City Retirement Fund Initiative Faces Court Challenge

The Washington Israel Business Council and the local chapter of StandWithUs.org are fighting a city initiative that would pull the city employee retirement fund out of investments in businesses that are involved in the U.S. occupation of Iraq, those that provide material support for the Israeli government, and, furthermore, would withdraw any investment in Israeli government bonds if the country attacks Iran.

The groups have a fundamental opposition to the way in which Initiative 97 has targeted Israel, but the bigger concern, says StandWithUs.org Regional Director Robert Jacobs, is the way in which anti-war vitriol trumps other considerations. “The way they drafted it, somebody signing it will see it as an anti-Iraq petition,”� he says. “If people are going to sign something to put a petition on the ballot, they should understand what they’re signing."

The measure, created by a group calling itself Seattle Divest From War and Occupation, was written after it began to feel like marches and letter-writing campaigns were ineffective, says campaign spokesperson Carla Curio. The group decided to refocus efforts close to home and take on the way in which the city invested money, specifically in employee retirement funds. “We’re desperate citizens trying to have a say in the Middle East,”� she says.

Taking nothing for granted, StandWithUs.org and the Business Council are challenging the initiative on very technical legal grounds in King County Superior Court. They begin with the official title, which, at 101 words, exceeds the word count limit by four. Their petition to the court also notes that the Washington State Constitution only allows such initiatives to cover one topic, while the opposition claims I-97 covers three separate issues .

Curio says she can’t comment in detail on the pending legal action, but does say: “This is something that should be brought to the voters and not fought in the court system.”�

Topics: City of Seattle

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Attractive Transit

The council today got to daydream about a city crisscrossed with a rainbow array of streetcar lines. One from South Lake Union to the UW; one up First Hill; one through downtown to the ID; and one from Westlake to Fremont and Ballard beyond. Gone from the original list were routes along Interbay, up Denny Hill and over the West Seattle Bridge (sorry, West Side!) because they were too expensive or technically not feasible.

Though the numbers were rough, Seattle Department of Transportation officials report the proposed routes— which would cost hundreds of millions of dollars to build— could count on operational savings if bus service in those same areas is cut. But the problem with that, as noted by some of the more skeptical council members, is that you’re simply replacing one kind of transit (that can get snarled in traffic) with another. And in some cases, you’d lose bus service since many of the routes that could be considered redundant actually originate, or terminate, someplace else.

"Streetcars are nice. I like riding them, but we don’t have a streetcar system, we have a bus system," said council member Tom Rasmussen, who wants the SDOT to do a side-by-side cost comparison of adding electric buses on the proposed streetcar routes.

There was a lot of talk about a "hierarchy of transit" and the attractiveness of a streetcar versus a bus. "It’s easy to use. Riders won’t have to look at a schedule," SDOT’s Bill Bryant told council members, noting that the streetcars would also often be more frequent than busses, running every six minutes through downtown.

Underlying this "more attractive" notion is the idea that streetcars would appeal to those who currently don’t ride the bus, though the ridership numbers so far on the SLUT don’t exactly bear that out. Plus, buses can be pretty, too, argued Rasmussen: "We can get more attractive coaches. And we can run them at a higher frequency."

To this, Transportation Committee Chairwoman (and streetcar enthusiast) Jan Drago, pulled the trump card: the streetcar system would be ours. "The difference is that the bus is totally controlled by King County Metro, which has the most political way of allocating bus service of any place in the U.S.," she reasoned. "The streetcar would be controlled by the city."

Drago made no attempt to mask her interest in pushing the idea forward. She's already calling for an August vote on the four proposed routes.

