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To be certain, police misconduct and the political storm surrounding it were never my beat, but I know enough about the subject to know that the Seattle Police Department’s handling of the issue these past few months has been more than a little bit weird.

Misconduct findings have been summarily reversed, with not much in the way of a rational explanation (and no, arguing that the appeals were handled in “a manner consistent” with a process with “serious flaws” is not a rational explanation for a troubled department under a federal consent decree). Reformers like former interim chief Jim Pugel have been disappeared, replaced by one-time Seattle Police Officers Guild (SPOG) vice-president Harry Bailey. And while actual misbehaving street cops get their records expunged, the SPD’s most effective and accessible public information officer, Sgt. Sean Whitcomb (who irked some SPD insiders for not being sufficiently devout in his defense of the thin blue line), remains exiled to lands unknown on a trumped up ethics complaint related to the department’s wildly successful Hemp Fest Doritos giveaway.

And of course, then there was the reversal of the reversal of the discipline to the officer who threatened Dom, an astounding fuck-up on both a policy and a communications level, that left Bailey looking weak, unserious, and uninformed.

So, how to explain the apparently anti-reformist behavior at SPD during the first few months of Mayor Ed Murray’s administration? Well, one bit of rather obvious speculation that I keep hearing is that Murray cut a deal with SPOG in order to get their campaign endorsement.

Now, I have no idea if this is true. And there’s no real point in asking Murray, as he’d be absolutely crazy to say anything but an emphatic “No!” So let’s just assume that’s his answer. But regardless, at this point the truth isn’t nearly as important as perception, and fair or not, three months into his first term Murray is beginning to come off as a toady to SPOG—and while that may win him points within SPD ranks, it won’t help him build the consensus he’ll need from the broader community in order to push through the reforms he ultimately proposes.

SPD’s cultural issues are just too ingrained to be solved simply by cultivating buy-in from the rank and file. Most officers are courteous and professional, yet few are willing to break the code and turn against the bad apples who ruin the reputation for all. Thus true reform can only come from outside the ranks. So if Murray is to be an effective reformer, he’s going to need to be perceived as leading the department, rather than as acceding to the demands of SPOG.

– Like we should be protecting parking lots from the evil expansion of multistory housing.

– Someone will be president after Obama, and I wish I shared Oliver’s optimism that it won’t be any of these people.

– The pay gap for women working at King County is much better than the City of Seattle. More work needs to be done on the pay gap by race.

– Maybe not having the CRC was good for Oregon?

– A Stillborn Child, A Charge of Murder and the Disputed Case Law on ‘Fetal Harm’ [h/t]

– Why is there nutrition info for unpopped popcorn?

Who could have predicted?

An experiment in bipartisanship that began with so much promise a year ago totally crumbled in the final hours of this year’s legislative session.

I don’t know a single Olympia press corps veteran who believed that Rodney Tom’s faux-bipartisan senate Majority Coalition Caucus held any promise of delivering results, while I don’t know a single daily newspaper editorial board that didn’t.

These people really need to get out more.

Personal finance social network WalletHub ranks Washington the 6th best state in which to be a taxpayer.

Apropos to yesterday’s post on the proper context in which to put proposed local tax hikes, I’d just like to mention for the umpteenth time in my decade of political blogging that, on average, Washington is not a high-tax state.

We’re just not. There’s no debating it. Even here in tax-happy Seattle.

Is our sales tax high? Absolutely. But then, we don’t have an income tax. Are our gasoline, alcohol, and tobacco taxes some of the highest in the nation? No question. But then, we don’t have an income tax. Are our property taxes abnormally high compared to other states? Um, no. Measured by either percentage of home value or percentage of household income, our property taxes are actually quite middling. And, we don’t have an income tax!

