Author: Tim Burgess (Tim Burgess)

The City Council will hold a public hearing on Monday, August 8 at 5:30 p.m. in Council chambers on the second floor of City Hall to receive public testimony on creation of a Seattle Tourism Improvement Area. Three weeks ago,...

I acknowledge, this is not a pretty subject, nor is it one we enjoy talking about. Many would rather never deal with it. We certainly don't want to acknowledge that it occurs in our city. But the facts are irrefuteable....

The Seattle City Council seeks candidates for appointment to three positions on the seven-member Office of Professional Accountability (OPA) Review Board. Working in concert with the civilian OPA Director and the civilian OPA Auditor, the Review Board plays an important...

(This article was published earlier today by PubliCola.com.) Last week, I visited The Bridge, the safe-haven residential recovery program that opened in June last year in Seattle for children who have been rescued from the violence and humiliation of street...

The Council's Public Safety and Education Committee heard testimony on Wednesday morning from representatives of the Police Department's Office of Professional Accountability (OPA). Two significant written reports were presented to the Committee and they are worthy of review because they...

Lots of media reports this week discussed a surge in auto theft in the Seattle area and statewide. The number of reported auto thefts in the Seattle-Bellevue-Tacoma metro area increased 18.8% in 2010 over 2009; the statewide increase was 9.8%....

Three things over the past couple of weeks have reminded me of the fragility of life. Two weeks ago, a friend, neighborhood activist, former youth soccer coach, husband and father took his own life at a seemingly desperate and hopeless...

There has been a bit of controversy recently about the City's Multi-Family Tax Exemption (MFTE) program, a fancy name for a stimulus program intended to spur construction of affordable, workforce housing in certain sections of Seattle. This stimulus effort is part of the City's larger efforts around affordable housing.  I summarized those efforts back in 2008 in this post. So, let's...

Mayor Mike McGinn, Police Chief John Diaz, City Attorney Peter Holmes and I, along with representatives of Casa Latina and other community organizations, held a media event earlier today to announce that the full force of the City's police and...