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Godden Settles w/ Ethics for $150

Council member Jean Godden has acknowledged that she violated the Ethics Code when authorizing her staff to put campaign events on her calendar as part of her bid for reelection last fall. Council members' city staff are allowed to communicate with campaign staff and reflect campaign events on their public schedule for planning purposes, but Ethics Commission Executive Director Wayne Barnett found that Godden's city staff entered campaign events on her calendar beyond what was necessary to ensure she wasn't double booked. Godden has agreed to pay the city $150 (she could've been levied as much as $5,000 for the transgression). The Ethics and Elections Commission will vote on the settlement during it's next meeting May 7.

Update: Spoke with Barnett. He says the issue wasn't simply that these campaign events were on Godden's city calendar— it was that the level of detail included, such as the format, contact names, etc., went far beyond what would be necessary to ensure city staff knew where to find her. The practices of other council offices have not been tested as there were no other complaints filed. (The complaint against Godden came from her opponent Joe Szwaja.) But one thing's for certain, city staff will be thinking twice about their scheduling practices in 2009.

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Other People's Money: City Hall Edition

It’s that time of year again— the annual window into the finances of our public servants courtesy of the disclosure statements they must file with the Ethics and Elections Commission, chuck-full of juicy tidbits about their investments and their vacation homes.

Newly elected council member Tim Burgess, until recently, had a flat in London's Islington neighborhood. He says he purchased it for work purposes, when he was regularly visiting the London offices of his PR firm, The Domain Group.

However, though Burgess still has a 50 percent stake in the UK office of the business, he says he doesn't get to London much anymore, in large part because of his new full-time gig at the council. "I don’t do any hands-on stuff with the business at this time," Burgess says. "Plus, it's too expensive over there to visit." He says he and his wife sold the flat a few weeks back. Too bad. London is pleasant this time of year.

Speaking of pleasant places to visit, Jean Godden has long had a "cabin" on Lummi Island, as well as some property in a waterfront development called Lummi Island Scenic Estates.

Longtime West Seattle resident Mayor Greg Nickels, inherited another West Seattle Home last year after his father passed away. But Nickels isn't planning to amass more westside holdings, spokesperson Marty McOmber says he's already sold it.

In addition to his Seward Park home, Council member Richard McIver owns a home currently occupied by his daughter in Hearne, Texas. Bruce Harrell owns two Seattle homes, one in Mt. Baker and one near Seward Park; and Tom Rassmussen has a house in West Seattle and one on Queen Anne.

Continue reading "Other People's Money: City Hall Edition"

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Joose Safe... For Now

You'll still be able to get your favorite flashy new high-octane malt beverage at the corner store for the foreseeable future. Neighborhood advocates had hoped that the city's report on Alcohol Impact Areas would include a recommendation to the Liquor Control Board to add new products like Joose, Max Ice, Camo and Bootlegger to the list of banned products. No such luck. Apparently the board thinks there's not enough evidence that enough people are drinking this new generation of cleverly-named, headache-inducing beverages for them to go through the lengthy process of prohibition. (Products are banned by name, not by percentage of alcohol.)

If the city council wants the Liquor Control Board to take this seriously, they're going to have to collect cans. That's right, collect cans! "I'm thinking we'll have to do more clean-up to see if this stuff's out there," says council member Sally Clark. [Confidential to council: head to Broadway, or to the bus stops on Pine and Pike, or to the staircases that connect Melrose with Bellevue on Capitol Hill — you should be able to fill a trash bag in no time.]

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City Says 'No' to Sexual and Obscene Acronyms

The name of the six mile trail around Lake Union was announced today and for reasons I can't being to fathom, none of ours made the cut. The new footpath will be named the Cheslahud Lake Union Loop after Chief John Cheslahud of the Duwamish Tribe. I think I'm so attuned to my inner 13-year-old boy at this point that for a moment CLUL almost seemed a double-entendre of sorts, but it just isn't. Four people suggested Cheslahud so names were drawn and Michelle Stokke and Zee Grega will be receiving the bicycles from REI.

You can read Mayor Nickels' inspiring words about the whole thing here.

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What, no Vista?

