by Carl Ballard — ,
– So, yeah. More on World Vision.
– On year anniversary of devastating DUI, community rallies in call for ‘vision zero’
– Five Reasons Contraceptive Coverage Is Essential
– Glad to see that Oregonians care about climate change. Hopefully that will lead to real action.
– Olympia has ducks
– If you’re interested in the memorial service for Jim Compton, it’s Saturday at Town Hall 10:00 to Noon.
by Carl Ballard — ,
– Getting ORCA Cards to people who need reduced fares is a bit of a problem, so one more way is good. If Metro is going to have a reduced rate the next time it increases the fare, I hope that they have that figured out.
– Well, I’m sure if we let McMorris Rodgers get away with using public money for her campaigns (Seattle Times link), she won’t do it again.
– Let people play soccer in a hijab, for goodness sake.
– From Hans in the comments, this certainly helps explain trolls.
by Goldy — ,
Huh. I’ve got this nagging feeling that there’s something missing from the Seattle Times editorial board’s list of things we need to do to attract and retain corporate headquarters:
Support and fund education for students ages 3 to 23. Raise the quality of and reduce inequity of access to pre-K, K-12 and higher education. Protect and enhance the area’s vaunted quality of life and make strategic investments in transportation. Continue to promote a civic culture that values innovation, diversity and tolerance.
Oh. Yeah, that’s right. They forgot to mention the money it takes to pay for all these great things.
It doesn’t take much courage to argue for expanded funding of pre-K, K-12, higher education, transportation, and other public investments that improve our collective quality of life. I do it all the time. But what’s consistently missing from the editorial page of our state’s paper of record is support for raising the taxes necessary to pay for these things. It’s as if there is only one side to the financial ledger—the spending side—and it would be absolutely crazy to even mention the topic of revenue.
I mean, if attracting corporate headquarters provides the strange logic you need to put you over the top in support of universal preschool, fine by me. Whatever floats your pre-K boat. But then what’s so wrong about taxing the incomes of highly paid executives in order to help pay for all the public investments that draw them to the region? Washington does have the most regressive tax structure in the nation, after all.
Without the mention of revenue, the editorial comes off as scolding the rest of us for stingily refusing to invest in the things corporate executives refuse to pay for. Weird.
by Carl Ballard — ,
– I usually like it when national and international orgs mention Washington, but boo to having disasters bad enough for that in Snohomish County.
– What would you like to see from the next SDOT director?
– Don’t turn off Twitter, national leaders.
– They are taking a lot of handouts in the financial districts of various cities.
by Carl Ballard — ,
Since he’s been back Goldy has, rightly, taken The Seattle Times’ editorial board to task for all sorts of nonsense. It’s a target rich environment, and it’s the largest paper in the state. But there are other editorial boards spewing other nonsense. And I think it does the Trib a disservice not to mention things like this.
Governor should veto overreaching drone bill
No, he should sign it into law.
Precious little got done in Olympia this past session on some truly important, much-needed issues, from transportation funding to teacher evaluations.
We’re $2 Billion short on McCleary, and the state only managed to pass a tiny addition to that in the supplemental budget, but teacher evaluations is the education thing they’re pissed off about? That isn’t even the main thrust of the piece, and I agree with them that the session was pretty well wasted. But holy shit. Anyway:
But somehow legislators found time to pass House Bill 2789, an overreaching mishmash of several measures. It would regulate drone use by state and local agencies in a way that could have unforeseen effects on public access to government documents.
All regulation “could have unforeseen effects.” That’s why we have a process to repeal laws. If this is too restrictive, future legislatures can revisit it. I realize this legislature is pretty dysfunctional, but it doesn’t have to be that way in the future. But the idea that law enforcement, or other government agencies, should have a blank check with this type of surveillance until we have the perfect plan seems unhelpful.
The issues at stake are too complicated to address without more study, and Gov. Jay Inslee should veto HB 2789. What’s needed is a task force composed of stakeholders to recommend a clear and more comprehensive proposal that would address all future uses of drones, from private to regulatory and law enforcement.
Governor Inslee could sign the law into place and then we could still have that task force. But it would be coming from a place where our rights not to be watched by state and local governments is the default position. I mean unless you think the drone issue requires immediate action.
It’s not as if this is an issue requiring immediate action. State and local governments have no plans in the near future to use drones, but this highly restrictive bill threatens their ability to someday take advantage of an important emerging technology.
