Durkan, Mosqueda urge city employee retirement system to divest from fossil fuels

Yesterday both Mayor Durkan and City Councilmember Mosqueda sent letters to the Seattle City Employees Retirement System (aka SCERS) urging it to divest the pension fund from fossil-fuel investments. Three years ago when then-Councilmember Mike O’Brien, Councilmember Lisa Herbold, and former Mayor Mike McGinn tried the same thing, the request was met with sympathy but was still refused. This time it’s likely to get the same reply — but that doesn’t means that SCERS is ignoring climate change.

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Hearing Examiner issues a mixed ruling on Transportation Impact Fees SEPA review

This afternoon the Seattle Hearing Examiner issued a long-awaited ruling on an appeal of the city’s SEPA Determination of Non-significance (DNS) for its first step in establishing Transportation Impact Fees (TIFs). He found that the city had impermissibly left a section of the SEPA checklist blank, and remanded it back to the city to at least partially complete it.

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Seattle’s Green New Deal

Earlier this year, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez introduced a resolution in the House of Representatives “recognizing the duty of the federal government to create a Green New Deal.”  It hasn’t gone anywhere, but it started a conversation about how to address the looming climate crisis while also creating new economic opportunities. Activists, understanding that the current political reality of Washington D.C. means that federal action is unlikely anytime soon, have begun to focus their efforts instead on local actions in cities with progressive political leadership — Seattle being one of those cities. In June, the Council signed a letter expressing their …

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