(Image: Garfield Super Block)
(Image: Garfield Super Block)
District 3 representative Joy Hollingsworth sat out much of the debate Tuesday as the Seattle City Council shaped the final plan to change how it will spend $250 million in revenue from the city’s JumpStart payroll tax on its largest employers — but it was a big day for her office as the first-year legislator shepherded millions of dollars in Capitol Hill and Central District-focused line items to the finish line of the 2025 budget season.
Hollingsworth initiatives include a $10 million reallocation from the city’s Participatory Budgeting program to better support the city’s Black and disadvantaged communities along with a roster of spending to address public safety on Capitol Hill.
Hollingsworth successfully advanced a batch of community-driven line items including $125,000 for a new Capitol Hill community safety coordinator position and $150,000 to support a new street Ambassador Program on Capitol Hill that are part of the final package approved Tuesday by the council’s budget committee.
The D3 representative sat out much of Tuesday’s debate centered on changes to the JumpStart tax, choosing to abstain on a raft of amendments seeking to soften the blow of raiding the tax and directing the spending to help patch the city’s predicted $250 million deficit.
Mayor Bruce Harrell’s proposed budget leaned heavily on the JumpStart tax and City Hall job cuts to overcome a growing budget deficit from growing costs related to inflation and soaring wages. The council budget committee Tuesday voted to cement Harrell’s proposal with a plan that will divert revenue from the tax originally implemented to fund housing and services budgets coming out of the pandemic. The plan will also eliminate the tax’s oversight committee.
While abstaining on a roster of last minute amendments, Hollingsworth joined the majority in supporting the mayor’s plan to reallocate JumpStart. South Seattle’s Tammy Morales and North Seattle Councilmember Cathy Moore voted against the change after amendments seeking to try to preserve some of the tax’s original spending restrictions were rejected.
The council committee, meanwhile, was split on a capital gains tax proposal from Moore that would implement a 2% tax on capital gains over $250,000 from the sale or exchange of assets like stocks, bonds and business interests. It would ride on top of Washington’s 7% capital gains tax. Earlier this month, state voters defeated Initiative 2109 that would have repealed the tax.
Tuesday, the council split in a 4-4 vote on the proposal. Hollingsworth voted for the potential new source of revenue. Tanya Woo, soon to be replaced by Alexis Mercedes-Rinck after November’s election results, said she decided to abstain on the vote citing her husband’s stock trading. It is possible the more progressive Mercedes-Rinck could help tip the balance on the proposed tax in a future vote.
The full $8.3 billion budget plan for 2025 is now ready for one last vote by the full council Thursday.
Hollingsworth’s $10 million reallocation from the Participatory Budgeting process is hoped to support “individuals and organizations focused on arts, culture, history, or heritage in historically disadvantaged communities.” CHS reported here last year on Seattle’s move away from the Participatory Budgeting process born out of the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests. The effort included $27 million in planned spending on community resources including public bathrooms out of a $100 million package earmarked to address equity in the city by then-Mayor Jenny Durkan during 2020’s unrest in the city.
Hollingsworth’s change is planned to make $10 million available for organizations working to address inequity and displacement like Africatown.
There were other wins for Hollingsworth’s Central District home turf.
Her office’s successful 2025 budget changes included increasing Seattle Parks funding by $775,000 to support capital costs and community staffing costs for the Garfield Super Block Park Project, CHS reported here on the $8.4 million plan for the area around Garfield High School and the community center that would create a Legacy and Promise Promenade, water play area, and new playground.
On Capitol Hill, other Hollingsworth changes include using $250,000 in JumpStart funding to “support murals in and around Cal Anderson Park” through the HopeCorps program and another $25,000 to fund the painting of the park’s bathroom. The allocations include $25,000 in spending to be earmarked to fund improvements at First Hill Park.
Meanwhile, one of the biggest line items for District 3 in the final package will increase funding to the Human Services Department by $4 million in 2025 to support creation of YouthCare’s Constellation Center on Capitol Hill.