Everybody uses a different methodology, but no matter how you look at it, Washington’s state and local taxes are consistently found to be below the national average. The Washington State Department of Revenue ranked our state and local taxes as a percentage of personal income 35th nationally in 2011, the last year for which full US Census data is available. Personal finance social network WalletHub recently released a report that finds Washington to be the 6th best state in which to be a taxpayer. Even the conservative Tax Foundation—the “think” tank Tim Eyman used to love to cite—ranks Washington 6th in favorable business tax climate and only 27th in state and local tax “burden”:

Washington’s 2010 tax burden of 9.29% ranks 23rd lowest out of 50 states, and is below the national average of 9.9%.

Of course, Washington shamefully tops the nation in regressivity, thanks to our lack of an income tax and our subsequent over-reliance on high sales and excise taxes. If you earn over a million dollars a year you pay less than 2.8 percent in state and local taxes, but if you earn less than $20,000 a year you pay an exorbitant 16.9 percent. That is outrageously indefensible. But our mildly regressive property taxes play only a minor role in tilting our tax structure onto the shoulders of the poor, while funding much of the public services on which they rely.

Look, nobody likes to pay taxes. Not even me. But when I hear parks district and Metro funding opponents cry out that our state and local taxes are already too damn high, I tell them to go try out another state! We’ve been living on the cheap the past decade and a half, deferring maintenance on the infrastructure we have and refusing to invest in the infrastructure we need. Our tax “burden” is already on par with states like Mississippi—and if we don’t start spending a little more on roads and transit and parks and schools, our infrastructure and our economy will soon be on par with Mississippi as well.

Governor Inslee isn’t happy with the state of the Federal Government’s plan for Hanford cleanup.

After meeting with U.S. Energy Secretary Ernie Moniz, Inslee said the federal department’s “draft cleanup plan” was inadequate on two respects. It doesn’t address what the federal government will do in the near future with leaking tanks of hazardous waste from decades of making parts for nuclear weapons. It doesn’t have an adequate long-term plan for containing the waste and shipping out of state to a permanent storage facility.

Inslee said the plan Moniz provided was merely a draft, not a completed plan, but doesn’t give Washington the predictability the state needs. The governor said he is consulting with state Attorney General Bob Ferguson, who said his office would hold the federal government “legally accountable for environmental cleanup at Hanford.”

You know, other than the sort term and the long term, things are looking just fine. Looking at it from Western Washington, Hanford feels like a problem that never gets any better. Democratic or Republican administration, the Feds don’t know how to deal with it.

– But if Ryan genuinely stumbled heedless into a racial tinderbox then it suggests he, and most likely many other conservatives, has fully internalized a framing of social politics that was deliberately crafted to appeal to white racists without regressing to the uncouth language of explicit racism, and written its origins out of the history.

– Mark Driscoll still seems problematic in all sorts of ways, but at least he understood one bad thing he did was bad. Maybe he can cool it with the homophobia and hating women next?

– Here’s wishing Justice Jim Johnson a pleasant retirement (Spokesman-Review link). He wasn’t a favorite around here, but you always hope to beat people you don’t like at the ballot not for health reasons.

– Quite a disparity on bylines by gender.

– The Strange Bedfellows of the Anti-Contraception Alliance

– KUOW is having their membership drive soon if you want to help out.

– RIP Jim Compton.

It’s not that Seattle Times columnist Danny Westneat is wrong when he points out that our progressive city and county agenda of preserving Metro bus service, providing a stable funding source for city parks, and expanding high-quality preschool comes at a high cost. It certainly does. But if he’s going to describe the price tag as “steep,” then we need to have a little more context. For steepness is a measure of the relative elevation from Point A to Point B—and while Point B is not in dispute, the location of Point A is a bone of contention.

Yes, the county is asking voters for $130 million a year in car tab and sales tax revenue to stave off a 17 percent cut in Metro bus service. And yes, Mayor Ed Murray wants to go to the ballot with a $56 million a year parks district. And yes, the universal preschool measure the council is currently developing could ultimately cost Seattle taxpayers another $30 million to $70 million annually. Westneat isn’t exaggerating the numbers. That’s a lot of new taxes.

