40 Replies to “Sunday Open Thread: State of the City”
Mr. Mayor, in the service of all your points:
1. Some address to the idea that “market forces” are not plate tectonics or weather- meaning forces beyond our control.
2. How much of the opportunity of the past owed to labor unions. And some plans for restoring them.
3. The importance of measures to give us this country’s best transit system- for Seattle and the entire region around it.
4. What Seattle can do to help the rest of the State of Washington become as prosperous as we are- which will result in a legislative outlook that appreciates us as we deserve.
Thank you.
Mark Dublin
Why is it Seattle’s job to make Pasco and Metaline Falls more prosperous (especially since it will inevitably result in another Seattle property tax increase)?
Oh, cut the self-righteousness. Solidarity means that it’s on prosperous communities like Seattle to help out and improve the prospects for communities like Spokane, and Pasco, and Wenatchee, and Vancouver (WA), and Moses Lake which don’t have the jobs, manufacturing, and high-tech industries that the Puget Sound has.
A rising tide lifts all boats!
I’m not being self-righteous, I just want to know what form this solidarity is supposed to take. How many millions/billions should Seattle spend to raise the level of all the boats in Washington state?
Seattle business perhaps more than its elected leaders are indeed misanthropic;
in the way the police treat campers and protestors, in homeless services and in enforcement and arrest treatment. To be misanthropic is to not care how homeless people end up starving, freezing ‘while’ knowledge and capability to provide campers their simple needs, indeed would begin to solve many sad problems.
Reinforce your basement foundation ties, not your police force.
The $50 billion he wants to spend and the 10,000 border guards,
looks more like a personal arsenal of loyalists.
-Impeachment by 2018, if not sooner-
Seattle bike guys got a lot to learn this good.
Leaders dislike you that much. Get it?
Question for Mark Dublin: it has been said that Democrats lost their way in identity politics, focusing on social groups and losing sight of individuals and everyman and union man, and that the party must change significantly to get back to that. How much would you say this is real vs an overexaggeration? To me the ones who lost their way were the leftist activists, not the party or most politicians. I first saw it at UW in the, must have been nineties, possibly earlier. The activists and the parts of the staff and policies sympathetic to them started focusing on advantaging certain groups rather than advantaging everybody. I saw it again in the activists prominent in the protests that started in 1999. In 2001 I started moving left because of GW Bush’s policies and this was a stumbling block for me: I found the activists way too anti-capitalists and group-minded. But I never felt that way about the Democratic party or most of its politicians. They seemed to understand the “for everybody” and “for ordinary people” part. My impression was not that they lost their way but simply that they never had enough filibuster-proof power to enact their goals. So how much have you seen D’s move away from you, vs how much of that is just right-wing propaganda?
Bill Clinton signed NAFTA, and indeed advocated for it.
Obama promoted TPP, TTIP, and of course spying on everyone without warrants.
There you have the degree to which the Democratic Party moved unduly right wing, unduly corporatist.
Also, Clinton repealed Glass-Steagall and Obama bailed out the banks.
The DNC are just Republicans who support abortion at this point. Identity politics are all both parties have to set them apart and yes, they both use idpol.
Free trade deals are not inherently un-progressive, politically unpopular as they may be. Reagan gave us protectionism against Japanese auto imports and on balance it hurt the american auto worker / industry.
Obama did not bail out banks. Bush 43 did.
Free trade isn’t corporatist, it’s just correct.
The biggest issue with the politics of free trade is that the benefits are diffuse, but the downsides are concentrated. Everyone sees the factory in town closing down, but it’s hard to notice if prices at the store are 20% lower.
Look at how our transit agencies are hamstrung by Buy America policies.
Aside from everything above, the recession would be much worse if we hadn’t bailed out the banks.
Agreements sold as “free trade” are not the same as free trade. Free trade starts with letting all goods and all people across the borders, no questions asked. That is not what we have, not even close.