CHS reported here on the planned eight-story job training and affordable housing project pairing YouthCare, affordable housing provider Community Roots Housing, Seattle Central College, FareStart, and King County to create “a hub of workforce development services” in the heart of Capitol Hill at Broadway and Pine.
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It is amazing to have an advocate for D3 on the council again after a decade of toxic performative leftist politics that degraded our political discourse and the quality of life in the city.
Stealing 250 million from housing gets you excited eh?
Splain me just a little please? WTF are you talking about?
Read the article, the budget is being balanced by stealing 250 million from the tax money that was earmarked for affordable housing.
Ha, if there is a victim of theft here it is most likely those who paid the tax. The city can utilize those funds anyway they want, and overspending has led to deficits. It needs to be filled and that money is being appropriately used to do just that. Plus, affordable housing programs are getting almost one quarter billion dollars annually, last I checked. Not exactly a pittance.
Dude…We are behind on housing. “How much” was voted for. I know I know. The Nazi’s hate taxes but LOVE the money.
It was stolen from Jump Start. It was voted for. It was not meant to be used as a slush fund. Money turns some people into hypocrites and sociopaths.
The tax was passed by the city council. The change in how the money can be used was passed by the city council.
You may not like the changes, but there was no crime here. Nothing was stolen. Legislation was changed. If you don’t like it, vote in people who will change it back.
The whole plan with JumpStart is that it would be used to provide assistance to vulnerable renters, small businesses, and also help fund shelters. Things that keep people in their homes, working, and off the streets.
This city council is gutting it and is disbursing the funds erratically, in part to patch their $250 million deficit. They’ve also pulled $1.5 million from what I think was the Parks staffing budget/mixed budgetary resources to re-turf some city parks, and at the same time they’re not restoring the park system’s environmental commitments.
Good turf is nice, but given that we supposedly have a budgetary crisis, and a definite crisis of rent insecurity and homelessness, it seems like this council doesn’t understand where its priorities should lie.
But this pretty much characterizes the entire tenure of Harrell and this city council: focused on superficial appearances while the problems grow.
Not true at all. Jump Start is producing way more than forecasted or intended. The original plan the previous council laid out is fully funded. What was used to plug the budget deficit was the overage. If you want to argue the entire overage should go to affordable housing that’s fine but its not accurate to say anything was stolen. The state does the same thing with the capital gains tax. A portion goes to education and then any overage goes to the general fund.
Application of Jumpstart to homeless was not cast in stone. We have a huge hole in the budget. These funds are not sacrosanct. What would be your solution to fixing the problem?
That said, given budget problems, spending 250K on murals, and I like murals, seems completely insane.
We have yet to see any positive changes in the Capitol Hill.🤷 I don’t see any.
Huh? There used to be a swarm of junkies outside the Broadway and Pike QFC day and night. The last few months, it’s been clear. I put that in the “positive change” bucket.
Is QFC to be credited for that or Joy?
Hate to break the news, but they’ve moved to the alley behind the Pride apartments.
saw that
Agree.
You don’t even read the articles, you just agree with what fits your narrative. Do you even live in Seattle???
Yes I live in “the Capitol Hill” as referred to in previous post. LOL. At least not “Cap Hill.”
Oh man, ya kidding? It’s better, not perfect. Considering the low bar “better” is? I can see your point.
$250k for murals? Are we hiring Banksy? And, unfortunately, I suspect the murals will soon be tagged over.
Remove all junkies + gang members, violent criminals and homeless tents off the streets. The rest of the neighborhood will be vitalized once we do this.
Not without free housing first
So we can’t remove gang members and violent criminals from our streets until we have free housing first? Are you saying we need to remove the societal factors that lead to crime and antisocial behavior before we can remove criminals from our streets? That would take decades and would be a recipe for tremendous suffering for average persons, small business owners, and residents.
