Tag Archives: ed murray

Mayor announces center for homeless as Tent City preps for Capitol Hill move

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Tent City has made its home on the Hill many times before including this stay at St. Mark's

Tent City has made its home on the Hill many times before including this stay at St. Mark’s

Seattle will be opening a service center for the homeless modeled on San Francisco’s navigation center, which opened in 2015. Meanwhile, the neighborhood will also host some of Seattle’s ongoing solutions to providing shelter for the area’s homeless population.

According to the announcement, Seattle’s center will be “dormitory style,” with showers, bathrooms, and laundry, dining, and storage facilities. Case management, mental health services, and behavioral management services will be available at all hours, and the center will be able to hold 75 people at one time.

The center was created through an executive order issued on June 9, 2016 by Mayor Ed Murray. In his executive order, Murray reaffirmed a commitment to fighting homelessness, citing the state of emergency Seattle declared with respect to homelessness in 2015 and the fact that as of last count, almost 3,000 people in the city are unsheltered. Murray charged the Human Services Department with evaluating San Francisco’s navigation center model and tailoring it to the needs of Seattle within the next two months. Continue reading →

City Council advances $930 million Move Seattle levy with only minor tweaks

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LevyMapFINAL-400x518-400x518Mayor Ed Murray’s proposed $930 million transportation levy made it through the City Council gauntlet relatively unscathed Tuesday. While council members added a handful of amendments to the Move Seattle plan (PDF), an amendment to slice the proposed levy by a third and replace it by other funding mechanisms failed to pass.

Council committee members unanimously advanced the bill to a full council vote on June 29th, teeing it up to appear on this year’s ballot. “A unanimous vote by the Council in committee sends a great signal to Seattle residents,” Murray said in a statement.

Murray rolled out his Move Seattle plan during a Capitol Hill event in March, calling for a roster of transportation projects to make Seattle’s streets safer and more efficient by 2024 and a property tax levy to pay for it. Continue reading →

Mayor Murray calls for 20K more affordable housing units in next decade

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IMG_3672Following his pledge to provide an “aggressive” goal for new affordable housing units in Seattle, Mayor Ed Murray announced Thursday he wants to create or preserve 50,000 new housing units in the city over the next decade, 20,000 of which would be income restricted. Murray is directing his Housing Affordability and Livability Advisory Committee to come up policy proposals by May to meet the target.

“Seattle is facing a serious lack of affordable housing options that displace families and people in this city,” Murray said.

The 20,000 income restricted units would be for individuals and families making 80 percent of the area median income and below. The other 30,000 units would be market rate. Murray didn’t specify where those units would be built or preserved, only that they would be within the city limits.

Here’s a look at the income levels for one and two person households that the committee will be targeting:

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Mayor set to announce $15 minimum wage plan — with or without consensus — UPDATE: No deal

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Demonstrators surrounded City Hall Wednesday (Image: Working Washington)

Demonstrators surrounded City Hall Wednesday (Image: Working Washington)

UPDATE: There was a self-imposed deadline but no deal Thursday at Seattle’s City Hall. With no proposal of his own to offer, Mayor Ed Murray said at a Thursday press conference he still wanted to give his committee more time to hammer out a path to $15.

“A majority of the committee has agreed to a proposal but I don’t believe we have a good cross section of businesses and non-profits to make it viable,” he said. Continue reading →

Capitol Hill’s Representative on how state’s gun bill went wrong

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Any Capitol Hill residents who participated in the Elway poll finding 79% of Washington voters supported a universal background check on all firearms sales were likely dumbfounded to learn that the state’s House of Representatives couldn’t find the votes this week to pass the legislation.

“[B]ecause background check requirements apply only to transfers by licensed firearms dealers,” read House Bill 1588, “many firearms are currently sold without a background check, allowing felons and other ineligible persons to gain access to them.” In requiring universal checks, the bill would have applied even to sales between family members, allowed a fee of up to $20 for the check, and made contravention a gross misdemeanor.

If you boiled down the legislative opposition’s concerns, said bill sponsor Jamie Pedersen (D-43rd), who was joined by a remarkable 37 co-sponsors, it was the sense that HB 1588 amounted to a new burden on law-abiding citizens without strong proof of the societal benefit. House colleagues commonly asked what good a new law would do, if criminals wouldn’t be expected to obey it anyway. Continue reading →