Sorry about this, Mike. Got carried away with ideas of my own that I keep waiting to hear out of the Democrats. Finding it much harder than I thought to answer your question about my own take on the Party.
Truth is that while I don’t think it’s possible to run democratic (small d) politics without political parties, not for lack of trying, I’ve never found a place where I fit in any of them. Meaning the Democrats. Have I got a 12 year old reader that can show everybody how to go: “Well DUH uh!” and roll their eyes?
A lot of us born in 1945 always had the sense we’re the last of our parents’ generation, not the first of the one following. So couldn’t ever say the Democrats walked away from me.
Except for young women officials in the McGovern campaign, who kept wondering who called my cab, which I rented for personal campaign work. And also prayed I would “throw my flag” and go away before their boyfriends’ plane got in.
Would probably have done better if I’d been twenty in 1952. True, Uber hadn’t been invented yet. But a Harry Truman campaign boss- cigarette, nylons with seams and all, would’ve thought I was a perfect though over-serious young working class Democrat. Cab and all. ‘Wish he’d shut up about the Electroliner!’ Time warps are hell.
So here’s best assessment. Largely because the incomes of the Republican power base meant that there were few of them, the GOP had already prepared what they’d do when the rest of the industrial World got over War II.
While, having so many more people to lead through the whole retool of American industry, which is still in its very early stages, the Democrats are still trying to figure out how which foot to put down where. War cry of all Democratic Identity Politics should be: “Are We THERE yet?”
Being around Computer Assisted Design since I left off transit driving, my call is that the Democratic Party will be just fine when, like in the last Industrial Revolution, the technologies that turn people Democrats are finally invented.
Best I can do, Mike.
Mark
This week the escalators at UW worked. I think it was the longest stretch of continuous operation in several months.
I’m surprised there isn’t a betting pool. Novelty twitter. Use of this meme.
Last Tuesday, I walked up the long escalator to University Street from the USS mezzanine.
Always wondered where they’d find her. She was torpedoed off Kirkland in 1943. Well, best put her parts under the seats and get her down to Capitol Hill. Those jets made out of pink cellophane have go back into the Mariannas Trench.
Mark
There is still a pair of escalators from the surface to the first mezzanine at UW Station that is not working, or at least there was Friday. You wouldn’t notice if you took the other pair. Another escalator between those levels got back up and running the week before last.
There is also no elevator working from the Airport Station kiss & ride to the eastern pedestrian bridge. But the message seems a little more coherent now, requiring paying attention from beginning to end, and realizing they are talking about getting from the station to Pacific Highway. It will hopefully be repaired sometime in March.
Future design standards should involve, at a minimum, redundancy of elevators, redundancy of escalators sets, and a stairwell set connecting between each entry level and each platform. That includes change-ups to stations currently being built, if necessary.
Retrofits to stations below this standard are best done before the system grows. Maybe SeaTac Airport Station and Beacon Hill Station could do without the stairs, but the rest ought to have them. A second elevator at the Airport Station kiss & ride and at each Mt. Baker Station platform should be the top priority on that list for ADA reasons. Having to go to a different station and double-back up to 5% of the time should never have been an acceptable standard.
The way they convey the message about the broken elevator is completely backward. An audio message that you have a 50/50 chance of hearing while you wait for your train, then, when it does come, you miss most of it if you’re not paying close attention, is next to useless. The simple, low-tech solution of stapling a piece of paper to a bulletin board would be much more effective.
In Vancouver they play a message aboard the skytrain prior to the station affected letting interested passengers know they should deboard and board a special shuttle as the next station has no elevator. Why can’t they do that for link?
There are stairs at SeaTac Station north end of the platform with a nice view – quicker than elevator if you are on the rear car of a three car consist arriving south bound.
Mike, Nathanael, and Barman, what you’re all saying is the truth. But main fact about all human thinking, for private life and public, stems at the root (real Latin meaning of “radical”) from common experience, over the years. And millenia.
