This afternoon, the City Council voted to approve the long-debated Waterfront Local Improvement District (LID), along with companion legislation that approves an operations and management agreement for the resulting Waterfront Park and a “protest waiver” agreement with the owners of a majority of the property interests in the LID assessment area.
This morning, the City Council voted to move out of committee the legislation establishing a Waterfront Local Improvement District (aka LID).
This afternoon the City Council got a briefing on the waterfront LID agreement that the city negotiated with property-holders in the proposed LID assessment area, as well as other updates on the Waterfront Park project. Here are some key new learnings beyond my writeup last week.
Continue reading More details on the Waterfront LID Agreement
Today the Washington State Supreme Court denied a request by the City of Seattle to hear its appeal of a legal challenge to the city’s income tax ordinance, instead redirecting it to the Court of Appeals for further proceedings.
Continue reading State Supreme Court declines to hear income tax case, sends it to Court of Appeals
In June of 2017 the City Council passed a sales tax on sweetened beverages, to take effect on January 1, 2018. Now, with some initial data in hand, the Mayor and City Council are deciding how to spend the tax revenues over the next two years. But things haven’t turned out the way the experts predicted, raising questions about whether the “soda tax” was such a good idea in the first place. It equally raises questions about the motives of the city officials charting the tax’s future.
There was a lot happening today. New department directors, new protections for domestic workers, support for dairy workers, discussion of the proposed Waterfront LID, and what SPD is doing about recent “shots fired” incidents in the Central District.
Five City Council members sent a letter to three of their counterparts on the King County Council, asking them to spend more lodging tax revenues on affordable housing.
Continue reading Five Council members speak up on the lodging tax
The King County Council is considering a proposal to allocate about $180 million of hotel and lodging tax revenues toward capital expenditures on Safeco Field. This is enraging community members who think that the money should be spent on affordable housing instead — and certainly shouldn’t be spent on supporting a private, for-profit organization like the Seattle Mariners.
The financial arrangements of the ballpark, the Mariners, and the hotel and lodging tax are rather convoluted. Let’s pick this apart to understand where all the money is going.
This afternoon the City Council approved the Families, Education, Preschool and Promise Levy, sending it to the Mayor for her signature and ultimately to the November ballot.
Continue reading Council passes Families, Education, Preschool and Promise Levy
As expected, this afternoon the City Council voted to repeal the employee hours tax, aka the “head tax,” that it enacted last month.
