Tag Archives: city hall

With Amazon workers coming back to the office, mayor to deliver 2023 ‘One Seattle’ State of the City address

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A photo collage from Harrell’s 2022 One Seattle report

Mayor Bruce Harrell will deliver his second State of the City address Tuesday touting his administration’s first year of accomplishments and setting the stage for his next steps as the city more fully awakens from pandemic slowdowns but continues to be tangled in challenges around homelessness, addiction, mental health, affordability, and climate change. Meanwhile, new economic challenges from the surge in interest rates lurk.

The mayor’s office has produced a “summary year-end report” detailing “the Harrell administration’s work in 2022” that we have embedded below. In it, Harrell’s office says his “One Seattle” campaign “invites dialogue and learning, collaboration and cooperation, innovation, and thoughtful change” but there is “more work ahead.”

“We must continue to ensure effective long-term public safety, advance sustainable solutions to our region’s homelessness and housing crises, build community resilience to the impacts of climate change, and drive an equitable economic recovery that uplifts all neighborhoods across our beautiful city,” Harrell’s introduction reads. Continue reading →

Making due with the officers he has, Seattle Police chief rolls out new scheduling strategy for city’s cops — Also: 2022 crime stats for Capitol Hill and the Central District

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Seattle Police Chief Adrian Diaz says he believes the city’s approach to emphasis policing and better management of the reduced number of officers on the city’s streets helped slow rising crime trends late last year even as 2022 marked the city’s highest violent crime rate in 15 years.

Statistics for the East Precinct, below, also mirror the citywide peak in violent crime totals as reports across the Central District and Capitol Hill climbed 8% vs 2021 — but the numbers here also back up Diaz’s contention that late 2022 showed signs of improvement.

(Image: CHS)

With no signs that the department’s challenges with hiring and retaining more officers will end soon, the chief has announced a new scheduling strategy he says will allow SPD to have more officers active during “peak hours” and make sure officer staffing totals are at “safe numbers” while also allowing officers to have an extra day off “for their own level of wellness.” Continue reading →

Seattle City Council to vote on designating part of E Union as D’Vonne Pickett Jr. Way to honor slain business owner — UPDATE

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KeAnna Pickett and D’Vonne Pickett, Jr. at the 2018 opening of The Postman (Image: CHS)

The Seattle City Council is scheduled for a Valentine’s Day vote to honorarily designate E Union between 21st and 22nd Avenues as D’Vonne Pickett Jr. Way.

UPDATE: The resolution passed in an unanimous 9-0 vote.

“D’Vonne embodied and internalized the belief of being ‘HEAVY’ over airy in all of his endeavors, particularly in his role as a family patriarch, as a mentor and a friend to almost everyone he encountered throughout life, a sentiment he often uniquely expressed in the form of his favorite catchphrase, ‘Stop Playin!,'” the resolution being introduced by Councilmember Teresa Mosqueda reads. Continue reading →

Seattle permanently eases approval process for small changes to its roster of 480 (and growing) landmark buildings

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Broadway’s Capitol Crest building was designated as a Seattle landmark in 2022

The Seattle City Council voted 8-0 Tuesday to keep approvals on small changes to designated landmarks in the hands of city staff.

The mayor’s office legislation will keep in place changes made during the pandemic to handle “minor alterations” on the city’s growing roster of protected landmark buildings like signage, awnings, storefront renovations and building systems upgrades with administrative review by city staff.

New construction, demolition and major redevelopment proposals will not be eligible for administrative review under the plan.

The city says the permanent change will allow faster approval of necessary changes and repairs to landmark structures by Department of Neighborhoods staff while allowing boards and commissions to focus on more important business.

The city’s roster of protected properties has reached 480.

 

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Seattle, King County lifting COVID-19 vaccine requirement for employees — and sorting out what comes next for terminated workers

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(Image: City of Seattle)

Seattle and King County is ending COVID-19 vaccine requirements for its employees ending a 16-month mandate.

“The vaccine mandate was an effective and necessary tool for protecting the health and safety of City workers and the public we serve,” Mayor Bruce Harrell said in the announcement. “The City’s actions then and now have always been informed by the science of the pandemic and recommendations of public health officials – an approach based on data and dedicated to saving lives. Rooted in our shared values of safety and health equity, we will continue to follow this approach as we respond to next steps in the pandemic and continue to advance efforts to ensure a thriving and equitable recovery for all Seattle residents and neighbors.”

Instituted in October 2021, the requirements are some of the last vestiges of restrictions and protections put in place during the pandemic. October 2022 brought the official lifting of the civic emergency around the virus as Capitol HIll residents and businesses went through new restrictions and requirements including social distancing, mask, and vaccination mandates as officials tried to fine tune the public response to slowing the spread of the virus. The Inslee administration says the state of emergency orders resulted in Washington “having one of the lowest COVID death rates across all 50 states for the pandemic.” Continue reading →

Mosqueda, mother of the Capitol Hill Superblock, could leave Seattle City Hall behind in bid for King County Council

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Another experienced voice at City Hall might go quiet as Teresa Mosqueda, one of two citywide representatives on the Seattle City Council, has announced her campaign for the District 8 seat on the King County Council representing West Seattle, downtown, First Hill and portions of Capitol Hill. UPDATE: Thanks to Ryan in the comments for the reminder of District 8’s vast borders.

