City leaders are weighing laxer hiring standards rather than improving SPD culture and accountability systems. For the new Seattle city councilmembers to make good on their campaign promises, they need to be seen to be actively addressing public safety in Seattle. Earlier this week Mayor Bruce Harrell submitted the legislation for councilmembers to approve a new contract with the Seattle Police Officers Guild (SPOG), giving police officers a cumulative 23% raise and improving their benefits while not substantially improving accountability. Councilmembers are busy holding public safety forums s ..read more

In a 2-7 vote Tuesday, the Seattle City Council rejected the “Connected Communities” equitable development proposal put forth by land use chair Tammy Morales (District 2). The vote split along factional lines with only Morales and Dan Strauss (District 6) voting yes, and all centrist councilmembers united against the proposal, citing a wide variety of concerns. The pilot program had been scoped to offer zoning incentives for up to 35 redevelopments that partner with local nonprofits to deliver at least 30% on-site affordable housing largely focused in high-displacements neighborhoods of color ..read more

On Wednesday, Seattle City Councilmember Tammy Morales again tried to get her “Connected Communities” bill through the council’s land use committee, which she chairs, but again was denied. Instead the bill will head to a vote of the full council an extra week later on April 30 without a committee recommendation, under council rules. Morales needs to sway a majority of the councilmembers not on land use committee in order to save her bill, but most of her colleagues seem opposed to the idea of moving forward with an equitable development pilot program. Morales was the only councilmember on the ..read more

Session has come and gone, concluding the Washington State Legislature’s lawmaking work for 2024. Thus, it’s time for The Urbanist’s annual report on the legislative heroes and their counterpart zeroes. In terms of laws passed, the output was relatively low, but some bills will have a significant impact. Some state leaders had pledged a “Year of Housing 2.0” building on a 2023 session when they passed a statewide missing middle housing standard and liberalized rules around accessory dwelling units. While most of the big bills with this housing push did not come to fruition this session, a few ..read more

Mayor Harrell’s contract would make Seattle police the highest paid in the region, but no more accountable. The long-awaited new proposed contract between the City of Seattle and the Seattle Police Officers Guild (SPOG) has been released, and police accountability advocates are viewing it as a slap in the face. In a baffling move, the City is proposing a new contract that will have already expired at the time of its passage; it will cover the period of time between January 6, 2021 and December 31, 2023. The old contract expired on December 31, 2020. Why the discrepancy of start and ending date ..read more

Earlier this month, Shaun Scott was the first to step forward and announce his candidacy for the Washington State House seat in the 43rd Legislative District that will be vacated by 30-year incumbent Rep. Frank Chopp. Scott is known for his 2019 Seattle City Council campaign, a race he only narrowly lost to Alex Pedersen in spite of his opponent benefiting from large outside expenditures in the year Amazon spent $1.5 million citywide. Scott has spent the last four years as the Policy Lead at the Statewide Poverty Action Network. In that role, he lobbied lawmakers to pass the Working Families T ..read more

The session yielded less than expected for the “Year of Housing 2.0.” Our March 26 event will conduct an autopsy. The Washington State legislative session came to an end on March 7. What’s changing? What’s staying the same? Join our expert panel as we consider what happened this session from an urbanist lens. Our panel features The Urbanist‘s contributing editor Ryan Packer and our elections committee Vice Chair Jazmine Smith, and it will be moderated by Crystal Fincher, who is a political consultant, host of the Hacks and Wonks podcast, and a board member at The Urbanist ..read more

Mayor Harrell and the new city council are contemplating budget cuts and raiding JumpStart payroll tax revenue to address a $230 million budget deficit. With six new members and a significantly more centrist majority than in previous years, the Seattle City Council will have to confront a projected $230 million deficit when it grapples with drafting a biennial budget this fall. How to address the city’s deepening housing crisis will bump up against the new council majority’s stated goal (echoed by Mayor Bruce Harrell) of finding ways to cut the city’s $1.7 billion general fund budget rather th ..read more

In the first few days of 2024 as the Washington State Legislature prepared to go into session, state leaders shared hope that the energy around housing issues would carry over from the last session into this one, creating a “year of housing 2.0.” However, as the 60-day session wrapped on March 7, only a few of the bills intended to address housing supply and affordability were heading to Governor Inslee’s desk. Rent stabilization, despite narrowly making it out of the house, again fizzled in the state senate. 2023 was a productive year for housing policy, with state re-legalizing additional ty ..read more

City Attorney Ann Davison, a Republican, seems intent on punishing progressive judges. Last Friday after business hours, the office of Seattle City Attorney Ann Davison sent two press releases in a classic Friday news dump. One announced a traffic ticket for the Seattle Police Department (SPD) officer that killed Jaahnavi Kandula while driving 74 mph on Dexter Avenue. That may not have been the more concerning news, however, as Davison revealed she was disqualifying a Seattle Municipal Court judge with whom she disagreed in a deeply undemocratic move, given that judges are elected and the judi ..read more