It was a very busy week for the City Council, even if their regular Monday meeting didn’t seem so.
The budget process cranks on: this week the council’s Budget Committee continued round 1 of briefings on proposed budgets for each of the major city departments. They held two Monday sessions: you can watch the morning one here and the afternoon one here.
Two other big things happened this week: first, Mayor Ed Murray and King County Executive Dow Constantine declared a state of emergency with regard to the “growing crisis of people experiencing unsheltered homelessness in Seattle and King County.” As required by law, the City Council held a special meeting on Tuesday to consider and ratify the Mayor’s emergency declaration; at that meeting they also allocated an additional $5 million to supplement the $43 million already in the 2015 budget to address the crisis. The video of the council’s special meeting can be viewed here. There was substantial discussion in the meeting as to whether $5 million is sufficient; some have proposed that a minimum of $15 million is required.
Also this week: elections were held for City Council, under the new 7-district plan. As of this writing, ballots are still being counted. Election results can be found here.