But “new” based on what? Our current diminished tax based? Or the city and county tax base we enjoyed before a series of tax-limiting statewide initiatives were passed against the will of Seattle and King County voters?

Take Metro, for example. Prior to the passage of Tim Eyman’s $30 car tab fee Initiative 695 in 1999, Metro relied on a relatively stable Motor Vehicle Excise Tax (MVET)—a tax on the value of your car—for about one-third of its operating revenue. King County voters rejected I-695, but it passed statewide, so the legislature granted Metro some additional sales tax authority to make up the difference. Unfortunately, sales tax revenue is much less stable than MVET, and when the economy collapsed in 2008, so did Metro’s funding. From 2009 through 2015 Metro will collect $1.2 billion less in sales tax revenue than previously projected.

That averages to $200 million a year in reduced tax revenue, far more than the $130 million a year Proposition 1 would raise.

Seattle tax revenues have been similarly slashed thanks to an Eyman initiative: I-747, which again, was rejected by Seattle and King County voters, but was approved statewide in 2001. I-747 limits growth in regular levy property tax revenues from existing construction to an absurd 1 percent a year—far below inflation. A 2012 report from the Seattle Parks Foundation concludes:

As a result of Initiative 747 alone, the City of Seattle’s property tax collections in 2010 are at least $60 million less than if the measure had not passed. The impact of the loss is compounded each year the limits remain in place, so annual losses increase by approximately $15 million per year, meaning that the estimated loss for 2011 will be at least $75 million. This estimate assumes the City Council would have limited the tax increase to the rate of inflation in the City’s labor costs (3.5 percent to 4.5 percent annually, which includes the cost of health care). If one assumes the City Council would have increased property tax to the statutory limit of 6 percent per year, the 2011 loss would be $126 million.

Taking into account compounding, and using Eyman’s own framing, I-747 will save Seattle taxpayers between $135 million and $186 million in 2015 alone, the first year any of the new taxes Westneat mentions would take effect. That’s far more than the combined annual cost of a parks district and universal preschool!

Such a bargain!

Yes, in both cases we’re talking about substantial tax hikes above what taxpayers are currently paying. But they amount to substantial tax cuts from what taxpayers would have been paying today had not I-695 and I-747 been forced on us by statewide voters. Indeed, the only reason we are going to voters with tax hikes to fund bus service and parks is that I-695 and I-747 left the county and the city without sufficient revenues to sustain these crucial services!

So are the costs high? Sure. It’s expensive to maintain the high-quality public infrastructure we want and need. But are these tax hikes “steep”…? Not if your starting point is the more rational local tax structure we enjoyed just a decade and a half ago, before that two-bit fraternity-watch salesman started fucking with our tax base for fun and profit.

One thing that both the minimum wage and the taxi/TNC debates constantly remind me, is that contrary to our popular mythology, this is not a country that honors hard work. No, this is a country that honors financial success.

Start a successful business or reap a stock option windfall at some spiffy startup, and we celebrate your ingenuity and effort. Fail at business, or find yourself on the wrong side of some economic disruption (or just unable to overcome the inherent socioeconomic disadvantages of being born poor) and we revile you as a loser and a moocher, no matter how long or strenuous your labor.

It is no doubt comforting to believe that those less comfortable than ourselves struggle due to some fault of their own, rather than from some structural inequity in the system from which the rest of us prosper. But it is much more than that. No, this fetishization of financial success (and contempt for failure) is deeply rooted in the Calvinist ethos that still pervades even the modern secular American psyche—one in which your reward in this world is reflective of your reward in the next, and thus a full measure of your moral worth.

You do not need to understand the theology behind this ethos to understand that it still holds sway. How else to explain the unselfconscious argument that the interests of business owners are somehow more worthy than the interests of the low-wage workers they exploit, or the total lack of empathy for (and even vilification of) the taxi drivers who have failed to effectively compete against the disruptive technology of the TNCs?

We do not reward hard work in this country because we do not honor it. And it is financial reward alone by which we generally measure a person’s true worth.

