Content:

Current Issues:

• Swine Flu Exposes a Sick System
• City Budget
• New Parks on the Way


Neighborhoods:

• Delridge – and others – await help on abandoned houses


Planning and Land Use:

• North Lot


Random Thoughts:

• Sobering Thoughts on Jails


Calendars:

• Planning, Land Use and Neighborhoods Committee
• Neighborhood Plan Town Hall Meetings
• Upcoming Community Events
• May District Council Meetings

Current Issues:

Swine flu exposes a sick system

If the very threat of a global pandemic weren't enough to make you anxious, the outbreak and spread of H1N1 or "swine flu" further exposes our health care financing system in the United States as a threat to public health. This may not seem like a City issue, but pandemic disease is one of the emergencies we prepare for locally and the costs to treat under- and uninsured people are breaking us all.

Through the early weeks of this flu outbreak, Public Health Seattle/King County coordinated a response that has ensured King County residents have access to solid information, testing and treatment when needed. If you need information you can find it here.

As of this writing, King County has more than 120 confirmed cases of H1N1. It's unclear how long this will continue, but we do know the flu doesn't care if you're insured or not. In Seattle too many people couldn't go see their doctor even if they wanted to go because they don't have health insurance or their insurance has been scaled back to cover only catastrophic incidents. That leaves all of us picking up the tab for astronomically expensive visits to emergency rooms doubling as primary care for people who have no other option. Limiting health coverage is dangerous for all of us.

Rest, fluids and, in true H1N1 cases, maybe some Tamiflu will get most people through, but we need stronger medicine when it comes to health care access in Seattle and the United States. To that end, the King County Board of Health (where I represent you) is working hard to shape health care reform now under debate at the state and federal levels. We are doing this by promoting a set of principles we think any successful reform should meet.

The principles outline what a health system must provide in order for people to be as healthy as possible. They include:

• Affordable, conveniently located services, which are not limited by the ability to pay, pre-existing conditions, gender, or other external factors.
• Care that is safe and rewards providers for better health outcomes, not for the number of tests they conduct or deny.
• Sustainable funding for cost-effective health services for everyone over the long term.
• Community input in care delivery, education about healthy lifestyle choices, and increased individual responsibility for maintaining good health.
• Incorporation of best medical practices in standard treatment with an emphasis on preventive care.
• And, elimination of disparities so that every person has access to appropriate care in a timely manner.

The State of Washington and the federal government will likely adopt health care reform plans within the year. They should know that adjustments at the margins won't make us healthier. We are asking them to make sure our principles are part of any health plan that goes to the president's or governor's desk. Doing so will make our community a healthier place to live, work, and thrive.

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City Budget

In the last few weeks Council and the Mayor have wrestled with a roughly $29.5 million funding gap due to lower sales and business & occupation tax revenue than expected this year. This is painful, but necessary work. I guess the silver lining is that there's great value in re-checking our assumptions about taxpayer priorities and true city responsibilities. There's nothing like a gaping budget hole to make you choose between the important, the really important and the mission-critical.

The final ideas for how to re-balance the budget aren't pretty. The best you can say is that direct services like police officers, firefighters and food banks won't be cut this year. We're keeping our commitment to stemming youth violence through the new Youth Violence Prevention Initiative. Also, we are speeding up the construction schedules of some projects that happen with other, steadier money sources.

The Mayor will tap $5 million from the city's "rainy day" fund of $30 million to help make up the gap. He also intends to save $13 million by reducing overtime, supplies and expenses, as well as freezing the pay of department heads and furloughing some professional staff. Library personnel will take a one week furlough late this summer rather than reduce branch hours or cut staff. These are good steps. I wouldn't support taking more than $5 million from the "rainy day" fund now because I think we may need those dollars this fall (and maybe even next year) to plug holes.

Concurrent with the budget cut discussions, the Council has held a series of forums focused on how to prime Seattle for economic recovery. Monday, May 11, we passed a resolution taking the best ideas we've heard from businesses, human service advocates and regular citizens and rolling them into a 19-point action plan. Among the actions we'll take this year to help Seattleites get back on track:

• Raise the business & occupation tax threshold from $80,000 to $100,000 annually, making 1,800 more small businesses exempt (and keeping more money in the pocket of the small business owners).
• Cap the "employee hours tax" at 2008 employment levels for 2009 and 2010 so people have a greater incentive to hire without paying the fee. This may be a first step to repealing this tax.
• Exempt small live music venues from the city's admissions tax. Ideally, more venues will employ more live music acts. This is a commitment we made last fall and should keep in order to support struggling artists and clubs.
• Use federal stimulus money to both prevent people from losing their homes and help homeless households move to stable housing.
• Coordinate a "buy local" campaign with neighborhood chambers of commerce.

