This Week in the Budget This week there are no meetings of the Select Budget Committee, as Councilmembers and staff comb through and consider the Proposed 2022 Budget.  The first public hearing is Tuesday, October 12th at 5:30 p.m. Sign up begins at 3:30 p.m. at bit.ly/council-comment.    This is the first of three public hearings. The other […]

West Seattle Bridge Community Task Force Updates The West Seattle Bridge Community Task Force met on September 15, and includes two key updates. First of all, the bridge repair remains on schedule for mid-2022. Secondly, the West Seattle Water taxi will maintain daytime operating hours during the winter, instead of going to the regular winter […]

2022 Budget Meeting Schedule/Process  Consideration of the 2022 budget will begin in a few weeks. The City Council will meet as the Select Budget Committee from September 27 through November 22 to consider and adopt a 2022 budget for the City of Seattle.  Other Council committee meetings will be suspended during this time.  “Select” signifies that it is not a regular committee, and […]

West Seattle Bridge Funding Update On Wednesday, the Transportation and Utilities Committee approved legislation accepting grants to SDOT for transportation projects. The legislation now moves to the Full Council for a final vote. Included are four grants related to the West Seattle Bridge. Two of these grants have been announced before: $11.26 million INFRA grant […]

West Seattle Bridge Community Task Force Update The West Seattle Bridge Community Task Force met on August 12. Bridge Updates First of all, SDOT confirmed the project remains on schedule for completion in mid-2022, and provided an update about how future schedule and cost estimates will be determined. As I’ve explained in past blog posts, […]

West Seattle Bridge: Public Meeting/$12 Million More in Federal Funding On Tuesday, SDOT hosted a virtual public meeting about the West Seattle Bridge repair. More than 250 community members attended. You can watch the meeting on YouTube. In coming weeks SDOT will post subtitles in English, Spanish, Korean, Vietnamese, Chinese, Khmer, Somali, and Oromo on the West Seattle Bridge Program page. They’ll also post a translated meeting summary, and the Q&A, as well as the translated power point […]

Reflections on the 1 Year Commemoration of the Murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis Police Officers May 25th marked the one year anniversary of the death of George Floyd. I made the following comments at the beginning of the Public Safety and Human Services committee the morning of the 25th: The Seattle Times ran a […]

Public Safety and Human Services Committee Updates The Public Safety and Human Services Committee heard a number of updates earlier this week at the April 27 meeting. First of all, I invited the Executive to brief the committee about the progress of work to reimagine community safety, and the work of the Interdepartmental Team to […]

Covid Updates: Hospitalizations Increasing, 16+ Can Pre-Register for City Vaccination, Covid Vaccine Is Free, Expanded Medical Care for Undocumented Residents Hospitalizations Are Steeply Increasing: We are very close to putting the worst of this pandemic behind us, but we’re not in the clear yet. At the moment, the virus is spreading more quickly than we can vaccinate. Most COVID-19 infections are happening in 18-24-year-olds, […]

COVID Updates – New Eligibility, Vaccine Site Capacity, Testing in District 1 The big news this week is that many more people are now eligible to be vaccinated against COVID – and starting April 15, all adults will become eligible. Vaccine supply is improving somewhat, but with so many more people now eligible and needing […]