West Seattle Bridge SDOT announced last week that the West Seattle Bridge is expected to be opened to traffic on Sunday, September 18th, and work remains on track to reopen on that date. The contractor continues work on the final phase of epoxy crack injection and carbon-fiber wrap installation on the end spans. The west […]

West Seattle Bridge Update On Tuesday March 15th, Teamsters Local 174 concrete mixer drivers offered to return to work at three locations: Salmon Bay Sand & Gravel, Cadman Seattle, and Lehigh Cement. Their statement recognized the importance of the West Seattle Bridge repair; I thank them for noting this. The companies responded, noting they needed […]

  CONTENTS PART 1: ACCOUNTABILITY IN GOVERNMENT Capital Project Oversight SPU/SCL Call Center Improvements Making Sure Growth Pays for Growth – Developer Impact Fees New Green Electric Trucks Save Tax Payer Money PART 2: D1 SPOTLIGHT Schmitz Park Property Acquisition Crescent-Hamm Building Historic Preservation Alki Vehicle Noise Enforcement – Relief for Alki Coming Soon South […]

King County Hotel-Motel Tax Legislation The King County Executive last week announced a proposal “to bond against future hotel-motel tax revenues to generate an additional $100 million that could be made available to build housing units for people earning between 30 percent and 80 percent of Area Median Income, with a likely focus on 30-60 […]

Nature’s Scorecard On Tuesday, the Puget Soundkeeper and the Washington Environmental Council provided my committee a briefing on their joint project, Nature’s Scorecard.  Under the Clean Water Act cities are required to manage stormwater runoff and ensure that combined sewer overflows occur no more than once per outfall per year. Nature’s Scorecard is an easily […]

Contents   PART 1 // D1 TRANSPORTATION UPDATES Sound Transit Light Rail Lander Street Overpass Funding Highland Park Roundabout Mudslides PART 2 // PUBLIC SAFETY IN D1 South Park Public Safety Task Force Alki Public Safety and Health Survey/Budget Action PART 3 // HOUSING HIGHLIGHTS Housing Bond Update Fair Chance Housing Short-Term Rental PART 4 // LAND USE LATEST […]

Funding for District 1 Landslide Mitigation Some of you may recall that on February 15, a mudslide closed Highland Park Way SW, one of the few east-west access points for West Seattle. Fortunately, no one was injured. Afterwards, I raised questions about the Seattle Department of Transportation’s (SDOT’s) practices for managing landslide risks and whether […]

Downtown and South Lake Union MHA  On Tuesday, 3/21/2017, the Planning, Land Use and Zoning Committee discussed eight amendments to the proposed South Lake Union (SLU) and Downtown Mandatory Housing Affordability (MHA) legislation. The amendments ranged from a. providing a carrot to developers not covered by MHA (because their projects are already through the design process) to voluntarily […]

Court Victory With pronouncements, unconstitutional Executive Orders, alarming nominations, and immigration raids coming from Trump administration, many of our neighbors, family, and loved ones are rightly feeling vulnerable.  In light of these daily events, today’s news was a huge victory for the values of nondiscrimination, in particular beneficial to members of the LGBTQ community. Today’s […]

Socially Responsible Banking Legislation I’ve received around 1400 e-mails, and hundreds of phone calls, regarding socially responsible banking legislation before a City Council committee next week. Here’s the reply I’ve been sending out: Thank you for writing to me about Council Bill 118833, strengthening Seattle’s socially responsible banking laws, and encouraging the Mayor and Director […]