I get a lot of political advocacy email. I got one asking me to comment in favor of Washington House bill 1453 to better protect tenants. It’s primary sponsor is Nicole Macri who by all accounts is awesome and the advocacy group’s summary sounded like a great thing for us to change, so I commented and expressed the sentiment that tenants should be as secure in housing as home owners are. Anyway, I couldn’t find any articles quickly when I did comment, so here I am reading the full text the next day. 🙂

Continue reading “What’s in HB 1453 to better protect tenants?” →

If you know me, then you know that first I talk about politics way too much and also, especially during the primary, I got kind of annoyed at how often candidates proposed new things to spend money on while not really having the revenue to pay for their proposals (or having revenue sources that won’t pan out for years if ever, like the city income tax). I did some basic searching and concluded that yes, indeed, the city budget has been going up. One thing I liked about Nikkita Oliver in the primary is that she really took the homelessness and housing affordability issues seriously to the degree she was unwilling to tell vocal constituencies like the bike lobby that she wouldn’t consider their favorite projects off limits for budget cuts. Now, I might disagree with any one thing she would want to cut, but I like the attitude.

Anyway, I’ve been meaning to answer a few questions about the Seattle city budget:

• Has the budget really been going up per capita?
• … even when adjusted for inflation?
• How far back? Is it really just the recession decreased spending and now it’s back up? Continue reading “Answering a Seattle Budget Question” →