In case you’ve been wondering what former Council member Rob Johnson has been up to in his new gig with NHL Seattle, today you get your answer. Seattle’s new NHL franchise (which is still unnamed) will be making a huge bet on the Monorail as a connection to the Seattle-area mass transit system, and that will involve some important upgrades to the stations on both end. Source: NHL Seattle
Continue readingMayor, SPD Chief give an update on officer hiring and retention efforts
2018 was a brutal year for the Seattle Police Department’s HR department: 109 officers left the force, but only 68 were hired. This led last year to a task force focused on improving hiring and retention, which mid-year issued a report with twelve recommendations that the Mayor adopted. The Mayor and the Council funded much of those recommendations in the 2020 budget, and this morning Mayor Durkan called a press conference, along with Council member Lisa Herbold and SPD Chief Carmen Best, to reveal the final hiring and retention numbers for 2019, the results for January 2020, and a new …
Continue readingNotes from Monday’s Council meetings
Here’s what was said and done in Council chambers today.
Continue readingMonday news roundup
It’s a quiet start to the week.
Continue readingSpat over LEAD budget appears to be sorted out
Over the past month an ongoing disagreement over the budget for the LEAD program flared up again, as Erica Barnett has been reporting for the last several weeks, but as of late last week it seems to be getting resolved.
Continue readingThis week in Council Chambers
After a few tumultuous weeks for the Council, this one should be fairly tame.
Continue readingFriday news roundup
According to the National Weather Service, this is our last sunny day for a while… get out there and soak it up. Now here’s the news.
Continue readingTwo years in, we still don’t know if Seattle’s soda tax is working
In June of 2017, the Seattle City Council passed a 1.75 cent-per-ounce tax on sugary beverages, which took effect on January 1, 2018. Today, over two years later, we still don’t have any idea whether it’s succeeding — or even a clear, agreed-upon definition of success. And that situation is unlikely to change soon.
Continue readingHB 2907 dies, but gets resurrected as HB 2948 (updated)
In the ongoing saga of the current state legislative session, last night was the deadline for bills to be passed out of their “house of origin.” One of the many bills that didn’t make it was HB 2907, the much-talked-about bill sponsored by Rep. Nicole Macri that would grant King County the authority to impose a payroll tax to pay for affordable housing and homeless services. For the last several days, Macri had been negotiating with a variety of stakeholders to find a compromise that could gather enough support to pass, and the clock ran out. But today, Macri introduced …
Continue readingBoth sides in I-976 lawsuit ask judge to reconsider ruling (updated)
Today both the plaintiffs and the defendants in the legal challenge to Initiative 976 filed motions for Judge Marshall Ferguson to reconsider his recent ruling.
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