Fresh off apparent victory in the race to retain her District 3 seat, Kshama Sawant is hoping to gather supporters for a “People’s Budget” rally supporting social justice and tenants Wednesday morning.
Leading into Wednesday morning’s session on the Seattle City Council’s package of proposed additions, changes, and cuts to Mayor Jenny Durkan’s $6.5 billion 2020 budget, Sawant is asking for support for a handful of line items poised to make the cut:
Our People’s Budget movement should celebrate victories already won in this proposed budget!
*$1.8 million to open two or three additional Tiny House Villages to get homeless neighbors off the streets immediately. We need to keep fighting for more tiny house funding.
*$1.3 million for mobile restrooms in Seattle.
*$3.5 million to expand the Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion program so people get services and treatment instead of jail time.
*$115,000 to give renters facing eviction access to an attorney.
*$15,000 to fund Indigenous Peoples’ Day celebration.
*$36,000 this year for the Vietnamese Senior Association, an increase of $10,000 over last year.
“While we’ve won these gains thanks to our determined organizing, the proposed budget is still overwhelmingly a ‘business-as-usual’ budget, in the context of the unprecedented crisis of homelessness, affordable housing shortage, and inequality facing our city,” the Sawant announcement for Wednesday’s effort reads.
The council, meanwhile, will take up the proposed line items being championed by Sawant and the rest of the 2020 balancing package beginning at 9:30 AM Wednesday morning. The city might also need to quickly sort out how to replace millions in funding that could be lost due to I-976.
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Where’s the “restorative justice” part?
I could be wrong, but I believe that’s a reference to the LEAD program.
Thanks, I completely missed it. Restorative justice = justice aversion.
You still missed it
FYI, the local public defender Lisa Daugaard who originated the LEAD program received a MacArthur Fellowship this fall https://www.macfound.org/fellows/1033/
It’s quite an effective program
It’s doing wonders for downtown, the ID, Belltown, Ballard, and Pioneer Square. Other cities could learn a thing or two from this.
This is cool! Already kicking this reelection into high gear!
How about her overlords at the SA raise funds to pay for her ideas rather than buying the election. All that money flooding her campaign from NY and PA could have gone to the good of humanity rather than a campaign agenda that destroys our city. We all know she’s eyeing a national level role in government. She will partner with SF’s new lawyer, Chesa Boudin, to continue his parents and godparents agenda to destroy our free and open market society.
He does know what he speaks. Sawant raised $600,000 to Orion’s $400,000. The Amazon money was beyond his control. In retrospect, it did more harm than good. In retrospect, I wish he had disavowed it.