Pretty awful.

Yet another example of how Seattle voters have grown increasingly out of touch with the Seattle Times editorial board: “Let companies set lower minimum wage for more teens.” The goal, supposedly, is to address the declining employment rate amongst teens. But…

The minimum wage may not have had anything to do with that huge decline. The recession put lots of adults in competition for the entry-level jobs that historically gave teens their start. A lower minimum wage for 16- and 17-year-olds could displace older workers.

Still, a lower minimum for more teens is worth exploring. Sixteen- and 17-year-olds are less likely to be supporting themselves than 18- or 19-year-olds.

Um… except… those are all reasons for not lowering the minimum wage for teens. I mean, apart from the fact that there’s no actual data suggesting a connection between the minimum wage and declining teen employment (if there was even the flimsiest data, the editors would sure cite it, since flimsy data seems to be their favorite kind), our labor market is already so incredibly unbalanced—do we really want to put even more downward pressure on the wages of workers who are supporting themselves and their families?

The problem is not that wages are too high. It’s that older, more experienced, more competent workers are being forced to take jobs that used to be filled by teens, thanks to a lack of other opportunities. If you can make an compelling argument that lowering the minimum wage for teens would actually help create more jobs—and the editors don’t bother—I’m willing to listen. But if all we’re doing is creating an economic incentive for employers to shift jobs away from older employees, then this proposal should be a nonstarter.

Please join us tonight (Tuesday) as the Seattle Chapter of Drinking Liberally makes a second visit to the Traveler Montlake, 2307 24th Ave E in Seattle. This week we will make a decision on our new home (which will be either the Roanoke Park Place Tavern or Traveler Montlake). We meet at 8:00 pm, but some folks show up early for dinner.

Can’t make it to Seattle? Check out another nearby DL meeting over the next week. The Tri-Cities and Shelton chapters also meet this Tuesday. The Lakewood and South Seattle chapters meet this Wednesday. For Thursday, the Spokane and Tacoma chapters meet.

With 215 chapters of Living Liberally, including nineteen in Washington state, four in Oregon, and three more in Idaho, chances are excellent there’s a chapter meeting somewhere near you.

For some people, St. Pat’s means wearing green or drinking. For others there’s traditional food like corned beef and cabbage. For some it’s a time for a parade or just in general celebrating their Irishness. I suppose some people will go to church. For me, it’s finding a poem by William Butler Yeats and copy and pasting it here.

When You Are Old

When you are old and grey and full of sleep,
And nodding by the fire, take down this book,
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;

How many loved your moments of glad grace,
And loved your beauty with love false or true,
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face;

And bending down beside the glowing bars,
Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled
And paced upon the mountains overhead
And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.

I’ll have more thoughts on this later, but in a rather anticlimactic meeting this afternoon, the Seattle City Council approved final passage of taxi and “transportation network company” (TNC) regulations that impose a cap of 150 drivers per TNC actively picking up passengers at any one time. Also, it makes these services legal, so it’s not like Lyft, Sidecar, and uberX don’t get anything out of this.

“What we’re actually doing in these regulations allowing the ride-shares to operate in the market,” explained council member Bruce Harrell.

Council member Tom Rasmussen had proposed an amendment that would have removed these caps, but only he, Sally Bagshaw, and Tim Burgess voted for it. There were a bunch of other amendments passed, some technical, some a bit more policy oriented. For example, the minimum rating for an insurance company providing commercial taxi insurance was lowered a notch, increasing the number of insurers in the market and thus potentially lowering costs. Also, an amendment trying to prevent, say, Uber, from getting around the cap by creating UberY and UberZ, was also added to the ordinance.

Despite the 3-6 dispute over caps, the final entire ordinance passed unanimously. So there.

Before the start of today’s meeting, noted city council heckler Alex Zimmerman was escorted from council chambers, due to violating a 28-day exclusion order (PDF of exclusion notice available here) resulting from disruptive behavior at prior city council meetings. The most interesting thing we learn from the exclusion notice? That Alex Zimmerman’s legal name is Avrum Tsimerman. Who knew?