Some of these actions involve foregoing revenue. This make our job a little tougher this fall, but I think the steps are smart and recognize that recovery will come through our small business and through hiring.

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New Parks on the Way

Council did an odd thing Monday, April 20. Thanks to voters' passage of the Parks & Green Spaces Levy last fall, we voted to spend big money in the middle of a recession. We approved the first round of projects in the six-year levy, giving the green light to 29 projects moving now into design. Many can begin construction in 2009.

Every sector of Seattle will benefit from this first round of projects (map of the projects here). The best part? This is only year one of a six-year levy, so we've got many more projects to come. Here's a list of projects that will make it into future funding cycles. This doesn't count the Opportunity Fund where people can apply to fund parks and green spaces that weren't individually named in the levy.

For 2009 we're now moving forward on:

• An upgrade of the Langston Hughes Performing Arts Center in the Central Area
• An extension of the Burke-Gilman Trail
• Playfield improvements in Columbia City, Greenlake, and Delridge
• A restoration of the Chinook Beach Park salmon habitat site in Rainier Beach
• Development of Park lids over reservoirs in Maple Leaf and West Seattle
• Plus many others

The process to apply for that $15 million in the Opportunity Fund is still being developed, but neighbors will be able to apply for those funds starting in 2010.

Special kudos go to my colleague Councilmember Tom Rasmussen, Chair of the Council's Parks & Seattle Center Committee, for championing the levy and smart management of its opportunities. As voters we spoke loudly and clearly for more parks and now that decision helps provide construction jobs in a tough time.

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Neighbors gather in Southeast Seattle neighborhoods to begin work to update their neighborhood plans. The next round of community meetings has already begun.
Check here for more information about upcoming meetings.

Delridge – and others – await help on abandoned houses

In early April Councilmember Tim Burgess and I toured abandoned homes in the Delridge neighborhood with Mike Dady and other fed up neighbors. Abandoned homes prove to be trouble magnets in many neighborhoods as anyone who has lived next door or across the street from one knows. At best you have an eyesore. At worst, your own home may be endangered if squatters lose control of a fire inside a boarded up house.

The tour with Mike and others started near the Skylark Café where a nearby eyesore likely harbored the thieves who held up the bar late one night recently. We then looked at three other houses moving south through the neighborhood. All had a slightly different story. In a couple of cases, people bought the houses when they were already falling down apparently thinking they could resurrect them and "flip" them. That clearly hasn’t panned out. In one case, the owner lives in Seattle in what might be called an "upscale" neighborhood, but leaves the Delridge house falling down and attracting trash. At the last house we found the front door kicked in and trash strewn throughout the house. The owner is currently hospitalized with apparently no nearby next of kin.

DPD tracks abandoned buildings and when necessary tracks down absentee owners to hold accountable. DPD can force someone to make a structure safe and to clean it up to certain standards, but they can’t force them to make it lived in. If you know of a problem property, report it here.

As a result of the neighborhood’s advocacy we will be looking at a change in the land use code to allow quicker demolition of a single family house. Right now you can’t demolish unless you have a plan and permit to rebuild. This concept makes sense in protecting housing stock and should be retained for multi-family areas. In single-family zones the requirement prevents owners who want to do the right thing from removing derelict homes. It’s not a perfect solution. I would rather see these houses reclaimed and lived in, but for some neighbors the wait for the perfect solution has already been too long. Watch for PLUNC to take up this idea this summer. If you’d like more information or have feedback about the idea of allowing demolition of single-family homes without a new building permit in hand, please contact me.

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Dilapidated and Vacant Homes

North Lot

For years people have wondered what should happen to the old Kingdome north parking lot. It’s well-used on game days and by commuters, but is it the best use of premium space in Pioneer Square? Residents and business-owners in Pioneer Square have dreamed of more housing, shops and even a grocery store there.

The City of Seattle and King County have both supported something along those lines, but, of course, it’s complicated with many interested players. King County owns the land. Part of it is contaminated with creosote and gasoline, so the Department of Ecology insists (rightfully) that it has to be cleaned up before new structures can be built (that costs money).

