Search Results for: viaduct

My questions are bold, Richard Conlin’s are as submitted.

1) Now that I-502 has passed, what should the purchase of marijuana look like within city limits? Will medical marijuana collective garden storefronts in Seattle have to abide by the 1000-foot rule established by I-502?

Because I-502 and the medical marijuana initiative have some conflicting provisions, we have been working to get legislation that will reconcile them. Senator Kohl-Welles is taking the lead on that, and we believe that the legislature will act early next year. In the meantime, it looks like Seattle will have a couple of dozen storefront licenses under I-502, and those are likely to be the major sources for marijuana. Collective garden storefronts are likely going to have to follow the 1000-foot rule, as the state seems to be emphasizing that in response to the federal government’s request for strict enforcement, but we won’t know until the legislature takes action on the reconciliation legislation.

2) With Metro’s ability to fund itself at the whim of the legislature, what should the city’s role be in public transportation? How should the City Council both make sure we get our fair share, and that the system serves the entire region well?

Thanks to great leadership from Dow Constantine and our hard work building relationships with King County and the suburban cities, we were successful in getting a very good agreement for a fair share of Metro service out of the last negotiations. Our critical goal was to replace the old 40-40-20 rule, which dedicated most new dollars to suburban service, with a more flexible rule based primarily on productivity of routes. I don’t think we need to fear not getting our fair share from Metro at this point, if we can get Metro funding legislation from the legislature. Our major challenge is getting a transportation package from the legislature, and we need to keep the urban-suburban coalition together and find a way to forge a compromise package with the more rational Republicans. A challenge, but it can be done, and our partnership with King County is strong.

The City should continue to push for more investments in public transportation, and the core strategy (in addition to partnership with Metro) should be to prepare possible routes for inclusion in the Sound Transit 3 package, which I am trying to get on the ballot in 2016. Our priorities should be serving Ballard and West Seattle from downtown more effectively and connecting the UDistrict with Ballard. On a regional level, we should be able to complete the light rail spine from Tacoma to Everett, and start filling in light rail routes on the East Side and in South County.

In the short term, our most immediate priority for Seattle is to get a light rail station in the Lynnwood Link DEIS at 130th Street, a decision that the Sound Transit Board will make in October or November. On the City land use side, we should focus on developing a transit oriented development plan for the East Link station at Rainier and I-90.

3) What should the waterfront look like after the Viaduct comes down? Will there be a streetcar or other transit?

The waterfront should be open, accessible, and lively. We must keep the salience of pedestrians at the heart of our planning, and emphasize that this means all pedestrians, which requires using universal design principles to guide decisions. I am disturbed by the width of the proposed roadway, and support looking for ways to reduce it, such as by eliminating one of the two planned access lanes for ferry traffic. Managing a traffic lane to provide additional access at peak times is a better alternative than constructing a second ferry access lane that will be a barrier for pedestrians and not needed at most times.

We must also ensure that the waterfront is activated and safe at all levels. I would like to see a variety of active recreation areas as well as diverse businesses and a design that employs CPTED principles to make this area attractive and accessible for all.

We will have transit along the waterfront, but at this point a bus system appears to be more cost effective than a streetcar. However, no final decision has been made, and will likely not be made for a year or two. A lot depends on whether a streetcar line is developed on First Avenue.

4) What should happen in the next 4 years to make sure that police reform both satisfies the Feds, and works for Seattle citizens?

Seattle has an effective police force that does a good job in protecting public safety. The vast majority of officers are competent and professional. However, there are members of the force who have engaged in practices that have infringed upon individual rights, exercised inappropriate uses of force, and caused severe consequences for members of the public. This is a failure of leadership. While I respect the managers of SPD as individuals, they have not been able to create a system that properly trains, supervises, and assists individuals in the force to carry out their responsibilities without creating these kinds of problems. I see this as a systems failure, that may have been compounded by individuals, but that can only solved by a combination of leadership, effective training, clear lines of supervision, and swift and effective corrective action when necessary.

We must have a strong, effective, and experienced Police Chief who will be able to take charge of the Department and work effectively with all members of the Department as well as City leadership and members of the public. This leader should have extensive management practice in a Department of comparable size and complexity and be ready to implement tools to bring together the strong record of effective policing that is typical of SPD performance with remedies that will create a system of accountability and oversight that will be fair, transparent, and effective in preventing further problems in the future.

