1. A city council committee voted to move legislation forward on Wednesday that will—if it passes full council next week—shut down one avenue of appeal commonly used to slow down zoning changes that allow more housing in Seattle. The bill, sponsored by land use chair Eddie Lin, would eliminate appeals to the city’s hearing examiner over zoning legislation and changes to the city’s comprehensive plan, which is currently delayed by environmental appeals that began at the hearing examiner’s office.

Hearing-examiner appeals can delay legislation by months or years even if they are unsuccessful, as the vast majority are; the council spends most of the fall focusing on the city budget, so a delay of a few months can mean legislation won’t be heard until the following year.

Lin’s bill wouldn’t eliminate the right to appeal specific projects, and it would still leave two (arguably more relevant) avenues for appeal: Once legislation is finalized and adopted, people can appeal to the state Growth Management Hearings Board or sue in King County Superior Court. Those two avenues don’t stop legislation in its tracks the way “pre-legislative” appeals to the hearing examiner do.

Dan Strauss and Joy Hollingsworth abstained from voting, saying they still had questions about the proposal, leaving Lin, Dionne Foster, and Alexis Mercedes Rinck to vote it through.

Before the vote, opponents raised familiar objections, along with a novel one. The familiar: By eliminating land use appeals to the hearing examiner, the council was “muzzling the voices of the citizens who elected you to serve us” and ignoring the plight of salmon, orcas and birds. The novel: If the council passes the legislation, no one will have the right to appeal the siting of any data center in Seattle in the future.

Councilmember Dionne Foster addressed both objections. “From my perspective, cities are an incredibly important element to how we combat climate change—growing in a way that is responsible, growing in a way where we take into account that so much of our pollution comes from transportation-related emissions,” Foster said. “If we fail to do our job and build substantial and affordable housing… you also have environmental impacts.”

Foster also confirmed with a staffer that because data centers are “projects,” people will still have a right to appeal any data center proposal to the hearing examiner, if and when the council lifts the current moratorium on data centers. “I I think that’s an incredibly important distinction to make,” she said.

2. Foster and Lin are on different sides of another issue—a proposal, co-sponsored by Foster and Council President Joy Hollingsworth, to delay funding for universal school meals from the spending plan for the Families, Education Preschool, and Promise levy and replace it with vouchers for qualifying low-income families to buy food on weekends and holidays during the school year.

Mayor Katie Wilson’s spending proposal would pay for free breakfast and lunch for every Seattle school student for the first two years of the levy, with the assumption that voters will uphold the statewide “millionaires tax” (a proposed tax on annual income above a million dollars) in a referendum challenge this November. If this happens, and there are no additional legal hiccups, the statewide tax would start paying for universal school meals in 2029.

Foster and Hollingsworth’s proposal would address uncertainty around the millionaires tax by taking universal free school meals off the table for the first year of the levy; if the high-earners’ income tax holds, it can pay for universal school lunches starting in 2029, and if it doesn’t, the city won’t be on the hook. Meanwhile, Foster said the alternative plan will provide groceries to low-income kids who need food the most.

“I genuinely think it’s a balanced amendment,” Foster told PubliCola earlier this week, noting that dozens of Seattle schools already have universal free lunches through the state Community Eligibility Provision, because more than 40 percent of their students qualify for free or reduced-cost lunches.

Opponents of the amendment have argued that means-testing programs for basic needs like food stigmatizes lower-income kids and may leave some students hungry, including those whose parents don’t sign up for income-based programs or who struggle to pay for food but aren’t poor enough to qualify.

Foster said she’s aware of those critiques. “The intent is not, ‘Here’s a hoop that we want you to jump through.’ The intent is to get more resources to the kids who are low-income or who have those financial gaps,” she said.

Lin said he doesn’t doubt Foster and Hollingsworth’s commitment to food access, but says he’s leaning strongly toward supporting universal school meals over income-based vouchers. “I know they have very valid concerns, and there’s concerns about what’s going to happen with the millionaires tax, but at this point I have a hard time imagining not supporting” Wilson’s proposal, Lin said. “I think there’s widespread support for universal free lunch, not just here but across the state.”