The Seahawks and the Public Stadium Authority have concerns about parking capacity and preserving views for fans. Pioneer Square residents and businesses want more people living there and they want them in buildings that respect the literally historic heart of Seattle.

In order to pay the bills a developer would need to max out every available inch of development capacity both in height and width. Under current zoning (Pioneer Square Seattle Mixed 85-120), the community could get a couple of bulky, boxy buildings that everyone would hate.

That’s where the magic of legislation comes in. There’s a proposal from DPD coming before the Planning, Land Use and Neighborhoods Committee (PLUNC), which I chair, to allow for more height and building capacity on the land. This could solve a number of the problems by providing more housing (helping to meet growth management goals through transit-oriented development next to the King Street Station and generating more money to pay for environmental clean-up), as well as creating a more attractive, albeit taller, set of structures that leaves room for an open area mimicking Second Avenue south of King Street.

This great vision comes with some risk. In this challenging economy there’s always the chance that the developer, Daniels Development Co., might not be able to pull it off. If they can’t and someone else without their track-record of making community-oriented developments steps in, we could end up without great design and without the 100 units of low-income housing Daniels Development Co. has committed to include.

This is our chance to make huge improvement to an asphalt desert and to the greater Pioneer Square community, but we’ll need to ensure any development is done right. We’ll get a briefing about the proposal at the May 27 PLUNC. If you have an opinion about the project, I hope you’ll let me know.

For a taste of frustration in Pioneer Square check out Danny Westneat’s April 13 column from The Seattle Times.

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Rainier Valley Food Bank

Sobering Thoughts on Jails

I’m not sure if what follows really constitutes sobering thoughts on jails, but I liked the title and it does knit together two subjects, one of which makes it easier to think about the other.

A couple of weeks ago I took an hour and visited the Dutch Shisler Service Center, otherwise known as the sobering center. Located in the Boren/Denny area of Downtown, Dutch Shisler is the soft place chronic street alcoholics and addicts land when they get picked up by Seattle Police, medics or by the Dutch Shisler van. The center, funded jointly by Seattle and King County, can accommodate 60 people at a time. People "sleep it off" on a mat on the floor or maybe in a cell-like room if there are conflicts. Staff, trained as emergency medical technicians, check vital signs when clients arrive and check on them hourly while they’re there. Outreach staff and counselors attempt to connect clients with treatment and other opportunities to change their lives. Sometimes it works. Sometimes it takes a very long time to break through chemical issues and mental health problems. Sometimes it never happens.

Dutch Shisler is a tough place to visit. The staff soldier through under difficult circumstances, at best. And they are doing exactly the kind of work that we need to continue and expand if we’re going to successfully get out of building a brand spanking new jail for Seattle. A chronic street alcoholic picked up for being drunk shouldn’t be in jail if only because it’s too expensive. In the spirit of the MasterCard commercial - taxpayer cost for a night in the sobering center, $60 per client; taxpayer cost for a night in the King County jail $336; keeping someone in safe, supported housing, so they don’t wander homeless Downtown or in the U-District or in Ballard or in… priceless.

Recently, I joined with the rest of my colleagues in calling on King County to extend Seattle’s contract for misdemeanant jail beds for another 10 years. This is a little like a renter asking for a lease extension from a landlord. We have a jail now. We in the city don’t see it because we write a check to King County every year to run it for us.

I’m hoping we get a contract extension so we don’t have to build our own jail, but it doesn’t erase the need to do everything we can to diminish Seattle’s felony and misdemeanant population. That means renewed dedication to top quality public schools, meaningful after-school options, training that leads to living wage jobs and for the people who spend days or nights at the sobering center, a soft place to land that can lead to treatment and supportive housing.

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Random Thoughts Bonus: Sampling of Recent"Seattle is the Best" Awards

• Seattle is City of the Year
• Seattle is the Most Fun City
• Seattle has the Best Cafes, Farmers Markets, has the Most Intelligent Residents, and is the best City to Visit for Summer Vacation.
• Seattle is tied for the Most Literate City
• Seattle is the Best Connected City to Broadband
• Seattle Consumes the Most Coffee
• Seattle is the 3rd Best City to Start a Business
• Seattle ranks 4th in Volunteering
• Seattle is the 6th Best City for Walkability
• Seattle ranks last for "Manliest" Cities

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