But while it's easy to chuckle at the sight of a mild-mannered civil servant like City Council Member Tom Rasmussen describing human-service cuts as "a manmade tsunami," the situation--$1.3 billion in federal budget cuts, some $14 million of that in Seattle alone--is truly dire for the three dozen federally funded nonprofit and government agencies that participated in the event.
Not everybody was quite so enthused about "sounding the alarm." Among the activists conspicuously absent from the protest was Seattle Displacement Coalition leader John Fox, a low-income housing advocate who has frequently denounced the city for giving tax breaks to developers, like Paul Allen, who build apartments for middle-income renters while tearing down housing that serves the very poor. After the rally, Fox let fly about a spectacle he called "outrageous and a disgrace."
"Tom Rasmussen and all these elected officials have willingly taken precious city resources and handed them over to the seventh-richest man in the world. It is the height of hypocrisy," Fox declaimed.
Even as the federal government announced another round of cuts, the city got a tiny jolt of budgetary adrenalin, courtesy of an obscure revenue line-item called the Real Estate Excise Tax, which is coming in higher than expected. The revenue spike, which comes in the wake of multimillion-dollar budget shortfalls, could mean as much as a $5 million surplus for 2005, according to City Finance Director Dwight Dively, who says that "at some point this year we'll start seeing proposals on how to use that money." Translation, according to Council Member Nick Licata? "The mayor's already talking to folks about how he wants it spent." (One suggestion: How about the Tenants' Union, whose city allocation the council cut to zero last year?)
Licata, who dodged a bullet when two-time candidate Robert Rosencrantz turned his sights on vulnerable two-termer Richard McIver two weeks ago, may be back in the crosshairs: Land-use attorney Elaine Spencer, whose clients have included builders who want to develop rural land and an Eastside family who wanted to build a 24-room "megahouse," acknowledges that she's "thinking about" taking on the two-term incumbent. Spencer sounded nonplussed when I reached her at the downtown office of Graham & Dunne on Monday, but she gamely provided a spontaneous sound bite--"this city needs people who know how to get things done… and aren't just against things"--that could be an ominous harbinger of her campaign strategy against Licata, who's found himself on the losing end of numerous 8-1 votes.
Over in the teeming race for Richard Conlin's seat, the release of the latest fundraising reports last week couldn't have provided much comfort to Conlin challenger Dwight Pelz, whose seemingly frictionless fundraising momentum creaked to a laborious grind last month, as fellow Conlin challengers Paige Miller and Casey Corr started whittling away at the county council member's formidable funding lead. Pelz, with nearly $71,000, still boasts the biggest bank account in the race, but after raising just $9,373 last month (compared to Miller and Corr, who brought in $25,127 and $23,021, respectively, bringing their totals to $45,563 and $38,652) Pelz could see his substantial lead vanish if he doesn't start dialing for dollars, and soon.