Anybody into public service of any kind, always ride with a history book in paperback, Kindle, or disk. Also, always major in History, especially avoiding Political Science. Computer forecasts got us savaged in Viet Nam. And subsequent wars that history books would’ve saved us from.
Among their many other changes over the years, both our major parties shifted places more than once. Slave-owners in the South were all Democrats. Army that beat them, Republican- though small minority had any problem with black people being slaves.
Real winning side? From Appomattox on, the postwar North got ever more segregated. Whoever’s ideas win- wins. “Conservative”? Republicans in blue uniforms said it better: Slavers and Secessionists. In the North they were Copperheads.
At end of 19th Century, Republican Party really gave simultaneous rise to truly conservative government, meaning above all things careful with money and policy. And also liberal, meaning policies still prudent, but a shade more financially generous. For both: the more intimate human activities, the less they’re Government’s business.
I personally wish Democrats would start calling ourselves “liberal” again. Because at turn of 19th to 20th centuries, it was the Republicans founded the Progressive Movement, ever since the basis of government hiring by civil service exams rather than open cash returns for campaign help.
Perfect example of “Liberal,” “Conservative”, and “Republican” combined: James R. Ellis. Founded the Municipality of Metropolitan Seattle. And got DSTT through Downtown without condemning an inch of property. Reason I think what the Democrats need most now is the Union winning back the Republican Party.
And: Paul M. Weyrich. Founder of The New Electric Railway Journal. Politically, a self proclaimed monarchist. Advocated an Inquisition to hunt down covert highway advocates. But his devotion to streetcars rendered him truly conservative. Like streetcar transit itself.
Now: No question the shredded remains of the Republican Party contain many serious advocates of Government of a very few. Maintained by Whatever Means Necessary.
But I’d be surprised in the national Democratic Party has a dozen of what “Leftist” really meant ’til the Korean War:
It meand people for whom Government is neither an oppressor nor a benefactor, but the people’s own machinery. Whose operation they voluntarily share to achieve purposes they can’t do singly, Which every citizen should be trained from kindergarten to understand, operate, and own.
As the whole population’s most reliable guarantee of prosperity and freedom. Giving majority of the population the Identity they’re really looking for. In a sentence: An Establishment whose business suits are coveralls and transit operators’ uniforms. Including black T-shirts with IT logos.
And whose own best current guarantee of success is a Republican Party that’ll be proud to claim both Sound Transit’s true founder. And his fine life’s crowning achievement. Best I can do, guys. Laptop battery just went Samsung.
Actually should have said Republican fortifications overrun by the slavers. Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest had his own trading and retrieval company. Pretty much sets forth present political condition of our country.
Private prisons go back a ways.
Mark
Bob, any chance the country might have recovered from the Crash by now if some very guilty bankers had gone to jail as they deserved, and the US Government had taken over the self-destructed banks.
And the Bailout money paid to hire workers at very good wages to repair the Oroville Dam, and other pieces literally falling off of the United States? And let the workers bail out the banks?
Just the slightest little chance that enough people finally started earning a decent living for once in their lives, somewhat fewer of them would have voted in current Administration?
Might also check the books for the projected cost of promised projects and also promised tax cuts. Impunity for people like bankers that’s forever beyond you and me…I guess that’s what’s meant by REAL political correctness.
Mark
The U.S government did take over the banks- and sold them for a profit. Spending more on infrastructure, while a good idea, wouldn’t have really helped to bail out the financial sector. Keep in mind too that most of the bankers haven’t been able to find top level jobs, too,so we’re in less danger of them messing up again.
The government did NOT take over any banks. Name one! They took over Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. And bailing out anybody without replacing the culprits responsible for the situation requiring the bailout is BS. It is a major reason that Trump was elected.
I can’t believe that a city can vote for such a guy. I don’t think anyone can seriously name five things he’s done to make the city better. There’s not going to be a middle class to support all the taxes this guy wants to implement and waste. Affordable housing? Fail. Homelessness? Fail. You name it. Fail.
[ah]
Murray has already spoken at churches. There’s no double standard for Christians.
