Slog

News & Arts

Line Out

Music & the City
at Night

« Mayor-Elect McGinn and Gov. Gregoir… | Donald Harington Is Dead »

Monday, November 16, 2009

City Council Restores Library Hours in 2010 Budget, Increases Meter-Maid Patrols, and Raises Parking Ticket Fees

Posted by Dominic Holden on Mon, Nov 16, 2009 at 1:58 PM

After accounting for projects saved from the guillotine, the Seattle City Council had an awkward moment at its press briefing on the 2010 budget when council budget chair Jean Godden trumpeted her sacrifice of 10 days pay—and the 10 days pay of her staff—as a voluntary two-week furlough. Standing next to a bubblegum sow of a piggy bank, Godden was making a particularly generous gesture in the downtown library, which barely got back its funding. But what about the other council members, asked Seattle Times reporter Emily Heffter—would they also return some of their salary?

“I would not want to put them on the spot like that,” Godden deflected, but if someone wanted to ask the council members, who were in a phalanx behind her, they could ask them. “I think she just asked them,” I said. Someone else shouted from the back. A long, very silent pause among the people reading and checking out books was broken when City Council Member Jan Drago stormed the podium, took the mic from Godden, and her voice echoed across the floor, “Council Members McIver and I are not taking a furlough, and I think it’s time to wrap it up.”

Indeed, it was probably time to finish. Council members, who make over $100,000 a year, can give back some of their salary, but they probably shouldn’t make their staffers—who make a fraction of that—find out they’re getting a pay cut by reading it in the paper. But if the council wants to bring it up, expect someone to ask the question. Right?

The meat of the press conference was about all the great stuff the council saved from the mayor’s clutches. Mayor Greg Nickels’s proposed budget would have maintained severe cuts to the library, but the council restored 12 branches of the Seattle library system to seven days a week and 60 hours a week. Nickels had proposed only six would go back to week-round service, many of the branches only staying open 35 hours a week. The council also provided $100,000 for homeless services for women, and $950,000 for three progressive anti-crime programs, Communities Uniting Rainier Beach (CURB), Get Off the Streets (GOTS), and Co-STAR, the Court Specialized Treatment and Access to Recovery Services.

"Every time we added something, we had to cut something," said Coucil Member Richard McIver. The council cut from the Office of Policy and Management—originally intended for the council and the mayor but usurped by Nickels—which will be folded in with the next mayor budget's with reduced staff. The council also cut two park rangers.

But the new budget also raises the city's revenue, Council Member Sally Clark pointed out after the press briefing. They restored funding to two parking enforcement officers that Nickels proposed cutting, added five more parking patrol officers—for a total of seven more meter maids next year—and increased the penalty for parking tickets by $4 a pop.

Comments (17) RSS

Oldest First Unregistered On Registered On Add a comment

I forget, are meter maids employed by the police department or the IRS?

Ah... what's the difference?

Posted by Urgutha Forka on November 16, 2009 at 2:25 PM

fuck the parking brownshirts

Posted by Reader1 on November 16, 2009 at 2:33 PM

FFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUU

Posted by doug on November 16, 2009 at 2:35 PM

There's a new sheriff in town.

Well, soon.

And a new city attorney and a new mayor.

Like cars? Good, get used to paying for them if you park them where they're not supposed to be.

Posted by Will in Seattle

on November 16, 2009 at 2:50 PM

Now what I really want to know is, are there any fines you can get for bikes? Cause if Seattle is changing from the first - or second - most biking city to an even higher percentage, we're going to have to adapt our behaviors.

For example, what happens when I chain my bike across the gate to the light rail station? Is that ok?

Posted by Will in Seattle

on November 16, 2009 at 3:43 PM

Let's have names of council members that voted for more goddamned parking blood suckers. They should all get a foot in their ass when next up for re-election. A cynical and extremely irritating means of increasing revenue. And yeah you think nitpicking about parking regulations is pro-bike consider that the bastards in my neighborhood are out there chalking my car every day so they can slap a ticket on it for being parked in one place for 3 days - because I was riding my bike!

