Giving My Thanks to You I look forward this time of year to the opportunity to reflect on all that I have for which to be thankful. On this Thanksgiving Day eve, there are individual people to be thankful for their contribution to making Seattle a better city.  If you are working for your community, […]

This Week in the Budget On November 6th, Budget Committee Chair Bagshaw proposed an Initial Budget Proposal, which incorporated some of the Councilmember proposals presented between October 29 and November 1. The three overarching priorities Bagshaw announced are homelessness, housing and hygiene. The proposal includes funding for each, including $3.5 million in additional funding for […]

This Week in Council Budget Deliberations Last week the Council’s Budget Committee considered Council Budget Actions proposed by individual Councilmembers. The next step in the Council’s budget deliberations will be for Budget Committee Chair Sally Bagshaw to propose an initial Council Budget Proposal, adjusted from the Mayor’s proposed budget to include Councilmember priorities, at the […]

2020 Council Budget Schedule On Monday, September 23rd Mayor Durkan submitted her Proposed 2020 City of Seattle Budget and Proposed 2020-2025 Capital Improvement Program (CIP) to the Council. With that, the Council, now meeting as the Budget Committee, begins its work on the 2020 budget.  We will continue through adoption of the budget on November […]

Impact Fees This week the Sustainability and Transportation Committee had a briefing on impact fees. Impact fees are charges to developers to address the needs for capacity improvements to transportation, parks, schools, and fire facilities. I last wrote about impact fees here and provided some history about the Council’s efforts to develop an impact fee […]

Capital Projects Oversight Watch List Resolution As we’ve all seen, sometimes large capital projects run well over budget. Recent examples of City projects include the Seawall, the utility billing system, and now the potential Center City Streetcar. To address this, last year I introduced legislation to establish enhanced quarterly reporting requirements for the City’s Capital […]