Tag Archives: city hall

Huh? Proposal would create Seattle ‘Loud Music Venues’ earplug law

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Capitol Hill is a neighborhood of music. A Seattle City Council member wants to help protect your ears.

A bill discussed Wednesday morning by Councilmember Dan Strauss and his Finance, Native Communities, and Tribal Governments Committee would create new regulations requiring designated “loud music venues” to “offer patrons hearing protection with a noise reduction rating of at least 20 decibels, for free or for sale on the premises.”

“If hearing protection is offered for sale, at least one option must be offered for $1.00 or less,” a presentation (PDF) on the proposal reads. Continue reading →

Seattle Council approves workforce housing and ‘affordable workspace’ plan for Stadium District

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(Image: Seattle City Council)

The Seattle City Council approved a bill Tuesday from council president — and former beer brewery owner — Sara Nelson that will change the zoning in a small area near the city’s stadiums to allow the construction of “workforce housing and affordable workspaces for Seattle’s small manufacturing businesses.”

The hotly debated legislation split the city’s growth advocates and labor leaders over its potential creation of new development and construction jobs and its potential impact on operations at the nearby Port of Seattle. Continue reading →

There has been a second Seattle SODA zone order issued — not on Capitol Hill this time

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Zone 4

Capitol Hill’s “Stay Out of Drug Area” is no longer the only SODA zone in Seattle with an active exclusion order.

Seattle Municipal Court filings show an order was issued for Seattle SODA Zone 2 in February against a 40-year-old busted for smoking meth in front an International District market in late December.

The February order covers the zone stretching across the CID and Pioneer Square. The judge in the case granted some leeway in the exclusion, allowing the defendant to “ride public transit through the zone.” Continue reading →

Seattle vote on $45M Democracy Voucher program renewal planned for August primary

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(Image: City of Seattle)

Mayor Bruce Harrell will be collecting Democracy Vouchers this year as he mounts his reelection campaign.

This week, his office put forward legislation to renew the program first approved by voters in 2015 in hopes of helping to dampen the power of large campaign donors in the city’s politics.

CHS reported here on 2025’s place as a big year for the future of the program. In 2025, the program will support the widest field yet with candidates in the race for Seattle Mayor, City Attorney, and City Council Positions 2, 8, and 9 all eligible for the funding program.

Later this year, voters will also be asked to renew the program. The proposal from Harrell’s office would expand the program with a $45 million property tax over 10 years, “costing the median assessed value Seattle homeowner about $12.20 a year,” according to Harrell’s announcement.

The original $3 million a year program was estimated to cost the typical homeowner around $8 a year. Continue reading →

‘We’re still making progress, we’re still having conversations’ — Seattle’s growth plan update continues despite appeals

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Hollingworth in front of the Leschi CC (Image: CHS)

With reporting by Matt Dowell

District 3 representative Joy Hollingsworth says the process to establish an updated comprehensive growth plan in Seattle is not being put on hold while environmental appeals by neighborhood groups opposed to the city’s proposals play out.

“The comp plan is still moving forward,” Hollingsworth told CHS last week following her office’s announcement of an updated schedule of meetings of the Select Committee on the Comprehensive Plan she chairs and Hollingsworth’s latest meeting with a D3 community group as she hopes to calm concerns about changes to the city’s zoning that could make way for the development of more multifamily housing in more areas of the city.

“We’re still making progress, we’re still having conversations,” Hollingsworth said.

The announcement of the six-meeting series of committee sessions through May 21st may come as a small relief to proponents of the growth plan changes concerned that Hollingsworth’s office might put the process on hold while six appeals filed demanding additional environmental review of the city’s plans are considered the Hearing Examiner. CHS reported here on the appeals including cases representing Madison Valley, Mount Baker, Hawthorne Hills, and “73 remaining Southern resident killer whales.” Continue reading →

KUOW details Mayor Bruce Harrell’s 1996 gun arrest

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From the KUOW report

As he campaigns for reelection, Mayor Bruce Harrell has a gun problem.

KUOW reported new details this week from a 1996 incident  where the then 37-year-old lawyer working in Nebraska pulled a gun on a man and a woman in a dispute over a parking spot at an Iowa casino.

“We was like, ‘What the hell is going on?!” the woman, who was eight months pregnant at the time, told KUOW recalling the incident 30 years later. “It scared us.”

