The City Council and my Regional Development and Sustainability Committee will conduct a review of the City’s emergency preparedness, with special attention to lessons learned from the recent earthquakes in Chile, New Zealand, and Japan. Over the next few months, City staff and guest engineers, professors and scientists will brief Councilmembers on what was learned [...]
Press Releases
The latest press releases from Seattle City Councilmembers.
South Half of Viaduct Coming Down in October
The south half of the SR 99 viaduct, the section between South King Street and South Holgate Street, will be demolished in October, six months ahead of schedule. This will save taxpayers almost one million dollars, as well as allowing WSDOT to reduce the contingency for risk by $500,000. And it will mean that the [...]
Food trucks rolling into vacant lots and maybe your neighborhood
Seattle Met recently highlighted a couple of new food truck hubs coming to Capitol Hill and Downtown. Both come on the heels of Council and the Mayor approving new rules for more creative – and tasty – uses of empty lots. Property owners with stalled development sites can invite in food trucks, art installations, open [...]
Yesler Terrace Redevelopment to Come to Council
The Seattle Housing Authority has been working for years to create a redevelopment plan for Yesler Terrace, the last of its WWII era housing projects. The other three (New Holly, High Point, and Rainier Vista) have all been redeveloped as mixed income communities, with new and better housing for the low income residents. Now the [...]
Council Stabilizes City Light Finances
In March 2010, the City Council approved legislation creating a Rate Stabilization Account (RSA) for Seattle City Light, and imposed a temporary surcharge on city Light rates as part of the funding package for the RSA. In the year since then, the RSA has been fully funded to its projected level of $100 million, the [...]
Comin’ home, baby
Some people scoff a bit at Councilmember Nick Licata’s practice of starting Housing, Human Services, Health & Culture Committee meetings with poetry and, more recently, film clips. Critics see it as fluff, not the real work of a legislative body. I like it, though. The city is more than memos, briefings, policy and budgets. The [...]
Seattle City Clerk Signs Tunnel Agreements; ‘Seinfeld Referendum’ to Appear on Ballot
This blog post has been updated to ensure compliance with the City’s ethical standards for the use of City resources when communicating about ballot issues. On Friday, May 20, Judge Laura Middaugh issued an order validating the Council’s actions in approving an ordinance that authorizes signing three agreements with the State to protect Seattle [...]
Citywide Business Advocacy Team Formed
In response to the Council’s Statement of Legislative Intent 24-1-A-1, approved as part of the 2011 Budget Ordinance, on May 17 eight City Departments reported to my Regional and Sustainable Development Committee that they have signed a Memorandum of Agreement to establish a Citywide Business Advocacy Team (CBAT). The goal of the CBAT is to [...]
Nutrition and Scholl Performance
Evidence is clear that healthy eating and active living make a difference in academic performance. Unfortunately, our young people are too often caught in the poor nutrition and inactive lifestyle mode that is fueling our obesity epidemic. Schools are beginning to understand that improving the classroom is not enough — there are important steps to [...]
Seawall Design Alternatives Completed
Replacing the seawall that protects downtown Seattle is a complex project, but it has now moved one step closer to construction as the City has completed defining the range of alternatives that will go into the Draft Environmental Impact Statement. The two alternatives bracket the options, from a relatively lower cost project that provides basic [...]
Antioch Seattle Triumphs in Recyclemania!
In only its second year of participation in the competition, Antioch University Seattle (AUS) surpassed its 2010 record by winning second place nationally in Recyclemania’s Grand Champion category. AUS competed with 287 other schools in various categories, and also came in third in Waste Minimization. RecycleMania is a friendly competition and benchmarking tool for college [...]
Healthy Vending Machines? Yes, Says Board of Health!
On Thursday, April 21, the Board of Health of Seattle-King County (BOH) adopted a set of guidelines for getting healthier food choices into vending machines. The guidelines are not binding on either the vending machine owners or those who contract with them, but are designed to set a path and give guidance and direction to [...]