Gimmicky “Social Housing” is another Monorail boondoggle in the making.

Sorry. They are under no obligation to meet the sponsors timelines. The alternative proposal will be on the ballot along with the original so voters will have their choice. These whiney editorials every time the council doesn’t follow The Strangers desired course of action are tiresome and trite.

Further we were told the jumpstart tax was a tax on business and wouldn’t impact employees but now this employment tax is a tax on the wealthy and not business? Seems contradictory to me.

Hannah Krieg says it’s bad for the city council to spend JumpStart $ on things outside a specific list: “The move marks the latest example of the new council disregarding the priorities the City legally obligated JumpStart revenue to pay for—affordable housing, Green New Deal initiatives, and equitable development.”

This must be news to Hannah Krieg, who said it’s bad for the city council to not spend JumpStart $ on things outside of a specific list:

https://www.thestranger.com/news/2024/08/12/79645678/morales-tries-again-to-restore-mental-health-funding-that-was-rolled-back-after-school-shooting

Why the double standard? Well, it’s because when Kshama Sawant proposes spending JumpStart $ on things outside of affordable housing, Green New Deal Initiatives, and equitable development, Hannah believes it’s good. But when anyone else does it, Hannah believes it’s bad. Whatever Sawant does is by definition awesome and correct according to The Stranger, even if it contradicts something she previously did, which remains awesome and correct even if contrary to the new position. Sawant’s opponents are also terrible, even if Sawant’s opponents are advocating for positions The Stranger has long favored. If that sort of inconsistency seems familiar to you, it’s because it should be: it’s exactly what die hard Trump supporters do to his opponents every time Donald Trump opens his mouth.

Rational people think this sort of behavior when Trumpers do it is pathetic. The Stranger and Hannah Krieg think it’s a model to emulate. It’s why The Stranger has become indistinguishable from Fox News.

'In the press release, Rivera said the alternative forces the development authority to “demonstrate proof of concept, rather than the City simply handing over a blank check to yet another new agency with no track record of creating housing.”'

No wonder the Stranger is so mad! The city has been handing blank checks to a competing pastiche of homeless service providers for most of a decade now (if not longer), and as far as the Stranger's knowledge of Seattle goes, the homelessness crisis was completely and elegantly solved by exactly this method. Of course they want to apply that model to housing as well, as it will produce exactly the same success.

If the tax on employees in Seattle that make over $1M passes, employee will move to Bellevue.

After reading months' of the Strangers' coverage of this (which is helpfully linked to throughout), the real overarching story looks to be that HON, Morales, and all the grindset blogger types like Hanna here who wanted this to go through utterly failed. Nobody successfully made the case to council that i137 is the best plan and I can't imagine how whinging about it now will change that. But hey, you posted content!! (claps)

Side note, it's kind of funny that Holmes talks with you guys at all on account of your endorsing NTK which made him lose the election, but hey that's none of my business

"the interest group that paid for their seats on the council"

I'm confused. Is the Stranger's take here that a majority of the Seattle electorate was somehow duped into voting the current council into office because business interests paid for some of those mailers everyone immidiately throws into the recycling bin?

Can I also add that the Stranger complaining about a Feb election for this ("dooming the initiative to a lower-turnout election in February.") is really funny considering the program was approved via a special election in Feb 2023. So special elections are ok when they go your way but dooming and/or voter suppression (see TS comments about the Sawant recall) when you don't like them.

Help me understand how 26K signatures on a ballot initiative represents the broader population and interests of our city. 26K is basically just 80% of the residents on Cap Hill. I could see the city council deciding that this initiative wouldn't be in the best interests of this city. Had the signatures been over 100K then it could've seen it making it onto the ballots.

"...Holmes talks with you guys at all on account of your endorsing NTK which made him lose the election,"

It's a symbiotic relationship. Nobody in Seattle will listen to him anymore, and the Stranger can't find anyone else in Seattle who will agree with them on politics.

@2 "Sorry. They are under no obligation to meet the sponsors timelines."

Except of course for the obligation imposed by the Charter, which was referenced in the article, but good effort.