Also, Seattle is one of the fastest growing cities, so clearly high taxes don’t impact that.
Agreed. Rich people in, poor people out.
If we were to up zone so the market could build like heck and also build public housing like heck, we would be able to have everyone have an affordable home.
So why is it bad for poor people to be priced out by high home prices, but good for old people to be priced out by high property taxes? Just askin’.
Old people (individuals and couples) occupy 3+ bedroom houses that we desperately need for families and for individuals who want to houseshare to save costs. I don’t want to see elderly people forced into assisted living, but we need some better way of transitioning empty nesters to smaller housing units or shared situations. If property taxes are such a burden, why not share your home with another similar individual or couple to save money and split the costs of the assistance you may need to age in place? Having grown up in the only period in American history where mass homeownership was possible (thanks to government subsidies) doesn’t entitle people to squat in that housing forever.
Regan, what part of no one shall be denied life, liberty or property without due process do you not understand. Property rights are enshrined in our Constitution. Taking them away because you don’t think the people who live and own the property should have them is a violation of our God given rights that our Constitution acknowledges.
IE: “Comrade, we want your property for a more worthy use, so we’re going to squeeze you out.”
Well, wanting to live in a desirable city does not entitle one to do so either. Oh and by the way, city law restricts in many ways the ability of homeowners to provide rentals.
Traffic on I-5 through downtown Seattle is moving well today. I am happy we have light rail. Those folks who commute by light rail and Sounder must be feeling smug today.
TeeHee – was about to post something similar.
No time yet for reopening our beloved “Free”way that I’ve heard.
Best story of the day is the stranded Taco Truck that opened for business up on I-5.
Metro buses on the eastside were down for the count this evening. I got on a 271 and made it about a mile before the lack of chains caused it to get stuck on a mild hill. Everyone had to get off and hike back to the transit center, where literally hundreds of people were waiting in vain for any sign of buses. I went back to the office and managed to catch a ride in a car, which got me home without too much trouble.
Seriously: no chains today?????
Mr. Mayor, in the service of all your points:
1. Some address to the idea that “market forces” are not plate tectonics or weather- meaning forces beyond our control.
2. How much of the opportunity of the past owed to labor unions. And some plans for restoring them.
3. The importance of measures to give us this country’s best transit system- for Seattle and the entire region around it.
4. What Seattle can do to help the rest of the State of Washington become as prosperous as we are- which will result in a legislative outlook that appreciates us as we deserve.
Thank you.
Mark Dublin
Why is it Seattle’s job to make Pasco and Metaline Falls more prosperous (especially since it will inevitably result in another Seattle property tax increase)?
Oh, cut the self-righteousness. Solidarity means that it’s on prosperous communities like Seattle to help out and improve the prospects for communities like Spokane, and Pasco, and Wenatchee, and Vancouver (WA), and Moses Lake which don’t have the jobs, manufacturing, and high-tech industries that the Puget Sound has.
A rising tide lifts all boats!
I’m not being self-righteous, I just want to know what form this solidarity is supposed to take. How many millions/billions should Seattle spend to raise the level of all the boats in Washington state?
Seattle business perhaps more than its elected leaders are indeed misanthropic;
in the way the police treat campers and protestors, in homeless services and in enforcement and arrest treatment. To be misanthropic is to not care how homeless people end up starving, freezing ‘while’ knowledge and capability to provide campers their simple needs, indeed would begin to solve many sad problems.
Reinforce your basement foundation ties, not your police force.
The $50 billion he wants to spend and the 10,000 border guards,
looks more like a personal arsenal of loyalists.
-Impeachment by 2018, if not sooner-
Seattle bike guys got a lot to learn this good.
Leaders dislike you that much. Get it?