We are moving towards resolving the issues in the DOJ report through adopting new procedures for training and operations that will guide police officers in the future. With implementation of these procedures by the right kind of leadership and organizational structure, we can restore the confidence of the public in the force, effectively protect public safety, and satisfy the DOJ.

5) A recent study found Seattle is the worst of the 50 largest US metro areas in terms of pay equality for women. Why do you think that’s the case, and what is the city’s role in closing that gap?

We have been analyzing the data in detail, and now have very good information about the City’s own work force. It turns out that in the City there is very little pay inequality within job classifications; the primary source of difference lies in the predominance of men in jobs that are higher paying (in fact there are slightly more job titles in which women are paid more than men than ones where men are paid more than women). We can solve this in two ways:

First, by reevaluating the pay scales to ensure that we are in fact appropriately valuing work that is predominantly done by women. For example, we should ask why truck drivers are paid a higher wage than child care workers. This pattern consistently undervalues work traditionally done by women, and reevaluating job descriptions will reduce much of the disparity.

Second, we should redouble our efforts to ensure that women are more fairly represented in positions that are high paying, such as management and technology jobs. We can do this partly by consciously seeking out women for these positions, but we must also support ways to increase the supply of women in these job categories by working with the educational system to attract women to scientific and technical careers, and by looking at ways to structure jobs to provide the kind of flexibility that women are more likely to seek than men (such as flexible schedules and other arrangements that make it easier to have and raise children).

We suspect that the pattern in the private sector is similar to that in the City, and as a City we should work with the private sector to make similar changes, and consider regulatory approaches where those are appropriate.

I don’t put much stock into endorsements in general. God knows people I like have endorsed people I don’t, and people I can’t stand have endorsed people I really like. There are also considerations beyond policy that influence endorsements. So as I say, politicians endorsing one another don’t sway me, and I don’t think they sway very many people.

But when there are endorsements of that kind, I think it can be interesting to see how it plays into the narratives around a campaign. So as Ed Murray nears a quorum of the Seattle City Council endorsing him, I thought it might be worth considering one of the main narratives of the race: namely that Mike McGinn doesn’t play well with others.

Maybe he does, and maybe he doesn’t. But the City Council went out of their way a couple times to poison the well early on. Of course the City Council voting on the Viaduct replacement tunnel less than a month before the election was an attempt to support McGinn’s opponent, and to take things out of the hands of the voters. If they cared about making irenic gestures or whatever, they could have waited until the election was over. They were on track to have an 8-1 majority of pro-tunnel council members, so there was no need to hold the election then. They also repealed the head tax after McGinn won but before he was sworn in. That vote was 8-1, and it might have been 7-2 after O’Brien was sworn in. Again, they could have waited and negotiated with him if they cared about working with him, but with a veto proof majority as a backstop. Maybe a solution would have worked out and maybe it wouldn’t. But they didn’t even try.

Also, not on policy, but I went to several McGinn events after the election but before the transfer of power.* None of the City Council members who complain about how he doesn’t work with them made even a token appearance. If they’d have wanted to work with him in any meaningful way and not just butted heads, just showing up would have gone a long way.

None of this is to say McGinn is easy to work with or that Murray wouldn’t be better at that skill set. But if it was really the problem for Ed Murray that he claims, well, he would probably blame both sides. And, yes, I know that’s not how campaigns work: you go after your opponents, not the people who endorsed you. I just wish someone whose emails his campaign returns would ask him about it the next time he complains about McGinn not working well with others.

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A bit later than I’d said, but I’ve emailed these out to the candidates. Nobody had any changes, so I mostly just did a find and replace of mayor for city council and then added a question about gender pay equality.

1) Now that I-502 has passed, what should the purchase of marijuana look like within city limits? Will medical marijuana collective garden storefronts in Seattle have to abide by the 1000-foot rule established by I-502?

2) With Metro’s ability to fund itself at the whim of the legislature, what should the city’s role be in public transportation? How should the City Council both make sure we get our fair share, and that the system serves the entire region well?

3) What should the waterfront look like after the Viaduct comes down? Will there be a streetcar or other transit?

4) What should happen in the next 4 years to make sure that police reform both satisfies the Feds, and works for Seattle citizens?

5) A recent study found Seattle is the worst of the 50 largest US metro areas in terms of pay equality for women. Why do you think that’s the case, and what is the city’s role in closing that gap?