So, OK. There’s more, it’s mostly just a list of stuff the government could theoretically do with drones. If local governments want to do that in the future, I’m sure future legislators will take it up, task force or no task force.
by Goldy — ,
King County voters will soon receive their ballots for an April 22 special election in which they will be asked to approve or reject Proposition 1, a $130 million hike in local car tabs and sales tax. At stake is an additional $50 million a year desperately needed to maintain county and city roads, along with the $80 million a year Metro needs to stave off a devastatingly regressive 17 percent cut in bus service. So of course the Seattle Times chooses to kick off its coverage of this very important issue with a front page article featuring the views of the one organization opposing Prop 1!
An early face-to-face over King County’s proposed car-tab-and-sales-tax measure to fund transit and roads took place in front of one of the few organizations opposing the measure, the pro-highway Eastside Transportation Association (ETA).
… [ETA member Dick] Paylor and audience members complained about how Metro King County Transit is managed, voiced concerns about seeing some virtually empty buses on some routes and suggested having bus passengers themselves pick up a larger share of the service’s costs.
“The problem isn’t on the revenue side, it’s on the expense-control side,” said Paylor, arguing that Metro is operating under a “broken financial model.”
Jesus. ETA is just a who’s-who of old, pro-roads white guys (like the bitterly anti-transit Jim Horn), while the Yes side is a coalition of business, labor, transportation, environmental, and social service groups that enjoys endorsements from 19 mayors. So this is the equivalent of kicking off your climate change coverage by talking to the owners of a coal-fired power plant!
And of course, Paylor is totally wrong. The remaining problem is almost entirely on the revenue side of the equation. Through 2014, Metro will collect $1.2 billion less in sales tax revenue than previously projected, thanks to the Great Recession. Meanwhile, through a series of cuts, efficiencies, and fare hikes, Metro has lowered expenses or increased revenue by $148 million a year—$798 million from 2009 to 2013 alone. The only way for Metro to balance its budget without raising additional tax revenue would be to cut service and raise fares. Which, let’s be honest, is exactly what ETA advocates.
But wait… the stoopid doesn’t stop there. For the Seattle Times insists on citing Paylor citing the Washington Policy Center, a right-wing “think” tank best known for climate-change denial and its close ties to the stand-your-ground promoting ALEC:
Citing data from the conservative Washington Policy Center, Paylor said that from 2000 to 2012, Metro’s operating costs increased 83 percent, while the inflation rate over that span was 33 percent.
Uh-huh. And you know what else has increased over the past decade? Everything!
King County’s population has grown by 16 percent since 2000, while Metro’s service hours have grown 4 percent since 2008 alone, despite a 2 percent reduction in service from its least efficient routes. Costs for providing Metro’s paratransit services—federally mandated under the Americans with Disabilities Act—have grown by 25 percent since 2008, while security costs have grown by 80 percent, due to fare enforcement, increased policing, and enhanced tunnel security. To offset its revenue shortfall Metro shifted capital funds to operations, delaying the purchase of new buses that would have been less expensive to operate and maintain. Meanwhile, pension contributions—at a rate set by the state legislature—have increased by more the 40 percent.
And on and on and on. I won’t even bother fact checking the Washington Policy Center, because only an idiot or a liar would pit the CPI against Metro’s operating costs over a 12-year span and presume that there was any meaningful contextual relationship between the two numbers.
And yet there it is, totally unchallenged, in black and white on the front page of the Seattle Times. Next stop no doubt: a credulous citation on the paper’s anti-tax editorial page.
“As bus ridership rises, battle over funding measure heats up,” the Seattle Times headline reads in the teach-the-controversy tradition of climate deniers and Intelligent Design bamboozlers. Except there is no battle. It’s every other transportation stake-holder in the county versus the anti-transit ETA. And, I suppose, the Seattle Times.
by Carl Ballard — ,
– 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?
by Goldy — ,
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.
by Carl Ballard — ,
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.
by Goldy — ,
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.
by Carl Ballard — ,
– Buffer zones for abortion clinics are necessary.
– When the Washington State Legislature adjourned without getting much done, at least it didn’t get the bad stuff done.
– A while ago in an open thread, I’d mentioned that Rodney Tom has an opponent, Former Kirkland Mayor Joan McBride. If you’re interested, here’s her website. [h/t]
– Given my grammar, punctuation, and poor word choice, far be it from me to make fun of a typo by the Discovery Institute. But not far be it from me to link to someone else making fun of a typo from them.
by Goldy — ,
There goes that crazy Socialist Kshama Sawant being soooo divisive by bringing class into it again:
[I]t’s hard to escape the suspicion that class interests are playing a role. A fair number of commentators seem oddly upset by the notion of workers getting raises, especially while returns to bondholders remain low. It’s almost as if they identify with the investor class, and feel uncomfortable with anything that brings us close to full employment, and thereby gives workers more bargaining power.
