Much like Green Lake tends to do every year around this time, City Hall has grown its own toxic algae bloom of unhealthy tribal politics this week. I’m going to take a day off (maybe two) while it hopefully dies down a bit. If you need a morning fix of local political news, trust me, you won’t have to look far; everyone’s writing about Amazon’s announcement yesterday. But I would encourage you all to also “just say no,” give it a rest for a day, and seek some perspective.
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The “Seattle Process” went off the rails today
Welcome to “Bizarro World” Seattle. Last night after the May Day march, the antifa “anarchists” were anything but. And today, civic discourse descended into the pit of despair as bluster, posturing, speechifying and flat-out verbal abuse displaced serious policy debate on complex issues.
Continue readingCouncil proposes updates to its own rules
Later this week the Council will take up consideration of some updates to its own General Rules and Procedures: the published set of rules for how it handles meetings, voting, vacancies, and more.
Continue readingHSD Director Catherine Lester resigns
Today Human Services Director Catherine Lester announced that she is resigning so that she can move to Toronto to be closer to her family.
Continue readingCan the city impound a homeless man’s vehicle if he is living in it?
Last Friday, King County Superior Court Judge Catherine Shaffer ruled on the case of Steven Long, a homeless man who had been living in his truck after he was evicted from his apartment because he couldn’t pay the rent. When his truck stopped running, he left it parked on a Seattle street longer than the allowed 72 hours, and after being warned about it, a few days later the city impounded it and called Lincoln Towing to take it away. Lincoln’s charge to retrieve his truck was hefty (on top of the city’s fine for exceeding the 72-hour parking restriction), …
Continue readingLNG plant resolution passed by Council
The sausage-making was on full display this afternoon when the City Council once again took up a resolution regarding the liquid natural gas (LNG) plant being built in Tacoma.
Continue readingCouncil publishes its 2018 Work Program
Yesterday the nine Council members published their 2018 Work Program, a list of their individual and committee areas of responsibility and interest. Much of it is pro-forma work just to keep the trains running, but interspersed through it are individual items that show where the Council members plan to spend their time in the coming year.
Continue readingThursday news roundup
The Missing Link might not be missing for too much longer.
Continue readingThursday news roundup: parking
Yesterday’s Council committee hearing on changes to parking regulations drew lots of attention.
Continue readingThis week in Council Chambers: remember to turn off the lights
The Council is in recess for the next two weeks. And for the most part, so am I; I have a few long articles in the works and if anything big happens I’ll report it, but most of the daily coverage won’t be happening. Happy holidays, and see you in the new year.
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