Posted by Rhizome on November 16, 2009 at 3:59 PM

@6 - uh, that's been a law in our state since ... god, man, at least the Expo here.

Your right to park ends at your property line (unless you drip oil and leave it in the yard, but let's not go there).

Posted by Will in Seattle

on November 16, 2009 at 4:02 PM

@7 Hmm well as we know there is a law against pretty much everything. Somehow there wasn't exactly an imperative to enforce this particular law until Nichols sent the parking parasites into the neighborhoods in force.

But consider this while gazing imperiously down from the moral high ground: it would be interesting to see stats but I will wager you anything that parking fines are about the most regressive form of taxation going. Guess who piles them up and neglects to pay until they are facing obscenely extortionate late fees - almost certainly the same demographic that subsidizes credit cards for the well-off: those with the least handle on financial matters who are almost always poor.

Posted by Rhizome on November 16, 2009 at 4:28 PM

Then take the bus.

Posted by Will in Seattle

on November 16, 2009 at 5:14 PM

If you park a car on a City street for more than 72 hours without moving it, it will only be towed if someone calls the City and COMPLAINTS about it. The City does not have people patrolling residential streets looking for parked cars. Blame your nasty neighbors.

Posted by sarag64 on November 16, 2009 at 6:16 PM

Only idiots drive downtown between 7am-6pm- unless you are paid by the minute, not the mile. Take the fucking bus. One can gluide through the tunnel in ten minutes, no matter the traffic upabove. If you need a car that badly, move it every three days.

Posted by KT-Kat on November 16, 2009 at 6:17 PM

@10 that may well have been correct before Nickel's dispatched the parking cretins into the neighborhoods. Common practice since is to bestow one chalk mark per day until it adds up to 3, residential parking permit or no, at least in my neighborhood, and no my neighborhood is not downtown.

Posted by Rhizome on November 16, 2009 at 7:54 PM

6 & 10. The law used to require you move your car every 24 hours.

The law is in place so junkers and squatter cars don't get left on the curb for weeks, taking away parking from other folks in the neighborhood who need it.

Posted by The street parking law, clarified on November 16, 2009 at 10:37 PM

@8 -- Not a bad point. But still not regressive in the way sales taxes are. A lower-income person can choose not to own a car, or to be exceedingly careful about how they park one. But they can't choose not to be gouged with a 10% tax on toothpaste, toilet paper, and clothes for their children (many states complete exempt non-luxury clothing from sales tax) so that Microsoft employees don't have to pay any income tax.

Posted by d.p. on November 17, 2009 at 5:46 AM

14. By that definition, a state income tax (something a lot of local wonks are stumping for) is far more regressive, since you don't get a choice in getting gouged for that either.

Posted by Economy killers on November 17, 2009 at 9:37 AM

@15

no, in fact, an income tax is much more progressive because everyone is taxed the same precent on their overall income, not based on things that they need, not choose to buy. in less you think that toothpaste and clothes (even second hand clothes get taxed) are a luxury.

and lastly, as someone who gets parking tickets on a regular basis, i will gladly pay the four dollars more if it is going towards keeping these awesome programs going. four dollars is nothing in the long run, and these programs are everything to some people right now.

Posted by tammy on November 17, 2009 at 12:01 PM

@15 Income taxes are progressively tied to income, duh.

If more parking tickets equals more library hours, hike them up and issue more of them. Out in my 'hood without sidewalks, we never see cars get ticketed, ever. It usually takes a few months for the junk cars to get orange tagged. It usually takes several repeat orange tags before a car actually gets towed away. Send some parking enforcement out here, so we can get better libraries.

Posted by SchmuckyTheCat on November 17, 2009 at 12:38 PM