Question for Mark Dublin: it has been said that Democrats lost their way in identity politics, focusing on social groups and losing sight of individuals and everyman and union man, and that the party must change significantly to get back to that. How much would you say this is real vs an overexaggeration? To me the ones who lost their way were the leftist activists, not the party or most politicians. I first saw it at UW in the, must have been nineties, possibly earlier. The activists and the parts of the staff and policies sympathetic to them started focusing on advantaging certain groups rather than advantaging everybody. I saw it again in the activists prominent in the protests that started in 1999. In 2001 I started moving left because of GW Bush’s policies and this was a stumbling block for me: I found the activists way too anti-capitalists and group-minded. But I never felt that way about the Democratic party or most of its politicians. They seemed to understand the “for everybody” and “for ordinary people” part. My impression was not that they lost their way but simply that they never had enough filibuster-proof power to enact their goals. So how much have you seen D’s move away from you, vs how much of that is just right-wing propaganda?
Bill Clinton signed NAFTA, and indeed advocated for it.
Obama promoted TPP, TTIP, and of course spying on everyone without warrants.
There you have the degree to which the Democratic Party moved unduly right wing, unduly corporatist.
Also, Clinton repealed Glass-Steagall and Obama bailed out the banks.
The DNC are just Republicans who support abortion at this point. Identity politics are all both parties have to set them apart and yes, they both use idpol.
Free trade deals are not inherently un-progressive, politically unpopular as they may be. Reagan gave us protectionism against Japanese auto imports and on balance it hurt the american auto worker / industry.
Obama did not bail out banks. Bush 43 did.
Free trade isn’t corporatist, it’s just correct.
The biggest issue with the politics of free trade is that the benefits are diffuse, but the downsides are concentrated. Everyone sees the factory in town closing down, but it’s hard to notice if prices at the store are 20% lower.
Look at how our transit agencies are hamstrung by Buy America policies.
Aside from everything above, the recession would be much worse if we hadn’t bailed out the banks.
Agreements sold as “free trade” are not the same as free trade. Free trade starts with letting all goods and all people across the borders, no questions asked. That is not what we have, not even close.
Sorry about this, Mike. Got carried away with ideas of my own that I keep waiting to hear out of the Democrats. Finding it much harder than I thought to answer your question about my own take on the Party.
Truth is that while I don’t think it’s possible to run democratic (small d) politics without political parties, not for lack of trying, I’ve never found a place where I fit in any of them. Meaning the Democrats. Have I got a 12 year old reader that can show everybody how to go: “Well DUH uh!” and roll their eyes?
A lot of us born in 1945 always had the sense we’re the last of our parents’ generation, not the first of the one following. So couldn’t ever say the Democrats walked away from me.
Except for young women officials in the McGovern campaign, who kept wondering who called my cab, which I rented for personal campaign work. And also prayed I would “throw my flag” and go away before their boyfriends’ plane got in.
Would probably have done better if I’d been twenty in 1952. True, Uber hadn’t been invented yet. But a Harry Truman campaign boss- cigarette, nylons with seams and all, would’ve thought I was a perfect though over-serious young working class Democrat. Cab and all. ‘Wish he’d shut up about the Electroliner!’ Time warps are hell.
So here’s best assessment. Largely because the incomes of the Republican power base meant that there were few of them, the GOP had already prepared what they’d do when the rest of the industrial World got over War II.
While, having so many more people to lead through the whole retool of American industry, which is still in its very early stages, the Democrats are still trying to figure out how which foot to put down where. War cry of all Democratic Identity Politics should be: “Are We THERE yet?”
Being around Computer Assisted Design since I left off transit driving, my call is that the Democratic Party will be just fine when, like in the last Industrial Revolution, the technologies that turn people Democrats are finally invented.
Best I can do, Mike.
Mark
This week the escalators at UW worked. I think it was the longest stretch of continuous operation in several months.
I’m surprised there isn’t a betting pool. Novelty twitter. Use of this meme.
Last Tuesday, I walked up the long escalator to University Street from the USS mezzanine.
Always wondered where they’d find her. She was torpedoed off Kirkland in 1943. Well, best put her parts under the seats and get her down to Capitol Hill. Those jets made out of pink cellophane have go back into the Mariannas Trench.