I’m sure when tunnel proponents talked about our once in a lifetime opportunity for a revitalized waterfront what they meant was this.

The new Alaskan Way, located mostly within the current footprint of the viaduct, will be four or five lanes for most of its length until it reaches Columbia Street. South of Columbia, it completely explodes with travel lanes and starts to look a whole lot more like a freeway than a waterfront boulevard. Near the Ferry Terminal, there are even sections with eight travel lanes and a parking lane (though some are transit-only).

You know, 8 lanes and more coal trains are just what the waterfront needs. Maybe we can transport nuclear waste in open top containers next.

1) Now that I-502 has passed, what will the purchase of marijuana look like within city limits? Will medical marijuana collective garden storefronts in Seattle have to abide by the 1000-foot rule established by I-502?

Since the medical marijuana dispensaries have served and do serve as suppliers for the recreational users as well – especially underage ones – my perception is that we have too many of them and it’s good that they have gotten notices to move further away with the 1000 foot rule. That said, I don’t think banishing marijuana storefronts makes any sense or sends a good message. We probably should have saved the old state liquor stores and used them for outlets. I attached the speech I made at the Cannabis Freedom March for some background on my thoughts. [a copy is here – Carl]

2) With Metro’s ability to fund itself at the whim of the legislature, what should the city’s role be in public transportation? As mayor, how will you both make sure we get our fair share, and that the system serves the entire region well?

My suggestion for METRO funding is called ORCA Tabs. Here’s a post I made recently called METRO Rx. http://katemartinformayor.com/2013/05/14/metro-rx/

3) What should the waterfront look like after the Viaduct comes down? Will there be a streetcar or other transit?

I think the upper deck of the viaduct should be preserved as an open space. Here’s a post I made recently called The Viaduct Park. http://katemartinformayor.com/2013/05/09/the-viaduct-park/

4) What should happen in the next 4 years to make sure that police reform both satisfies the Feds, and works for Seattle citizens?

Here’s a post from earlier in the campaign – pre Diaz retirement. http://katemartinformayor.com/2013/01/30/seattle-police-department-path/

Here’s some current commentary on that…

I sincerely hope that the selection process holds off until after the election. I believe the new chief should know who their boss will be for the next 4 years (at least).

When we do open up the search, we need a chief who I describe as a dichotomy. The person must be strong and able to command the respect of the force in an organization with a military-style hierarchy. Previously, although former Chief Diaz was on paper the chief, he didn’t exactly function like the chief. Command staff below him and union leadership seemed to dominate.

In addition to being able to actually function as a respected chief, the chief must lead by example and must be a woman or man with compassion for humanity and agility with a variety of tools beyond just force. The problem of excessive force and racism is an epidemic across our nation’s police forces, so a new tradition must be instilled. That is not something you can make people do and it’s nothing they can fake. They must have the aptitude and the proper professional development and leadership for it to happen.

Additionally, I think that the police force must be rested and healthy. With the $16.8M worth of overtime last year at SPD, I think we have to take a serious look at the relationship between overworking our force and the performance standards we desire, in addition to the budget implications of such practices.

I’d also like to see more neighborhood-based hiring to connect communities to the police forces in a social, neighborly way.

And finally, I understand that there have been inadequate levels of professional development. For all of our City workers, we must invest in their professional development. For the police, for instance, I understand that it has been 8 years since training for domestic violence. That is unacceptable and that’s not the only area lacking in professional development.

5) When there are police incidents, the response from the top is important. With hindsight, in the wake of John T. Williams being killed by a Seattle police officer what, if anything, should the mayor’s office have done differently what, if anything, did it do right?

We need a police force we can trust. I don’t think we’re any closer to having that than we were 2 years ago.

I believe the right response is to trace the incident back to a systemic problem and then fix that problem. I think that professional development of the force has been neglected. There are so many new officers and so little training. The force needs more tools to defuse situations – especially in cases with mental illness and addiction involved. It was just a couple of months ago when a father called 911 up near Carkeek Park because his mentally ill son was acting out. I am certain that the outcome that father was looking for was not the death of his son, but that’s what happened when 10 cars responded to the incident and a guy with no gun or knife was shot dead. Authentic, effective professional development must be stepped up so that every officer has the tools they need to successfully manage the tremendous variety of situations they encounter every day.

