting at 2:00 this afternoon.