Agree! The incessant talk by leftists about spending tax money on “root causes” for the long term is just a distraction from spending money to solve problems NOW.
Housing first is not working in Seattle.
Housing first initiatives are the only way to solve this. Look at all the international data from countries with no homelessness, and how they used housing first initiatives to solve their problems.
Housing first in other countries comes with requirements that we do not apply in Seattle. Check it out.
That sounds extremely expensive – jail ain’t cheap. Where do you propose we get the money?
Issue a bond to increase institutional capacity (mental health, drug treatment, prison). Pay for it with the increasing tax revenue in the city and state that will result from finally taking action to clean things up. Thousands of drug addicts milling about is a huge cost and drag on the economy (and by extension tax revenue). It would be money well spent.
1/4 million to do murals is insanity. What are we doing here?
They eliminated oversight and stole 250 million from Jump Start and intend to do it permanently. It’s soiopathic.
“On Capitol Hill, other Hollingsworth changes include using $250,000 in JumpStart funding to “support murals in and around Cal Anderson Park””
Really? “free walls” for people to draw on is going to do what exactly?
This is a serious problem. Are these people a religious entity? ” HopeCorps” is a religious thing.
CHS’s worst kept secret is that “butch griggs” is actually Calvin Priest.
Shouldn’t you be moving to Michigan or Pittsburgh soon?
I didn’t get the joke…lol
Riiiight…He’s way better looking than I am.
I don’t believe you’ve been here 28 years if you aren’t in agreement with butch griggs here…
If HopeCorps is a religious entity, there should be no funding from our tax dollars as that’s a violation of the affiliated church’s tax exempt status.
Also what’s your deal with Michigan and Pittsburgh? Pittsburgh somehow has better urbanism than Seattle, and by a mile. They have a separated bus network that gets places on time because it avoids cars…we’re apparently too stupid here to even do public transport right. Sounds like you’re just mad at Kshama Sawant still…still?? Take an ambien or something…
Right? I love supporting the arts but housing is fundamental. They’ve raided an important project for fun money and they’re patting themselves on the back about it. Meanwhile they’re spending $1.5 mill on replacing turf in public parks and that’s somehow an urgent civic priority. I’m sure they could have spent a little less money on turf and kept Jump Start funded.
It’s about stroking the ones who pay the most taxes in dollars, not by percentage of their incomes.
Sounds like Hollingsworth is just biding her time putting in the bare minimum, hoping not to get voted out with the coming obvious swing away from the center right towards more progressive candidates.
I said this would happen months ago, because she wants to run on progressive bona fides that she clearly doesn’t have, and she doesn’t have the charisma to fool people into thinking she does.
If she wants to get re-elected, Joy needs to disobey her corporate backers and think for herself as to what the CD really needs, and not what she can get away with supporting while being complicit raiding our taxes for money to cover up for TAX CUTS. Even if it doesn’t get passed, stand for the working people (who Kamala lost in droves by taking the same angle). If you ask me, Stevens is closing because Joy hasn’t been here for her district.
She’s been here way more than the nothing we got from Sawant for 10 years
Reading the comments…It seems odd to me.
One minute the Nazi’s are crying about politicians that are not sitting on the council. Claim they have a “better” economic plan.
That money stolen from Jump Start is progressive revenue that the Nazi’s want to make PERMANENT!!!
But you hate our policies right? But they ALWAYS take the money AND the credit.
I am eternally thankful for the state I live in. While others put it down w/o a single fact to support them. It’s lies and hypocrisy that the Nazi party runs on..
JFC…. go easy on the Nazi rhetoric there big fella. Trump and his cronies truly are ripping a page book from the Nazis, so yeah call them that. But our local politicians are not fascists, not even close, by any definition. You lose any and all credibility in your argument when you start slinging around slurs like that for no reason. Be upset with the budget, for sure, but get real.
Totally agree. Can the Nazi shit Butch.
Yes of course Nazis are infamous for repurposing progressive revenue