I appear on the November edition of the Seattle Channel program Council Conversations. It’s filmed on the Great Wheel on the Downtown waterfront. As host Josephine Cheng and I as travel in a gondola, we talk about my growing up in Cleveland, working in the insurance field, the Seattle Center, rental housing inspection, paid sick [...]
Category: Past Councilmembers
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Today’s Budget Actions
The Council voted today on 81 separate budget actions to compile our final, balanced budget package. Here is the press release with quotes from all nine councilmembers. The following documents contain more information about the Council’s changes: Summary of major...
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City Council Budget Committee refocuses 2013 budget on urgent, immediate needs
News Releases:
The Seattle City Council's Budget Committee today voted unanimously on a balanced 2013 budget for city operations and endorsed a spending plan for 2014.
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Waterfront in the Forefront
Little heralded, but certainly worthy of notice: Proposition One, the measure to rebuild Seattle’s badly deteriorated seawall, overwhelmingly passed on Nov. 6.
That means that Seattle has been saved from millions of Gribbles, those tiny marine isopods that have been eating on our seawall, slowly turning the nearly 100-year-old barrier that holds back the waters of Elliott Bay into sawdust.
Initial returns showed a 77% “yes” vote citywide. This is extraordinary support for a bond issue, particularly in challenging economic times. In other words, voters agreed to tax themselves to pay for reconstruction of the vital structure over a 30 year period. Approval means that the owner of a median-priced home will pay approximately $59 a year to retire … Continue Reading »
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Seattle City Council to make final decisions on budget package
News Release:
The Seattle City Council’s Budget Committee will take final votes on the 2013-2014 biennial budget package at tomorrow’s 9:30 a.m. committee meeting.
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A City Budget Re-Focused on Today’s Needs
The following text was sent out this afternoon in my e-newsletter. You can sign up to receive my e-newsletter here. Tomorrow morning my colleagues and I will take dozens of votes to modify next year’s city budget. It will be...
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City Business Casual Returns Tomorrow!
NEIGHBORHOOD BUSINESS DISTRICTS OFFICE OF ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT Join Councilmember Sally Bagshaw, Mayor Mike McGinn and me at City Business Casual on Thursday, November 8 from 5:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. at the Renaissance Hotel’s Lobby Court (515 Madison Street, Seattle) with happy hour pricing and a special parking rate of $8. Special guests include: Mike McGinn, Mayor of [...]
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Seattle City Council statement on likely passage of Seawall proposition
News Release:
Councilmember Tom Rasmussen, chair of the Council's Transportation Committee, released the following statement on the likely passage of Proposition No. 1 for General Obligation Bonds for the Alaskan Way Seawall:
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News that Matters
No, I am not planning to cancel my subscription to the Seattle Times. As a former Times employee who is now an elected official (on the other side of the notebook, if you will), I have been asked countless times what I think of the Times’ decision to fund political ads.
I confess; I did think about it. “Why not cancel?” was my initial knee-jerk reaction to the Times’ corporate decision to run free ads for Rob McKenna and Referendum 74.
The Times’ editorial board endorsement of candidates and initiatives are time-honored practices. So are the editorials that the Times publishes on behalf of its endorsements. (I cheered the one backing R-74; groaned when I saw the McKenna editorial.) Most readers understand … Continue Reading »
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Arts Capital Projects
I believe the City of Seattle must do more to support arts capital projects. We provide a fraction of what the County and State provide. In 2011, the county funded over $900K in arts-related capital projects and the state over $2M. Seattle generates the bulk of such funding requests throughout our region. The $150K the [...]