COVID-19 Update As of this morning, Public Health – Seattle & King County confirmed 58 cases of novel coronavirus in King County residents, including 10 deaths.  231 residents in the State are under public health supervision for being at risk of exposure.  As more laboratory capacity for testing comes online, more tests and results will […]

Coronavirus/COVID-19 For updates on the coronavirus, you can follow Public Health – Seattle & King County or sign up for AlertSeattle – the City of Seattle Government’s emergency notification system – to receive customized alerts via text, email, voice mail, or on Facebook or Twitter. More info at alert.seattle.gov. Police Staffing and Hiring Update I’ve […]

New Office Phone Number With the new Council taking office, telephone numbers for City Councilmembers are being changed to align with the district they represent. Councilmember phone numbers all begin with 206-684-880; the final digit will be for their district. Since I represent District 1, the new number will be 206-684-8801. For the two Citywide […]

This Week in the Budget This week, Seattle City Council Budget Committee Chair Bagshaw proposed a Chair’s Revised 2020 Budget. This revised proposal incorporated additional requests by Councilmembers that were submitted the previous week. The Budget Committee met on Tuesday, November 19th to vote on budget actions proposed by Councilmembers. The baseline for discussion was […]

SEATTLE – The Washington State Supreme Court unanimously upheld the City’s “first-in-time” ordinance today. The First-in-Time (“FIT”) Rule requires a landlord to notify prospective tenants of the landlord’s screening criteria and offer tenancy to the first applicant meeting them. The Rule does not dictate the criteria, require quantifiable or objective criteria, prevent a landlord from conducting […]

This Week in the Budget Last week the Budget Committee did not meet.  Councilmembers had a deadline on Thursday, October 10 to identify issues to be included in staff memos for the Budget Deliberations and Issue Identification. These meetings began on October 16 and they continue through October 22nd. At these meetings Council Central Staff […]

Tenant Protections for Survivors of DV and Roommates This week we had a first discussion in Civil Rights, Utilities, Economic Development and Arts Committee on legislation I’ve sponsored to protect survivors of domestic violence from being held liable for damages incurred by an abuser, and to protect roommates and family members from categorical housing denials […]

Bus Commutes on 1st Avenue West Seattle bus riders are facing unacceptably long wait times on 1st Avenue to get back home in the evening. Earlier this week my office sent a request to SDOT Director Zimbabwe to examine options to speed up traffic. The email that I sent to constituents earlier this week requested […]

Fireworks In Seattle, except for permitted fireworks displays, fireworks are illegal under the  Seattle Fire Code. The Seattle Fire Blog and the SPD Blotter both published posts encouraging residents to leave the fireworks to professionals, and requesting that you call 911 only in the event of an emergency. After hearing a number of constituent complaints in […]

Administrative & Funding Plan for City’s Investments in Affordable Housing On Monday, the Full Council approved the Administrative & Funding Plan for how the Office of Housing (OH) awards and distributes funding for affordable housing in the City. Seattle has a large network of nonprofit affordable housing developers and providers who are experts in building housing to […]