“District 8 is my home, where my husband and I are raising our three-year-old daughter in the North Delridge neighborhood, our pediatrician is in Burien, and our favorite parks span the shoreline of the district from Seahurst to Jack Block,” she said in the campaign announcement. “Our neighborhood is surrounded by working families, play areas and parks, nearby public beaches, bustling small businesses, bike lanes and trails, community centers and childcare, and multiple lines of transit – this is the kind of welcoming and accessible community I hope for all District 8 residents. I will work with urgency, and in collaboration with community and local leaders, to expand economic opportunities and improve the health of every King County neighbor.”

Mosqueda makes the announcement as incumbent Joe McDermott announced he will not seek reelection after 13 years on the county council. Continue reading →

Speaking of that guerilla Capitol Hill crosswalk… federal cash comes through for Seattle ‘Safe Streets’ projects including replacing rogue E Olive Way crossing

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(Image: @flyguy84)

When you look at it from the corner of Harvard and E Olive Way, it might feel a little like using a sledgehammer to swat a fly but Seattle City Hall has the money needed to paint official crossings at the site of Capitol Hill’s rogue crosswalk.

Monday, Senator Maria Cantwell (D-WA), Chair of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, announced a round of grants to communities across her state including a $30 million ask from the City of Seattle that includes a line item to fund the E Olive Way crosswalk work.

The $25.6 million grant comes from the Department of Transportation’s Safe Streets for All program created by Cantwell to “help local governments carry out Vision Zero plans and other improvements to reduce crashes and fatalities, including for cyclists and pedestrians.”

“Fatalities on our roads are increasing at a historic rate,” Cantwell said in the announcement. “This Safe Streets for All award for Seattle will help improve 117 intersections where 60 percent of the fatal and serious pedestrian collisions occur, create 1.4 miles of new sidewalks, and four miles of protected bike lanes.”

The city said it plans to improve “the most intersections in southeast SODO where the highest number of serious pedestrian and bicycle accidents occur.”

The federal funding will also boost SDOT projects to add new ADA ramps and bumpouts to the E Olive Way crossing, new ramps and bumpouts, a pedestrian island, and new crosswalk markings at Harvard at Seneca, new ramps and bumpouts to join the new 4-way stop at 10th and Pike, and another set to join the new 4-way stop at Belmont and Pike.

Seattle’s full funding proposal including a roster of planned improvements can be found here (PDF).

 

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Calls for ‘Alternative 6’ to keep Seattle housing development from slowing as city holds ‘Virtual Citywide Meeting’ on comp plan update

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(Image: City of Seattle)

A Monday night online meeting will cap off the city’s public engagement process around the draft plans for the so-called “One Seattle” plan, an update to Seattle’s 20-year plan to guide its development and growth and, many hope, do more to address the region’s ongoing housing crisis over affordability and homelessness.

It comes as many housing, development, and affordability advocates say the five plans being carried forward in the process will not go far enough to create the thousands of new homes, townhomes, condos, and apartments the city needs to meet predicted demand.

Those calling for an “Alternative 6” include City Councilmember Teresa Mosqueda and pro-growth advocacy and information group The Urbanist, arguing that the city should keep up its housing pace established since 2015 and not slow down the effort to build new housing:

Study adding 200,000 homes by 2044. Maintaining our same pace of housing growth since 2015 would entail 160,000 new homes by 2044. Why assume and plan for a deceleration of urban housing growth in the future if we want to drive down housing prices and regional climate pollution, and create climate-resilient 15-minute neighborhoods?

Continue reading →

Proposal would keep approval of small changes like signs and awnings on Seattle landmarks with city staff

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The Seattle City Council’s Neighborhoods, Education, Civil Rights, and Culture Committee Friday morning will discuss legislation from the mayor’s office that would keep approvals on small changes to designated landmarks in the hands of city staff. The proposal would keep in place changes made during the pandemic when meetings of groups including the historic review boards that typically hold the power were prohibited.

According to the committee presentation (PDF), the permanent change allows faster approval of necessary changes and repairs to landmark structures by Department of Neighborhoods staff while allowing boards and commissions to focus on more important business. Continue reading →

Flanked by tech workers and human rights supporters, Sawant to propose ‘first-in-nation’ caste protections in Seattle

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As she prepared to announce her decision not to run for reelection, Sawant spoke with Raghav Kaushik, a tech worker who will be part of Tuesday’s press conference and a longtime Sawant supporter (Image: CHS)

How will Kshama Sawant spend her final year on the Seattle City Council as she and her Socialist Alternative-powered office prepare for the work of launching a new national party? Much like the previous decade with long-shot political bids designed to shake up the status quo, renter-friendly legislation, and hyperlocal extractions of global issues.

Tuesday, her council office announced new proposed legislation to create “first-in-the-nation” protections against caste discrimination.

“Caste discrimination doesn’t only take place in other countries. It is faced by South Asian American and other immigrant working people in their workplaces, including in the tech sector, in Seattle and in cities around the country,” Sawant’s announcement reads. Continue reading →