Mark
There is still a pair of escalators from the surface to the first mezzanine at UW Station that is not working, or at least there was Friday. You wouldn’t notice if you took the other pair. Another escalator between those levels got back up and running the week before last.
There is also no elevator working from the Airport Station kiss & ride to the eastern pedestrian bridge. But the message seems a little more coherent now, requiring paying attention from beginning to end, and realizing they are talking about getting from the station to Pacific Highway. It will hopefully be repaired sometime in March.
Future design standards should involve, at a minimum, redundancy of elevators, redundancy of escalators sets, and a stairwell set connecting between each entry level and each platform. That includes change-ups to stations currently being built, if necessary.
Retrofits to stations below this standard are best done before the system grows. Maybe SeaTac Airport Station and Beacon Hill Station could do without the stairs, but the rest ought to have them. A second elevator at the Airport Station kiss & ride and at each Mt. Baker Station platform should be the top priority on that list for ADA reasons. Having to go to a different station and double-back up to 5% of the time should never have been an acceptable standard.
The way they convey the message about the broken elevator is completely backward. An audio message that you have a 50/50 chance of hearing while you wait for your train, then, when it does come, you miss most of it if you’re not paying close attention, is next to useless. The simple, low-tech solution of stapling a piece of paper to a bulletin board would be much more effective.
In Vancouver they play a message aboard the skytrain prior to the station affected letting interested passengers know they should deboard and board a special shuttle as the next station has no elevator. Why can’t they do that for link?
There are stairs at SeaTac Station north end of the platform with a nice view – quicker than elevator if you are on the rear car of a three car consist arriving south bound.
Mike, Nathanael, and Barman, what you’re all saying is the truth. But main fact about all human thinking, for private life and public, stems at the root (real Latin meaning of “radical”) from common experience, over the years. And millenia.
Anybody into public service of any kind, always ride with a history book in paperback, Kindle, or disk. Also, always major in History, especially avoiding Political Science. Computer forecasts got us savaged in Viet Nam. And subsequent wars that history books would’ve saved us from.
Among their many other changes over the years, both our major parties shifted places more than once. Slave-owners in the South were all Democrats. Army that beat them, Republican- though small minority had any problem with black people being slaves.
Real winning side? From Appomattox on, the postwar North got ever more segregated. Whoever’s ideas win- wins. “Conservative”? Republicans in blue uniforms said it better: Slavers and Secessionists. In the North they were Copperheads.
At end of 19th Century, Republican Party really gave simultaneous rise to truly conservative government, meaning above all things careful with money and policy. And also liberal, meaning policies still prudent, but a shade more financially generous. For both: the more intimate human activities, the less they’re Government’s business.
I personally wish Democrats would start calling ourselves “liberal” again. Because at turn of 19th to 20th centuries, it was the Republicans founded the Progressive Movement, ever since the basis of government hiring by civil service exams rather than open cash returns for campaign help.
http://www.historylink.org/File/7833
Perfect example of “Liberal,” “Conservative”, and “Republican” combined: James R. Ellis. Founded the Municipality of Metropolitan Seattle. And got DSTT through Downtown without condemning an inch of property. Reason I think what the Democrats need most now is the Union winning back the Republican Party.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Weyrich
And: Paul M. Weyrich. Founder of The New Electric Railway Journal. Politically, a self proclaimed monarchist. Advocated an Inquisition to hunt down covert highway advocates. But his devotion to streetcars rendered him truly conservative. Like streetcar transit itself.
Now: No question the shredded remains of the Republican Party contain many serious advocates of Government of a very few. Maintained by Whatever Means Necessary.
But I’d be surprised in the national Democratic Party has a dozen of what “Leftist” really meant ’til the Korean War:
It meand people for whom Government is neither an oppressor nor a benefactor, but the people’s own machinery. Whose operation they voluntarily share to achieve purposes they can’t do singly, Which every citizen should be trained from kindergarten to understand, operate, and own.