I’ll email these to the Seattle mayoral candidates later today. I still haven’t figured out the calendar. I’ve put them here first in case y’all have any more suggestions or tweaks. I’ll update this post to reflect any changes if I make them before sending.

1) Now that I-502 has passed, what will the purchase of marijuana look like within city limits? Will medical marijuana collective garden storefronts in Seattle have to abide by the 1000-foot rule established by I-502?

2) With Metro’s ability to fund itself at the whim of the legislature, what should the city’s role be in public transportation? As mayor, how will you both make sure we get our fair share, and that the system serves the entire region well?

3) What should the waterfront look like after the Viaduct comes down? Will there be a streetcar or other transit?

4) What should happen in the next 4 years to make sure that police reform both satisfies the Feds, and works for Seattle citizens?

5) When there are police incidents, the response from the top is important. With hindsight, in the wake of John T. Williams being killed by a Seattle police officer what, if anything, should the mayor’s office have done differently what, if anything, did it do right?

– I had been wondering where the buses (and cars, but that’s another post) that wanted to get from Downtown to West Seattle would go when the Viaduct closed. Columbia.

– Renew and include Belltown in the MID.

– My job at the abortion hot line

– Right now our state has the deepest concentration of aerospace intelligence anywhere in the world. We have the facilities, the runways, the production capacity to build airplanes. So rather than the state being a promoter for Boeing, we have to be a promoter for aircraft manufacturing.

– Bike season is starting as the Fremont Bridge recorded it’s most bike crossings yet.

– About a quarter of the people in your country think an armed revolution might be necessary in the next few years.

– Rick Perry knows who to be upset at after the West disaster. A cartoonist.

On Boston:

– I am just hopeful at the stories of runners continuing to run directly to MGH to give blood, people running towards the blasts to offer help and comfort and aid, and the splendid work the BFD, BPD, State Police, and our elected officials have done so far. The only question to ask is not who to blame but how to help.

– Why we pay taxes

– And it makes me ache to see the invisibilizing of survivors of terror during coverage of another terrorist attack. Let’s not do that. Please.

– Obama’s speech at the press briefing room.

And non-Boston:

– I get that business owners are upset about the sick leave and it’s reasonable to expect that they’ll raise their prices to pay for more costs. But do they think dickishness is going to help?

– Rand Paul’s speech at Howard University.

– I get a lot of calls from the Conservative Majority Fund and a couple of other groups whose breathless, hyperventilated, and shouted warnings about President wanting to take our guns

– Some power is wielded in the spotlight, but “the background” is often where the real power lies. LaHaye knows this, which is why his CNP has wielded more influence for a longer time than most of the many spotlight-hungry organizations that have come and gone since it began.

– A while ago I had a link that the Spokane Street Viaduct would come in under budget. Here’s what Seattle will be using the rest of the money on.

– The Path To Citizenship

– Get your questions in to ask the governor.

– In case you’re wondering why people used to call them MSGOP, here’s a reminder of where MSNBC were at the start of the Iraq war.

– Clean up your trash, Yakima businesses.

– Here’s the bad news: The funding for viaduct construction mitigation runs out next fall, at the same time that the temporary $20 vehicle license fee that preserved Metro service over the past two years expires. Combined, the two cuts add up to a “disaster,” Desmond told council members yesterday—45,000 transit hours a year, which amounts to a 14 percent cut in service on the Alaskan Way Viaduct corridor.

– A large road project finished on time and under budget in Seattle.

– The elite political media, past and present, living and dead, should atone in Purgatory for centuries over trying to redeem this vat of squalid poison. Because, over this weekend, we discovered, once again, that the irredeemable barrel that was Richard Nixon had no bottom to scrape.

– Blood-gargling psychopath

1:02: I’m on the Rapid Ride going from Downtown to West Seattle. It smells like a new car, but stronger. I’ve smelled worse smells on the bus. I’m still downtown and so far it feels pretty much like any other ride. Maybe it’s because the Orca Card reader at my stop wasn’t up yet. Maybe it’s because the display for how many more minutes there are to go wasn’t up yet. In any event, I’m using the bus’s WiFi, so here goes.

1:05: All the doors open, although, as I say, the card reader wasn’t working yet, so it doesn’t feel like that’s an advantage.

1:06: And I’ve had my first random dude speaking to the driver through the light. Fuck you that guy.

1:11: I just typed something about how we’re on the Viaduct now, and got an error message. Lovely. Switching to ClearWire.

