Ugh, public comment.

The council is following the will of the voters (albeit maybe not the most vocal voters with free time on their hands).

They know why they were elected, and they’re acting on that will of the voters as expressed during the election, not by an unruly mob yesterday.

So, special elections are BAD BAD BAD generally, but then good for a tardy Social
Housing Initiative, but now bad for a tardy Social Housing initiative? (Could the Stranger please share their Special Elections Decoder Ring with readers?)

How about the Social Housing Initiative folks just, heck, I’ll go ‘way out on a limb here, TURN THEIR PETITIONS IN ON TIME, so no special election can even happen?

@2, uh, the writing’s on the wall after last night’s elections, where the electorate revealed an ever brightening exit door to CM Woo. The “mob” is more aligned with current voter sentiment than this Council.

CM Nelson’s days are numbered.

@2 the Council is "following the will of the voters" by preventing them from being able to vote this November on an initiative 25,000 of them signed on to support? Obviously you just mean that once someone is voted into office whatever in the world they decide to do must be "the will of the voters." That's a scary attitude and one you may want to rethink.

“Nelson appeared to congratulate herself for allowing constituents to speak for 20 minutes longer than she planned to, but, as it would turn out, she really could have let them go longer.”

To what end? The vote would have been different? Remember, this isn’t the public’s meeting, it’s the Council’s. Good or bad, they set the agenda.

Expanding on @3, if HON had submitted its petition just a bit earlier, inaction by the SCC would have resulted in the initiative appearing on the fall ballot by default. HON dropped the ball.

@7 and if your aunt was a man she'd be your uncle. The initiative won't be on the November ballot because this Council didn't want it to be, period.

@6 "the Council didn't care what the public had to say, they were gonna do what they wanted regardless" is a weird defense but ok. And if that's the case Nelson should have just said so instead of bullshitting that it was so they'd have time for the other business. She was called on her dishonesty, rightfully so.

@8: As you completely missed it, the point was that HON either didn’t set a sufficient priority to getting their Initiative on the November ballot, or did set that priority, but failed to execute on it. Thus, HON left the decision to the Council.

If HON wanted space on the November ballot that much, then they should have performed better at their self-appointed task. The Council has absolutely no obligation to help them.

Whenever they get their Initiative on the ballot, HON gets to inform the voters about how missing their intended ballots, twice in a row, demonstrates how well HON is prepared for consistent, on-time delivery of affordable housing to the state’s most expensive housing market — which also has the state’s most restrictive building codes.

@8 If it was so obvious SCC did not want this initiative on the fall ballot, isn't that all the more reason for HON to timely submit its petition in order to short circuit the process and avoid that outcome?

@10 "HON left the decision to the Council... The Council has absolutely no obligation to help them."

Initiatives by law must be submitted to the Council. HON must have trusted this Council would do its job in a timely fashion. I'd agree that assumption was in error. Everyone should be on notice now that this Council will delay, and defer, and play all type of political games to stymie legislation opposed by their corporate backers.

9: How was Nelson being dishonest? She extended the public comment period and then closed it. I don’t recall her saying “well, the Council will decide how to vote on the issue depending on the comments we receive here today” or something like that.

@13 from the article:

"To make sure the council complied with KCE’s deadline, at the Monday council briefing Nelson announced a plan to limit Tuesday’s public comment period to an hour.
...
Nelson called a second ten-minute recess. The council then returned with police officers. At that point, Nelson claimed she limited the public comment period to leave time for the council to beat KCE’s 4:30 deadline for the initiative vote in the advent of the failure of Kettle’s motion to delay that vote"

@3 it would also be helpful to understand when initiatives are sacrosanct and when they’re merely an opportunity to forward an agenda:
https://www.thestranger.com/news/2022/07/15/76479670/seattle-city-council-puts-ranked-choice-voting-on-ballot

Progressives like this give Trump and his ilk a run for their money in terms of their ability to warp reality.

@12: “Initiatives by law must be submitted to the Council. HON must have trusted this Council would do its job in a timely fashion.”

Yes, and also by law, when the Initiative arrives at the Council determines whether the Council gets a choice of ballots upon which to place that Initiative. HON did not submit their petitions in time to require the Council to place HON’s Initiative on the November ballot. Therefore, the Council had a choice. They chose to defer HON’s Initiative to the February ballot (a month which suited the Stranger just fine, for the previous time HON submitted petitions).

Furthermore, HON’s tardy submission to the Council was itself a suggestion HON either didn’t care about getting on the November ballot, and/or HON was fine with appearing on the February ballot. And as HON’s previous Initiative had appeared on a special election ballot, the Council could easily have concluded that’s what HON would happily accept this time, too.

Again, if HON had “do[ne] its job in a timely fashion,” this would never have been an issue. By not “do[ing] its job in a timely fashion,” HON gave the Council a choice of which ballot HON’s Initiative would appear on. If they do not like this result, then HON’s leaders have no one but themselves to blame.

If you want to explain how HON’s persistent tardiness in submitting petitions for its Initiatives demonstrates HON’s suitability to spend tens of millions of public dollars to complete housing construction on-time, please feel free to do so.