This morning, the Council’s Planning, Land Use and Zoning Committee voted to send a batch of updates to the city’s Rental Registration and Inspection Ordinance and Building and Maintenance Code to the full Council for adoption. Most of the changes are pretty tame stuff, dealing with carbon monoxide detectors, lead paint, safety and security requirements, and adjustments to program fees. But one area — required inspections — dives into a topic with a rich history of legislation and litigation, and pushes the rules right up to the limits of (and possibly over) what the courts allow.
Last week, King County Superior Court Judge John Erlick ruled on the lawsuit filed against the City of Seattle over Initiative 124, passed by the voters last November, which provided health and safety protections to hotel workers. through a number of measures.
At the end of March, the City of Seattle filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration over its threats to withhold federal funding from so-called “sanctuary cities.” Today, the Trump administration responded with a motion to dismiss the case.
Yesterday the Rental Housing Association of Washington filed a lawsuit against the city over the ordinance passed last December that caps move-in fees a landlord may charge and requires most landlords to allow those fees to be paid over six months in installments.
I reported earlier that Attorney General Jeff Sessions issued a memo earlier this week clarifying many issues related to the Trump administration’s executive order threatening to withhold federal funding from so-called “sanctuary cities.” On Monday, the DOJ also filed a motion asking the judge in the San Francisco and Santa Clara lawsuits to reconsider his ruling placing a preliminary injunction on the government’s ability to implement Trump’s executive order. The DOJ’s motion provides further interpretation of Sessions’ memo and what it means for sanctuary cities.
Yesterday Attorney General Jeff Sessions issued a memo that defines a “sanctuary city” for the purposes of interpreting President Trump’s executive order that withholds federal funding from such cities.
After months of work, the police accountability legislation shepherded by Council member Lorena Gonzalez was passed unanimously by the City Council this afternoon.
This afternoon, Judge William H. Orrick of the U.S. District Court of Northern California issued a nationwide preliminary injunction barring the Department of Justice and the Department of Homeland Security from enforcing part of President Trump’s executive order withholding federal grant funds from so-called “sanctuary jurisdictions.”
On Friday, the Justice Department sent letters to nine jurisdictions requiring them to certify that they are in compliance with the federal law requiring certain forms of cooperation with federal authorities in enforcing immigration laws. But Seattle was not one of the recipients.
This morning, the Council took up their quarterly update to the city government budget. In the package of proposed changes was a gem of a proposal aimed squarely at giving more protection to domestic violence survivors.
