Maritza Rivera sucks. So do people who can't spell Ronald Reagan's name correctly. I wish The Stranger had a legit journalist covering the Seattle City Council.

“She’s So Ronald Regan-Coded”

Who’s Ronald Regan?

You misspelled President Rearend’s name, zoomer.

Frightening to imagine the state the city could be in without millions of dollars of your money given away to "Estelita’s social justice library in Beacon Hill".

“EDI projects take a long time, according to the organizations who testified, because BIPOC-led groups are not typically experienced developers. For example, Chief Seattle Club started receiving funding from EDI before it ever built housing.”

So people claiming the council is doing something wrong by advancing this proposal to see how public $ is actually being spent use as a positive examples in support of their position 1) companies that don’t know what they’re doing; and 2) an organization that took public $ and didn’t spend it on what the program was supposed to spend it on? No wonder The Stranger and those quoted in this article are resorting to hysterics — it seems like additional oversight is long overdue, and people taking public $ and wasting it with little to show for it don’t want to be exposed.

If this is an example that The Stranger believes shows the necessity for more revenue to close a budget gap, it’s no wonder that Seattle voters keep going in the other direction.

The city budget deficit is real. It very likely means cuts to social services and even basic city services (as well as higher utility rates, as the utilities support the general fund). I think we'll see a return to furlough days and maybe even layoffs in 2025, like we did in 2010 (or thereabouts).

The council is doing what it can to lessen the impact to the citizens, and the hardest hit citizens will, as always, be the poor.

"Plus, as Morales noted during the meeting, the council does not apply this level of scrutiny to the Office of Housing or to Seattle Department of Transportation."

Because, as other commenters have already implied, those city departments work with established contractors who know their jobs, not with persons who've never done work like this previously and cannot even report on it properly.

"It is unclear how threatening to reabsorb their money would help bring those projects to completion."

Being obtuse is just a long-winded way of conceding the point: these projects have not been moving to completion anyway, and stopping the flow of city funds until the city sees progress stops the current waste of city money on these non-performing projects.

@5: "If this is an example that The Stranger believes shows the necessity for more revenue to close a budget gap, it’s no wonder that Seattle voters keep going in the other direction."

Stranger: The City needs more tax money!
Voters: Um, for what, exactly? What are we getting for it?
Stranger: None of your goddamned business! Hand it over, or you're a Trump-adjacent conservative!

"BIPOC-led groups are not typically experienced developers."

Ah, the soft bigotry of low expectations rears its head again.

Theodore dear, that’s what I was trying to say.

As has been noted previously, given Morales “stewardship” of the black brilliance project she should probably keep quiet on these topics.

Tammy Morales and the old Seattle City Council spent hundreds of millions, if not billions, of dollars on affordable housing and introduced many 'first in the nation' housing/rental regulations

Results:

Little to no affordable housing was built
Local mom-and-pop landlord sold their units to townhouse developers and Seattle lost over 10,000 affordable units in just 2022 alone (Source: Seattle Rental Registration database)
Corporate, out-of-state, landlords gain market share and control
Rents increased
Qualifications to rent increased (higher credit scores, et)
Marginal renters got pushed out of the market

So, if anyone thinks Tammy Morales is a source of knowledge on affordable housing, they are sadly mistaken.

This is what oversight and accountability look like. We are in the budget hole because the “progressive” council didn't understand the concept. Even worse their drug addict enabling, anti-police policies chased away businesses and the tax dollars that funded proposals like this. Rivera is doing her job. I am sure this is shocking to the activist class.

@6 you're full of shit, the council added $100 million to the budget deficit themselves. They are doing what they can to transform social policies into cops, period. Your Melian dialog about how the poor will suffer as they must is exactly because policies to alleviate suffering are being directly replace with policies to give them cracks on their heads instead. That was the choice of the council, and it the exact opposite of lessening any impact.

Well, that's certainly an interesting theory, m.sam dear. It's ignoring many realities (Covid, office vacancy rates, lower tax revenue, different city council, etc) but you do you.

And what I was saying is that anytime we have budget deficits and program cuts, it's the poor that get the fuzzy end of the lollipop. I personally don't think that's a good thing, but it is a thing. If some of the more esoteric programs can be delayed or curtailed, it will help lessen the impact.