Post navigation

Prev: (09/15/19) | Next: (09/16/19)

Seattle City Council ready to support Friday’s Climate Strike in Cal Anderson

(Image: CHS)

District 3 representative Kshama Sawant is bringing a resolution to the full City Council in support of students participating in Friday’s Seattle Climate Strike at Cal Anderson.

The resolution to be presented and voted on Monday afternoon will show “support of the youth-led September 20, 2019 Global Climate Strike” and urge “Seattle Public Schools to support its students’ right to assemble and participate in the Global Climate Strike.” It will also affirm that city employees “may request unpaid leave for a day of conscience,” according to the council summary of the planned resolution.

CHS reported here on the return and hopes for growing Climate Strike efforts at Cal Anderson following another student-led strike in March. In March, hundreds of students from schools around the region rallied in Cal Anderson to call for more to be done to address environmental damage and in support of Green New Deal initiatives. This week’s strike is being organized in conjunction with “2,500 strikes planned globally and over 650 in the US alone,” organizers say.

The full Seattle council, pursuing its own set of Green New Deal legislative efforts, will also vote Monday on establishing a Green New Deal Oversight Board. Tuesday, meanwhile, will bring committee meetings on new legislation proposed to create a ban on natural gas hookups in new construction and another proposal to tax heating oil.

Friday’s climate strike is set to start at 9 AM in Cal Anderson. At noon, the strike will transition into a march, where attendees will move from Cal Anderson to City Hall. At City Hall there will be a rally with speakers advocating to take action until 3 PM.

The strike is being planned by a coalition of climate groups and lead by youth organizers, including the Washington Youth Climate Strike, and Fridays for Future Seattle, a student-led group striking every Friday at City Hall. 350 Seattle, a group pushing for Green New Deal initiatives in the city, is also helping bring the strike together again. The event aligns with a Global Climate Strike initiative hoped to inspire climate strikes around the world the week of September 20th.

Seattle Climate Strike

 

PLEASE HELP KEEP CHS PAYWALL-FREE!
Subscribe to CHS to help us pay writers and photographers to cover the neighborhood. CHS is a pay what you can community news site with no required sign-in or paywall. Become a subscriber to help us cover the neighborhood for as little as $5 a month.

 

 
Subscribe and support CHS Contributors -- $1/$5/$10 per month

2 Comments
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
I'm not with her!
I'm not with her!
4 years ago

Umm…much as she might wish it, one Kshama Sawant does not a City Council make.

Kerry Lusignan
Kerry Lusignan
4 years ago

Seattle School District’s superintendent and spokesperson said state law does not support excusing students’ absences for the climate strike walkout. They are wrong:
RCW 28A.225.010 provides:
Attendance mandatory—Age—Exceptions.

(e) The child is excused from school subject to approval by the student’s parent for a reason of faith or conscience, or an organized activity conducted under the auspices of a religious denomination, church, or religious organization, for up to two days per school year without any penalty. Such absences may not mandate school closures. Students excused for such temporary absences may be claimed as full-time equivalent students to the extent they would otherwise have been so claimed for the purposes of RCW 28A.150.250 and 28A.150.260 and may not affect school district compliance with the provisions of RCW 28A.150.220;