Independent news and analysis of the Seattle City Council. Wordy and nerdy.
This morning the City Council advanced out of committee the interlocal agreement with King County for a regional homelessness authority. The agreement is identical to the version that the King County Council approved yesterday, and if the full City Council approves it on Monday then it’s a done deal.
Continue readingLast week I wrote that the effort to create a regional governance structure to lead the response to the homelessness crisis was reaching a pivotal moment as a revised plan was brought forth to King County’s Regional Policy Committee and the Seattle City Council. The back-to-back meetings of those two groups last Thursday showed that fractures still remain and the chance of moving forward with a plan is far from certain.
Continue readingA study released last week confirms something that many people in the homeless-services community had suspected: a key tool used to assess and prioritize homeless people in King County for access to services is biased against people of color.
Continue readingThis morning, King County Executive Dow Constantine and Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan announced that they have jointly submitted a long-awaited proposal for a regional governance structure for responding to the homelessness crisis. The proposal, as detailed in a proposed Interlocal Agreement and a Charter for the new organization, lays out the services that will be consolidated into the new authority, the governing bodies that will oversee it, and the initial funding.
Continue readingWhile most of the attention in 2018 was on the lackluster and fruitless “One Table” effort to drive a regional response to homelessness, it appears that quietly the stage was being set for a move to a regional governance system — or at least for the parts under the control of Seattle and King County.
Continue readingToday the Washington State Supreme Court handed down a ruling on a legal challenge to King County Initiative 27, which would have prohibited county funding for supervised consumption sites and enacted civil penalties for violating that prohibition or for operating a supervised consumption site. The court found that the content of I-27 was outside the scope of local initiative power.
Continue readingAt the beginning of June, King County cancelled its pending RFP for a “transit-oriented development” (TOD) affordable-housing project on county-owned property next to the forthcoming Northgate light-rail station, and said that it would be starting over with the process. Council member Debora Juarez, whose District 5 includes Northgate, is fed up with the delays on the project, and she and other city leaders are giving King County Executive Dow Constantine an earful.
Continue readingYesterday the US Department of Justice sent another round of threatening letters to select cities and counties, pushing back on so-called “sanctuary city” policies.
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