1:15: The views on the Viaduct and the West Seattle Bridge are quite nice. When it’s a Saturday, this is quite Rapid for real. Of course the real test will be Rush Hour on Monday and beyond.

1:19: First stop in West Seattle. I didn’t take the 54 enough to compare, but it feels better than the circuitous route it used to be.

1:24: The junction. 22 minutes feels about the same as before, maybe a bit quicker.

1:27: The person next to me says I shouldn’t use my wireless, because it’s really fast on the bus. I told him I got an error earlier, and he didn’t believe it. I don’t have to justify my WiFi device to you, random guy.

1:30: Morgan Junction.

1:31: I realized I’ve got used to the smell of the bus. Usually when it smells of homeless person piss, that’s something you can be thankful and maybe a bit worried about. With new bus small, I guess the same.

1:36: Ferry terminal. Whenever I go to Vashon via the bus, it feels like a crapshoot as to if the bus and the boat are well timed. With more frequent bus trips, I imagine it’ll feel like a crapshoot with better odds.

1:41: Westwood village. So fine route, but it doesn’t feel like that much of an improvement over the old. People who take it more often than I do will probably have a better sense of it.

At least until it’s up and running on Saturday. Or until I think of something else. But I was looking at the map of C route on West Seattle Blog that I linked to in the Open Thread, and I had a few more thoughts.

First off, every time before now that I saw the maps, I’d completely missed that they were connected. Up at the top it says, “Continues as Rapid Ride D.” For some reason I had thought they were separate routes. So, it’ll be sort of like now from West Seattle downtown, the 54 changing into the 5, sometimes. You won’t have to get off. This alleviates some of my worries about the D route deadending in North Downtown. So if you’re in Pioneer Square and you’re heading to Ballard you catch the C North and it quickly turns into the D. Hopefully always? Like it’s one route.

I don’t know if that was a branding issue, or what, but it seems like it would make more sense to call it one line now that there’s no free ride area to confuse when you board. Maybe it’s a lesson from the failure of the Monorail where everybody criticized it for going from West Seattle to Ballard, when obviously the point was it went from Ballard or West Seattle to Downtown and then continuing to the other.

The other thing I noticed is that it goes on the Viaduct. This makes sense for now: it’s going from West Seattle to Downtown. But the Viaduct won’t be around much longer, and the tunnel won’t have an exit on Seneca or an entrance on Columbia. Presumably it’ll either go through SoDo or I-5, but either way will make it less rapid. If it’s through SoDo, hopefully, they’ll have figured out signal prioritization.

They just installed a new light at the crosswalk at Yesler Way under the Viaduct. It seems to be a temporary thing until the Viaduct comes down.* So for now it’s a pain in the ass to cross. Previously, there was a crosswalk under the Viaduct, and then another one between the Viaduct and the waterfront.

The crosswalk under the Viaduct never had a light until now. This wouldn’t mean much if the lights were coordinated. But they are not. I’m sure it doesn’t actually add much time to the commute but it feels like forever.

This may be a bit of a problem as the days get nicer and more people who live and work in Pioneer Square want to walk to the waterfront. So hopefully it isn’t too long until they either get the Viaduct down or at least synch up the crosswalk lights.

And for the record, this isn’t an anti-viaduct post. I realize my preferred option (Surface/Transit/I-5) would have plenty of construction right now if it had been implemented.

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It’s not time to hit the panic button yet, but this is certainly a really bad sign.

PubliCola has learned that the Washington State Department of Transportation, which initially predicted it would be able to raise $400 million in toll revenues to pay to replace the Alaskan Way Viaduct with a tunnel, now believes tolls will raise only $200 million, half the original projection.

The $200 million figure comes from WSDOT’s proposed tunnel budget (see page 9), which is currently being reviewed by the state legislature. The revised budget now assumes $702 million in funding from the federal government—$219 million more than the original assumption of $483 million.

As Erica C. Barnett says, so far federal money will pay for this. And if the economy picks up, some of the toll money is likely to recover. So it’s not a showdown between the city and state at this point. But it brings us closer to that point.

Roads were fine. Lots of people took the West Seattle Water Taxi (thanks Dow) or figured out an alternative method of getting to work. It looks like people, gasp, managed just fine. Although, it looks like the Walk the Viaduct event was a lot of fun.