Oh. Wait. That quote wasn’t from Sawant. It was from Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman. My bad.
by Carl Ballard — ,
Look, people. The Senate GOP worked really hard on making a transit package this legislative session. Just because there wasn’t a transit package, you can’t get mad at them for not passing a transit package.
King says failure to pass transportation package not due to lack of effort
See. If the person who brought us not having a transit package in the state Senate can be blamed for our not having a transit package, then what? Also, I thought the GOP philosophy on hard work was that you could tell the amount of effort based on the result. So if people are on food stamps, even if they are working full time, the GOP prescription is for them to work hard. The GOP can tell they didn’t work hard because they’re on food stamps. So I think we can tell the GOP weren’t working hard on a transit package because the legislature adjourned without a transit package.
At a news conference today – one day before the scheduled end of the 2014 legislative session – Sen. Curtis King, R-Yakima, and co-chair of the Senate Transportation Committee, lamented the fact that lawmakers did not pass an agreed-upon transportation revenue and reform package before adjourning. King added that the Majority Coalition Caucus, which leads the state Senate, repeatedly made compromises sought by the Senate minority, but to no avail.
Majorities, how the fuck do they work?
Seriously, this is what happens when you hand out things — like a majority — to people who haven’t earned it. Sure, they say they’ll work hard, but the results are the results.
“During the 2013 transportation feedback forum tour, we visited ten cities across Washington in five weeks. The vast majority of citizens made it clear that they wanted reforms before they’d accept any gas-tax increase, and we listened to the people.”
Those lazy roustabouts will lash out and make excuses. But in the end, if they wanted to pass a transit package, they could buckle down, work hard, and pass something.
“From the very beginning, the MCC has prioritized reforms, and additional revenue was never off the table. But in the end, the Senate’s minority Democrats weren’t serious about making the tough reforms. They were more interested in tax increases and sound bites, despite knowing as well as I do that the state can’t win public support for a multibillion-dollar transportation package without first establishing that we are serious about fixing the waste, mismanagement and abuse that exists within the system.”
These reforms are so popular and good that the GOP isn’t even going to mention even one specific reform in their press release.
“Add to that the governor’s signing of a climate-change compact with Oregon, California and British Columbia. Of those governments, the only state that has not yet implemented low-carbon emission standards is Washington. California is expected to see an immediate 12-cent hike in gas taxes with a possible increase of up to 40 cents in the next year because of these types of standards, and Governor Inslee’s refusal to acknowledge his plans to unilaterally impose low-carbon emission standards was an obstacle to finalizing a transportation package.”
An unrelated thing that Governor Inslee did is responsible! Look, GOP, just stop making excuses.
“The MCC offered a new compromise proposal February 13 and revised the offer on February 21, again moving significantly toward the Democrats’ position. However, it became obvious to us over the last month that Democrat leadership in the House and Senate is not interested in seeing a transportation package move forward this session, and their response to our most recent proposal told us – in no uncertain terms – that they are not interested in reaching agreement and moving forward.”
The House passed a package a year ago. It’s plenty problematic, but they got the job done. If the Senate wanted to pass a transit package, they could have passed a transit package. Don’t lash out at other people who are doing better than you. It’s not the House’s fault.
“The MCC remains committed to addressing Washington’s transportation needs, and will continue to work toward that goal even after the 2014 legislative session adjourns.”
Yeah, we’ve seen promises before. But they never seem to materialize, do they?
by Carl Ballard — ,
– I sometimes, and inexplicably since I’ve never lived in Oregon and have a WA phone number, get random GOTV from the Oregon GOP. Recently they polled me about Greg Walden. I told them that I hoped someone primaries him and that I was born in 1956. Anyway, I’m glad he’s going to have a serious opponent.
– Obviously, the CIA shouldn’t spy on Senators, but it’s too bad that that’s what it took to get Senators to notice problems with the CIA.
– Honor codes at evangelical universities have some really shitty outcomes (the link has some descriptions of sexual violence).
