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Sawant scores a Human Services win vs. Durkan, next tangle over Central Area Senior Center transfer develops

Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan may have practical reasons to withdraw the nomination of Jason Johnson to head the Human Services Department, the city’s frontline in its homelessness response, but she chose to make the announcement into a political attack on District 3 representative Kshama Sawant.

“Led by Council member Sawant, the City Council has politicized and failed to act on the confirmation of one of the most important roles in Seattle today,” Durkan said, “the person who oversees our City’s day-to-day work to prevent and respond to homelessness.”

 

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Johnson will continue to lead the department on an interim basis and the move on the nomination may presage eventual changes to transition a portion of the city’s homelessness spending to a regional effort.

But Durkan declared for Sawant a clear victory in her effort to thwart the nomination and respond to what she says were “hundreds of courageous workers, (and) community members,” who “demanded accountability on Human Services leadership.”

“The Council’s failure to follow its own procedures or give Jason a fair confirmation process has been harmful to the work of the Human Services Department, impaired our effort to respond to the homelessness crisis and has been deeply unfair to a person that has served this city tirelessly on one of the toughest issues facing our city, region and country,” Durkan said. “It is little wonder that many good people won’t consider public service.”

Sawant responded to Durkan’s sour grapes with a rallying cry. “”I now urge the mayor to support my resolution which calls for a full, open, and transparent search for a new Human Services department directors — inclusive of workers, union members, community members, and service providers,” Sawant said.

CHS reported the Sawant-led fight against Johnson but not even a move to a new committee beyond her control could move the nomination forward as other council members soured on the choice.

Sawant, up for re-election in 2019, is picking another fight with the mayor. Tuesday, she held a rally to support the transfer of the city-owned Central Area Senior Center and Byrd Barr Place to community organizations under Resolution 31856, which set a deadline of March 31 to complete the transfer of the properties.

“The Mayor very much supports having these properties continue to provide key services to the communities in which they are located, and is working to facilitate the transfer to community and the appropriate development of the properties,” a statement from Durkan’s office in response to the Sawant rally reads. But, her office says, the transfer must be done “legally and in a way that both ensures the continued operation of the properties for the community and a benefit for the people of Seattle, who own the properties now valued at several million dollars.”

Durkan’s office also provided a letter that includes its latest response in a process to pound out an agreement for the transfer.

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CS
CS
4 years ago

Who asserted (and the city believed?) that the senior center’s large plot cannot be developed due to slope? A walk around the building would indicate otherwise. Such a large parcel could be used for many stories of senior and low income housing while retaining the senior center and adding additional services on the ground floor, rather than GIVING AWAY an asset worth millions of dollars. What happened to our affordable housing crisis?