1) Crime is down in the city, but we’ve seen some horrible incidents with the police in recent years. How do we ensure public safety and not have those sorts of things happen in the future?

I applaud and empathize with the police and other first responders, and know from firsthand experience just how tough these jobs are. However, like any other public employees, law enforcement workers need to be accountable to the public. Given the recent spate of widely publicized incidents, and the deep mistrust of the Seattle Police Department in some communities, the current accountability system is clearly not working. We need to work proactively to restore trust in our police, especially among immigrant, refugee and communities of color. At the same time, SPD also has a responsibility to openly and honestly review their training and examine an internal culture that is clearly not serving the city as well as it can.

I will push for and support an end to any and all law enforcement training programs that have contributed to the unacceptable rash of SPD incidents involving abuse of power. The Office for Professional Accountability has not been an effective tool for review of police actions; it needs a mix of civilian and law enforcement representation and subpoena power to better review SPD actions. And SPD must undertake a thorough review of its training policies and procedures to ensure that, in the course of a difficult job that often requires split-second decisions, officers have instilled in them cultural awareness and the tools needed to maintain public safety, de-escalate confrontations, and treat civilians with courtesy and respect.

I also support a greater re-emphasis on community policing, and programs that enable officers to build relationships with neighborhood watch groups, residents, and business owners and employees.

2) Now that the Viaduct is coming down, what should the waterfront look like?

Now that construction of the downtown tunnel to replace the Alaskan Way viaduct is underway, over the next several months city council will face the next phase of the debate: how best to use the newly available waterfront acreage that removal of the viaduct will create. I believe that the final plan must meet several critical objectives:

It must meet critical infrastructure needs. We need to not only replace the aging seawall, but anticipate the climate change-induced rising water levels of coming decades.

It must make the waterfront accessible to the general public. Plans should emphasize public access over private development. The downtown waterfront must be usable by all residents, workers, and tourists, not just those who can afford to pay a price.

It must be affordable. Given Seattle’s budget constraints, and the possible additional costs of tunnel construction itself, this is not the time for the city to once again opt for an expensive mega-project. One preliminary plan costs nearly a billion dollars. This is simply not realistic or wise. Seattle can not afford a blank check for waterfront development.

It must preserve waterfront jobs. The waterfront plan will almost certainly create tourism-related jobs, but it should not do so at the expense of the existing, well-paying jobs of Seattle’s working waterfront.

It must be accountable. The plan has specific budgetary and completion benchmarks. Council must not only approve the plan, but continue to exercise oversight to ensure that both the tunnel and the waterfront reconstruction come in on time and in budget.

It must ensure that public safety is an integral part of the overall landscape design. The present Freeway Park design has made it an instrument of criminal activities and neighborhood concern. The waterfront landscape design elements must avoid repeating similar design problems.

Once such a criteria is agreed upon than the city can move forward with incorporating fun elements like a venue for waterfront concerts, arts and cultural sites that showcase the indigenous historical contributions of first nation people and those of ethnic origins, immigrant and refugee groups who now call Seattle home.

This is a rare opportunity to remake one of the most visible parts of Seattle. We need to do it right. On council, I will work hard to ensure that any plan meets these goals and delivers a downtown waterfront worthy of a world class city.

3) As the great recession drags on, the city budget is still hurt. What do we need to cut, what do we need to keep, and do we need to raise more money via taxation?

The Seattle City Council recently voted unanimously to place a $60 vehicle license fee increase on the November ballot. I urge voters to reject this proposal as being the wrong plan, at the wrong time, to achieve the wrong goals.

It’s the wrong plan. The proposed car tab increase is an extremely regressive flat tax that will disproportionately hurt the poor and unemployed.

It’s the wrong time. We are in a struggling economy. King County Council has already voted to impose an additional $20 car tab hike that will also affect all city car owners; the city council already imposed its original $20 car tab assessment months ago; and the city council has also put a doubling of the Families and Education Levy on the November ballot.

It’s the wrong goals. The $204 million to be raised by the car tab hike during the next ten years will be divided primarily among transit projects (49 percent); road repair and maintenance (29 percent); and bicycle and pedestrian projects (22 percent). All three of these areas are misjudged. The car tab hike is being widely promoted as a “transit measure,” but that’s misleading. Instead of buses or light rail, much of the money is dedicated to two streetcar projects, given the overwhelming demand for more bus – not streetcar – service; this is an unconscionable misuse of scarce transportation taxing authority.