The City Council approved $2.75 million today to purchase Microsoft Office 2007 licenses for several thousand city office computers. Currently the city uses Novell GroupWise for e-mail and calendar software, and different departments have computers operating on at least four different Microsoft Office versions.

City Council Energy and Technology Committee members couldn’t help but chuckle at the ridiculous complexity of Seattle’s municipal government software woes at its April 2 meeting.

The migration process is so complicated - and the city perhaps so inefficient - that it will take until 2009-2010 to make the switch for roughly 10,287 users - not to mention a total cost of around $4.9 million to fully accomplish the transfer. Council President Richard Conlin’s key question: What happens when Steve Ballmer and Co. release Microsoft Office 2011?

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The Wrong Taxes

In his column today, Joel Connelly cries "enough already" on the levies proposed for the 2008 ballot and the potential burden they might place on Seattle and Seattle area taxpayers. He points out that the ballot could contain all of the following: a $6 billion Sound Transit light rail proposal, a $150 million parks levy, and a $75 million Pike Place Market renovation levy. (To these he adds the City Council's proposed 20 cent tax on disposable grocery bags.)

Nevertheless, the key to the problem—insofar as we have one—is not in the spending, but in the word that appears only once in his column, in a quote from former Transportation Secretary Doug MacDonald: regressive. The tax burden of Seattleites is actually quite modest, mainly because neither the city nor the state see fit to assess an income tax. Most of our public works are funded by increases in the sales tax, which falls just this side of a poverty tax, or in the slightly less regressive property taxes. (Washington's tax structure has been called the most regressive in the nation.)

Our low tax burden is one reason our transportation infrastructure has fallen so far behind our population growth. We can continue to face the liberal's dilemma of regressively funded public works (a divide-and-conquer dream for the Tim Eyman crowd), or we can figure out a more equitable way to create the spending increases needed to fund big city infrastructure. A progressively structured income tax, even if just within the city, would be a good start.

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Citizens Willing to Pay for Parks

Capitol Hill's Cal Anderson Park was one of the beneficiaries of the 2000 Pro Parks levy.

The mayor my not want another parks levy on the ballot this year, but the people do, apparently. Council members Richard Conlin, Tom Rasmussen and Tim Burgess just released a poll in which 67 percent of those asked said they'd be willing to chip in for a $140 million continuation of the Pro Parks Levy (originally passed in 2000 and set to expire this year).

According to the poll, a phone survey of 600 people conducted last month by Alison Peters Consulting, Seattle residents were slightly less supportive of a more expensive proposal— $240 million to fund additional projects like play areas, restrooms and landscaping at the parks— but 65 percent still said they'd vote yes.

However, combine another parks levy with the Mayor's plan to charge citizens $75 million to shore up Pike Place Market and the possibility of $6 to $7 billion being on the ballot for a South Transit sales tax measure and things get dicey.

Says the consultant's report:

It is possible that Seattle voters may not approve all three of these proposals. ...We did not find one particular subgroup that was more likely to support parks over the Market. However, several subgroups were stronger supporters of the Market over the parks proposal, including men over 45, seniors, households earning less than $50,000 a year, and residents of Southeast and Southwest Seattle.

Demographics aside, Seattleites have shown a tremendous amount of patience in the past for opening up their pocketbooks and throwing money at whatever civic project our pols deem in need of attention. The bigger question is whether the council (even with positive poll in hand) has the stomach to tangle with the mayor on this one. Nickels has made it clear that the Market is his priority: he's not interested in parks for 2008. He's also willing to shelve a levy to fund Seattle Center improvements for the foreseeable future.

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'Open Season' on Potholes

Again. Mayor Greg Nickels will declare as much at a press conference tomorrow morning. Yes, folks, the pothole rangers are back and they're handing out a new number to call to report the worst road crevasses citywide— and touting a plan to fill a record number in a week's time. Which makes one wonder: has he run out of green light bulbs? Or are we just that much closer to 2009.

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