This afternoon the City Council announced the members of its Progressive Revenue Task Force, i.e. the group tasked with looking at a proposal for instituting a head tax or tapping into other progressive revenue sources.
It had previously been announced that Council members Lisa Herbold and Lorena Gonzalez would co-chair the task force, along with co-chairs from the community. Those co-chairs are:
- Kirsten Harris-Talley, former City Council member and Program Director at Progress Alliance of Washington;
- Tony To, Executive Director at Homesight.
The other task force members announced today are:
- Jennifer Adams, Case Manager at Bridge Care Center;
- Andrew Coak, Case Manager at DESC and a delegate to SEIU Healthcare 1199;
- Lisa Daugaard, Director of the Public Defender Association and member of the Community Police Commission;
- Ian Eisenberg, owner of Uncle Ike’s Pot Shop;
- Samantha Grad, Political and Legislative Organizer for UFCW 21;
- Katie B. Wilson, General Secretary of the Transit Riders Union;
- Brianna Little, Contributing Writer at Real Change News;
- Daniel K. Malone, Executive Director at DESC;
- Tom Mathews of Walsh Construction;
- Fernando Mejia-Ledesma, Washington State Director of Main Street Alliance;
- Courtney O’Toole, External Affairs Director at Nickelsville;
- Maiko Winkler-Chin, Executive Director of the Seattle Chinatown-International District Public Development Authority.
To recap the representation:
- three business representatives: Eisenberg, Mathews, and Mejia-Ledesma.
- six homeless service providers: Adams, Coak, Daugaard, Little, Malone, and O’Toole.
- two labor representatives: Coak and Grad.
- two affordable housing providers: Mathews and Winkler-Chin.
- two “subject matter experts:” Wilson and Winkler-Chin.
- four political advocacy group representatives: Harris-Talley, Daugaard, Wilson, and Mejia-Ledesma.
The task force is expected to hold its first meeting in early January, and to provide a report to the City Council by February 26.
Would any of those task force members have pay the head tax? It doesn’t look like it.
by a show of hands yesterday, three of the task force members claim to represent organizations that are likely to pay the head tax.