It’s time to balance our support for these transportation modes with other transportation needs. Both the bicycle/pedestrian funding and the streetcar lines are nice “wish list” projects that pale in importance next to the over one billion dollars in backlogged road and bridge repairs. The part of this ten year tax allocated to repairs and maintenance is less than one-seventeenth of what would be needed even to address today’s backlog. The maintenance backlog is a serious public safety issue that affects cars, buses, bicycles, and every other type of vehicle that uses our streets and bridges.

We need to focus on what matters, capital infrastructure maintenance should be the priority. On par with this for the general fund would be maintenance of the safety net for those most vulnerable. Regressive taxation is not the answer for addressing revenue shortfalls in the future. Seattle should take the leadership in working with legislative representatives from the 36th, 46th, 43rd, 37th, 34th and the 11th in working with legislative allies to urge a WA State income tax to replace all regressive taxes and to lower current sales tax rates.

4) With its budget shrunk at least until the end of the recession what should Seattle parks look like?

The biggest problem for the Parks & Recreation Department in recent years has been lack of accountability to local park users and neighbors, particularly in park controversies like the Gas Works Park concerts, the proposed Woodland Park Zoo parking garage, a redesign of Occidental Park, and many others. There were two common themes to those controversies: pressure from the city to use its parks to generate new income streams, and lack of responsiveness by both Parks Department leadership and city council to neighborhood concerns.

Those controversies have subsided after the departure of longtime Parks and Recreation head Ken Bounds and his patron, former mayor Greg Nickels. But the pressures to generate park income for the city, and the need for oversight by and accountability to the city council, remain. Parks Department leadership and members of the council’s Parks and Seattle Center need to balance the sometimes conflicting needs of the many constituencies of the parks – picnickers, sports fields users, special events patrons, dog lovers, etc. – with those of park neighbors and the general interests of the city.

The goal of keeping Seattle Parks free, safe, and accessible for all Seattle residents should be paramount. Safety is not limited to people and should be extended to keep fighting breeds of dogs out of Off-leash areas, and parks for the safety of other pets and people. User fees should be kept affordable and other income streams – whether park concessions, special events, or more creative attempts to raise desperately needed revenues for the city – should only be undertaken if the impact on that primary goal is minimal. Revenue shortfalls will continue as the recession continues. Parks are places where naming rights and advertisement for a fee could be better utilized to assist with park maintenance and expenses.

5) What is the Seattle’s role in education and public transportation given how important they are to the city, but that other agencies are tasked with them?

The City has made a huge investment in Seattle Public Schools by taxing citizens to invest in a variety of support services for students. Overall the city should and must do a better job of managing the Education Levy dollars so that the wrap around services being funded can assist the school district in raising academic achievement and graduation rates. Dropout rates are unacceptably high. African-American and Native American graduation rates have declined in the last decade. Our schools often haven’t been successful in educating some groups of students ESL students, lower income students and students from African –American, Native American and Latino cultural groups. We’re not being smart to ensure that we are leveraging city influence on the schools to establish some targeted goals and benchmarks to be measured against. The city can also do a much better job working in partnership with the school district to support administrative areas like Human Resource training, shared staff between the cities Park and Recreational staff who oversees the fields and the school district’s garden and janitorial staff who have some similar and shared responsibilities for the same properties. We need to facilitate ways to keep school district gyms and recreational areas open to the public in the early evenings and on weekends. North and South end schools can be paired to support one another much like the Sister City International relationships. In the end, the Families and Education Levy need to be supported but at the same time, we need to build into it some real specific benchmarks for accountability.

The primary role of city government in public transit is to oversee urban planning, zoning, and development in such a way that it both encourages transit use and makes transit itself more efficient. The city government needs to encourage and support a healthy mix of transportation modes; there’s no one-size-fits-all solution. As Seattle moves to greater density, it should both concentrate much of that increased density in areas with good transit service and work to ensure that transit can adapt adequately in areas where demand will increase due to new development.

There have been various proposals over the years to combine transit agencies in the region, particularly Metro and Sound Transit. Depending on the details, I would seriously consider such a proposal. The coordination and elimination of redundancy amongst different agencies is better, but there’s more to be done, and having one bureaucracy to fund rather than several would also result in cost savings and improved efficiency – savings that, hopefully, could be redirected into expanded service.