– I hadn’t heard of Portolan Charts, but now I’m fascinated.
by Goldy — ,
There. I said it. By any reasonable reading of the municipal code, Lyft, Sidecar, and uberX drivers are operating illegally in the City of Seattle. They are are unlawful. They are illegal. They are against the law. And this basic statement of fact is absolutely crucial to understanding that, rather than crushing innovation in the service of protecting the status quo, what the city council is really in the process of doing is legalizing an industry that has thus far operated in brazen violation of the law.
Whooh. I can’t tell you what a relief it is to get that off my chest.*
There is likely no issue on which I more broadly pissed off Stranger readers, than my coverage of the proposed taxi and “ride-share” regulations. Capitol Hill hipsters apparently love booking rides on their smartphones almost as much as they love to hate on traditional taxis, and so the coverage they wanted and expected was one that would unflinchingly embrace this disruptive new technology, while telling the decrepit old regulated taxi industry to go fuck itself. And I totally agree, based on my own anecdotal experience, that these new “transportation network companies” or “TNCs” (as they are referred to in the proposed ordinance) generally provide a far superior user experience than Yellow Cab and its cohorts.
But having plunged into this issue with no predispositions, and having ultimately wrapped my mind around an exceedingly complex policy debate, that is not the coverage I could provide. More nuanced critics accused me of being “anti-urbanist;” the less nuanced attempted to dismiss me as being in the pocket of the taxi industry (as if there’s any money in that). But the truth is that the taxi industry provides essential transportation services to a customer base that the TNCs cannot or will not serve. And the truth is—and this at the heart of the issue the council is addressing—the TNCs are operating illegally.
“No matter how sexy these services are,” council member Bruce Harrell proclaimed before voting to cap the number of TNC drivers, “they are unlawful in the City of Seattle.” And Harrell, an attorney, did not choose his words carelessly. It is a criminal offense in the City of Seattle to pick up paying passengers without a for-hire license, punishable by up to 90 days in jail and a $1,000 fine. The Seattle City Attorney’s Office determined last year that TNCs “are subject to for-hire vehicle licensing and regulation requirements.” While the city has yet to enforce these regulations on TNC drivers, it might not take more than a handful of prosecutions to chill the industry.
So whatever limitations the council might impose on the TNCs in the ordinance it is expected to pass next week, above all what the council is doing is legalizing an industry that has heretofore operated without licensing, without inspection, without training, without guarantees of adequate insurance, and in blatant violation of the rule of law. So it’s not like the TNCs aren’t getting anything in return.
The TNCs angrily denounce proposed caps, accusing the council of limiting competition in order to protect the taxi industry. And they are right. That has always been part of the challenge facing the council: how to legitimize the popular TNC services without undermining the still indispensable taxi industry. Not everybody has a smartphone and a credit card. A recent study found that taxis, which accept cash and scrip, serve a disproportionately older and poorer customer base, as well as our crucial tourism industry. Taxis operate accessible vehicles, and provide discounted fares through Hopelink and other social service contracts. They also provide a livelihood to their traditionally immigrant drivers and owners.
However superior uberX might be at getting you home after a night of heavy drinking, it is in the public interest to maintain a healthy taxi industry as well.
How do we sustain the taxi industry in the face of all this new competition? Seattle disastrously experimented with taxi deregulation in the 1980s, removing all caps and price controls only to see prices rise, service deteriorate, and incomes fall in the face of a Malthusian collapse—so there is understandably little support on the council to repeat that experiment in the interest of accommodating the TNCs. And “if we are regulating one half of the market,” argues council member Nick Licata, “we can’t ignore the open-source half” without creating an unlevel playing field.
That is the delicate balance the council is attempting to strike: a regulatory structure that allows the TNCs to legally enter the market while giving the taxi industry the breathing space necessary to adapt to a new reality. Apps like TaxiMagic and particularly Flywheel are already close to providing the same slick user experience TNC customers have come to expect; Yellow Cab, by far the city’s largest taxi association, is in the process of upgrading its dispatch system with plans to release its own competitive app later this year. There’s no question that the innovative TNCs are forcing the the taxi industry to improve its service. There’s also no question that the council will need to revisit taxi and TNC regulations in the years to come.
Maybe the proposed TNC cap is too low. Maybe it is too high. Maybe, ultimately, caps will prove unnecessary at all. But the goal is to transition into a market where both the TNCs and the taxis can peacefully and profitably coexist. And the first step is legalizing the TNCs currently unlawful operations.
Eager to share our brilliant political commentary and blunt media criticism, but too genteel to link to horsesass.org? Well, good news, ladies: we also answer to HASeattle.com, because, you know, whatever. You're welcome!