News roundup: it’s Debora Juarez Day

Today’s news has two features on Debora Juarez. Plus lots of other things going on as the City Council gets down to business.

KING5 posted an interview with Council member Debora Juarez, in which she emphasizes her advocacy for District 5.

Indian Country Today also published the transcript of an interview with Juarez.

Seattle Times reports that the Mayor’s nominee for CEO of Seattle City recently made controversial comments about city oversight in his previous position as head of the energy utility for Austin, TX.

MyNorthwest.com reports on Council member Kshama Sawant’s recent comments trying islamophobia to right-wing rhetoric in the context of 16-year-old student Hamza Warsame’s fatal fall from a balcony.

National Legal and Policy Center provides an in-depth analysis of the legal and economic issues underlying the push to allow Uber and Lyft drivers to unionize.   Also, Spend Matters looks at the issue of misclassification of workers as contractors instead of employees, including survey results as how the workers would prefer to be classified.

The Stranger looks at efforts in the current state legislative session to update marijuana regulations. Of particular interest is the question of legalizing pot delivery services, which are currently illegal and are the subject of increasing enforcement in the City of Seattle (despite the Stranger still publishing ads for them).

Seattle Times has an op-ed on whether backyard cottages will help the housing affordability crisis in Seattle — and whether it will hurt livability in the process.