On Monday, November 20, we City Councilmembers held our final vote on the 2018 budget. This was my 8th budget as a Councilmember and it proved to be a challenging one. With many admirable programs deserving funding within the balanced budget, we had hard decisions to make. I approached the budget with four key priorities […]

Thank you so much for helping make 2014 such a powerful year.  It is no secret how much I love this city and my job, and I am proud of the work and accomplishments we are achieving together.  It is an enormous privilege to represent you on City Council. I would like to share with […]

My colleagues on City Council and I are working together to review Mayor Murray’s budget for 2015-2016. We’ve heard from hundreds of people at the two Public Hearings and many more people have written to suggest investments in programs we want to support—thank you for your active participation in the process! My primary budget priorities for this year […]

In case you didn’t catch it in The Stranger, this is my argument for why we should lift caps on rideshares. Thanks for taking part in the conversation. — Sally A year’s worth of meetings about the future of transportation reached a crescendo this past Friday morning in Seattle City Council chambers. In a room […]

We often hear that Seattle is considered that bad guy in Olympia. The phrase “Seattle-centric” is mentioned. “Big, bad Seattle.” Sometimes, too, “Seattle” is shorthand for all of our state’s urban areas, including Bellingham, Spokane, Tacoma, Vancouver, and more. Sometimes it is shorthand for “progressive” or “liberal.” In 2010, in response, our former Council President […]

At Council we’re talking about how to improve our elections and how campaigns are financed. Everyone can agree that we want interested people to be involved and yes,  run for office if that’s their calling. But we go about this reform is a complicated puzzle with many pieces. Financing local elections is just one of those pieces. In November […]

While it’s been wonderful to be in New York and focused on being a grandmother, I find I’m already itching to get home and back to the office. Now that budget is almost wrapped up, we can get back to Committee work. In fact, PaN has a special meeting on Tuesday, November 20th. We have […]

At the upcoming special November 20, 11 a.m. Parks and Neighborhoods Committee meeting, we will discuss proposed legislation – a council bill and a resolution – that address the Sand Point Overlay. While the legislation is specific to Subarea C (see map), Building 9 will be discussed because it falls within this area. Building 9’s […]

As you may know, with the changing of the leaves comes the City Council review of the Mayor’s proposed budget, and we are well into it now.  We have heard the Department Presentations, and we are currently in the stage of “Issue Identification.” (Download a PDF of the budget review schedule.) In Department of Parks and Recreation (DPR), at […]

Let me state the obvious — Council’s 8-week review of the city’s proposed budget is a busy time. The city’s budget is about $4B. The General Subfund is roughly $950M. City Council is presented the proposed budget in late September, in this case September 24th to be exact, and we spend the next seven or […]