KUOW broke the story on Harrell’s 1996 arrest in February but the new reporting provides perspective from the couple on other end of the dispute and details how the case was dismissed and never addressed as Harrell rose at City Hall as a member of the city council and then Seattle’s mayor. Continue reading →

Seattle moves to protect gender-affirming and reproductive health care in the city as council committee formed to counter Trump meets for first time

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Demonstrators at the People’s March in January

Seattle’s mayor is proposing new legislation hoped “to strengthen local protections and safeguard access to gender-affirming and reproductive health care services” in the city. The legislative push comes as leaders in the nation’s most progressive cities are sorting out how to best represent their constituencies in the shadow of a second Trump administration’s vindictive threats.

Mayor Bruce Harrell’s office says the proposal “reiterates and affirms the city’s stance as a welcoming and supportive place for LGBTQ+ community members” while extending existing Washington State “Shield Law” into city law, and protecting people “seeking or providing reproductive or gender-affirming care in Seattle from arrest or prosecution.”

The ordinance expressly extends the requirement to protect the provision of protected health care services to City employees and creates a local cause of action enforceable by the city, the mayor’s office says. Continue reading →

City says it had to clean up less trash in 2024 thanks to volunteers and enforcement

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Seattle Public Utilities is out with its 2024 “Clean City” report as it says citizens are volunteering more effort than ever to community clean-ups while its totals for debris collected from the public right of way actually dropped during the year.

“I’m proud we’re doing this work. Keeping Seattle neighborhoods cleaner helps residents thrive,” SPU General Manager and CEO Andrew Lee said in the announcement. “We welcome more residents and community organizations to join us in supporting Seattle’s diverse communities.”

SPU says its crews removed 1,765,421 pounds of debris from 1,550 blocks across the city’s right-of-way in 2024, down 7% from 2023 despite continued increased use of the Find It, Fix It “Service Request Mobile App.”

SPU credits “community engagement and education, enforcement efforts, and collaboration with other City of Seattle departments” for the reduction.

The Find It, Fix It app is focused on issues around cleanliness and rubbish but stats from the show that a bulk of the system’s calls are related to homelessness even though the app’s categories don’t show choices like “encampment” or “tents.” Instead, the calls are frequently reported under general inquiries, or “illegal dumping,” the most frequently used category in Find It, Fix It complaints. UPDATE: In a 2022 update, the app began accepting requests for an “Unauthorized Encampment.” Users are asked to use the category to “Report an unauthorized encampment that includes tents or structures assembled for habitation.” Continue reading →

City Council set to buy time while Seattle City Hall debates 2025 updates to Multifamily Property Tax Exemption program

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Tuesday’s vote is expected to extend the “P6” version of MFTE through September while City Hall bangs out the details of the program’s 7th update

The Seattle City Council is prepared to approve legislation extending the city’s current implementation of the Multifamily Property Tax Exemption another six months as City Hall debates larger changes to the program that secures more affordable units in market-rate Seattle housing developments in exchange for significant tax breaks on the properties.

Developers have pushed back on efforts they say will further complicate Seattle’s version of the MFTE and that have driven the Area Median Income requirements for the program that have pushed it from achieving important goals around so-called workforce or middle income housing.

Tuesday, the full council is set to take up legislation approved by its Housing and Human Services Committee in February to buy more time for the debate over MFTE to play out. The full council vote Tuesday is expected to move a new sunset date for the current MFTE program from the end of this month to September. Continue reading →

A ‘Welcoming City’ — Seattle mayor’s praise for Musk, City Attorney joins Trump lawsuit, Savage campaign goes MAGA

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Harrell looking to the left (Image: Downtown Seattle Association)

It seems like it is only a matter of time before the nation’s tech bro revolution figures prominently in Seattle’s 2025 political battles. Mayor Bruce Harrell’s office is explaining away his comments praising Elon Musk and other MAGA-aligned tech leaders last week while addressing the city’s business community at the annual “State of Downtown” gathering.

“The mayor was not praising them, he was referencing they have an objective reputation as leaders in technology and innovation, and that it is a danger they are in the president’s orbit,” the mayor’s spokesperson told Publicola trying to explain the praise.

“We know that our current president surrounds himself by some of the smartest innovators around,” Harrell said as he veered off script in his business-friendly speech at the Downtown Seattle Association event. “When we drop names like Andreessen or Peter Thiel or David Sacks or Elon Musk, these are smart innovators.”

The nuanced praise for Musk in the shadow of his Department of Government Efficiency work to gut major areas of the federal government and his increased efforts supporting right wing campaigns around the globe comes as Harrell is shaping his reelection campaign with themes around “common values,” “public safety solutions,” and “proven leadership to stand up for our values.” Continue reading →