As the whole population’s most reliable guarantee of prosperity and freedom. Giving majority of the population the Identity they’re really looking for. In a sentence: An Establishment whose business suits are coveralls and transit operators’ uniforms. Including black T-shirts with IT logos.
And whose own best current guarantee of success is a Republican Party that’ll be proud to claim both Sound Transit’s true founder. And his fine life’s crowning achievement. Best I can do, guys. Laptop battery just went Samsung.
Mark
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Fort_Pillow.
Actually should have said Republican fortifications overrun by the slavers. Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest had his own trading and retrieval company. Pretty much sets forth present political condition of our country.
Private prisons go back a ways.
Mark
Bob, any chance the country might have recovered from the Crash by now if some very guilty bankers had gone to jail as they deserved, and the US Government had taken over the self-destructed banks.
And the Bailout money paid to hire workers at very good wages to repair the Oroville Dam, and other pieces literally falling off of the United States? And let the workers bail out the banks?
Just the slightest little chance that enough people finally started earning a decent living for once in their lives, somewhat fewer of them would have voted in current Administration?
Might also check the books for the projected cost of promised projects and also promised tax cuts. Impunity for people like bankers that’s forever beyond you and me…I guess that’s what’s meant by REAL political correctness.
Mark
The U.S government did take over the banks- and sold them for a profit. Spending more on infrastructure, while a good idea, wouldn’t have really helped to bail out the financial sector. Keep in mind too that most of the bankers haven’t been able to find top level jobs, too,so we’re in less danger of them messing up again.
The government did NOT take over any banks. Name one! They took over Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. And bailing out anybody without replacing the culprits responsible for the situation requiring the bailout is BS. It is a major reason that Trump was elected.
I can’t believe that a city can vote for such a guy. I don’t think anyone can seriously name five things he’s done to make the city better. There’s not going to be a middle class to support all the taxes this guy wants to implement and waste. Affordable housing? Fail. Homelessness? Fail. You name it. Fail.
[ah]
Murray has already spoken at churches. There’s no double standard for Christians.
Also, Seattle is one of the fastest growing cities, so clearly high taxes don’t impact that.
Agreed. Rich people in, poor people out.
If we were to up zone so the market could build like heck and also build public housing like heck, we would be able to have everyone have an affordable home.
So why is it bad for poor people to be priced out by high home prices, but good for old people to be priced out by high property taxes? Just askin’.
Old people (individuals and couples) occupy 3+ bedroom houses that we desperately need for families and for individuals who want to houseshare to save costs. I don’t want to see elderly people forced into assisted living, but we need some better way of transitioning empty nesters to smaller housing units or shared situations. If property taxes are such a burden, why not share your home with another similar individual or couple to save money and split the costs of the assistance you may need to age in place? Having grown up in the only period in American history where mass homeownership was possible (thanks to government subsidies) doesn’t entitle people to squat in that housing forever.
Regan, what part of no one shall be denied life, liberty or property without due process do you not understand. Property rights are enshrined in our Constitution. Taking them away because you don’t think the people who live and own the property should have them is a violation of our God given rights that our Constitution acknowledges.
IE: “Comrade, we want your property for a more worthy use, so we’re going to squeeze you out.”
Well, wanting to live in a desirable city does not entitle one to do so either. Oh and by the way, city law restricts in many ways the ability of homeowners to provide rentals.
Traffic on I-5 through downtown Seattle is moving well today. I am happy we have light rail. Those folks who commute by light rail and Sounder must be feeling smug today.
TeeHee – was about to post something similar.
No time yet for reopening our beloved “Free”way that I’ve heard.
Best story of the day is the stranded Taco Truck that opened for business up on I-5.
Metro buses on the eastside were down for the count this evening. I got on a 271 and made it about a mile before the lack of chains caused it to get stuck on a mild hill. Everyone had to get off and hike back to the transit center, where literally hundreds of people were waiting in vain for any sign of buses. I went back to the office and managed to catch a ride in a car, which got me home without too much trouble.
Seriously: no chains today?????