Perhaps sensing such despotic censorship was coming, Tsimerman savvily spoke to the audience about ten minutes before the meeting’s scheduled start. Take that, tyrants!

With the Seattle City Council finally scheduled to vote on proposed taxi and TNC (Lyft, Sidecar, uberX) regulations today at 2 pm (really, this time), I thought it appropriate to post some comments from an actual taxi owner. Taxi owners have without a doubt been the most reviled stakeholders throughout this entire debate, cast by TNC boosters (and some for-hire drivers) as a cabal of greedy medallion-hoarders, sucking the lifeblood from immigrant drivers while assuring crappy service.

Responding to my coverage in The Stranger, one of these allegedly greedy drivers (who wishes to remain unnamed to protect his music career) emailed me with his personal story:

Just want to thank y’all for your coverage on the taxi v tnc issue. Honestly it’s where I’m getting most of my information.

Nowadays I’m temporarily making a living with music & have rented out my cab, watching in panic as my future job (can’t survive on music in the long term) and planned retirement crumble away to dust, and it’s even worse for the guy leasing my cab right now, who can’t make the payments or support his refugee family. Let’s just say it’s very personal for us.

Last time I was in Seattle I was shocked to see hipster oligarch David Mienert opining on the topic in some article, not sure if it was with y’all or the Weekly, but clearly there must be a shortage of expert opinions if someone is turning to him. If you ever need an inside perspective just holler, I’ve been in this business for a tedious eighteen years, drove for Broadway, Greytop, Orange & finally Yellow before buying my own taxi.

And if you think this cab owner’s story is an outlier, think again. “There is this myth out there that a few people own all the taxi cabs,” Green Cab general manager Chris Van Dyk tells me, “but the vast majority of taxi cabs are individually owned.” Van Dyk, a longtime industry insider, says that there is only one owner in the city who owns more than 50 cabs, and only about 25 who own more than five. At Yellow Cab—the largest taxi association in the city—Van Dyk estimates that there are about 370 owners of Yellow’s 559 cabs.

Of course, there are many more drivers than owners. The costs of owning and operating a cab are so high that they require 24/7 operation to provide a return on investment, so every owner leases out his cab for at least one 12-hour shift a day. In addition to purchasing a medallion (which went for as much as $140,000 just two years ago) and a $30,000 car, the musician/cab-owner above estimates his recurring costs to be:

• $600/month commercial taxi  insurance
• $550/quarter for Labor & Industries insurance ($225 per driver)
• $170/week to be a part of a taxi association
• $1000/year in licensing & inspection fees to the city, county and state

Plus, you know, gas, maintenance and depreciation. Van Dyk says that 24/7 operation puts about 100,000 miles a year on the typical taxi, meaning the vehicle is totally depreciated after just three years. That comes to $10,000 a year in recurring depreciation costs. And that doesn’t begin to count the steadily depreciating value of taxi medallions, which are reportedly now selling for half what hey did just a couple years ago, if you can find a buyer at all.

Lyft, Sidecar, and uberX currently bear none of these costs but for some indeterminate cost for insurance coverage. The drivers do bear the cost for gas, maintenance, and depreciation, though the part-timers may not fully appreciate the total tally.

“Imagine for a moment how much we could lower the taxi leases and lower the customer fares if we had less fixed costs,” our musician/cab-owner writes. “Alternately,  imagine how much  the fares would rise in UberX if these same business costs were applied to them?”

It is ironic that some of the same people arguing that a $15 minimum wage would crush struggling small businesses, have absolutely no empathy for the hundreds of small business people in the taxi industry—most of them current or former drivers, and many of them immigrants—who have sunk their life savings into purchasing a medallion and a cab, only to have their livelihoods ripped out from under them by the illegal operations of the TNCs.

It is that uneven playing field that the council is expected to at least partially address this afternoon.