From the Apr 1 – Apr 7, 2004 issue

News

What You Don't Know...

Will Hurt You, Especially If You Are Poor

by Erica C. Barnett

Shouts and snIFFles punctuated the cool, decorous quiet of Seattle City Council chambers on Monday, as the council adopted a package of cuts to its 2004 budget that slashes human-services funding, preserves the controversial car-impound ordinance, and allows judges to send misdemeanor defendants to jail 150 miles away before they are convicted of any crime.

The hearing, which represented the denouement of a lengthy series of closed-door meetings between the mayor and four council members, was the only opportunity the public has had to weigh in on the $9.3 million budget-slashing proposal. Months of backroom negotiations--their results largely unknown even by many on the council--got less than an hour of public airtime. The result? A budget-cutting proposal that will devastate many of Seattle's most vulnerable, including homeless women, tenants, and the working poor.

"My fear is that today will go down as the day poor people and minorities got screwed yet again by the Seattle City Council," Dorry Elias, head of the Minority Executive Directors Coalition, said minutes before the vote. As it turned out, she was right on three counts.

First, the council voted to delay a proposed repeal of the controversial car-impound ordinance, which allows cops to impound cars owned by people whose licenses have been suspended for minor infractions. (Even the proposal's two erstwhile cosponsors, Jean Godden and Tom Rasmussen, voted to postpone indefinitely.)

The ordinance was all but history until Monday morning, when City Attorney Tom Carr paid the council a surprise visit at its morning briefings meeting. Paging dramatically through a pile of newspaper clippings about accidents caused by drivers with suspended licenses, Carr intoned, "I cannot in good conscience leave the people of Seattle with no protection from unsafe drivers." Echoing his predecessor, Giuliani-style tough guy Mark Sidran, Carr said that without the option of impound, "My office will be forced to return to the pre-impound days of jail as the only sanction for people caught driving with a suspended license."

Impound critics cried foul at Carr's scare tactics, noting that all drivers with traffic tickets are more dangerous than the general population. "If you use that kind of language, I could just as easily say that you want to balance your budget on the backs of poor, minority people," Licata told Carr.

After making short work of Licata's long-sought reform, the council turned to a proposal that will allow judges to ship misdemeanor defendants (most of them too poor to post bail) over the mountains to Yakima--150 miles from family members and attorneys--before they are convicted of any crime. The decision, which proponents claim will save more than $700,000, has had virtually no public vetting and will almost certainly be challenged in court.

By this time, the human-services cuts were a fait accompli. Despite repeated pleas by Licata to restore at least some of the $215,000 cut from programs like the Tenants Union, Women's Hygiene Day Services, and Street Outreach Services, only two programs were spared the ax--and those at Rasmussen's behest. "We were ever so close. Something happened. A decision was made. And bam! No restoration [of services]," Elias said.

Advocates weren't the only ones left in the dark during this year's budget negotiations. Council Member Peter Steinbrueck, who was not involved in the budget deliberations, said he developed "serious concerns" in the 12 hours he was given to review the cuts. "At no point was there [mayor]-council consensus on the budget," he said. But in the end, only Steinbrueck voted against the closed-door budget proposal.

barnett@thestranger.com