No income tax. No compromise. She's out as far as I'm concerned.

@1, don't all six of the mayoral candidates getting any media attention have basically the same position on a city income tax, i.e. "supports a city income tax as a legal test case?"

@2 I don't know. But the proposition of passing an income tax as a legal test case is like scoring heroin to see if you get arrested, addicted, or overdosed. No. No income tax. No compromise.

Farrell also had the gall to sign a petition opposing the privately financed SODO NHL/NBA Arena project of Chris Hansen, presumably on the specious grounds that it would harm Port of Seattle jobs and transportation movement, which the POS failed to provide significant evidence of. Brought and paid for by the Port?

@3 Enjoy your eventual 20% sales tax rate and thousand dollar mvet, but no income tax herp.

@5 - So your argument is we can't tax rich people's income cuz they'll move and we can't raise a sales tax because rich people will shop elsewhere. So don't ever tax the rich because if we do, you'll be priced out of the city.

That's fucking asinine.

I see the Context-Free Purity Test Police arrived here early.

No income tax. No compromise.

So, how about we triple the new soda tax instead? Or maybe five times? Ten times? Just tell us how much higher to go.

There will be no income tax; Republicans in the legislature will not allow Seattle to have that taxing authority. But the Seattle City Council can raise your soda taxes all it wants. Enjoy!

(This is what happens in politics when you pre-emotively rule out compromise. Later, loser.)

Returning to the subject of the post, it's good to see someone with real legislative experience running for mayor.

Farrell says the region should pursue $1 billion in affordable-housing funding by making city-owned surplus land available for public housing and by bonding against the $500 million coming from the transit taxes beginning in 2020. She says the city should offer more rental vouchers to people facing displacement and create a plan to increase density without "letting any neighborhood off the hook."

Going after the single-family neighborhoods last is the politically smart thing to do, and the right thing to do under the physical circumstances. There are still open-air parking lots near my home in Belltown, and until all of that ugly asphalt is gone from downtown and neighborhoods adjacent, there's no need to rile up the neighborhood NIMBYs for minimal increases in density far from where the jobs are.

Farrell also had the gall to sign a petition opposing the privately financed SODO NHL/NBA Arena project of Chris Hansen...

Is that the one where then-Mayor McGinn would have given hundreds of millions of dollars' worth of the city's bonding authority as a subsidy to this private project? Or was it another project? In either case, Seattle built (and re-built) the Coliseum (Key Arena) to house an NBA team. The NBA can put a team there any time it wants.

@12, Hansen updated the arena deal to a privately financed one---no bonding authority what so ever. The Key Arena rebuild in the 90's was a cheap poorly done one that didn't last very long, which caused the Sonics to move. The updated privately financed SODO Arena project is much bigger than the Key, with superior transit access, and a payoff of millions of dollars in revenue to the region; it will have the potential if it happens to house the NHL and the NBA. Unfortunately, Farrell chose to side with the Port of Seattle (brought and paid by them?), who merely wants the SODO real estate of Hansen without having presented any compelling evidence of harm caused by such a project.

The NBA will not put a team in the present Key Arena for its size and amenities do not satisfy the economic model of the NBA, nor of most professional sports in general--except smaller scale sports like the WNBA and Roller Derby. If Farrell took an unbiased perspective of the Arena situation that was grounded in sound public policy rather than satisfying the desires of a political institution, she would be much more suitable to serve as Mayor.